Lecture 1

Introduction to linguistic pragmatics

1. Pragmatics as a linguistic discipline: preliminary remarks pragmatics is
a branch of linguistics dealing with the study of language use. Pragmatics is
opposed to formal linguistics, which focuses more on language form than on use.
Pragmatics, as a branch of linguistics, came into existence in the 60-70ths of
the 20th century as a reaction to an autonomous language approach, an approach
initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1917). Linguists gradually came to
understand that language cannot only be studied as a closed system: time came to
look at language from the outside, i.e. To see what the speaker does with language.
Linguistic pragmatics focuses on the speaker, his or her intended meaning,
and the addressee and his or her interpretation of the speaker’s meaning.
2. The origin and historical development of pragmatics latin pragmaticus
– skilled in law or business, from greek pragmatikos, from pragmat-, pragma –
deed, from prassein – to do (Merriam-webster’s 11th collegiate dictionary).
Pragmatics as a branch of semiotics
The term “pragmatics” was proposed by the American philosopher Charles
Morris (1938) as the name of a separate branch in semiotics (science of signs or
semiotic as Morris preferred). Ch. Morris used ideas from Peirce's pragmatism or
pragmaticism for creating his own theory of signs (semiotic)
Ch. Morris distinguished three basic branches of semiotics: 1. Syntactics
(syntax) 2. Semantics 3. Pragmatics. These three-part division in linguistics is also
known as “semiotic triangle”.
Syntactics (or syntax) as the study of "the formal relation of signs to one
another". • semantics as the study of "the relations of signs to the objects to which
the signs are applicable" (their designata). • pragmatics as the study of "the relation
of signs to interpreters".
Traditional trichotomy in linguistics syntax is the study of the relationships
between linguistic forms. Semantics is the study of the relationships between
linguistic forms and entities in the world. Pragmatics is the study of the
relationships between linguistic forms and the users of these forms. Only
pragmatics deals with the language speaker (its purposes or goals, intentions,
intended meanings, assumptions, actions).
Linguistic pragmatics is also associated with another language philosopher,
Austin. J. Austin (1911–1960) put forward an original theory of speech acts in his
monograph how to do things with words (edited posthumously, in 1962). This
work marked the beginning of linguistic pragmatics, a radical change in the
traditional approach to linguistic studies. The best known representatives of
pragmatics are g. Grice, j. Searle, j. Austin, t. Van Dijk, g. Leech, s. Levinson.
Pragmatics vs. Pragmatisms ▪ pragmatics is the relation of signs to their
users. ▪ pragmatisms/pragmaticism (Charles s. Peirce) is an approach that evaluates
theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application (oxford
dictionary of English, 3rd edition © oxford university press 2010).
Pragmatisms/pragmaticism is thinking of or dealing with problems in a practical
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way, rather than by using theory or abstract principles (Collins Cobuild advanced
learner’s English dictionary. New digital edition 2008). In general,
pragmatisms/pragmaticism is a practical approach to solving problems.
Pragmatics vs. Semantics
1. Semantics deals with truth conditional aspects of meaning. Pragmatics
deals with non-truth conditional aspects.
2. Semantics deals with context-independent aspects of meaning. Pragmatics
deals with aspects where context must be taken into account. Context is understood
here in a broad sense that includes previous utterances (discourse context),
participants in the speech event, their interrelations, knowledge, and goals, and the
social and physical setting of the speech.
3. Semantics deals with conventional aspects of meaning, that is, where
there is an established connection between form and meaning. Pragmatics deals
with aspects of meaning that are not ‘looked up’ but which are ‘worked out’ on
particular occasions of use.
4. Semantics is concerned with the formal description of meanings.
Pragmatics deals with the uses made of those meanings. Semantics takes a formal
approach and pragmatics a functional approach (cruse, 2006).
3. Definitions of pragmatics as a linguistic discipline • pragmatics as a
branch of linguistics is defined from different angles:
• the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in
which it is used, including such matters as deixis, the taking of turns in
conversation, text organization, presupposition, and implicature (oxford dictionary
of English, 3rd edition oxford university press 2010)
• the branch of linguistics that deals with the meanings and effects which
come from the use of language in particular situations (Collins Cobuild advanced
learner’s English dictionary. New digital edition, 2008).
Pragmatics aims to research how context and convention – in their broadest
sense – contribute to meaning and understanding. Pragmatics studies language
from the perspective of language users embedded in their situational, behavioral,
cultural, societal, and political contexts, using a broad variety of methodologies
and interdisciplinary approaches depending on specific research questions (senft g.
The international encyclopedia of communication theory and philosophy 2016).
• pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context
that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of a language (Levinson
1983)
• pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social
interaction and the effects of our choice on others.” (d. Crystal)
4. Pragmatics wastebasket and central topics of pragmatics
The term ‘pragmatics wastebasket’ was used for the first time in 1970 by
Yehoshua bar-Hillel (pragmatics of natural languages). He argued that someone
needed to ‘clean the basket’.
Pragmatics waste basket is what syntax and semantics could not explain or
give interpretation to some linguistic phenomena.
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 The pragmatics wastebasket refers to the tendency in linguistics to relegate
unexplained or hard-to-explain phenomena to the domain of "pragmatics".
Pragmatics is the study of how context influences meaning, but the pragmatics
wastebasket refers to using pragmatics as a catch-all category to avoid deeper
analysis of linguistic issues. Phenomena that are not well-explained by core
linguistic theories are sometimes simply attributed to pragmatic factors without a
thorough investigation. This can limit the development of more comprehensive
linguistic theories.
Why do we need pragmatics?
• general answer: pragmatics is needed if we want a fuller, deeper and
generally more reasonable account of human language behavior.
• a more practical answer would be: outside of pragmatics, no
understanding; sometimes the pragmatic account is the only one that makes sense.

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 Lecture 2 Communication and its types
1. Communication and communication theory communication
❑generally the process by which information – sometimes simple stimuli –
is received by an organism or organisms.
❑a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through
a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior;
❑a complex process which presupposes the exchange of information
between the communicants by means of language.
❑the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using
some other medium.
❑communication involves the sending and receiving of information.
Communication theory: simple model
In communication theory the communication process (sending and receiving
of information) is stated in the form of a simple model:
A–n–b
A (message source) to n (noise or interference) to b (receiver).
This simple model (sometimes called the conduit model) plots the course of
a message (from a to b) and assumes that at times there will be obstacles (noise or
interference) that impede the transmission of the message.
Interference in communication interference may be caused by:
1. Actual noise (a jackhammer pounding while two people are talking)
2. By ideological/psychological noise (when a person distorts a message by
passing it through his or her own ideological filter). (see findlay, 1998)
2. Types of communication
Communication can be classified according to different criteria:
➢the form: verbal and non-verbal; oral and written types
➢the theme of communication: political, academic, everyday talk, religious,
philosophical, pedagogical.
➢the situation:. Formal vs informal types of communication;
➢the degree to self-expression: personal and impersonal.
➢the duration: short term and long term communication; permanent and
nonpermanent.
➢the degree of agreement: conflict and non-conflict communication.
➢cultural background: intercultural, cross-cultural, multicultural
communication
3. Jacobson’s communication model
Roman Jacobson (1960) defined six functions of language (communication
functions): 1. Referential 2. Emotive 3. Poetic 4. Conative 5. Phatic 6. Metalingual
R. Jakobson bases his account of the functions of language on what he
considers to be the six constitutive factors of any speech event:
“the addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative the
message requires a context referred to, seizable by the addressee, and either verbal
or capable of being verbalized; a code fully, or at least partially, common to the
partners (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and
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finally, a contact, a physical channel and psychological connection between the
partners, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication”
(Jacobson,1960).
Jacobson’s communication model/scheme
Context
Addresser ----- message ------ addressee
Contact
Code
Each of these six factors determines a different function of language:
Referential emotive ----- poetic ----- conative
Phatic
Metalingual
The emotive function
The emotive function: (expressive, affective function) – expressing attitudes,
feelings, emotions,
Examples: interjections/expressions of emotional state – oh, man…
awesome! Whew!
- “a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude toward what he is speaking
about.... The purely emotive stratum of language is presented by interjections”. —
“ouch!” — an act of communication has taken place. “I’m experiencing mild
pain”, but note that his intention was not to deliver this message — he would say it
whether anyone was there or not. His intention was almost solely to give vent to
his feelings. (cf. Pragmatic function).
The phatic function
The phatic function: providing the key to open, maintain, or close
communication. Examples: utterances such as hey! Mmmhmmm….how about
that? Really? No way.
The phatic function denotes or relates to language used for general purposes
of social interaction, rather than to convey information or ask questions. Utterances
such as hello, how are you? And nice morning, isn't it? Are phatic origin: from
greek phatos 'spoken' or phatikos 'affirming'
The phatic function concerns channel of communication; performs social
task as opposed to conveying information; to establish, prolong, or discontinue
conversation.
Examples: “hello!” — i’m putting forth a message which primarily signals
that the channel is in working order. To set your mind at ease, as long as you talk, i
will occasionally interject oh, mmhmm, yes, i see, etc. To let you know that the
channel continues to operate, jakobson terms messages serving this function phatic
communication.
The conative function
The conative function: persuading, expressing will or desire to perform an
action.
Conative function is concerned with commanding; vocative or imperative
addressing of the receiver.
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 Examples: go on, open it! Shoo. Get out of here. Check this out.
Conative function is used to label the message expressing “orientation
toward the addressee...” Its purest grammatical expression in the vocative and
imperative... Messages that influence, persuade, exhort or in any way recognize,
the “other” serve this function. “excuse me!” Is conative if it means “please get out
of my way”.
Referential function
Referential function: relating to a referent, giving descriptions, contextual
information
Examples: our lectures are 1 pm-6pm, Monday through Friday.
Orientation toward some fragment of the world (referent) is the basic main
of the vast majority of messages — explains the referential (denotative, cognitive)
function of the language. Any scientific definition is a good example of this
function.
Poetic function
Poetic function (aesthetic function) attracting attention, inviting attention to
the form of the message.
Poetic function involves choosing words carefully; the art of words, often
self-reflective.
Examples: poems, sayings, aphorisms, slogans.
Metalingual (metalinguistic function)
Metalingual (metalinguistic function) – reflexive, explanatory, the use of the
language code to discuss or describe itself.
Metalingual function requires language analysis; using language to discuss
language.
Examples: noun, adjective, codeswitching water is a noncount noun, right?
To sum up, according to Jacobson’s theory, a message can be classified by
the function it performs, i.e. To which factor in the act of communication the
message primarily points.

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 Lecture 3
Speech act theory
1. Speech acts:
General considerations what is speech act?
Speech act is doing something purely by speaking. There are very many things that
we can do by speaking.
Examples: making a promise, asking a question, ordering or requesting somebody
to do something, making a threat and so on. Each one of these examples is a
particular speech act.
The term speech act is used to describe actions: “requesting,” “commanding,”
“questioning”, “informing.”, “apologizing”, “complaining”, “promising”,
“complementing” or “inviting”.
General definition:
Speech act is the action performed by a speaker with an utterance.
Example:I’ll be there at six.
By saying this, you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act
of “promising”. (yule 2010).
Speech acts are the acts done in the process of speaking.
2. Speech act theory:
The origin and fundamental principles the study of speech acts is called speech-
act theory. Speech-act theory is the domain and a prominent part of pragmatics.
The origin of speech act theory: speech act theory was first introduced in the late
1930s by the British philosopher John l. Austin (1911-1960).
The theory was further developed by his pupil, the American philosopher John
Searle. The ideas of speech act theory were originally predicted in the Austrian
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views about language-games.

Background:
1. The basic principles of speech act theory (formed by Jl. Austin in the late
1930s), were presented in his lectures given at oxford in 1952–1954, and later in
his lectures delivered at Harvard in 1955.
These lectures were finally published posthumously as a monograph how to do
things with words in 1962.
2.After his death in 1960, Austin’s ideas were refined, systematized, and
advanced by his pupil, the American philosopher john r. Searle (Searle j. Speech
acts. 1969), who had studied under Austin in the fifties, and subsequently became
the main proponent and defender of his ideas.
According to Searle, speech act is “the basic or minimal unit of linguistic
communication” (Searle, 1969:16). The unit of linguistic communication is not, as
has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence,…. But rather the
production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of speech act
(Searle, 1969:16).

The fundamental tenet (principle) of speech act theory

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✓ producing the utterance is understood as an action within the framework of
social institutions and conventions.
✓ saying is considered as doing, and words are as deeds.
✓ the proponents of speech act theory claim that many utterances are equivalent to
actions.

3. Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts

According to J. Austin, three basic aspects (facets) of a speech act are
distinguished: 1. Locutionary act (what is actually said by a speaker)
2. Illocutionary act (what you are doing by speaking)
3. Perlocutionary act (the effect of what you say)
1.The locutionary act: what is actually said by a speaker
❖ saying something;
❖ the act of uttering a sentence considered only as such;
❖ the production of a meaningful linguistic expression in accordance with
language rules;
❖ the production of an utterance, with a particular intended structure, meaning,
and reference.

2.The illocutionary act

❖ what you’re doing by speaking;
❖ an act performed by a speaker by virtue of uttering certain words (for example
the acts of ordering, promising or threatening; an act of speaking or writing which
in itself effects or constitutes the intended action);
❖ the action performed by a speaker in uttering a linguistic expression.
Examples of illocutionary acts: accusing, apologizing, blaming, congratulating,
declaring war, giving permission, joking, marrying, nagging, naming, promising,
ordering, refusing, swearing, and thanking.
For instance, if someone says i order you to leave now they have performed the
act of ordering, simply by virtue of having uttered the words, whether or not the
addressee acts in the desired way. The term speech act is often used to denote
specifically an illocutionary act, and the intended effect of a speech act is its
illocutionary force

Illocutionary act and illocutionary force

Every illocutionary act has a particular “illocutionary force” which is
understood as the intended effect of a speech act.
Explicit: this may be explicitly signalled by the use of a performative verb such as
beg, promise, command, suggest, congratulate, or thank, or a particular
grammatical form, as in go away!, have you seen Pete?,
Implicit: it may be implicit, in which case it must be inferred, largely on the basis
of contextual evidence. For instance, an utterance such as you will never see me
again may function, in different circumstances, as a threat, a promise, a simple
statement of fact, or a prediction.
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 Illocutionary force is frequently conveyed by an ‘illocutionary force indicating
device’ (IFID), the most direct and conventional type of which is an explicit
performative verb.

3.The perlocutionary act

❖ the effect of what you say (example: he convinced her to go abroad);
❖ an act of speaking or writing which has an action as its aim but which in itself
does not effect or constitute the action, for example persuading or convincing;
❖ the bringing about of consequences or effects on the audience through the
uttering of a linguistic expression, such consequences or effects being special to
the circumstances of utterance.
❖ a speech act which depends on the production of a specific effect.
For instance, for the verbal act of persuasion to have occurred, in Pete persuaded
Liz to marry him, it is not enough for Pete to have uttered certain words – what is
essential is that a previously reluctant addressee is caused to act in an appropriate
way.

Perlocutionary act and perlocutionary force

The perlocutionary act concerns the effect an utterance may have on the
addressee. Perlocution is the act by which the illocution produces a certain effect in
or exerts a certain influence on the addressee.
A perlocutionary act represents a consequence or by-product of speaking, whether
intentional or not. The effect of the act being performed by speaking is generally
known as the perlocutionary effect.

4. Felicity conditions
Felicity conditions (also known as “happiness” or “appropriacy” conditions) are
“conditions that must be satisfied for a speech act to be properly performed”.
Felicity conditions are certain circumstances that guarantee the successful
performance of speech acts, “the conditions that underlie a successful, logical,
‘felicitous’ production of different acts”.
Types of felicity conditions 1. General conditions 2. Content conditions 3.
Preparatory conditions 4. Sincerity conditions 5. Essential conditions

1.General conditions require the participants can understand the language being
spoken, they are not play-acting (pretending) or nonsensical (absurd).

2. Content (propositional content) conditions require that the content of the

utterance must be about a future event. For example, the content condition for a
promise or warning requires that the future event will be future act of the speaker.

3. Preparatory conditions define an appropriate setting for the act, including the
speaker’s intentions and qualifications. For instance, the issuer of a command must
have authority over the addressee, and the act must be both possible and not
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already carried out. If the preparatory conditions are not satisfied, the speech act
has not been validly performed. Preparatory conditions for warning are different
from those of promising.

4. Sincerity conditions require the speaker to be sincere. Someone warning must

genuinely believe that the future event will not have a beneficial effect; someone
who promises to do something must genuinely intend to do it; someone
congratulating someone must feel pleasure at that person’s good luck or success;
someone making a statement must believe it to be true, and so on.

5. Essential condition defines the essential nature of the speech act. The essential
condition combines with a specification of what must be in the utterance content,
the context, and the speaker’s intentions, in order a specific speech act to be
appropriately (felicitously) performed. For instance, if someone makes a promise,
they must intend their utterance to count as putting them under an obligation to
carry out what is promised.

Example: Felicity conditions for requesting

1. General condition: the speakers must understand the language.
2. Content condition: the requested act is a future act of the hearer.
3. Preparatory precondition:
1) the speaker believes that the hearer can perform the requested act;
2) it is not obvious that the hearer would perform the requested act without being
asked.
4. Sincerity condition: the speaker genuinely wants the hearer to perform the
requested act
5. Essential condition: the utterance as an attempt by the speaker to have the hearer
do an act

5. Direct and indirect speech acts.

Direct speech act. In a direct speech act there is a direct relationship between a
structure and a function of a speech act.

Indirect speech act. In an indirect speech act there is as indirect relationship

between a structure and a function of a speech act. Indirect speech act is an
utterance that has the typical form of one kind of speech act, but which functions,

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either typically or in specific contexts, as a different type of speech act. Many
instances of indirect speech acts are highly conventionalised.

6. The classification of speech acts

The types of general functions performed by speech acts

1. Representative speech acts/representatives. Representatives are the speech

events that state what the speaker represents and believes it. Representative speech
acts are statements, assertions, conclusion, and descriptions.
Examples: the earth is round. It was a nice party! Shakespeare did not write about
robots. In using a representative, the speaker makes words fit the world of belief.

2. Declarative speech acts/declarations. Declaratives are used to produce a change

of some sort in the world: resign, sack, appoint, name, christen, sentence (in court),
bid (at auction). Declarations are a unique form of speech act, in that their
successful performance depends upon the status of the speaker, and the precise
circumstances surrounding the event. They are institutionalised in a society.
Declarations include sacking a worker, performing a marriage, and sentencing a
criminal.
Examples: priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife. Referee: you are out.
Boss: you are fired. In using a declaration, the speaker changes the world via
words.

3. Expressive speech acts/expressives. Expressives convey the speaker’s feelings

or attitude: thank, congratulate, forgive. Expressive speech acts are those that
reveal the speaker feels and his/her attitude, such as congratulating, condoling,
disliking, joying, expressing pain, sorrow, or pleasure. They have a strongly
interpersonal function.
Examples: I am really shocked! I am awfully sorry! My congratulations! Really
delicious! In using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world of
feelings.

4. Directive speech acts/directives. Directives are those kinds of speech acts that
speakers use to get someone else to do something. They express what the speaker
wants. Directives are aimed at getting someone to act in a certain way: beg,
implore, request, warn (to), recommend (to), ask (to). Directives are essentially
commands, orders, requests, suggestions. The can be both positive and negative.
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Examples: don’t do that! Come on! Jump! Could you lend me an eraser, please? In
using a directive, the speaker wants to make the world fit the words via the hearer.
5. Commissives. Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to
commit themselves to some actions in the future: promise, undertake, offer,
threaten. They express what the speaker intends. They include promises, threats,
refusals, pledges.
Examples: I will come soon. I am going to get it right next time. I will fix your
phone. We will not go there. In using a commissive, the speaker undertakes to
make the world fit the words (via the speaker).

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Lecture 4
Cooperative principle
1. The cooperative principle:
Theoretical basics cooperative principle by Paul Grice: cooperative principle
was suggested by Grice as the basis for an explanation of how conversational
implicatures arise.
Conversation: a conversation is viewed as a co-operative activity in which
participants tacitly (implicitly) agree to abide by (or follow) certain norms.
Conversational implicature: implicature is a meaning imposed by the speaker on
the literal meaning of the sentence. It is something more than just what the words
mean. It is an additional conveyed meaning (what is implicated).
Effective communication (p. Grice): effective communication requires
cooperation (joint effort, willingness to do what one asks you to do) between
speakers: any answer the speakers make should be interpreted on the basis of the
cooperation principle. How people ‘cooperate’: people generally follow rules for
efficient communication. These rules are named maxims
P. Grice’s formulation of the cooperative principle “make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted
purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” [grice
1967a/1989: 26.].

2. Conversational maxims
According to Grice, the cooperative principle (cp) is implemented, in the plans
of speakers and understanding of hearers, by the following maxims: 1. Maxim of
quantity 2. Maxim of quality 3. Maxim of relation (relevance) 4. Maxim of manner

1. Maxim of quantity (give enough information but not too much.)

1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of
the exchange). Say enough, but don’t say too much or too little. Give maximum
information with minimum efforts. Do not make your contribution more
informative than is required.
Example: imagine a conversation between mother and daughter: (1) m: what did
you have for lunch today? (2) d: baked beans on toast. (3) d: food. (36) d: I had 87
warmed-up baked beans (although eight of them were slightly crushed) served on a
slice of toast 12.7 cm. By 10.3 cm. Which had been unevenly toasted... (1) is a
'normal' answer; (2) gives too little information; (3) gives too much

2. Maxim of quality (bet truthful and base your contribution on evidence.)

(supermaxim): try to make your contribution one that is true. (submaxims): 1. Do
not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence. Be truthful. Do not make unsupported statements
Example: a: Pete, do you know where the big ben clock tower is? B. It is in
london.

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3. Maxim of relation (stay relevant to the topic.) Be relevant. Be relevant and act
accordingly. Statement must connect suitably with the rest of the conversation the
point of this maxim is that it is not sufficient for a statement to be true for it to
constitute an acceptable conversational contribution:
Example. A: have you seen Mary today? B: yes, I have seen her before you came.
A: do you like my new hat? B: looks very nice.

4. Maxim of manner (be clear and perspicuous. Avoid ambiguity and obscurity)
(supermaxim): be perspicuous (clear). (submaxims):
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity (‘ambiguity in context’).
3. Be brief, avoid unnecessary prolixity (i.e. excessive wordiness).
4. Be orderly (events should be related in the order in which they occur). Be clear
and not obscure, be unambiguous
Example. A: do you know where I can buy some petrol? B: you can buy petrol at
the garage right around the corner.

3. Flouting the (conversational) maxims

Some conversational implicatures arise when a speaker tries as far as possible to
follow the maxims of conversation, but others can arise when a speaker
deliberately goes against one or more of the maxims (violate, flout or show a
disregard for the maxims) provided that: (1) it is clear to the hearer that the
‘flouting’ is deliberate and (2) the speaker can nonetheless be assumed to be
obeying the co-operative principle and is therefore breaking the rules for good
communicative reason

The violation of a maxim (flouting the maxim) does not mean that the speaker does
not cooperate; he or she does, only he or she does it indirectly. Consider the
following: example 1. A. Are you going to paul’s party? B. I don’t like parties. If
we know that speaker b likes parties, we could reason that if he or she meant what
he or she said, it would be a lie and then the maxim of quality would be violated.
So he or she must have meant (implied) something else. What the speaker really
must have implied is that he or she is not going to paul’s party, or he or she must
have implied that he or she is going (irony): all depends on the speaker’s
intentions. The cooperative principle is not violated: the speaker only answers
indirectly.

Grice uses the term flouting instead of violating when the speaker expresses
possible forms of implicature: irony, metaphor, meiosis (understatement),
hyperbole, social censure, deliberate ambiguity, and deliberate obscurity (for
example, if one is trying to keep a secret from the children). In all of these cases,
maxims are broken and the breaks result in specific information implied to and
understood by the receiver of the utterance.

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Flouting or exploiting a maxim is used for the purpose of implicating information
(implicature). • example 2. A: i am out of petrol. B: there is a garage round the
corner. In this instance, we may claim, that b – at first blush – appears to break the
maxim of relation. For what does a garage have to do with petrol? Since drivers are
aware that garages sell petrol, it is not long before a realizes that b has not broken
the maxim of relation at all; it is, in fact, instantaneous. B’s point is directly
relevant. B is being cooperative in both the colloquial sense and the specialized
sense grice applies to the term. Grice’s cooperative principle makes sense of the
speed with which a is able to process the usefulness of b’s contribution. A assumes
b is following the maxims and would thus not mention the garage unless it had
petrol.

Example 3. There are other more entertaining examples, where the responses
initially appear to flout relevance: a bert: do you like ice-creams? B ernie 1: is the
pope catholic? B ernie 2: do chickens have lips? Ernie’s first response does not
provide a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Bert must assume that ernie is being cooperative, so
he considers ernie’s ‘pope’ question and clearly the answer is ‘yes’. So, the answer
is known, but the nature of ernie’s response also implicates that the answer to the
question was ‘obviously, yes!’. An additional conveyed meaning in such a case is
that, because the answer was so obvious, the question did not need to be asked.
Ernie’s second response provides the same type of inferencing with an answer ‘of
course not!’ as part of the implicature.

4. Hedges in pragmatics
Hedge is an expression which weakens a speaker’s commitment to some aspect of
an assertion. Hedge is the linguistic structure that help the speaker to avoid being
categorical and thus evade direct responsibility for what he or she says hedge is a
word or phrase used to indicate that you are not really sure that what you are
saying is sufficiently correct or complete: she was wearing a sort of turban. To all
intents and purposes, the matter was decided yesterday. I’ve more or less finished
the job. As far as I can see, the plan will never succeed. She’s quite shy, in a way.

The classification of hedges hedges are classified according to the maxims, i.e.
they are tied to the maxims of the cooperative principle:
1) quality hedges, e.g. as far as i know; i may be mistaken; i guess, etc. They
indicate that what we are saying may not be totally accurate.
2) quantity hedges, e.g. as you probably know; i won’t bore you with all the
details, but ; to cut a long story short, etc. The speaker, using these hedges,
indicates that his or her information may be incomplete.
3) relation hedges, e.g. oh, by the way; anyway; well, anyway; i don’t know if it’s
important, but; not to change the subject, but ; as for/to, etc. The speaker using
these hedges indicates that he or she is aware of the maxim of relevance, but
wishes to go over to another subject.

15
4) manner hedges, e.g. this may be a bit confusing, but; i’m not sure if this makes
sense, but ; i don’t know if this is clear at all, but

According to yule (1996), the speaker using hedges shows that he or she is not
only aware of the maxims, but he or she wants to show that he or she is trying to
observe them. Hedges are a cautious language; they ‘protect’ the speaker against
something unpleasant or unwanted that may result from being categorical.
However, the use of hedges is not always an advantage. There are situations when
the speaker cannot use the hedges: he or she must be categorical. Imagine a
situation where a speaker wishes to tell his/her addressee that the house they are in
is on fire. The speaker would sound strange if he or she informed the addressee
using the following text: “as far as i know, this house is on fie”.

16
Lecture 5
IMPLICATURE AND ITS MAIN TYPES

1. Implicature: general considerations

Implicature in communication: the decoding process
The process of communication is a process whereby the speaker conveys his or her
meaning to the addressee.
1. The speaker’s (addresser’s) situation is much easier: he or she puts his/her
meaning into a code, i.e. gives it appropriate linguistic expression.
2. The addressee has to decode the linguistic structure. The task of the addressee is
often made more difficult when the speaker’s linguistic structure means more than
it says literally. To put it in pragmatic terms, the decoding process is made more
complicated by implicature.

Implicature: definition
Implicature is generally defined as a meaning that is distinct from what the
sentence says literally (or literal meaning). Of such sentences we say that they
communicate more than they actually say.
In other words, implicature is a meaning imposed by the speaker on the literal
meaning of the sentence. It is something more than just what the words mean. It is
an additional conveyed meaning.
Example: a. Are you going to Paul’s party? B. I have to work.

Speaker b implies that he or she is not going to Paul’s party. However, the
sentence I have to work does not say it, i.e. speaker b does not say he or she is not
going to Paul’s party. He or she only says he/she has to work. Thus the implicature
that we can derive from the context is ‘I am not going to Paul’s party’.
Speaker b could have responded directly by “no, I am not”, but he or she gave
preference to an indirect response. Why so? An indirect response is a more
considerate (tactful) one; psychologically it is more acceptable than a direct one.

Origin of the term ‘implicature’:

The term ‘implicature’ was coined and introduced by the Anglo-American
language philosopher Paul Grice in his seminal article ‘logic and conversation’
(Grice, 1989). The article is the published version of a part of his William James
lectures held in 1967 at Harvard university.

What is implicated’ vs ‘what is said’

According to Grice’s approach, both ‘what is implicated’ and ‘what is said’ are part
of speaker meaning. ‘what is said’ is that part of meaning that is determined by
truth-conditional semantics, while ‘what is implicated’ is that part of meaning that
cannot be captured by truth conditions and therefore belongs to pragmatics.

The term “implicature” denotes:

17
(i) the act of meaning or implying one thing by saying something else;
(ii) the object of that act. It is what the speaker means or intends to communicate
by using those words, which often goes considerably beyond what is said.

Implicatures can be determined by sentence meaning or by conversational

context, and can be conventional (in different senses) or unconventional.
Figures of speech such as metaphor and irony provide familiar examples of
sentence implicature: they also communicate more than they actually say: e.g. she
was besieged by suitors. Instead of directly saying she had many suitors

Using a war term (besieged) which implies that she had a lot of suitors trying hard
to win her heart. The choice of a metaphor (an indirect way of expressing the
situation) helps the speaker to describe the situation vividly and thus impress the
addressee.

Implicature serves a variety of goals:

communication, maintaining good social relations, misleading without lying,
style, and verbal efficiency.
Knowledge of common forms of implicature is acquired along with one’s native
language.

2. Conversational implicature vs conventional implicature

Grice distinguished between:
1. Conversational implicature
2. Conventional implicature.

Conventional implicature is a type of implicature which has a stable association

with a particular linguistic expression [cruse 2006].
Conventional implicature is “determined by the meaning of the sentence used”
[Grice 1975: 25].
Conventional implicatures are generally regarded as “components of the meanings
of utterances which are not propositional in nature, but which have a stable
association with particular linguistic expressions and which therefore cannot be
cancelled without anomaly.” [cruse 2006: 36].
Example: Pete hasn’t registered yet and Pete hasn’t registered.

These two sentences are propositionally identical, but the presence of yet in the
former implicates that Pete is still expected to arrive (still and already have similar
properties).
Conventional implicature is irrespective of the context in which it is used. The
words “triggering” or having conventional implicatures are but, even, too, still, yet,
already, again, stop, start, know, and regret.

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Example 1: it’s an old car but it’s very reliable. The conjunction but expresses a
connection between two propositions, conveys an additional meaning, viz. A
contrast, unexpectedness or surprise.
Example 2: even john came. The particle even means in addition/too/as well. The
conventional implicature conveyed in this sentence is ‘john’s coming was the least
expected’.
Example 3: haven’t you finished yet? The element of surprise is associated with
yet. The speaker does not actually say he or she is surprised.

Conversational implicature is a type of implicature which must be inferred, and

for which contextual information is crucial. Conversational implicatures depend on
features of the conversational context, and are not determined by the conventional
meaning of the sentences uttered.

Example 1: a: can i speak to jane? B: she’s in the shower. Can you call back? The
conversational implicature is the implied negative in b’s reply.

Example 2: a: am i in time for supper? B: i've cleared the table. Here it is obviously
b's intention to convey the proposition that a is too late for supper, but this has to
be worked out by the hearer.

The ‘calculation’ of conversational implicatures.

According to Grice, the ‘calculation’ of conversational implicatures is grounded on
common knowledge of what the speaker has said (or better, the fact that she has
said it), the linguistic and extra linguistic context of the utterance, general
background information, and the consideration of what grice names the
‘cooperative principle (cp)’.

The main features of conversational implicatures conversational implicatures have

five main identifying features:
1. They are not entailments
2. They are ‘cancellable’ (or ‘defeasible’)
3. They are ‘context sensitive’
4. They are ‘non-detachable’
5. They are ‘calculable’

1. They are not entailments, that is, they do not follow logically from what is
said.

For instance, we can infer from ‘Pete has a cousin’ that ‘at least one of Pete’s
parents is not an only child’, but since this is an entailment it is not a
conversational implicature. On the other hand, in the example given under
implicature:
A: can I speak to jane?
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B: jane’s in the shower.
The inference from b’s answer, that jane is not able to take a telephone call, is not
an entailment.

2. They are ‘cancellable’ (or ‘defeasible’) ,that is, they are relatively weak
inferences and can be denied by the speaker without contradiction. For instance,
b’s reply in the following would normally be taken to mean ‘i don’t intend to tell
you’:
A: how old are you?
B: that’s none of your business.
If b added ‘but I’ll tell you, anyway’ this would cancel the inference, but b would
not be guilty of self-contradiction. This is characteristic of conversational
implicatures. In contrast, an attempt to cancel an entailment leads to a
contradiction: Pete has a cousin, but both his parents are only children.

3. They are ‘context sensitive’, in that the same proposition expressed in a

different context can give rise to different implicatures:
a: I think I’ll take a shower.
B: jane’s in the shower.
This implicates ‘you can’t take a shower just yet’, not ‘jane can’t accept a phone
call’.

4. They are ‘non-detachable’, that is, in a particular context the same proposition
expressed in different words will give rise to the same implicature. In other words,
the implicature is not tied to a particular form of words.
For instance, if b in (a. How old are you? B: that’s none of your business) had said
‘that doesn’t concern you’, the implicature would be the same.

5. They are ‘calculable’, that is to say they can be worked out using general
principles rather than requiring specific knowledge, such as a private arrangement
between a and b that if one says x it will mean y.

Types of conversational implicature according to Grice, conversational

implicatures fall into two types:
1. Generalized conversational implicature (gci);
2. Particularized conversational implicature (pci).

Generalized conversational implicatures generalized conversational implicatures

do not require a special context. Relative context-independence is the most
prominent property of generalized conversational implicatures (gcis). Gcis are
consistently associated with certain linguistic forms.
For example, if someone utters peter is meeting a woman this evening it is,
because of the indefinite article, standardly implicated that the woman is not his

20
wife, close relative, etc. When no special knowledge is required to calculate the
additional conveyed meaning, it is called a generalized conversational implicature.
Generalized conversational implicature is also attributed by the socalled scalar
implicatures. Certain information is always communicated by choosing a word
which expresses one value from a scale of values. This is particularly obvious in
terms for expressing quantity. A scale is a whole range of values where terms are
listed from the highest to the lowest value: < all, most, many, some, few> <
always, often, sometimes> the essence of scalar implicature is that, when any form
in a scale is asserted, the negative of all forms higher on the scale is implicated
(yule, 1996: 41). When producing an utterance, a speaker selects the word from the
scale which is the most informative and truthful (quantity and quality) in the
circumstances, as in the examples:
Example 1. I’m studying linguistics and i’ve completed some of the required
courses by choosing ‘some’, the speaker creates an implicature (+> not all). This is
one scalar implicature of uttering [12].
Example 2. Do your students smoke? B. Some do. Some, as a dictionary unit,
means ‘a number of entities’. In this interaction, some has the additional meaning
of ‘not all’.

Particularised conversational implicatures.

Most of the time, our conversations take place in very specific contexts in which
locally recognized inferences are assumed. Such inferences are required to work
out the conveyed meanings which result from a ‘particularised’ implicature is one
that depends on specific contexts and is not a default message component.
Particularised conversational implicatures require specific contexts. In contrast to
gcis, pcis are highly context-dependent, and they are not consistently associated
with any linguistic form.
Particularised conversational implicature requires a particular context (special
knowledge of any particular context): example. Hey, coming to the party? My
parents are visiting. The implicature is i am not coming to the party. The only
difference between generalized and particularized implicatures lies in the amount
of contextual information needed to derive the implicature from the speaker’s
speech act.
Generalized implicatures are conventionalized, i.e. they are associated with
certain linguistic items serving as triggers for the automatic process of implicature
generation. The distinction between generalized conversational implicature and
particularized conversational implicature context,
1 speaker a: what time is it? Speaker b: some of the guests are already leaving. Pci:
‘it must be late.’ gci: ‘not all of the guests are already leaving.’ context,
2 speaker a: where’s john? Speaker b: some of the guests are already leaving. Pci:
‘perhaps john has already left.’ gci: ‘not all of the guests are already leaving.’
because the implicature (‘ . . . Not all . . .’) triggered by some arises in both
contexts, it is relatively context-independent.

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 Concluding remarks. Implicature is an invisible meaning: it sponges on the
literal meaning of the sentence. Being ‘invisible’, it substantially contributes to
language economy and, consequently, helps to abbreviate the text. It is not hard to
imagine what may happen if the speaker expressed all his meanings explicitly.
Implicature can be said to be a means of conveying meaning without extra
linguistic resources. Although normally we make use of implicature in the process
of communication, there are occasions when we express our meanings explicitly.
For instance, when we talk to children, we will avoid implicatures. We may avoid
implicatures when talking to strangers. The reason for this is that children
generally learn to speak implicitly later in life. As for strangers, they may have
difficulty decoding our implicatures. Implicture is a universal category but its
manifestation is speaker-specific. This suggests that people who know each other
will rely on implicature more heavily than people who do not know each other.

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Lecture 6
SPEECH IMPACT AND MANIPULATION

1. The notions of speech influence and manipulation

Speech impact (influence): the power to change or affect someone by speaking
The term “manipulation”: “a deceptive and covert influence adopted by a
speaker (a manipulator) to intentionally and directly affect someone’s beliefs,
desires, and/or emotions in ways typically not in his self-interest or, at least, not in
his self-interest in the present context.”

1. Manipulation is an “illegitimate domination confirming social inequality.

Cognitively, manipulation as mind control involves the interference with processes
of understanding, the formation of biased mental models and social representations
such as knowledge and ideologies. Discursively, manipulation generally involves
the usual forms and formats of ideological discourse, such as emphasizing our
good things, and emphasizing their bad things” (Dijk, 2006).

2. Manipulation as a linguistic act is “any verbal interaction regarded from the

point of view of its motivation and realized by the subject (speaker) and the object
(listener) of communication. ” (Asya, 2013: 1).

Manipulation
The manipulation of options (increasing or decreasing available options)
The manipulation of information (non-persuasively affecting the person’s
understanding of the situation);
Psychological manipulation (causing changes in mental processes)

2. Speech or verbal manipulation

verbal manipulation as: using certain words, voice inflections and tones to
control the person someone addresses (gardner, 2006: 48).
Verbal manipulation as: a complex, multistage and phase-by-phase process (as in
case of informational propaganda and politics), or it can be a singular, relatively
simple act of influencing the target in the course of interpersonal communication.
(asya, 2009: 1).
Speech manipulation as: "a type of language influence used for the hidden
introduction of purpose, desire, intention, relations or attitudes which don’t
coincide with those available for the addressee into his mentality" (veretenkina,
1999).

2. Manipulation parameters four components or parameters of manipulation:

1. The target (hearer) 2. Intention 3. Covertness 4. Speaker’s interest

23
1. The target (hearer). Manipulation is geared towards influencing the target
(hearer) to operate in a direction that under normal circumstances he would likely
oppose. (rudinow,1978: 102).
The manipulator attempts to maneuver the target to perceive the ‘‘intentional
action’’ (i.e., the manipulator’s goal) as the best available option in the current
situation (goodin, 1980: 8).
Target is treated as lacking crucial resources to resist, detect or avoid manipulation.
This may involve: incomplete or lack of relevant knowledge, fundamental norms,
values and ideologies that cannot be denied or ignored, strong emotions, that make
people vulnerable; and social positions, professions, and status that induce people
into tending to accept speaker’s argument. (van dijk, 2006: 375).

2. Intention. Manipulation is always intentional on the part of the speaker; it

cannot happen accidently, i.e., unintentionally (blass, 2005: 12). In a typical
manipulative speech situation, the manipulator’s covert intention cannot be
grasped by the hearer; otherwise, manipulation would be self-defeating.

3. Covertness. In order to succeed, the manipulative attempt must be covert.

Otherwise, manipulation will fail.
According to Maillat and Oswald (2009), ‘the overall manipulative intention, local
and global linguistic strategies’, as well as ‘discursive strategies’ are all elements
that may remain covert in a manipulative utterance. (Maillat, Oswald, 2009:8-28).

4. Speaker’s interest. Manipulation is an intrinsically goal-oriented phenomenon

designed to satisfy speaker’s interest (de Saussure, Schulz, 2005: 126). According
to t. Van Dijk (2006), manipulators make others believe or do things that are in the
interest of the manipulator and against the best interests of the target. (van Dijk,
2006: 360). Without these manipulation prerequisites (components) manipulation
process will be defeated.

5. Mechanisms and tools of speech manipulation

According to Asya, manipulation is based upon mechanisms that compel the
listener to perceive verbal messages uncritically and facilitate creation of illusions
and misperceptions impacting target’s emotions and making him fulfill actions
beneficial for the manipulator. (asya, 2013: 4).
Among all these mechanisms, linguistic ones are crucial for the manipulator to
obtain sincere consent.
Among all the mechanisms, linguistic ones are crucial for the manipulator to
obtain sincere consent.
1. Fuzziness: fuzziness is viewed as one of the central and important mechanisms
of manipulation. Fuzziness is not only about vague terms, complicated sentences
and overuse of metaphors. One of the most important mechanisms used within
manipulative discourses is the creation of a global fuzziness, where even parts of

24
the discourse that seem clear and simple lead to interpretative problems for the
addressee (Stalnaker, 2002: 25).
2. Simplification and fallacies. Rocci (2005: 115) consider simplification and
fallacies as other manipulation mechanisms.
According to this view, simplistic, and usually inductive and false arguments
violating logical rules, and which create unmotivated generalizations, can be
considered as contributing to the global fuzziness or confusion of the discourse, in
spite of the fact that they are intended to imply a particularly clear and wise
thinking.

The tool of speech manipulation.

The tool of speech manipulation in its broad sense is any verbal sign which in a
certain context and meaning can have necessary impact on the addressee.
The person is tend to use the word for impact on the interlocutor – consciously or
not. In case of conscious use of language it is possible to tell about speech
manipulation in its true meaning, as this action, first of all, is purposeful.

"Each language element is very difficult and sensitive tool on which plays the one
who uses language. Thus, the perception and understanding created at the recipient
depend on how the addresser uses this sensitive tool " (blakar, 1987).
Language elements as tools of speech manipulation:
✓ various phonographic means
✓ lexical means
✓ morphological categories
✓ syntactic designs
✓ text categories

Levels of speech manipulation

phonographic lexical grammatical

1. Phonographic level at the phonographic level speech manipulation is carried

out by means of special sound and graphic registration of the message. Use of
phonetic means – a prerogative of oral speech: both intonation, and a timbre, both
allocation by voice, and pauses are applied.
In a political discourse of mass media phonetic instruments of speech
manipulation are widely used in oral types of a discourse. But in our study the
materials are texts of printing editions, therefore tools of written language,
phonographic ones are of great interest.

2. Lexical level, Lexical means of speech manipulation constitute the most

extensive and frequently used area of tools of speech manipulation.
Being the most extensive class, tools of speech manipulation at the lexical level
allow systematization on the basis of their sign properties – semantics, syntactics
and pragmatics. Respectively, depending on what aspect of a lexical unit as
25
linguistic sign is involved in realization of manipulation, it is possible to divide
lexical tools of speech manipulation into three groups: lexical-semantic, lexical-
syntactic and lexicalpragmatic.

3. Grammatical level functioning at the grammatical level, tools of speech

manipulation use possibilities of morphology and syntax: a choice of a
grammatical forms, elliptic language, figures of speech, features of communicative
types of sentences and etc.
C. Schäffner explains that: the ideological aspect can be determined within a text
itself, both at the lexical level (reflected, for example, in the deliberate choice or
avoidance of a particular word) and at the grammatical level (for example, the use
of passive structures to avoid an expression of agency). Ideological aspects can be
more or less obvious in texts, depending on the topic of a text, its genre and
communicative purposes.

26
Lecture 7
POLITENESS THEORY

1. Politeness: definitions
what is politeness?
Politeness: behavior that is courteous and respectful of others is polite.
The forms of politeness: politeness is reflected in language and communication in
forms of address, in using inoffensive language in conversational interactions, and
in generally avoiding taboo language.
Politeness in general terms is being tactful, modest and nice to other people.

Linguistic politeness
✓linguistic politeness is a ‘means of expressing consideration for others’ (e.g.,
holmes, 1995: 4; thomas, 1995: 150; watts, 2003).
✓linguistic politeness is a matter of strategic interaction aimed at achieving goals
such as avoiding conflict and maintaining harmonious relations with others
(kasper, 1990).
✓politeness include being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic toward
others.

2. Brown and levinson’s politeness theory

The origin of politeness theory:

1. Original face-saving model of politeness was proposed by brown and levinson
in 1978.
2. A revised model of politeness proposed 1987 is known as politeness theory.
Brown and Levinson considered their theory as cross-culturally valid.

The basic idea of politeness theory: according to politeness theory, people are
motivated by their need to maintain their ‘face’ (in the sociological sense,
developed by goffman 1967): the need to be approved of by others, and to maintain
a sense of self-worth (public self-image).

The concept of “face in politeness theory in the theory of politeness, the most
relevant concept is “face.”
As a technical term, face means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that
emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to
recognize.
Politeness in an interaction is defined as the means employed to show awareness of
another person’s face.
Politeness as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face can
be accomplished in situations of social distance or closeness.

27
1. Showing awareness for another person’s face when that other seems socially
distant is often described in terms of respect or deference.
Example: a student’s question to his teacher a. Excuse me, Mr Buckingham, but
can i talk to you for a minute?

2. Showing the equivalent awareness when the other is socially close is often
described in terms of friendliness, camaraderie, or solidarity.
Example: the friend’s question to the same individual b. Hey, bucky, got a minute?
In most english-speaking contexts, the participants in an interaction often have to
determine, as they speak, the relative social distance between them, and hence their
‘face wants’.

3. Face wants (needs) – face threatening act vs. Face saving act
Within their everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their
expectations concerning their public self-image, or their face wants, will be
respected.
Face threatening act: if a speaker says something that represents a threat to
another individual’s expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face
threatening act.
Face saving act: the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a threat to
another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat is called
a face saving act.
Example: situation: a late night scene, where a young neighbor is playing his music
very loud and an older couple are trying to sleep. One of them, proposes a face
threatening act and the other suggests a face saving act.
❑ I’m going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now!
❑ perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it’s getting a
bit late and people need to get to sleep. Each person will attempt to respect the face
wants of others, there are many different ways of performing face saving acts.

4. Negative face vs. Positive face

When we attempt to save another’s face, we can pay attention to their negative face
wants or their positive face wants.
1. Negative face: a person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have
freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. The word ‘negative’ here
doesn’t mean ‘bad’, it’s just the opposite pole from ‘positive’. Example: I’m sorry
to bother you. I know you are busy, but
2. Positive face: a person’s positive face is the need to be accepted, valued, even
liked and admired, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to
know that his or her wants are shared by others. Example: let’s do this together.
You and me have the same problem.
Negative face is the need to be independent
Positive face is the need to be connected.
5. Politeness strategies
28
Politeness strategies are used to express concern for others and minimize threats to
self-esteem or "face" in particular social contexts.
Four main types of politeness strategies: 1. Positive politeness 2. Negative
politeness 3. Bald on-record 4. Off-record (indirect)
1. Positive politeness strategies. Positive politeness strategies are oriented
towards the hearer's positive face and intended to avoid giving offense by
highlighting friendliness. They are used as a way to make the hearer feel a sense of
closeness and belonging.
Positive politeness strategies include using jokes, nicknames, honorifics, tag
questions, special discourse markers (please), and shared dialect, jargon and slang.
Examples: you look sad. Can i do anything? Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?
Hey, buddy, i’d appreciate it if you’d let me use your pen. If we help each other, i
guess, we'll both sink or swim in this course. If you wash the dishes, i'll vacuum
the floor. That's a nice haircut you got; where did you get it?

2. Negative politeness strategies. Negative political strategies are oriented

towards the hearer's negative face and intended to avoid giving offense by showing
deference. They are used as a way to interact with the hearer in a non-imposing
way.
Negative political strategies include questioning (containing a modal verb),
hedging, expressions of apology for the imposition, using nominalizations,
passives, or statements of general rules, plural pronouns.
Examples: would you know where Radisson street is? Perhaps, he might have
taken it, maybe. Could you lend me a pen? I’m sorry to bother you, but can i ask
you for a pen or something?
Formal politeness: I hope offense will not be taken. Visitors sign the ledger.
Spitting will not be tolerated. We regret to inform you.

3. Bald on-record strategy. Bald on-record strategy does not aim to minimize the
threat to the hearer's face, and is most often used in situations where the speaker
has a close relationship with the listener, such as family or close friends, and when
information needs to be shared quickly.
Examples: watch out! Pass me the pliers. Don't forget to clean the kitchen! Your
headlights are on! Come in. Leave it, I'll clean it up later. Eat!

4. Off-record (indirect) strategy. This politeness strategy makes use of indirect

language and removes the speaker from the potential to be imposing. This strategy
is concerned with pragmatics to convey the intended hidden (implied) meaning.
Examples: it's getting cold in here. The trash basket is full. “I’m so tired. A cup of
coffee would help.

POLITENESS PRINCIPLE LEECH’S POLITENESS PRINCIPLE AND

POLITENESS MAXIMS

29
1. Geoffrey leech’s politeness principle: general considerations Geoffrey Leech’s
politeness principle as alternative to politeness theory.
One of the most fully developed alternative frameworks to Brown and Levinson’s
politeness theory is Geoffrey Leech’s model or politeness principle.
This principle shares many of the assumptions of politeness theory, as well as its
goal of universality, but takes a somewhat different approach to analyzing
linguistic politeness.

The specificity of Geoffrey Leech’s politeness principle: rather than focusing on

‘face needs,’ leech addressed the issue of ‘‘why people are often so indirect in
conveying what they mean’’ (1983: 80). To answer this question, leech proposed a
politeness principle (pp), and a set of maxims which he regards as paralleling
grice’s maxims.

The formulation of politeness principle: minimize (other things being equal) the
expression of impolite beliefs. . . . Maximize (other things being equal) the
expression of polite beliefs (1983: 81).
Example: for example, recently my niece asked me if i liked her new shoes –
bright pink plastic sandals, decorated with glitter. I thought they were ghastly, but
rather than saying ‘‘i think they’re awful,’’ i replied ‘‘they look really cool.’’
The politeness principle accounts for my nicely ambiguous response, which was
strictly truthful but minimized the expression of my very impolite beliefs about her
shoes.

The functions of politeness principle are to prompt the speaker to express himself
politely, honestly, make the two sides feel respected and get the good impression
from the other. Pp proposes how to produce and understand language based on
politeness.

2. Politeness maxims
To the politeness principle g. Leech attaches six maxims (politeness maxims)
(maxims are defined as rules; postulate; a short, pithy statements expressing a
general truth or rule of conduct; a brief expression of a general truth, principle, or
rule of conduct). 1. Tact 2. Generosity 3. Approbation 4. Modesty 5. Agreement 6.
Sympathy
The first and second form a pair, as do the third and the fourth.
These maxims vary from culture to culture: what may be considered polite in one
culture may be strange or rude in another.

Tact and generosity maxims. Both of these maxims apply particularly to speech
acts which are directives or commissives.
1. The tact maxim: minimise cost to the hearer. Maximise benefit to the hearer.
This maxim is centered to the hearer.

30
Examples: can you wash the dishes?; could you wash the dishes?; i wonder if you
would mind washing the dishes.
The tact maxim: example 1: “won‘t you sit down?” It is the directive/impositive
utterance. This utterance is spoken to ask the hearer sitting down. The speaker uses
indirect utterance to be more polite and minimizing cost to the hearer. This
utterance implies that sitting down is benefit to the hearer.
Example 2: a: how about having a cup of coffee? B: may i have the honor to have a
cup of coffee with you? From these two sentences, we can see that b makes the
hearer get more benefit, so having a high level of politeness. Otherwise, if an act
imposes much on the part of hearer, the choice for hearer may be less, so this
utterance is impolite.

2. The generosity maxim

The generosity maxim: minimise benefit to self. Maximise cost to self.
For example: i’ll do the dishes you relax and let me do the dishes.
Like tact maxim, the generosity maxim occurs in commissives and directives/
impositives. This maxim is centered to self, while the tact maxim is to other.
Example: you must come and have dinner with us.
It is an advice utterance that is involved in directive illocutionary act. In this case
the speaker implies that cost of the utterance is to his self. Meanwhile, the
utterance implies that benefit is for the hearer.

The generosity maxim: example: a: a cup of tea. B: a cup of tea, please. C: could
you give a cup of tea, please?
The politeness in these three sentences changes gradually from cost to the hearer to
benefit to the hearer and hence from less polite become more polite to the hearer.
The utterance of a sounds crude, possibly being refused. The utterance of b sounds
a little kind, making the hearer get the benefit more or less. C maximizes the cost
of himself, making the hearer feel glad to give the tea to the speaker. 3.

3.Approbation maxim: maximise praise of hearer. Minimise dispraise of hearer.

(exaggerate anything that puts the hearer in a relatively good light, and understate
anything that puts the hearer in a relatively bad light).
For example: a: you were brilliant! B: yes, wasn’t i? (less polite); i was lucky.
(more polite)
Approbation maxim instructs to avoid saying unpleasant things about others and
especially about the hearer.
This maxim occurs in assertives/representatives and expressives.
Assertives/representatives are utterances that express the true propositional.
Meanwhile, expressive are utterances that show the speaker feeling.
A: “the performance was great!”
B: “yes, wasn’t it!”

31
In the example, a gives a good comment about the performance. He talks the
pleasant thing about other. This expression is a congratulation utterance that
maximizes praise of other.

4 .Modesty maxim: minimise praise of self. Maximise dispraise of self. (self-

directed boasting is impolite and self-belittlement is polite).
For example: a: what a fool i’ve been! B: indeed. (less polite); these things happen.
(more polite) ‘dispraise’ in these two maxims includes criticism, blame,
belittlement, and so on.
Modesty maxim is applied in assertives/representatives and expressives like the
approbation maxim. Both the approbation maxim and the modesty maxim concern
to the degree of good or bad evaluation of other or self that is uttered by the
speaker. The approbation maxim is exampled by courtesy of congratulation. On
other hand, the modesty maxim usually occurs in apologies. The sample of the
modesty maxim is below.
“please accept this small gift as prize of your achievement.”
In this case, the utterance above is categorized as the modesty maxim because the
speaker maximizes dispraise of himself. The speaker notices his utterance by using
“small gift”.

5. Agreement maxim. Agreement maxim: “minimize the expression of

disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement
between self and other”.
In other words: minimise disagreement with hearer. Maximise agreement with
hearer. The effect of this maxim is illustrated in the following: for example: a: do
you agree with me? B: yes. (slightly less polite); absolutely. (more polite) a: do you
agree with me? B: no (less polite); up to a point, but … (more polite)
The disagreement, in this maxim, usually is expressed by regret or partial
agreement. This maxim occurs in assertives/ representatives. A: “english is a
difficult language to learn.” B: “true, but the grammar is quite easy.”
From the example, b actually does not agree with that all part of english language
difficult to learn. He does not express his disagreement strongly to be more polite.
The polite answer will influence the effect of the hearer. In this case, b’s answer
minimize his disagreement using partial agreement, “true, but…, up to a point,
but”.
Agreement maxim pays close attention to whether the opinion of speaker is in
accordance with the hearer’s. If it is kept in accordance, the agreement maxim is
observed.
Examples: a: how about going to swim today? B1: i am so tired, can’t you doing
something more relaxed? B2: that’ ok, if there is nothing else to do. B3: great, i
like swimming most. In this case, b1 shows his disagreement directly. Although b2
doesn’t show disagreement directly, he still doesn’t agree, either. Only b3 increase
the agreement between them.

32
6. Sympathy maxim. Sympathy maxim: "minimize antipathy between self and
other; maximize sympathy between the self and other." in other words: maximise
sympathy (expression of positive feelings) towards hearer. Minimise antipathy
(expression of negative feelings) towards hearer.
On the basis of this principle, congratulations, condolences, and commiserations
(feeling of sympathy) are inherently polite. If negative feelings must be expressed,
they should be played down (understated). In the following examples someone has
had an accident, due to carelessness:
For example: serves you right! (not polite) you really need to be more careful
(more polite) these things happen (even more polite)
Sympathy maxim is applicable in assertives/representatives. For example: “i’m
terribly sorry to hear about your illness’’. It is a condolence expression which is
expressed the sympathy for misfortune. This utterance is uttered when the hearer
gets calamity of father’s died or sick. This expression shows the solidarity between
the speaker and the hearer. This maxim involves the relationship between the
speaker and hearer, especially the psychological feeling.
For example, a: i have caught a cold these two days. B1: i know, you went to swim
several days before, so you caught a cold. B2: how didn’t you take good care of
yourself? B3: you’d better have a rest these days. In these answers, a didn’t get the
sympathy which he wanted from b1 and b2, only got the blame, which made him
feel antipathy. While b3 showed his sympathy and his answer was more polite. •

Concluding points: politeness in leech’s model is essentially a scalar

phenomenon: the degree of imposition on the hearer will normally condition the
degree of indirectness, mitigation or other politeness marker from the speaker.
Thus, answer the phone is less polite than a request. Of course, much depends on
the relationship between the interlocutors; we can be more direct with intimates. If
the hearer is aware that it is impossible for the speaker to answer the phone, the
imperative might not be considered inappropriate.

33
Lecture 8
Discourse: Types and Analysis

1. The notion of discourse

1. People use language to communicate (communicative function). Language
users communicate through discourse (Communication through discourse).
Examples: utterances of one word (‘John!’ ‘Okay.’ ‘Stop!’) or one sentence
(‘I declare the games opened’) suffice to get the message across, but usually
language users communicate through a connected sequence of minimally two
utterances, i.e., discourse.
2. Discourse is a written or spoken communication, a connected series of
utterances; a conversation.
3. The word “discourse ” is usually defined as “language beyond the
sentence” and so the analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of
language in texts and conversation.
4. Discourse is not produced without context and cannot be understood
without taking context into consideration. Discourses are always connected to
other discourses which were produced earlier, as well as those which are produced
synchronically and subsequently.“ (Fairclough, Wodak (1997, p. 277)

Definitions of Discourse:
The term ‘discourse’ has been used with various differences in meaning:
 connected speech (Harris 1952);
 the product of an interactive process in a sociocultural context
(Pike 1954);
 performance (vs ‘text’ as a representation of the formal grammatical
structure of discourse) (van Dijk 1974);
 talk (vs written prose, or ‘text’) (Cicourel 1975);
 conversational interaction (Coulthard 1977);
 ‘language in context across all forms and modes’ (Tannen 1981);
 process (vs product, or ‘text’) (Brown and Yule 1983).

‘discourse’ vs. ‘text’

1. The term ‘discourse’ is used as the more general term to refer to both
spoken and written language. It is viewed as a Generic term for various types of
text. The term ‘text’ is generally used to refer to written language.
2. Discourse as a performance vs text as a representation of the formal
grammatical structure.
3. Discourse as a process vs text as a product.
4. Discourse as a talk vs text as a written prose.

The importance of the discourse level for the study of language and
linguistics:
‘‘Discourse is what makes us human’’ (Graesser et al., 1997).
34
 In linguistics, the term ‘discourse’ refers to a structural unit larger than the
sentence. Of the many definitions for it in a standard dictionary, linguistics picks
out length and coherence as criterial. Discourse involves more than one sentence,
and the sentences must be contingent. Just as every string of words is not a
sentence, not every sequence of utterances is considered a ‘text.’ For discourse,
there are requirements of relevance in form and especially in meaning. Texts can
be created by more than one participant, as in conversation or in various forms of
monologue, most notably narrative and exposition. (Pearson B., P de Villiers,
2006).

the study of written and spoken discourse.

Although spoken and written discourse have crucial characteristics in
common, the linguistic traditions of the study of written and spoken discourse are
very different.
‘Monological texts’ are traditionally studied in areas such as stylistics, text
linguistics, and psycholinguistics, often based on rather specific linguistic analyses
and regularly using a quantitative methodology.
‘dialogical discourse’ has long been the arena of conversation analysis and
sociolinguistics, often focused on qualitative interpretations of individual
conversations in context.

forms of discourse.
Generally, verbal or written texts that extend beyond the level of
a single sentence are referred to by linguists as discourse.
Discourse is expressed in a wide diversity of forms or genres:
 informal conversation
 narration
 short and lengthy written texts
 jokes
 riddles
 poems
 gossip
 formal speeches
 2. Spoken discourse vs written discourse: distinctive features and type
labels
Speech and writing can be considered as two very general registers. The
most obvious difference between the two is the physical mode of production. In
addition, spoken discourse is often interactive and speakers often do not plan
their language ahead of time. In contrast, written discourse is usually not
interactive. In fact, writers are usually addressing a large audience, rather than a
single reader. However, writers can plan and revise the text as much as they
want. The final written text includes only the revised and edited language.
(Biber, 2006).

35
 Typical features of spoken discourse are personal involvement and real-
time constraints. Involvement is generally marked by using first and second
personal pronouns; by monitoring the communication channel through rising
intonation, pauses, requests for back-channel responses; by giving emphasis to
people and their relationship; by reporting speakers’ mental processes and by
using emphatic particles (really, just, etc.). Real-time constraints, on the other
hand, are highlighted by place and time adverbs, or by verb tense and aspect
(Biber, 1986; Tannen, 1982).
Typical features of written discourse. Written texts may be represented by
the following oppositions: involvement vs. detachment; maximal use of context
vs. maximal background information; inexplicitness vs. explicitness;
dependence for effect of paralinguistic and nonverbal channel vs. dependence
on lexicalization to establish cohesion; and so on (Tannen, 1982).
Speech uses the transmitting medium of 'phonic substance', typically air-
pressure movements produced by the vocal organs, whereas writing uses the
transmitting medium of 'graphic substance', typically marks on a surface
made by a hand using an implement. It is simply a physical thing. (Crystal,
2005).
3. Types of Discourse
Traditionally, according to rhetorical theory, four basic types of discourse
exist:
1. narration (story telling)
2. description (visualizing something with words)
3. exposition (informing an audience)
4. argumentation (convincing an audience)
Narration is understood as story telling. It involves relating a series of
events, usually in a chronological order.
Description tells what things are like according to the five senses. A
descriptive essay, or a descriptive passage in a story, tells how things look, sound,
feel, taste, and smell.
Exposition is the kind of writing that is used to inform. Translated literally
from Greek and Latin, exposition means "to place out," (place out the information).
This type of discourse has several subtypes: process analysis, definition,
classification and division, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and problem
and solution. These subtypes are distinguished by purpose and by structure or
organization.
Argument. The purpose of argument is to convince through logic. An
argument is based on a belief or opinion that the writer holds as true. The statement
36
of this opinion is called a "thesis." The argumentative mode of discourse has a
variation known as "persuasion." Argument and persuasion differ in two primary
ways. The first is the intent. While the intent of argument is to present reasons and
evidence to elicit logical agreement, the purpose of persuasion goes beyond this to
get the reader to act on his belief.

Levelt lists some of the different types of discourse as follows:

 informal everyday conversation,
 narrations, lectures,
 examinations and interviews,
 debates,
 planning discourse,
 route direction,
 radio talk,
 therapeutic discourse.

37
Lecture 9
Developing Pragmatic Competence
1. The notion of competence: overview.
Competence is the ability to use language, viewed in the abstract. When we use our
language, we commit all sorts of errors. We make slips of the tongue, we
sometimes can’t think of a word or name we know perfectly well, we interrupt
ourselves, we mishear or misunderstand what others are saying, we may even lose
the thread of what we ourselves are saying, there are limits upon our memories,
and so on.
In the early 1960s, the American linguist Noam Chomsky began arguing that such
errors should be dismissed from consideration in examining our ability to use
language. Chomsky argued that every one of us possesses an abstract linguistic
competence which is independent of the errors we sometimes make, and he argued
further that the elucidation of this competence was, or should be, the principal
business of linguistic theory. The errors he relegated to the quite different domain
of performance, which he considered to be the proper subject matter of a quite
different discipline, having more to do with the study of the behaviour of nerves
and muscles than with the study of language per se.

Chomsky’s position here has been enormously influential in linguistics, and it has
formed the basis of his research programme, dedicated to the identification of the
highly abstract principles which he sees as making up our competence.
Interestingly, Chomsky’s distinction is strikingly reminiscent of the distinction
between langue and parole introduced generations earlier by the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure, though not quite identical to it. Nevertheless, there are
critics who see Chomsky’s conception of competence as far too abstract, and who
are inclined to doubt whether such a sharp line should or can be drawn between
our ability to use language and our actual behaviour. (Trask, 1999).

2. Competence vs performance. The distinction between competence and

performance, made by Chomsky, is related to the distinction proposed by Saussure
between langue and parole. As a first approximation, competence can be equated to
langue, except that it is conceived as the neural representation of the system as it
exists in the mind of an ideal speaker-hearer. Performance takes a slightly different
perspective to parole, in that it refers in the first place to the processes involved in
the production of utterances, rather than the produced utterances themselves.
(Cruze, 2006).
Competence is that knowledge about the native language which is acquired along
with the language used by an ideal speaker/listener of a homogeneous speech
community (i.e. free from dialectal and sociolectal variations). Due to an infinite
inventory of elements (sounds, words) and syntactic rules, the speaker can
theoretically produce and understand an infinite number of utterances.
Performance refers not only to this, but also to the ability of the speaker to pass
judgment on the grammaticality of sentences, on ambiguity, and paraphrases. The
38
goal of transformational grammar is to formulate a grammar that illustrates as truly
as possible the ability of a speaker’s competence, and at the same time to offer a
hypothesis about language acquisition. Linguistic theories based on the notion of
competence have been reproached for being too idealistic, which has led to a
broadening of the original concept to mean communicative competence. Whereas
the terms ‘performance’ (Chomsky) and ‘parole’ (de Saussure) can be used almost
interchangeably, their counterparts ‘competence’ and ‘langue’ are quite different
from each other. ‘Langue’ is a static system of signs, whereas competence is
understood as a dynamic concept, as a mechanism that will generate language
endlessly. (Bussmann, 1998).

3. Communicative competence.
The term “communicative competence” is coined by D. Hymes in his ethnography
of communication. This term is a critical expansion of N. Chomsky’s concept of
competence (which concerns only the linguistic capabilities of the ideal speaker-
hearer, so that the social function of language remains unaddressed).
Communicative competence is the fundamental concept of a pragmalinguistic
model of linguistic communication: it refers to the repertoire of know-how that
individuals must develop if they are to be able to communicate with one another
appropriately in the changing situations and conditions. In this model, speaking is
understood as the action of transmitting symbols (i.e. interaction). Communicative
competence is the descriptive goal of various social-psychological disciplines.
(Bussmann, 1998).
Communicative competence is understood as the ability to use language
appropriately in social situations. In order to speak a language successfully, you
need to have purely linguistic competence in that language: mastery of
pronunciation, of grammar and of vocabulary. But you need more than that: you
also need sociolinguistic competence, knowledge of such things as how to begin
and end conversations, how and when to be polite, and how to address people. In
addition, you further need strategic competence, knowledge of how to organize a
piece of speech in an effective manner and how to spot and compensate for any
misunderstandings or other difficulties. Depending on who is using it, the term
communicative competence refers (more usually) to the last two of these or (less
usually) to all three together. (Trask, 1999).
D. Hymes used communicative competence to reflect the following key positions
on knowledge and use of language:
1. The ability to use a language well involves knowing (either explicitly or
implicitly) how to use language appropriately in any given context.
2. The ability to speak and understand language is not based solely on grammatical
knowledge.
3. What counts as appropriate language varies according to context and may
involve a range of modes – for example, speaking, writing, singing, whistling,
drumming.

39
4. Learning what counts as appropriate language occurs through a process of
socialization into particular ways of using language through participation in
particular communities. (Lillis T.M. Communicative Competence. In: Concise
Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd., 2006).

4. Pragmatic competence. Pragmatic competence is broadly defined as the ability

to use language appropriately in a social context. Pragmatic competence has
become an object of inquiry in a wide range of disciplines including linguistics,
applied linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, communication research,
and cross-cultural studies. In the disciplines of applied linguistics and second
language acquisition (SLA), the study of pragmatic competence has been driven by
several fundamental questions. Those questions include: What does it mean to
become pragmatically competent in a second language (L2)? How can we examine
pragmatic competence to make inferences of its development among L2 learners?
In what ways do research findings inform teaching and assessment of pragmatic
competence? These questions suggest that construct definition, empirical methods,
and application of research findings to practice are at the centers of pragmatics
research in SLA. (Taguchi, 2009).
The term pragmatic competence was originally placed within philosophy of
language (Morris, 1938), but has developed from this field to be related to
sociolinguistics and other subdisciplines. Currently, this term is extensively used in
the field of second and FL acquisition and teaching, especially in reference to
pragmatic competence as one of the abilities subsumed by the overarching concept
of communicative competence. The notion of pragmatic competence was early on
defined by Chomsky (1980) as the “knowledge of conditions and manner of
appropriate use (of the language), in conformity with various purposes” (Chomsky,
1980: 224). This concept was seen in opposition to grammatical competence that in
Chomskyan terms is “the knowledge of form and meaning.”
In a more contextualized fashion, Canale & Swain (1980) included pragmatic
competence as one important component of their model of communicative
competence. In this model, pragmatic competence was identified as sociolinguistic
competence and defined as the knowledge of contextually appropriate language
use (Canale, Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983). Later on, Canale (1988) expanded this
definition, and stated that pragmatic competence includes “illocutionary
competence, or the knowledge of the pragmatic conventions for performing
acceptable language functions, and sociolinguistic competence, or knowledge of
the sociolinguistic conventions for performing language functions appropriately in
a given context” (Canale, 1988: 90).
In Bachman’s (1990) model of language competence pragmatic competence is a
central component incorporating the ability to use the language to express a wide
range of functions, and interpret their illocutionary force in discourse according to
the sociocultural context in which they are uttered. More recently, Rose (1999)
proposed a working definition of pragmatic competence, which has been
extensively accepted by researchers in the field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP).
40
He defines the concept as the ability to use available linguistic resources
(pragmalinguistics) in a contextually appropriate fashion (sociopragmatics), that is,
how to do things appropriately with words (Thomas, 1983; and Leech, 1983).
According to Bialystok (1993) pragmatic competence includes:
1) the speaker’s ability to use language for different purposes;
2) the listener’s ability to get past the language and understand the speaker’s real
intentions (e.g. indirect speech acts, irony and sarcasm); and
3) the command of the rules by which utterances come together to create discourse.
(Rueda, 2006).
Ellis (1997) regards linguistic competence as a prerequisite for pragmatic
competence; however, linguistic proficiency in no way guarantees pragmatic
competence (see Cohen & Ishihara, 2005). Studies investigating the acquisition of
pragmatic knowledge have shown that students with otherwise excellent language
skills lack pragmatic competence (Stadler, 2002). Pragmatic competence entails
the knowledge of when it is appropriate to say what to whom in another culture,
and the rules for that can be complex and subtle, making them particularly difficult
to acquire. The mastery of such competence requires sensitivity and perceptiveness
on the part of the learner, combined with preparation and explicit instruction. Ellis
(1997) even argues that pragmatic competence involves an element of managing
the emotional response associated with certain speech behaviors, which can make
it difficult to adopt a certain style that is considered inappropriate in one’s native
language context (Cohen & Olshtain, 1993). The acquisition of pragmatics
therefore requires competence of what Taguchi (Taguchi, 2015:1) refers to as the
“complex interplay of language, language users and ontext of interaction. (Stadder,
2018)

4. Cross-cultural Competence. Cross-cultural (also intercultural) competence is

the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations; it is
supported by specific attitudes and affective features, (inter)cultural knowledge,
skills and reflection. Cross-cultural competence allows for successful bridging of
differences in identifying, naming, prioritizing, and implementing values. The
growth in the complexity and interconnectedness of contemporary individuals,
groups, organizations, and entire societies requires frequent reflection on ‘what we
are striving for’ (culturally articulated values and beliefs) and which ‘equipment’
(organizationally determined managerial instruments) we need to succeed in our
striving. Cross-cultural competence cannot be reduced to the content of a crash
course in doing business with non-Western partners. It is not another word for
acquaintance with the list of differences between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’, although
awareness of such differences is part and parcel of it. Cross-cultural competence
should be understood as the ability to detect, understand and exploit cross-cultural
differences manifested in all processes of organizing and in all managerial
activities. Cross-cultural competence depends crucially on:
1. Creativity in bridging differences in perceiving, communicating and
implementing values and beliefs.
41
2. Criticism in detecting ideologies and methodologies that lurk behind these
differences and which flow from the ongoing power struggles.
3. Moral autonomy of cross-culturally competent individuals to decide what they
prefer, perceive, communicate, and implement.
Cross-cultural competence is not a new capability of human individuals. Prominent
individuals managed to develop cross-cultural competence in the past. However, in
our times cross-cultural competence is needed and being developed by increasing
numbers of individuals. It is becoming increasingly explicit and is frequently
subjected to inter-subjective analysis as we discover many more cross-cultural
differences than we had suspected when designing our organizations and patterning
our interactions.

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DEIXIS AND ITS TYPES

1. The notion of deixis in pragmatics

There are some very common words in our language that can’t be interpreted at all
if we don’t know the context, especially the physical context of the speaker (here
and there, this or that, now and then, yesterday, today or tomorrow, pronouns –
you, me, she, him, it, them).
Example: you’ll have to bring it back tomorrow because she isn’t here today.
Out of context, this sentence is really vague. It contains a large number of
expressions (you, it, tomorrow, she, here, today) that rely on knowledge of the
immediate physical context for their interpretation (i.e. that the delivery driver will
have to return on february 15 to 660 college drive with the long box labeled
“flowers, handle with care” addressed to lisa landry).
Expressions such as tomorrow and here are obvious examples of bits of language
that we can only understand in terms of the speaker’s intended meaning. They are
technically known as deictic expressions (from the greek word deixis, which
means “pointing” via language).

The term “deixis”: origin and definition

Deixis is a word borrowed from the greek verb meaning ‘pointing’ or ‘indicating’.
In pragmatics, deixis is a term used to denote a word or a phrase which directly
refers to entities (objects, processes, attributes, and circumstances). In other words,
deictic expressions are used by the speaker to refer to or identify entities in both
non-linguistic and linguistic situations.

Diectic situation and deictic centre.

When the speaker and the addressee are in a non-linguistic situation, the
identification of the referents is easy.
Example: if we are in a lecture room, the entities there are visible to both the
speaker and the addressee, e.g. when the speaker says i, the addressee knows that i
is the person speaking now; when the speaker says this book, the addressee knows
that this book means the book close to the speaker; when the speaker says
yesterday, the addressee knows that yesterday means the day before the time of the
utterance.
Deixis gets its meaning from the situation. This type of situation is called deictic
(diectic situation). The features of the deictic situation: it will be obvious that every
language utterance is made in a specific place, at a specific time, and by a specific
person addressing a specific person. The speaker is the reference point, or the
deictic centre. The speaker is the ruler; he or she ‘leads the parade’.

2. Deictic expressions
Deictic expressions form a subtype of definite referring expressions.

43
In deictic expressions one or more specific individual entities (persons, things,
places, times, and so on) are referred to. They are viewed as expressions which
‘point to’ their referents.
Any linguistic form used to accomplish this ‘pointing’ is called a deictic
expression. When you notice a strange object and ask, ‘what’s that?’, you are using
a deictic expression (‘that’) to indicate something in the immediate context.

Deictic expressions are also sometimes called indexicals. They can be used to
indicate people via person deixis (‘me’, ‘you’), or location via spatial deixis
(‘here’, ‘there’), or time via temporal deixis (‘now’, ‘then’).
All these expressions depend, for their interpretation, on the speaker and hearer
sharing the same context.
Deictic expressions have their most basic uses in face-to-face spoken interaction
where utterances are easily understood by the people present, but may need a
translation for someone not right there.
Example: i’ll put this here
(you understood that jim was telling anne that he was about to put an extra house
key in one of the kitchen drawers.)

Deixis is used to point to:

things (it, this, these boxes) and
people (him, them).
Location (here, there, near that).
Time (now, then, last week).

All these deictic expressions have to be interpreted in terms of which person, place
or time the speaker has in mind. We make a broad distinction between what is
marked as close to the speaker (this, here, now) and what is distant (that, there,
then).
We can also indicate whether movement is away from the speaker’s location (go)
or toward the speaker’s location (come). If you’re looking for someone and she
appears, moving toward you, you can say here she comes!. If, however, she is
moving away from you in the distance, you’re more likely to say there she goes!.
The same deictic effect explains the different situations in which you would tell
someone to go to bed versus come to bed.

3. Types of deixis
five types of deixis: 1. Person deixis 2. Spatial deixis 3. Temporal (time) deixis 4.
Social deixis 5. Discourse deixis

1. Person deixis. Person deixis is based on a three-part division: 1. First person 2.

Second person 3. Third person (neither speaker nor addressee). In some languages
(e.g. in russian, uzbek, german, french), second person pronouns have two forms:

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one used to refer to the addressee with a lower social status, and the other used to
refer to the addressee with a higher social status: ты:вы; sen:siz; du:sie; tu:vous.

The distance associated with third person forms. In deictic terms, third person is
not a direct participant in basic (i-you) interaction and, being an outsider, is
necessarily more distant.
Third person pronouns are consequently distant forms in terms of person deixis.
Using a third person form, where a second person form would be possible, is one
way of communicating distance (and non-familiarity).
The distance associated with third person forms is used
1. For ironic or humorous purpose: as when one person, who’s very busy in the
kitchen, addresses another, who’s being very lazy: would his highness like some
coffee?
2. To make potential accusations. (for example, you didn’t clean up) is less direct,
as in: somebody didn’t clean up after himself.
3. To make a potentially personal issue seem like an impersonal one, based on a
general rule, as in:. Each person has to clean up after him or herself.
The first person plural ‘we’
the speaker can state general ‘rules’ as applying to the speaker plus other(s), by
using the first person plural (‘we’), as in: we clean up after ourselves around here.

Inclusive-exclusive distinction. There is, in English, a potential ambiguity in such

uses which allows two different interpretations. 1. An exclusive ‘we’ (speaker plus
other(s), excluding addressee) 2 an inclusive ‘we’ (speaker and addressee
included).

2. Spatial deixis. Spatial deixis is related to the concept of distance. It identifis an

entity by relating it to its place which is established with reference to the deictic
centre.
When the speaker says, the book here, he or she means the book close to him or
her. When he or she says that book, he or she means the book further away. Spatial
deixis also concerns the direction of motion, e.g. she has come (motion towards the
deictic centre) or she has gone (motion away from the deictic centre).
Location from the speaker’s perspective can be tied not only physically; it can be
tied mentally, too, e.g. i will come later.
In this utterance, the speaker projects himself/herself into his or her home location,
i.e. when he or she says i will come later, he or she, as it were, visualizes himself
or herself in the location which is treated as the deictic center.
Consider the following situation: before leaving for work, i put the following
information into the recorder of my telephone answering machine: i am not here
now. When someone calls me later, the machine says i am not here now. Now is
the time someone calls me later, and not the time of my recording of the words.
This shift of the deictic centre is referred to as deictic projection.

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3. Temporal deixis. Temporal deixis identifies entities and processes with respect
to the temporal deictic centre, which is the speaker’s time of utterance.
Examples: ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘today’, ‘tonight’, ‘next week’, ‘last week’,
‘this week’, the present government, the coming winter:
The psychological basis of temporal deixis seems to be similar to that of spatial
deixis. We can treat temporal events as objects that move toward us (into view) or
away from us (out of view).
One metaphor used in english is of events:
coming toward the speaker from the future (for example, ‘the coming week’, ‘the
approaching year’)
going away from the speaker to the past (for example, ‘in days gone by’, ‘the past
week’).
We also seem to treat the near or immediate future as being close to utterance time
by using the proximal deictic ‘this’, as in ‘this (coming) weekend’ or ‘this
(coming) thursday

Processes are also identified in this way: processes that correspond to the speaker’s
time are present processes; processes that occurred before the speaker’s time are
past processes, and processes that occur after the speaker’s time are future
processes.
If grammaticalized, present, past and future processes have appropriate forms:
present, past and future tense forms.
In English, the present tense is unmarked both semantically and morphologically:
it can be used to express past processes and future process, too. Morphologically it
has no markers (an exception is taken by the third person present tense ending).
The present tense is temporally proximal.
The past tense is marked semantically and morphologically: it refers to the past in
the indicative mood and it has morphological markers. The past tense is temporally
distant. Temporally distant are also processes that are treated as unlikely or
impossible. E.g. i could be in florida now if i had money.
The situation presented here is not close to the present situation; it is deictically
distant from it. The past tense form, then, can be used “to communicate not only
distance from current time, but also distance from current reality or facts” (yule,
1996: 15).

4. Social deixis. Pragmaticists also speak of social deixis.

The role of deictic expressions is to help the speaker to identify the referent. The
role of social deixis is to identify the social status of the addressee.
It will be obvious that the speaker identifying the social status of the addressee also
often identifies the person: e.g. professor (smith), may i ask a question?
As there may be only one person having the title, the honorific professor acts as a
particularizing identifier. On the other hand, this honorific is often used with a
proper name, e.g. professor smith. A proper name functions as a particularizing
identifier on condition it refers to one such person, i.e. if it has unique reference.
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The most commonly used honorifis include mr, mrs, miss, sir, madam, ma’am.
Some women prefer ms to mrs or miss, especially if they have married but have
not changed their surname, e.g. ms fox.
Titles and names of profession also function as honorifis: doctor, coach, teacher,
father (for a priest).
Titles are not always associated with particular names. To quote collins cobuild
english ussage (1992: 418), “however, in formal or business situations, you can put
“a” in front of someone’s name when you do not know them or have not heard of
them before”:
Just over two years ago, a mr. Peter walker agreed to buy a house from a mrs.
Dorothy boyle.

Social contrasts may be encoded within person deixis. Pronouns can be used to
indicate the social status of the addressee. Consider: вы: ты; sie: du; vous: tu.

English has no such distinction. The choice of one form rather than the other will
communicate (not directly say) about the speaker’s view of his or her relationship
with the addressee: socially unequals vs. Socially equals; familiarity vs.
Nonfamiliarity; social solidarity vs. Social distance. When the speaker is socially
equal to the addressee, he or she may or may not use appropriate honorifics: all
depends on the social situation.

In formal situations, the speaker will use appropriate honorifics which in informal
situations he or she will not use. Cf. Professor smith, john. It will be obvious that
children addressing adults will have to use appropriate honorifics, e.g. mr. Smith,
may i ask a question? However, it would be strange if the wife or the child referred
to her husband and father using some honorific, or a friend of mr. Smith’s. But in a
formal situation, a friend of mr. Smith’s will have to use an honorific.

5. Discourse deixis. The function of discourse deixis is to identify the entity

(concrete or abstract) within a situation created by the text. The identifiation
involves reference to some part of the text – preceding or succeeding the entity
expressed deictically. Expressing a co-reference relationship, discourse deixis is
one of the most important cohesive devices used in the text.
Consider: now listen to this. I won’t marry her. I won’t marry her. This is my last
word.
Discourse deixis is typically expressed by demonstrative (this, that: tas) and third
person pronouns (he, she, it, they).
To discourse deixis we should also attribute the definite article. A stranger came
into the room. The stranger came into the room.
The definite article (as all the-words) typically has anaphoric reference. It is used
with entities of second mention.

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An anaphor is an expression that must be interpreted via another expression (the
‘antecedent’), which typically occurs earlier in the discourse. In the following
examples, anaphor and antecedent are in bold:
1. I saw pete leaving the house. He must have forgotten to set the alarm.
2. Pete was driving a blue car. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t insured.
3. George bush arrived in london this morning. The president will address the
cabinet tomorrow.
In english, second mention entities can be signaled by the definite article, personal
and demonstrative pronouns. The definite article is the most general deictic: it
merely signals a second (previous) mention of the entity, it does not help the
addressee to identify (localize) the entity.
Consider: a. Bring me the book,please. B. Which book? A. Sorry. The book on the
table

As a linguistic process, deixis is pointing via language. Deictic expressions, or

deictics, can only be interpreted in the situation. Cf. This and john/mother, father.
When the child says “give me this”, we may not know what this stands for. To
know it, we must be in the same environment as the child.
The interpretation of deictic expressions depends on the context, the speaker’s
intention, and they express relative distance. Given their small size and extremely
wide range of possible uses, deictic expressions always communicate much more
than is said.

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