The main topics in pragmatics

§ Speech act theory

§ Deixis

§ Implicature

§ Presupposition

Speech act theory

Direct speech acts

When we speak we perform speech acts. The locutionary act, the act of saying something, illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something, and a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something.

A speech act has an illocutionary point or illocutionary force. For example, the point of an assertion is to represent the world as being a certain way. The point of a promise is to put oneself under an obligation to do something. The illucutionary point of a speech act must be distinguished from its perlocutionary effect, which is what it brings about. A request, for example, has as its illocutionary point to direct someone to do something. Its perlocutionary effect may be the doing of the thing by the person directed. Sentences in different grammatical moods, the declarative, imperative, and interrogative, tend to perform speech acts of specific sorts. But in particular contexts one may perform a different speech act using them than that for which they are typically put to use. Thus, as noted above, one may use a sentence such as "it's cold in here" not only to make an assertion but also to request that one's auditor turn up the heat, or close the window.

Following the usage of John R. Searle, "speech act" is often meant to refer just to the same thing as the term illocutionary act. This term had originally introduced by John L. Austin in his work “How to Do Things with Words” (published posthumously in 1962).

The work of J. L. Austin “How to Do Things with Words”, led philosophers to pay more attention to the non-declarative uses of language. The terminology he introduced, especially the notions "locutionary act", "illocutionary act", and "perlocutionary act", occupied an important role in what was then to become the "study of speech acts". All of these three acts, but especially the "illocutionary act", is nowadays commonly classified as "speech acts".

According to Austin, the idea of an "illocutionary act" is expressed like this: "by saying something, we do something", f. e. when a minister (priest) joins two people in marriage saying, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."

The concept of an illocutionary act is central to the concept of a speech act. Although there are numerous opinions as to what 'illocutionary acts' actually are, there are some kinds of acts which are widely accepted as illocutionary, as for example:

Greeting (in saying, "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing ("Sorry for that!"), describing something ("It is snowing"), asking a question ("Is it snowing?"), making a request and giving an order ("Could you pass the salt?" and "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a promise ("I promise I'll give it back") are typical examples of "speech acts" or "illocutionary acts".
In saying, "Watch out, the ground is slippery", Peter performs the speech act of warning Mary to be careful.
In saying, "I will try my best to be at home for dinner", Peter performs the speech act of promising to be at home in time.
In saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?" Peter requests the audience to be quiet.
In saying, "Can you race with me to that building over there?" Peter challenges Mary.

An interesting type of illocutionary speech act performed in the utterance Austin calls performatives, in which one performs the speech act by using a first person present tense sentence which says that one is performing the speech act. Examples are: 'I promise to be there', 'I warn you not to do it', 'I advise you to turn yourself in', "I nominate John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment", or "I promise to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating, sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.

Indirect speech acts

In the course of performing speech acts we ordinarily communicate with each other. The content of communication may be identical with the content intended to be communicated, as when a speaker asks a family member to wash the dishes by asking, "Could you please do the dishes?"

However, the meaning of the linguistic means used may also be different from the content intended to be communicated. I may, in appropriate circumstances, request Peter to do the dishes by just saying, "Peter ...!", or I can promise to do the dishes by saying, "Me!" One common way of performing speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed to perform this act, but additionally to perform a further speech act, which is not indicated by the expression uttered. I may, for instance, request Peter to open the window by saying, "Peter, will you be able to reach the window?", thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to reach the window, but at the same time I am requesting him to do so if he can. Since the request is performed indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question, it counts as an indirect speech act.

Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example, a speaker asks, "Would you like to meet me for coffee?" and another replies, "I have class." The second speaker used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the literal meaning of "I have class" does not entail any sort of rejection.

This poses a problem for linguists because it is confusing to see how the person who made the proposal can understand that his proposal was rejected. Following substantially an account of H. P. Grice, Searle suggests that we are able to derive meaning out of indirect speech acts by means of a cooperative process out of which we are able to derive multiple illocutions; however, the process he proposes does not seem to accurately solve the problem.

Deixis

In pragmatics and linguistics, deixis is collectively the orientational features of human languages to have reference to points in time, space, and the speaking event between interlocutors. A word that depends on deictic clues is called a deictic or a deictic word. Deictic words are bound to a context — either a linguistic or extralinguistic context — for their interpretation.

Some English deictic words include, for example, the following:

now vs. then; here vs. there; this vs. that; me vs. you vs. him/her; go vs. come.

In pragmatics, the origo is the reference point on which deictic relationships are based. In most deictic systems, the origo identifies with the current speaker. For instance, if the speaker, John, were to say "This is now my fish", then John would be the origo, and the deictic word "my" would be dependent on that fact. Likewise, his use of the word "this" and "now" communicate his properties, namely his location and point in time.

The origo is the context from which the reference is made—in other words, the viewpoint that must be understood in order to interpret the utterance. (If Tom is speaking and he says "I", he refers to himself, but if he is listening to Betty and she says "I", then the origo is with Betty and the reference is to her).

Types of deixis

o Place deixis: a spatial location relative to the spatial location of the speaker. It can be proximal or distal, or sometimes medial. It can also be either bounded (indicating a spatial region with a clearly defined boundary, e.g. in the box) or unbounded (indicating a spatial region without a clearly defined boundary, e.g. over there).

It is common for languages to show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker, and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closer to the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this and that, here and there, etc.

o Time deixis: where reference is made to particular times relative (most currently the time of utterance). For example the use of the words now or soon, or the use of tenses.

o Discourse deixis: where reference is made to the current discourse or part thereof. Examples: "see section 8.4".

o Person deixis: Pronouns are generally considered to be deictics, but a finer distinction is often made between personal pronouns such as I, you, and it (commonly referred to as personal pronouns) and pronouns that refer to places and times such as now, then, here, there.

o Social deixis: is the use of different deictics to express social distinctions. An example is the difference between formal and polite pro-forms. Relational social deixis is where the form of the word used indicates the relative social status of the addressor and the addressee. For example, one pro-form might be used to address those of higher social rank, another to address those of lesser social rank, another to address those of the same social rank. (By contrast, absolute social deixis indicates a social standing irrespective of the social standing of the speaker. Thus, village chiefs might always be addressed by a special pro-form, regardless of whether it is someone below them, above them or at the same level of the social hierarchy who is doing the addressing).

Implicature

An implicature is something the speaker suggests or implies with an utterance, even though it is not literally expressed. Implicatures can aid in communicating more efficiently than by explicitly saying everything we want to communicate. .Implicature is a technical term in pragmatics coined by Paul Grice for certain kinds of inferences that are drawn from statements without the additional meanings in logic and informal language use of implication.

It refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though not expressed nor strictly implied (that is, entailed) by the utterance.

For example, the sentence "Mary had a baby and got married" strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true if Mary had her baby after she got married.

Further, if we add the qualification "— not necessarily in that order" to the original sentence, then the implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the original sentence is not altered.

Grice distinguished conversational implicatures, which arise because speakers are expected to respect general rules of conversation, and conventional ones, which are tied to certain words such as "but" or "therefore". Take for example the following exchange:

A (to passer by): I am out of gas.

B: There is a gas station 'round the corner.

Here, B does not say, but conversationally implicates, that the gas station is open, because otherwise his utterance would not be relevant in the context. Conversational implicatures are classically seen as contrasting with entailments: They are not necessary or logical consequences of what is said, but are defeasible (cancellable). So, B could continue without contradiction:

B: But unfortunately it's closed today.

An example of a conventional implicature is "Donovan is poor but happy", where the word "but" implicates a sense of contrast between being poor and being happy.

Presupposition

In the linguistic branch of pragmatics, a presuppositionis an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include:

Do you want to do it again?

Presupposition: that you have done it already, at least once.

Jane no longer writes fiction.

Presupposition: that Jane once wrote fiction.

A presupposition must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context. It will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can be associated with a specific lexical item or grammatical feature in the utterance.

Negation of an expression does not change its presuppositions:

I want to do it again and I don't want to do it again both presuppose that the subject has done it already one or more times;

My wife is pregnant and My wife is not pregnant both presuppose that the subject has a wife.

Questions often presuppose what the assertive part of the question presupposes, but interrogative parts might introduce further presuppositions. There are three different types of questions: yes/no questions, alternative questions and WH-questions.

· Is there a professor of linguistics at MIT?
»Either there is a professor of linguistics at MIT or there isn't.

· Is Newcastle in England or in Australia?
»Newcastle is in England or Newcastle is in Australia.

· Who is the professor of linguistics at MIT?
»Someone is the professor of linguistics at MIT.

A significant amount of current work in semantics and pragmatics is devoted to a proper understanding of when and how presuppositions project.

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