Pragmatics: Basic Concepts

Pragmatics: Basic Concepts Beakley, B. (n. d.). Pragmatics: Basic Concepts http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfbxb/class/1900/prag/intro.htm

1. Language Use. We begin by setting out a good working definition of pragmatics.

Pragmatics: the study of language use in particular situations This talk about “use” might seem like old hat, after our study of semantics.

After all, the rules for “using” a sentence like “It's raining” are pretty simple: you say it when it's raining, and you don't say it when it's not. In other words, you say the sentence in those contexts where it's true, and you don't say it in contexts where it's false. If language use boils down to a matter of truth and falsehood, then it looks like “the study of language use in particular contexts” is just good old semantics. So who need pragmatics?

But that picture of language use is far too simple. In fact, we can see, from a couple simple examples, that even when we've nailed down the semantics of a sentence (its truth and meaning), we still haven't settled how the sentence is used in a particular context.

Consider the following example, where the same sentence (meaning the same thing throughout)is used in two different ways (in two different contexts): 1. My car is in a No Parking zone, and a police officer approaches. I tell him: “My car has a flat tire”.

2. I enter a tire store, and tell the person at the counter: “My car has a flat tire”.

Now, the sentence is equally true in both cases; and, indeed, the all the words in the sentence (and so the whole sentence itself) means the same thing in both cases. So in terms of semantics – meaning and truth – the sentence is the same in both cases. Still, I'm using the sentence to do different things in the two situations – to excuse myself in the first context, to request help in the second. This feature of use, above and beyond the semantic issues of truth and meaning, is the sort of thing pragmatics is concerned with; and we see that, even when the semantic dust has settled, there are still pragmatic issues to be dealt with.

2. Unspoken Messages. A way of understanding this talk about "using" is to think of it in terms of communicating unspoken messages: In both contexts, I'm reporting my flat tire; but in each case I'm also communicating some second

message as well (“It's not my fault I'm in a No Parking zone”; “I would like you to fix the tire”.)

In each case my audience immediately understands the unspoken message I'm communicating. And notice it's a different unspoken message in the two cases – so there was nothing about the words in the sentence that tipped off the listener (they remained the same throughout). So how do we know which unspoken message to 'get'? (We don't hear it – it's unspoken!) (i) Obviously the context of utterance makes a big difference as to which unspoken message gets sent (that's what changed from one case to the next). (ii) We will propose that we share certain implicit (unspoken) conversational rules for how to communicate unspoken messages – if you and I use the same rules, then you'll be able to figure out what I'm leaving unsaid.

3. Conversations. To spell this out more carefully, we introduce some very basic pragmatic notions that we will build off of. The most basic is the Conversation.

A conversation is any episode of language use to communicate information from one person to some other(s) Notice that a conversation doesn't have to be an even exchange: a logic lecture is an extended (and very one-sided) conversation, because it involves at least two participants and language is being used to communicate information.

So “conversation,” in the special sense meant here, includes what we'd ordinarily call a conversation, but much more as well – any episode of linguistic communication involving (at least) two parties. (But talking to yourself doesn't count as a conversation.)

4. The Conversational Background. As conversations proceed, and as we move from one conversation to the next, we accumulate information – for example, all the sentences we've heard (and accepted). For instance, there are things I can count on you to know about the definition of the word “pragmatics” now; but I couldn't have expected you to know this information (say) a week ago.

So that definition is now in the background of accepted information that we hold in common, and we can all count on each other to know that information in our conversation.

We call this set of accepted background sentences the Conversational Background.

We might consider defining the Conversational Background as the set of

sentences believed by all the participants in a conversation. But in fact that definition would be too narrow, since we sometimes we share a common assumption, for the sake of discussion, that in fact we don't all believe. For example, an atheist could discuss the nature of God with someone who believes in God (saying things like “But then why does God allow evil in the world?” etc.), and speak throughout the conversation as if God exists, even though he didn't believe in God. He would then be 'entertaining' the claim “God exists,” temporarily adopting this claim for the sake of argument, without truly believing it.

The same sort of temporary assumption occurs in discussion of fictional people and events. In a discussion of Sherlock Holmes' behavior and attitudes, we assume (for the duration of the discussion) that Sherlock Holmes exists, and has the characteristics reported in the stories by A.C. Doyle, and so on; but we don't necessarily believe these claims. On the other hand, if we are disagreeing about whether Jupiter is further from Earth than Saturn, we are likewise accepting that Jupiter and Saturn exist – and here we really believe this. In both cases the claims are in the conversational background. The claim that Sherlock Holmes exists and did those things is only temporarily in the conversational background, for the duration of our literary discussion; but we don't go on through life continuing to assume these things. The claim that Jupiter and Saturn exist is, by contrast, an enduring part of the conversational background, that we remain committed to throughout our day.

(Fans of symbolic logic can think of two other familiar cases where we temporarily adopt claims for the sake of argument: the assumptions of Conditional and Indirect Deductions. In Conditional Deductions we temporarily assume one sentence, and show that it leads to another sentence; but when we're done with the CD, we don't remain committed to that assumption, only to the claim that if that assumption [the antecedent] were true, the second claim [the consequent] would be as well. Likewise in an Indirect Deduction, we assume a certain sentence for the sake of argument, only to show that it would lead to an absurdity or impossibility – at which point we kick out that original assumption, and believe its opposite instead. In both cases the assumption is dropped once we close the derivation box.)

We will use the general word “acceptance” to cover both kinds of conversational commitment to a sentence – the temporary, hypothetical commitment to the existence of Sherlock Holmes, and the enduring commitment to the existence of Saturn and Jupiter. We can then define the Conversational Background in terms of acceptance: The conversational background is the set of sentences accepted by all the participants in a conversation