Basic notions of pragmatic linguistics
The term pragmatics is associated with Charles Morris, a philosopher who was the first to introduce this term in 1936. He contrasted pragmatics to semantics and syntax. He claims that syntax is the study of the grammatical relations of linguistic units to one another and the grammatical structures of phrases and sentences that result from these grammatical relation, semantics is the study of the relation of linguistic units to the objects they denote, and pragmatics is the study of the relation of linguistic units to people who communicate. “Thus, syntax was associated with the purely formal study of semiotic relationships, semantics was considered as a certain relation of the sign to its user including the psychological, biological and social aspects of the sign, pragmatics included such components as discourse, strategy, sociolinguistics” [Александрова, Комова 1998: 187].
If semantics deals with the binary opposition of form and meaning, pragmatics has to do with “the triple relationship between the speaker, the form and the meaning” [Александрова, Комова 1998: 187]. Within the pragmatic approach the addressee, the person who receives the verbal signal, is also taken into account: the background knowledge, the context of the speech-event, and the communicative value of the utterance should be equally shared by the interlocutors. Thus, G. Leech defines pragmatics as the study of meaning in connection with the situation of speech. Jean Aitchison explains in plain words that “pragmatics is that branch of linguistics which studies those aspects of meaning which cannot be captured by semantic theory”. Taken in its narrow sense, pragmatics shows how speakers use language apart from linguistic knowledge. In its broader sense, pragmatics deals with the principles people stick to communicating with one another [Aitchison 2010: 104].
Very often linguists proceed from the statement that linguistic pragmatics is the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context in which they would be appropriate. An ‘appropriate context’ implies that when we play different social roles in everyday communication (for instance, those of a student, a friend, a daughter, a son, a client, etc.) we choose different words and expressions suitable and appropriate for the situation. We use the language as an instrument to implement our purposes.
E.g.: (a) What are you doing here? We’re talking.
(b) What the hell are you doing here? We’re chewing the rag.
These sentences have the same referential meaning but their pragmatic meaning is different, they are used in different contexts. Similarly, each utterance combines a proposition or propositional base (objective part) with the pragmatic component (subjective part). It follows that an utterance with the same propositional content may have different pragmatic components. Thus, for instance ‘It’s hot’ may serve different pragmatic goals:
just
mentioning the fact
explanation
It’s hot ! inducement to do something about it
menace
excuse
To put it in other words, they are different speech acts or acts of communication. “To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker's intention, the attitude being expressed’ [Bach]. Thus, speech acts are simply things people do through language – for example, apologizing, instructing, menacing, explaining something, etc. The term speech act was coined by John L. Austin and developed by another philosopher John Searle.
John Austin is the Oxford philosopher who is usually credited with generating interest in what has since come to be known as pragmatics and speech-act theory. He developed speech-act theory in the 1930s. This theory was expounded in a series of lectures which Austin gave at Harvard University in 1955. These lectures were later published under the title ‘How to do things with words’. His first step was to show that some utterances are not statements or questions but actions. He reached this conclusion through an analysis of what he termed performative verbs. Austin paid attention to those sentences which do not describe, state, or report anything, and of which it is no sense to ask whether they are true or false. He called these utterances performatives or performative utterances. The point of these sentences is doing some action. He gives a number of examples: I pronounce you man and wife, I do, as uttered as part of a marriage ceremony; I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth, as uttered by the appropriate person while smashing a bottle against the stem of the ship in question; I give and bequeath my watch to my brother, as written in a will; I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow. Some other examples are: I declare war on France; I apologize.
The peculiarity of these sentences, according to J. Austin, is that they are not used to say or describe things, but rather actively to do things. After you have declared war on France or pronounced somebody husband and wife the situation has changed. That is why J. Austin termed them as performatives and contrasted them to statements which he called constatives. Thus by pronouncing a performative utterance the speaker is performing an action. The performative utterance, however, can really change things only under certain circumstances. J. Austin specified the circumstances required for their success as felicity conditions. In order to declare war you must be someone who has the right to do it. Only a priest (or a person with corresponding power) can make a couple a husband and wife. Besides, it must be done before witnesses and the couple getting married must sign the register.
Performatives may be explicit and implicit.
E.g.: I promise I will come tomorrow ÷ I will come tomorrow;
I swear I love you ÷ I love you.
J.L. Austin distinguished a triad of locution, illocution, and perlocution. On any occasion the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts (a three-fold distinction):
locutionary act – producing a meaningful linguistic expression, uttering a sentence. If you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and words to create a meaningful utterance (because you are a foreigner or tongue-tied) then you might fail to produce a locutionary act: it often happens when we learn a foreign language.
illocutionary act – we form an utterance with some kind of function or purpose on mind, with a definite communicative intention or illocutionary force. The notion of illocutionary force is basic for pragmatics.
perlocutionary act – the effect the utterance has on the hearer. Perlocutionary effect may be verbal or non-verbal.
E.g. I’ve bought a car – Great!
It’s cold here – and you close the window.