 Benedictus Galih

 Nirwanda Savira
 Raras Harginita
 Intan Gustinar
“Discourse and Pragmatics”, clarifies the
relationship between language and context.
This section shows that both pragmatics
and discourse analysis share an interest in
the relationship between language and
context and how language is used to perform
different speech acts. The chapter begins by
defining pragmatics i.e. the study of meaning in
relation to the context in which the discourse
is being produced.
Language, Context and Discourse
Use of Language in context is very
important in discourse analysis. Same language
carries different meaning in different context. For
example, the word ‘duck’ in normal English
language is only the ‘bird’. The same word ‘duck’
while being used in cricket would mean ‘zero
score’. So, what determines the meanings of
discourse is the use of discourse in context.
However, there are other factors which also play
very important role like physical, social contexts
and the mental world and roles of people involved
in the interactions.
Speech Acts and Discourse
Austin argued that there are three kinds of acts
which occur with everything we say. These are
locutionary act, the illocutionary act and
perlocutionary act. The locutionary act refers
to the dictionary meaning of words, the
illocutionary act refers to the speakers’
intended meanings and the perlocutionary act
refers to the way discourse is perceived by
others.
The Co-operative Principle and
discourse
Grice based his co-operative principle on four
sub-principles. These are maxims of quality,
quantity, relation and manner. Quality
means, people should only say what they
believe to be true and accurate without any
addition to the meaning from them. Quantity
means that the message being conveyed by
the discourse should be comprehensive and
holistic without any loopholes and
confusions in it.
Relation refers to the fact that our discourse
needs to be in harmony to the context and
should have relevance to the surroundings. If
not so, the entire message may not be
communicated in its true letter and spirit.
Manner says that we should be clear in what
way to say it and what exactly to say so that
the listeners / readers understand the
message the best intended way.
Flouting the Co-operative
Principle
The co-operative principle helps the
producers of discourse convey their
information effectively. This principle is
followed to a great extent but the
intentions behind the production of
discourse do matter. The
speakers/writers follow the cooperative
principle to convey what they intend to
convey, rather than following the principle
in its true letter and spirit.
For example, the principle of quality wants
the producers of discourse to say what they
want to be true. But actually what they say
is what they want their listeners / readers to
believe. This violation of the co-operative
principle is best done in the diplomatic
circle of the world.
Cross - Cultural Pragmatics and
Discourse
In the global world of today the cross-
cultural pragmatics is very important.
When people say something, it carries
different meanings in different culture.
This is called cross-cultural pragmatics.
For example, once when Paltridge was
teaching his Saudi students two years
back, he wanted them to finish their
assignment quickly. He snapped his
fingers to tell them to be quick.
(as we normally do in our country to tell
someone to work quickly) Snapping his fingers
made his students feel offended because the
act of snapping fingers is done to call dogs in
Saudi Arabia. There are two key notions in
the area of cross-cultural pragmatics i-e
pragmalinguistics (the study of more linguistic
end of pragmatics) and sociolinguistics
(sociopragmatics refers to specific local
conditions of language use).
Conversational Implicature and
Discourse
According to Thomas, an implicature is generated
intentionally by the speaker to make a listener do
something which he may fail to understand. For
example the sentence “there is some chalk on
the floor” intends the listener to pick up the
chalks. However, a listener in this case may not be
able to understand that the speaker wants him to
pick up the chalks. Inference, on the other hand, is
produced by the hearer on the basis of certain
evidence and may not in face be the same as what
speakers intends.
Politeness, Face and Discourse
Politeness and face are two important
factors for discourse analysis. Lakoff
(1973) introduced three maxims of
politeness. These are don’t impose, give
options and make your hearer feel
good. If our listeners are meant to
understand the intended meaning
effectively and comprehensively the we
must maintain the three maxims to convey
the message.
Face and Politeness across
Cultures
Face and politeness varies from culture to
culture. For example in the Saudi culture it
is not customary to look at somebody’s
face while talking / listening. On the other
hand, if we talk/listen to someone in
Pakistan without looking at his face it is
thought to be impolite. Also in some
cultures bedroom is private and cannot be
entered while in others there is no problem
in strangers’ entry into bedrooms.
Politeness and Gender
Politeness varies depending on the context
and culture like women are more polite
than men. Sometime polite words like
‘Yar!’ (in Pakistani/Urdu culture) to a
strange lady will be an odd one as
compared to known friend etc. Therefore, it
is important to use polite words at right
place.
Context has an important role to play in terms
of whether what someone says is interpreted
as polite or not. Example: I say "Hello
gorgeous" to a long time friend when I see her,
this can be taken as an expression of intimacy
and rapport; that is, as a positive politeness, or
involvement strategy. However, someone calls
this out from a building site to a woman walking
by this can have opposite effect. For the
woman, it may be an act of harassment. For
the men on the building, it may be an act which
shows solidarity and rapport among the group.
(Cameron 1998).
Face-Threatening Acts
Some acts ‘threaten’ a person’s face. They
are called face-threatening acts. When you
interact with some person and in reaction, the
individual does not respond and showing you
cold shoulder, in this context, your face is
going to be threatened. For example, in
Pakistani culture, if someone says
Assalamualaikum to another person and in
response the other person does not say
Waalikunassalam, the first person will be
offended and annoyed. The act of the later
will be a face threatening act.
 One example is the use of a 'pre-sequence' as in the
following invitation:
 A : Are you doing anything after work? (a pre-sequance)
 B: Why are you asking?
 A: I thought we might go for drink. (an indirect speech act)
B : Well, no, nothing in particular. Where would you like to
go?
 This example uses an insertion sequences in the middle to
take edge off the Face-threatening act of inviting someone
out. We might also use an off-record speech act as in:
 A: I'm dying for a drink (an off-record invitation)
 B: Yes it's really hot isn't it? (an off-record rejection of the
invitation).
 Here, A never actually asked B to go for a drink so doesn't
lose any face by being rejected. Equally, B hasn't rejected
the invitation on record but simply commented on weather
in their off-rejection of the invitation
Politeness and Cross Cultural
Pragmatics failure
Politeness strategies are not the same with
acrros languages and cultures and might
mean different things in different linguistics
and different context.
A lack of understanding politeness strategies
in different languages and cultures can be a
cause of cross-cultural of pragmatic failure
Native speakers of language are often less
toleran of pragmatic errors in cross-cultural
communication context than they are. For the
example, of grammatical error.
Different views of pragmatic appropriateness
can easily lead to misunderstanding and
inhibit effective across cultural
communicationLearners at different level of
proficiency further, may have difficulty in
matching form with function in their use of
politeness strategies. (Bebec and Waring)
found that the higher proficiency student were
more aggressive in their response to
rudeness than the lower proficiency student.
Conclusion
 This chapter has discussed in the analysis of discourse from a
pragmatic perspective. While many researchers discuss the
importance of pragmatic competence as a component of
communicative competence, much of the research in the area
of pragmatics and language learning has examined pragmatic
development in terms of acquisition of particular speech of act
or issues of politeness, rather than some of the other issues
discussed in this chapter.
 The language Learners have difficulties in the area of
pragmatics, regardless of their level of grammatical ability.

 The development of second language learners' pragmatic