Information about Pragmatics

Pragmatics studies discourse production and discourse comprehension in specific contexts, so it cannot be separated from the contextual factors of language use, such as the speaker, the listener, the time, the place or the space, the scene and so on. People often say; "to what mountain, sing what song", "see what people, say what words", that is, according to different communicative purposes, communicative objects, choose different forms of language, which is a kind of typical pragmatic thinking, but also the specific performance of people's communicative ability.

The research of pragmatics mainly includes cooperative principles proposed by Grice. The cooperative principles are the principles that should be followed by both parties to a conversation to cooperate with each other to make the conversation go on, as stated in the conversational implicature. The principles of cooperation mainly include "maxim of quantity", "maxim of quality", "maxim of relevance" and "maxim of quality". "The main principles of cooperation are maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation, and maxim of manner. After the emergence of the New Gricean Theory of Conversational Meaning, scholars in China have conducted extensive research on this mechanism of discourse derivation, and put forward a theoretical framework of conversational meaning that is suitable for China's national conditions. For example, the concept of "face value" should be fully considered in the discussion of "politeness principle"; in the process of discussing "speech act", speech act is not a unilateral act of the speaker, but an act of both parties***same as that of the listener, therefore, by placing speech act in the scope of social activity, we can have a better understanding of speech act and its meaning. Therefore, the study of verbal behavior can have a newer meaning when it is examined in the context of social activities.

Carnap narrowed the definition of pragmatics to natural language, but still involved the study of affective meaning, acquisition of language, and the functions of transmission and expression of language.

Bar-Hillel further developed Carnap's definition by excluding from the study of pragmatics the study of affective meaning, acquisition of language, and the functions of transmission and expression of language

. excluded from pragmatics, and for this reason he places special emphasis on the users of these

marks as one of the possible contexts for the marks, and the effect of the use of such-and-such a mark by a mark-user on the receiver is limited to the variation in the range of marks given to the mark by the

mark-user. In this sense, pragmatics is not

concerned with how receivers react to the use of so-and-so marks by mark users-a question that

belongs to the study of language functions.

Pragmatics is part of semiotics, as defined by C. Morris - pragmatics studies the origin, use, and function of the marks that appear in

behavior, and pragmatics does not only deal with language,

but also with trademarks, sirens, clothing, totems, and other static or single symbols.

I believe that the object of study of pragmatics should be placed within the scope of linguistics, and only by

revealing its relationship with syntax and semantics, and by revealing the three *** with the formation of the object of study of linguistics

could the definition of pragmatics be really clearly given.

1.1.1 The History of Pragmatics

The first attempts to establish a "pragmatic" approach to linguistic problems can be traced back to Ross, Lakoff, and others in the late 60s and early 70s. The collapse of earlier theories and hypotheses (especially those of Chomsky and his followers, who were exclusively of the syntactic school). A new theoretical model, pragmatics, was slowly born out of the cracks of the Chomsky school without its pioneers realizing it. (As Kuhn (1964) defined "paradigm shift").

Of course, what we see today in the birth of pragmatics is the dilemma faced by the old thinking, and how the contours of the new thinking are taking shape. Such an observation can only be justified from the point of view of maintaining a certain historical distance. At that time, there were a lot of linguistic phenomena that could not be explained by logical theories, which led to a lot of self-contradictions in theories. Such phenomena were discovered not by linguists, but by philosophers working in the gray middle of philosophy, a field adjacent to linguistics. Some of them have been noticed by certain linguists who have tried to cross the boundaries of syntax and then semantics.

For example, dilemmas have arisen in the treatment of the relationship between natural language and theoretical language, first in syntax and then in semantics. These problems are addressed in 2.3 of this book. The contradiction in linguistics is closely related to the belief in the emanation of scientific authority that "a valid linguistic account must be based on or at least start from syntax". The problem lies in the fact that various extralinguistic factors, which have been excluded from the field of syntax, actually play an important role in the so-called "rules of language". Therefore, the above belief in "syntacticism" creates the above linguistic problems, but does not accept other ways of solving them. Next, Section 2.5 describes in detail how to explain the assumptions (i.e., premises) that affect our understanding of language, for which no theoretical framework has been applicable so far. Finally, Section 2.6 details the problems associated with the relationship between the language user and the context, which are key to determining the meaning of the discourse being spoken at a particular time and in a particular place.

The "turn to pragmatics" in linguistics can be described as a shift from grammatical and syntactic thinking to the thinking of language users. The concept of 'language user' is particularly important in defining pragmatics. The following is an illustration of how the notion of "language user" can be used to combine many observational experiences and events into a single effective ****common element.

1.1.2 The Importance of Language Users

Most definitions of pragmatics can be said to be a reinterpretation of Charles Morris's (1938: 6) famous definition of pragmatics: "the study of the relation of symbols to their interpreters". Nowadays, linguists prefer the modern terminology that focuses on the concept of communication, so they use the terms 'messages' instead of 'signs' and 'language users' instead of 'interpreters'.

If pragmatics is a new field of thought or research as mentioned above, then it is the duty of pragmatics to suggest a new definition of the object of research. How should it be defined?

Dichotomy

Linguistics of the past

Pragmatics

Concerned with the process of production of language and the producers of language

Focusing only on the resultant product

Object of study

Old (the product of human beings-language)

New (the language used by human beings)

Domain

The field

Chomsomancy

The field

The field

The field of pragmatics is a new one.

Chomsky

Katz (1977:19) describes linguistic constructions using traditional grammatical studies

"Linguistic competence competence"

"Grammar is the theory of the various types of sentence constructions ...

"Grammar is the theory of various types of sentence constructions. ...

A pragmatic approach to language use

"Language performance"

...pragmatics, by contrast, is the description of the thoughts and processes of the speaker as well as of the listener"

◎ Problems of the dichotomy

(1) How can the dichotomous approach to language use be taken into account?

(1) How can pragmatics be cut out of syntax and semantics to define its scope of study?

(2) What is the role of pragmatics in the neighboring fields of linguistics, such as psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and so on? In addition, what is the relationship between these new fields and pragmatics, such as econometrics, mathematical linguistics, conversational linguistics, and applied linguistics, which has a wide range of applications?

The more one explores the definition of pragmatics and the scope of its fields of study, the more questions arise. However, whatever the outcome, the central concern of pragmatics is language users. Therefore, we can say that the general ****common feature of pragmatics research is that it is "user-centered".

◎ However, the feature of "user-centeredness" has not been able to fully constitute the definition of pragmatics.

Reasons: The interpretation of the term "language use" and what it means to be a language user is a matter of disagreement among scholars. For example, the term "language use" can mean all the situations that occur when a user "uses language". Or a narrower interpretation of pragmatics is that when discussing language, we can ask language users to make "explicit prompts explicitly".

(1) Narrower

According to Levinson (1983: 2-3) pragmatics must be "explicitly cued to the speaker, or more generally to the language user". Therefore, Levinson rejects many previous definitions and proposes a definition of "grammaticalized phenomena in the various relations between language and context - that is, the study of the constructivization of language"

This definition suggests that language use is only as good as the grammatical manifestations that are clear and intrinsic to language use, i.e., those that follow the rules of grammar and are linked to the elements of phonology, morphology, syntax, and so on. This definition shows that only language use that has a clear and inherent grammatical expression, i.e., that follows grammatical rules and is linked to phonological, morphological, and syntactic elements, is recognized as relevant to pragmatics. This is what Levinson means by "grammaticalization". However, Levinson cannot tell us what the relationship between users and grammar is, or what the difference is between language and context, and between language and context without the aid of grammar (for a detailed description of contextualization, see 3.1).

(2) The broader pragmatics approach: language use is taken to mean everything that happens when a user uses language to "do all sorts of things", i.e., the world of pragmatics includes everything that might qualify a person as a language user.

Levinson (1983: 2) adds, however, with a sense of regret, that 'this usage is still prevalent in continental Europe'. The premise of this definition is that language users are members of a social group, so that whenever and wherever they use a language, they are bound to the temporal space of the ****society to which they belong, and language users who are members of that ****society follow the rules and norms of that ****society's temporal space.

1.2 Pragmatics: Definitions and Boundaries

1.1.3 Definitions

As noted in the previous section, defining the object of study of pragmatics as a purely linguistic phenomenon, even if such a definition is as narrow as that advocated by Levinson (1983: 11), would be unacceptable to scholars who argue that pragmatics encompasses human language use. The so-called 'extra-linguistic' definition is not acceptable to scholars who argue that pragmatics includes human language use. To exclude the so-called 'extra-language extralinguistic' issues from the scope of pragmatics is to ignore the existence of language users and to make a great sacrifice. A true pragmatics study should take into account the existence of language users in the social context. It is not possible to limit pragmatics to the grammatical symbolization of language, as Levinson's "grammaticalization" suggests.

All social communication is done through language. But language users not only exist in society, but also communicate and use language on the premise of sociality. The various languages and strategies that speakers are able to use are within the norms of society. The study of pragmatics, which is the study of how human beings use language in communication, is based on the study of social presuppositions, and tries to establish how these social presuppositions affect human language use and what effects they have. Therefore, the definition is as follows: "Pragmatics is the study of language use in communication under social conditions. After this definition, the next task is to find out the characteristics of pragmatics by clarifying the relationship with similar fields of study. Definition" is the setting of final goals and boundaries (the etymology of "defining difine" is de + fine, fine being derived from the Latin finis "end, purpose", fines being pluralized to mean boundaries). To "define pragmatics" means to define the relationship between similar disciplines within the field of linguistics.

Unfortunately, the various definitions of pragmatics that have been proposed so far, including the one above, have not been able to delineate the boundaries of the field of pragmatics, nor have they been able to gain the acceptance of the general public. Most scholars, like Levinson's definition that I criticized in the previous section, have been imprisoned in the strictness of a linguistically oriented definition. On the other hand, scholars who have adopted social contexts as far as possible have vaguely strayed from the relationship between pragmatics and the fields surrounding linguistics.

But why is it necessary to draw a clear line of demarcation at a time when pragmatics continues to evolve? As long as pragmatics continues to develop, the boundaries that have been set will have to be set again. Is it possible to get out of the dilemma and set up a practical, dynamic definition of pragmatics?

Looking back at the literature, it seems that this idea has been adopted to some extent. The most famous representative of this "pragmatic eclecticism" is Geoffrey Leech, who tried to solve this dilemma by proposing the concept of complementarity. With regard to the relationship between pragmatics and semantics, which is the most similar subfield of linguistics, the following view is put forward: Pragmatics and semantics are two different fields of study with complementarity. From a subjective point of view, such a concept is easy to accept. However, it is difficult to justify it objectively. The reason is that it is based on accusing the other viewpoints of having problematic points or weaknesses.

Leech proposes three directions of distinction in the relationship between semantics and pragmatics: 1) semantics as encompassing pragmatics, 2) pragmatics as encompassing semantics, and 3) complementarism, in which semantics and pragmatics are independent fields of study that are complementary to each other.

(1) "Semanticism": Searle's treatment of "speech acts" is cited as evidence. For example, when I make an agreement, it is because of the existence of the semantic verb "to promise" that I "make" an agreement. Or is it because it is an "act" in itself from the point of view of pragmatics? Undoubtedly, if we take the former approach, it is like forcibly combining "pragmatics" and "semantics" into a lion-headed goat-bodied bust called "pragmatics" .

(2) Pragmatics: Compare Austin's approach. He argues that the only real problem is the effect that discourse holds at the time of utterance, and that we can use it to 'do' 'things'. To illustrate Austin's idea, in Leech's words, in a nutshell, "the most interesting part of language should be the pragmatic point of view".

(3) "Complementarianism": First of all, why is it that Austin's work, which has been so long in the making, is still uncharted territory for most linguists? The most important reason is to maintain a secure and privileged field, so that when new insights appear, it is natural to feel uneasy. Syntax and semantics scholars who have already established themselves professionally would like to continue to work in the way that they have long been accustomed to. If someone were to teach them the practice of linguistics, the integrity of their profession would be in jeopardy. Therefore, in order not to rock the boat called the established order, linguists who prefer the traditional approach tend to place pragmatics in a quiet corner outside the linguistic matrix. Unlike other fields of linguistics, pragmatics, which has been placed on the side stage of linguistics, has been recognized as a subsidized field to carry out the research it wants to do. This complementarism is utilized to solve the problem of boundary setting.

The third solution, which is still the most common, is to address boundary-setting. For example, Levinson discusses the relationship between semantics and pragmatics and makes the following observation. "We think that the nature of meaning seems to be a kind of hybrid, patchwork theory. So the relatively homogeneous units of semantics and pragmatics can be **** together into a systematic organization." (Levision 1983: 15)

1.2.2 Definitions: constituent, perspective, or function

1.2.2.1 Constituent, perspective?

The question discussed in the previous section is basically how the pie of the field of linguistics should be sliced, and where the slices (i.e., the constituents) should fit into the whole. The structure of this argument is based on the "constituentist view of linguistics". Chomsky has been widely accepted since his initial publication, and according to his followers, even though there are some slight differences among them, they basically follow the same principle: the most important divisions of the grammar of a language are the divisions of phonology, phonetics, syntax, semantics, etc. These divisions correspond to different human abilities. These divisions correspond to different human abilities, such as brain damage, which can be categorized into different domains. For example, aphasia caused by damage to Broker's division is related to syntactic ability, and damage to Wernicke's area is related to semantic ability.

◎ The essence of the componentialist view of language is based on the view of the human mind as "assembled," in the same way as correlation theory and psychologists in cognitive science or artificial intelligence, which suggests that human faculties are independent of each other and are coordinated with each other. In contrast, the view of human linguistic activity as a "point of view" is the "point of viewist view of language.

◎What is the "perspectivist view of language":

berland and Mey (1977:5): "Pragmatics does not draw a line of demarcation between other fields, but looks at languages in a different way and assigns them characteristics. The focus of pragmatics is on the elements of society.

For example, Labov (1966) said that from a pragmatic point of view, the 'black dialect of Doxa', when viewed like any other dialect of English, does not reflect the 'rules of society' and therefore does not have much significance.

Verschueren (1999:7): defines pragmatics as "language use as a linguistically relevant phenomenon of action, from a general, cognitive, social, and cultural point of view. "Pragmatics is not a new component of language theory, but rather offers different perspectives."

Perspectivist Linguistics: The composite fields of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and the near-neighboring field of linguistics emphasize the full range of pragmatics. Variables such as sociology (income, residence, education, etc.) and psychology (IQ, personality, etc.) are also covered in the pragmatics of people in a linguistic society.

◎ Constituent elementalist view of language: the use of separate methods in their respective areas of limited scope, to clearly defined objects as the object of study. For example, phonetics and phonology always explore phonology, and the objects belonging to the syntax of the sentence are left to the syntactic scholars.

(?stman 1988: 28): "Constituentism" and "perspectivism" should both coexist to extend our cognitive horizon. "If the unit of analysis in semantics is meaning, that is, the single word, sentence, stanza or article, or rhyme, ... then the "unit" of analysis in pragmatics is the functional role of language. Ausdruck (expression or manifestation), 2) Appell (appeal), 3) Darstellung (expression, statement)

◎ Jakobson(1960: 350): the six functions of language, the above three functions plus 4) code linguistic analysis, 5) channel transmission, 6) poetic quality poetry. The above three functions plus 4) code linguistic analysis, 5) channel transmission, and 6) poetic quality.

The basic premise of all these models is that the language user has an indispensable role in the language communication process.

From the functional point of view, it is possible to unite the different issues of constructivism and perspectivism to achieve the purpose of ****sheng.

◎ Investigating the function of language use is basically a study of the language of interactions, and there are two ways of doing this:

1) the method of conversation analysis: observing as precisely as possible the event, the participants in the event, and what they want to say, and describing the way they speak, or the point in the conversation at which the participants choose to speak (or to be silent)

2) the pragmatic method, which is used to express the language side of social interactions. Linguistic side of the discursive (practical) approach: in order to successfully carry out mutual behavior, it is necessary to clarify the basic conditions of social equality, prejudice or class sentiment, education and culture. Without these social backgrounds, it is impossible to have a smooth conversation, as Levinson (1983:44) says, "mutual observation of behavior, acting on the basis of each other's behavior, a chain and continuous production of interdependent behaviors consisting of two or more actors"

◎According to Goffman (1976:266-267): the conventions that work in these contexts can be be divided into systemic (grammatical) covenant and ritual covenant (function). The former refers to the systematic integration of two or more participants in a variety of behaviors and the coordination of the various elements needed for each other. The latter is not absolutely necessary for the continuation of mutual behavior, but it can be seen as a typical example of maintaining mutual behavior - the social dimension of mutual behavior.

1.2 The Value of the Practice of Pragmatics

1.3.1 The Theory and Practice of Pragmatics

The practice of pragmatics is characterized by the fact that it takes as its point of departure the problems that have eluded the study of language in the last few years, and proposes new approaches. In recent years, most of the problems encountered in the exercise of the various functions of language have been demonstrated to pragmatics from the "outside". For example, there are the problems of conversation and the order of speech in the ethnographic methodology (discussed in detail in Chapter 6), the problems of debate pioneered by philosophy (2.3), and the problems of interaction between human beings and computers dealt with by the computer software and design industry. As well, there are a variety of issues that are suggested to pragmatics by general anthropological ethnography, psychiatry or psychology, formal language inside and outside of social organizations, rhetoric, media studies, pedagogy, and so on. Other traditional linguistic issues such as the use of idiomatic grammar, the ambiguity of utterance, the indications of third person pronouns, and the "voice" in story chapters are also the subject of study.

1.3.2 The exercise and goals of pragmatics

1.3.2.1 Why do we need pragmatics?

How do people use language, and how can pragmatics be used to deepen understanding of these issues?

Ambiguity: A Linguistic View of Never vs. Pragmatics

1. Ambiguous sentences are usually found only in actual speech (Paradise News), not in artificial ambiguous sentences as Chomsky cites. This is the case with jokes, etc., where ambiguous sentences are intentionally created.

2. Determining one of the meanings of an ambiguous sentence depends on "context". Context is all the elements that play a role in the production and understanding of speech.

◎Classical static context: as in the physical world, the conditions that precede a given state of affairs completely determine what happens next. (Counterexample: p, 38) That is, the present moment and what has been established so far. Purely verbal accounts have no dynamics.

◎Dynamic context: the unfolding "environment" that is made possible by people's ongoing interactions with each other in language use

1.3.2.2 The goal of pragmatics

Linguists advocate immanence, the obligation to state method and purpose as self-explanatory. Historically, linguistics is a relatively young discipline, independent from neighboring sciences, cutting out and establishing its own field. However, for a well-developed science, ensuring its intrinsic nature is not a sign of maturity.

The reasons for this are: 1) the intrinsic approach to the study of language has a tendency to create a fragmented split between the various facets of language. 2) Practical linguistics is extremely fragmented. 2) The extreme specialization of practical linguistics has resulted in the impossibility of dialogue except in general terms. 3) The problem of language documentation

The rescue of languages on the verge of extinction is not just a process of collection, cataloging, and documentation by linguists, but also an important process of rescuing the "speakers of the language". From the perspective of pragmatics, apart from on-site collection and documentation, it is more important to fight against linguistic genocide.

2.1 Pragmatics as the "trash can" of language theory

Pragmatics has often been called the trash can of linguistics. Although the trash can used to contain unwanted things has a negative sense of language, this kind of performance has gained a certain degree of use and status among pragmatists in the early stage of the development of pragmatics.

The notion of a trash can comes from Yehoshua Bar-Hillel's (1915-75) characterization of semantics as "the trash can of syntax". The background lies in the fact that in the second half of the 1950s and the early 1960s, linguistics was formed with the idea that it was a science with all the formal inferences and abstract symbolic notations of ethics or mathematics. The ideal conception of linguistics was to consider language as "algebraic alegra". This is a widely cited concept first developed by Hjelmslev of the Copenhagen School of European Constructivism in 1943.

But the same idea cannot account for the realities of life.

In the mid-1950s, Chomsky's theory of "generative-transformational grammar" advocated that sentences do not need to have "meaning", but only syntactic notation. If the variables are not given a value, the sentence itself has no meaning, and it is easy to devise test algebraic programs to justify it. Early Chomsky's syntax was a grammatical component that completely separated semantics from semantics.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. -Consistent with syntax, questions of meaning are left to semantics (Chomsky 1957)

◎ Linguistic theory expanded from syntax to semantics: Chomsky proposed a garbage approach, in which the choice of combinations of words in a sentence must be consistent with the selection of a sign. Chomsky proposed a garbage disposal approach, whereby word choice combinations in a sentence must conform to the syntactic construct of selection features.

Semantics is concerned with the abstract science of the situation and conditions under which a sentence is 'true' or 'false'. However, the phenomenon that a part of a sentence remains true regardless of whether the sentence as a whole is true or false, i.e., the "presuppose presuppose," cannot be explained in classical semantics. Therefore another trash can is necessary.

Fats regretted that he had to pay alimony to Bessie.

Fats did not regret that he had to pay alimony to Bessie . -

"Premise presuppose": no matter what Fats was like, the premise was that alimony was paid.

◎ Unlike philosophers of language, pragmatics scholars are not interested in the truth-value, or axiom-value, of sentences in abstract form. The focus is on why and what people say. If one cannot determine the other person's motivation for the use of language, one cannot understand whether the utterance is true or false. (e.g., the dialog of the confused linguist in 1.3.2.1).