语言学导论第六章.ppt

Chapter 6 Pragmatics pragmatics语用学 --- the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication Preliminaries: 1. If you ask somebody “Can you open the door?” he answers “Yes” but does not actually do it, what would be your reaction? Why? 2. If you are going shopping with your friend and she says to you “the bag I’m carrying is heavy”, what does she possibly mean? sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning Sentence meaning is context-independent. Utterance meaning is context-dependent. Decide the meanings of the following sentence uttered in different contexts: e.g.John is like a fish. utterance meaning=sentence meaning + context Decide the meaning of ‘Shakespeare’ in the following sentences: 1. Shakespeare takes up the bottom shelf. 2. We’re going to see Shakespeare in London. 3. I hated Shakespeare at school. (2) speech act theory (by John Austin) While we are speaking, we are performing some acts at the same time. 1.constatives vs. performatives Constatives叙事句 are statements that either state or describe, and are thus verifiable. Performatives施为句 are sentences that are not used to state or describe, but used by the speaker to do things. They are not verifiable. Constatives: 1. Our classroom is 20 meters wide, 30 meters long. 2. Cathy is 21 years old. 3. The earth is round. 4. Edinburgh is in Scotland. 5. George Bernard Shaw was a playwright. 6. Every morning I have a cup of milk and some bread for breakfast. Performatives: 1. I name this ship Queen Elizabeth. 2. I bequeath my watch to my brother. 3. I bet you six pence it will rain tomorrow. 4. I promise to finish it in time. 5. I apologize. 6. I declare the meeting open. 7. I do. 2.new models of speech act theory: A speaker might be performing three acts simultaneously when speaking: locutionary act言内行为 (the act of conveying literal meaning) illocutionary act言外行为 (the act of expressing the speaker’s intention) perlocutionary act言后行为 (the act performed by saying so