- •Xford Introductions to Language Study
- •It furthers the .University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
- •No unauthorized photocopying
- •Readings
- •XII preface
- •XIV preface
- •4 Survey
- •The pragmatics wastebasket
- •Deixis and distance
- •10 Survey
- •14 Survey
- •Reference and inference
- •22 Survey
- •Presupposition and entailment
- •26 Survey
- •Cooperation and implicature
- •38 Survey
- •If the speaker goes on to describe those linguistics courses as in [13], then we can identify some more scalar implicatures.
- •Speech acts and events
- •46 Survey
- •56 Survey
- •Politeness and interaction
- •Self and other: say nothing
- •62 Survey
- •Say something: off and on record
- •I face saving act
- •Conversation and preference structure
- •72 Survey
- •74 Survey
- •Insertion sequence is provided, the second part (Ai) of the initial question (Qi) will follow. This pattern is illustrated in [13].
- •Discourse and culture
- •82 Survey
- •86 Survey
- •94 Readings
- •Text 10
- •Text 11
- •Text 12
- •Text 13
- •Text 14
- •Text 15
- •Text 16
- •Text 17
- •Text 18
- •Text 19
- •Text 21
- •Text 22
- •114 Readings
- •References
- •Il8 references
- •Indiana University Linguistics Club 1977
- •Chapter 6
- •122 References
- •126 References
- •128 Glossary
- •130 Glossary
- •13Z glossary
- •134 Glossary
- •Acknowledgements
Text 19
jack bilmes: Discourse and Behavior. Plenum Press 1986, page 166
Consider the following exchange:
A [addressing B]: Where are you going?
B [no response]
A The hell with you.
This exchange makes sense. It is orderly, not random. We may characterize B's (non)response with an infinite variety of negatives. It is not a question, not a promise, not a lecture, and so forth. However, given that questions call for answers, it is relevantly not an answer.
> Why do you think the word 'relevantly' is emphasized in this text? Does this mean that every '{non)response' counts as relevantly not something in conversation?
t> Consider what speaker A says in reaction to the '(non)response'. What kind of speech act is this? Does this utterance tell us anything about the relationship between the two speakers (i.e. strangers, acquaintances, or intimates)?
Chapter 9 Discourse and culture
Text 20
JOHN GUMPERZ and JENNY COOK-GUMPERZ:
'Introduction: language and the communication of social identity' in J. Gumperz (ed.): Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University Press 1982, page 12
Although the pragmatic conditions of communicative tasks are theoretically taken to be universal, the realizations of these tasks as social practices are culturally variable. This variation can be analyzed from several different perspectives, all of which of course co-occur in the actual practices.
Different cultural assumptions about the situation and about appropriate behavior and intentions within it.
Different ways of structuring information or an argument in a conversation.
Different ways of speaking: the use of a different set of unconscious linguistic conventions (such as tone of voice) to emphasize, to signal local connections and to indicate the significance of what is being said in terms of overall meaning and attitudes.
By 'different cultural assumptions' we refer to the fact that, even though people in situations such as we study agree on the overall purpose of the interaction, there are often radical differences as to what expectations and rights are involved at any one time.
[> There is a suggestion here that 'pragmatic conditions' can be treated as 'universal' (i.e. applicable everywhere). Can you suggest some examples of pragmatic universals? How about 'Be polite'? Any others?
[> Can you think of any examples that would support the idea that 'appropriate behavior' differs in different cultures (pragmatically speaking)?
I> Do you agree with these authors that there are different ways of 'structuring an argument'? How is an argument structured in English? How could it be structured any other way?
112 READINGS
READINGS 113
Text 21
jenny thomas: 'Cross-cultural pragmatic failure' in Applied Linguistics 4/z, 1983, page 105
'Free goods' are those which, in a given situation, anyone can use without seeking permission, for example, salt in a restaurant (providing, of course, that you are having a meal in that restaurant and have not simply wandered in from the street with a bag of fish and chips). Generally speaking, what an individual regards as 'free goods' varies according to relationships and situation. In one's own family or home, most things (food, drink, books, baths) are free goods. In a stranger's house they are not. Cross-culturally, too, perceptions of what constitutes 'free' or 'nearly free' goods differ. In Britain, matches are 'nearly free', so one would not use a particularly elaborate politeness strategy to request one, even of a total stranger. In the Soviet Union cigarettes are also virtually 'free' and a request for them demands an equally minimal degree of politeness, such as Daite sigaretu [give (me) a cigarette]. A Russian requesting a cigarette in this country and using a similar strategy would either have wrongly encoded the amount of politeness s/he intended (covert grammatical or pragma-linguistic failure) or seriously misjudged the size of imposition (sociopragmatic failure).
The author is writing ('in this country') about Britain. Do you think her observation on salt in a restaurant is based on a uni versal component of a 'restaurant script'? In a family context, do you agree that 'most things ... are treated as free goods'? What about other cultures you are familiar with?
The examples in this text are physical objects. There are also cultural differences in what kind of information is considered 'free goods'. What constraints are there, in cultures you are familiar with, on asking people about certain topics (for example, their political views, religion, marital status, income, cost of their possessions, bathroom behavior, sexual practices)?
What do you think the distinction is between the two kinds of 'failure' (pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic) described here?