Lingua inglese 3 - Modulo A PDF

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Lingua inglese 3, A. 2020/ 22/09/ MODULO A Semantics vs Pragmatics Pubblicità: due persone prese completamente a caso, di New York – capital of theatre. People who came from NY are good in choosing theatres in other places. All these things are not written in the campaign, it’s the knowledge of a pe...

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Lingua inglese 3, A.A. 2020/2021 22/09/20 MODULO A Semantics vs Pragmatics Pubblicità: due persone prese completamente a caso, di New York – capital of theatre. People who came from NY are good in choosing theatres in other places. All these things are not written in the campaign, it’s the knowledge of a person – it depends from our knowledge. In the picture there’s a little explanation and there’s an ADD à 1.800.shamrock: 1.800 in Ireland are the free numbers, 1.800.Shamrock (= Ireland symbol) – to call this number you have to digit the correspondent number of the letters that compose the word shamrock. Discoverireland – all literature about mysterious islands or mystical places. Video “Fawlty Towers” Two levels of meaning. Misunderstanding at the beginning – the waiter takes semantically what mr said, but mr intended to understand it pragmatically. Semantic meaning = no knowledge of an object Pragmatic meaning = you don’t know anything of the horse Meaning à lots of people tried to answer to “what is meaning”. It is how pragmatic has to be(?) Philophers thinks that the meaning of a word was an object – this is real if we are talking about objects or with declarative sentences. They started to study it scientifically to assign a truth value to a statement. Language can be transformed into a formula to allow the earer to make a formal representation in order to understand if the preposition is true or false. But with orders or questions? So, from this formule, philosophers found a pragmatic mode where could be possible to include this world. Disciplines that studied meaning: 1) Philosophy 2) Psychology – has a big part; usually it asks questions like “how are meanings represented in mind” 3) Neurology – studies on the ways in which neurons are connected to generate meanings 4) Semiotics – how do languages as sign systems actually signify, how to use symbols to communicate 5) Linguistics – utterances are human language sentences only if we can assign meaning to them. It’s warm in here à utterance, what does it mean? The temperature in this place is quite high. In a restaurant maybe it could mean “let’s eat outside” or in a room with the windows closed “let’s open the window”. Semantic meaning = literal, linguistic meaning. It’s not enough in a conversation or in a discourse in general. Can be defined “literal meaning”- “I’m covered in dirt” = declarative sentence, a person who’s not clear. True or False? is the person actually not clear? Pragmatic meaning = contextually-derived meaning. “I’m covered in dirt”: - inform you about something, - order you to do something - apologize to you for something - complain about something The meaning depends on why the person is saying that. In order to understand pragmatic meaning I need to know the CONTEXT à involves: I >>> YOU = I want to… you something. 1

PAUL GRICE (1957), philosopher, moved linguistics from Jacobson’s theories to the inferential – speaker’s intended meaning. The real meaning of an utterance is not what is said but what is IMPLICATED. 24/09/2020 Pragmatics = a) studies the context-depedent aspect of verbal communication and comprehension b) studies the role of non-linguistic factors in verbal communication and comprehension – ex. Facial signs Semantics = concerned with the cognitive meaning of sentences, the meaning that is contextfree. Reveals the sentence meaning of DYADIC relation and answers the question “what does X mean?”. Pragamtics = is concerned with the meaning of speech acts, the meaning that is contextdependent. Reveals the speaker’s meaning of triadic relation and answers the question “what do you mean?”. No sentences without pragmatic meaning. Two plus two equals four => it’s not just a mathematical fact, except if it used during a mathematical class (but it could be used to say that something is very obvious)- I am informing you - I’m criticizing you IMPLICIT MEANING – you have to record it with your knowledge Utterance without semantic meaning (not true or false) – AAARGH à if I say that: a) I’m threatening you USEFUL CONCEPTS Sentences = abstract grammatical units. whatever has s/v/o. are UNDERSPECIFIED and potentially ambiguous. Utterances = concrete products of speech and writing. Piece of language that u produce, and which u assign an information/semantic and pragmatic meaning. Receive meaning inferentially, through linguistic and contextual knowledge. Proposition = description of states of affairs. Is the meaning representation of that utterance, should be what universally does represent these words. I AM TIRED/ SHE IS TIRED/ THE TEACHER IS TIRED è all these correspond to one proposition = someone is talking about a physical statement. WHERE IS PRAGMATIC MEANING? A: Why can’t a man’s head be 12 inches wide? B: Don’t kow. A: Because if it was, it would be a foot - Polysemy = 1 word with more senses - Homonymy different lexemes with the same form (head/foot) Assignment of reference The understanding of this kind of switch require good memory, lot of energies in the brain and when there’s a problem (Dyslexia for example) people could not understand it. Assignment of structural meaning: a) CAN YOU SEE THE MAN WITH THE TELESCOPE? 2 possible ways to understand it: 1) If u can see a man who has a telescope 2) If u can see a man through a telescope b) FINE FOR PARKING HERE 2 possible ways to understand it: 1) U can park here 2

2) Fine = noun – u can’t park here, or you would be fined. Assignment of utterance meaning - the interpretation can depend on the speaker intention. You need to correctly infer the speaker attitude. Speakers use a language markers to flag potential meanings, we should talk about INTERACTIONAL meaning because we use language in a specific way in order to be, your intentions, understandable by the hearer – who uses its knowledge of language. Sound-symbolism = German languages Morphopragmatics = “fatty”, to diminish the offensive meaning Lexical pragmatics = I don’t drink (alcoholic drinks) Sentences = syntactic structures have informational properties related to contexts (topiccomments) Text = have different communicative function, depending on typology and contextual features - you immediately recognise a poem from a novel WHY DO WE NEED OTHER LEVELS OF PRAGMATICS? Some, form a narrow or componential view, sees it as an additional level of language analysis. This idea can be symbolised in a table (vedi slide). Micro context – users and interpreters, but no social relation or situations Anglo-American view of pragmatics = studies reference, deixis, presuppositions, speech acts. Continental- European view = socio-cultural perspective on the functioning of language. Is a superordinate field, a general cognitive/social and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behaviour - it refers to cognition, social knowledge and BEHAVIOUR. It does consider the phenomenon on what actually people do. It’s important what’s in the head of the speakers and the experiences of the hearer. Macro view - table in the slide Other, from a broad view, sees it as a perspective. Broad view: – it’s important the negotiation level between the two speakers - Pragma-dialogic approach = look at occurrences in dialogue, in the way the construct meaning - Pragma -discursive approach = look the linguistic choices made Pragmatic is somewhat culture specific; pragmatics contexts are not universal. Variational pragmatics = studies the way in which different varieties of English realise the same pragmatic function. Many interesting areas of research in pragmatics: - Metapragmatics – language used to talk about pragmatics - Pragmatic forms – form that carry pragmatic meaning - Pragmatic functions – how particular functions are performed in English - Pragmatic context – nature of context within which certain functions are performed. - Pragmatic variation – how all of the above vary. Three dimensions: 1) Inter-English variation, between different varieties of English 2) Intra- English variation, different way of pragmatic function in the same variety of English or same dialect but by people of different age (for example) 3) Diachronic variation in English 4) English as n L2, EFL, ELF L2 = English spoken by people who does not live in a country where English is not the official language but use it in official context EFL = people learn it at school 3

ELF = lingua franca, used as a common language between people from different parts of the world. You need a broad view. Traditional pragmatic approaches = utterance level perspective Intercultural pragmatic approach = discourse-segment perspective Difference in the way in which L1 and non-L1 speakers use the language. Intercultural pragmatics Intercultural communication is a success-and-failure process. In this sense intercultural pragmatics assumes a macro-view. Two approaches: 1) Cognitive and philosophical approach to pragmatics 2) Socio-cultural-interactional approach to pragmatics Other approaches to study language from a pragmatic point of view: 1) Intercultural pragmatics è the way the language system is put to use in social encounters between human beings who have different 2) Interlanguage pragmatics 3) Cross – cultural pragmatics 29/09/2020 First type of inference = Entailment – a traditional notion. Entailment utterances involve guess words – what they want to say. You need to reconstruct and may guess what the speaker wants to say, so to arrive at what the speaker is saying. An entailment is a relationship between sentences that form the basis of other more complex sentences. Are these sentences ok? 1. 2. 3. 4.

It’s been an amazing year for Crystal Palace over the past 12 months The robbery was committed by a pair of identical twins, both are said to be about age 20. Send in your competition answers with your name, age and how old you are. So you’re a housewife and a mother. Do you have any children?

too much information, are redundant. They violate the premises: - Understood information - Knowledge of the language itself. The same info can be automatically derived if one knows the meaning of the words. Inference = basic processes which we use in order to interpret meaning, are cognitive processes. Are the building blocks of our interpreting process. Entailment – type of a basic inference. Some people consider it as a lexical or semantic inference. Which of these statements is true? 1. (a) My mother is a woman. T 2. (b) My mother is a doctor. T/F 3. (c) The tiger is unhappy. T/F 4. (d) The tiger is an animal. T 5. (e) My mother is a boy. F 6. (f) The tiger is a reptile. F a/d – minimal difficulty, we know that they are true on the basis of our knowledge. Are ANALYTIC sentences. 4

e/f – we can also reach the conclusion that are necessarily false = contradictions b/c – we can’t say if are T/F – you need knowledge of the world = Synthetic sentences, cannot be properly interpreted unless you have a knowledge of the world. 1(a) Annie caught a trout. 1(b) Annie caught a fish. 2(a) Annie is thin. 2(b) Annie is not fat. 3(a) Annie baked a cake. 3(b) Annie baked something. (A) sentences = if they’re synthetically true, can we assume that B is true given the truth of A? Yes Entailment are automatic sentences if the original ones are true. Paraphrase is a special type of entailment A synthetically true, is b true? 1(a) Goldilocks saw a bear. 1(b) Goldilocks saw an animal. à A -B yes, B-A not necessarily true. 2(a) This porridge is too cold. 2(b) this porridge is not too hot. à A – B yes, B – A not, it could be at the right temperature. 3(a) Baby Bear cried. 3(b) Baby Bear wept. à A – B yes; B – A yes 4(a) Mama Bear is in front of Papa Bear. 4(b) Papa Bear is behind Mama Bear. à A – B yes; B – A yes Difference: First 2 – one-way entailment Last 2 – the meaning relationship is different, we call it two-way or mutual entailment, we have a reciprocal relationship Spot the info which appears redundant Tom: What’s your stepmother like? Bob: Well, she’s a woman and she married my father. __________________________________________ Dave: There’s your Uncle George. Lucy: That man's a snake. ___________________________________________ Jane: You ate all the cookies! Steve: I ate some of the cookies. Redundancy à some synonym of All The painters broke the window: Entailment: 1) Someone broke the window 2) The painters did something to the window 3) The painters broke something (Role of prosodic foregrounding in creating entailments): Annie ruined the sweater Utterance: 1) Annie RUINED… - Entailment 2 5

2) Annie… the SWEATER – Entailment 3 3) ANNIE … - Entailment 1 Entailment: 1) Someone ruined the sweater 2) Annie did something to the sweater 3) Annie ruined something The importance given to one entailment over another speaker has important consequences for the pragmatic analysis of utterances. Few more exercises 6. T/F unless u have extra non-linguistic info? (a) My hamster is a mammal. T – analytically true (b) My cousin is a girl. T/F – Extralinguistic information (c) My sister is a girl. T/F – extralinguistic info, it depends from the age (d) My sister is female. T – analytically true (e) I saw a female rock. F – analytically false (f) I saw a female tortoise. T/F – extralinguistic info (g) My cat likes ice-cream. T/F – extralinguistic info (h) My sick cat is not well. T – analytically true 7. Where has the communication gone wrong? (a) All creatures are imperfect beasts. Man alone is the perfect beast. à if all are imperfect, then man is also imperfect (b) The brain of a woman is almost as heavy as a human brain. à the brain of a woman is a human brain > women not human (c) A coroner's duty is to decide whether a person died a fatal death. à a death is always fatal (d) We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what newspapers can report. à no censorship so no limitation on what we can report (e) Snakes are two sexes, poisonous and non-poisonous. à Sex means gender, M/F and not species (f) I have reiterated over and over again what I have said before. à to reiterate = say over and over again, it’s a redundant info. 8. Do the sentences being uttered in each pair communicate the same info? 1(a) That food was delicious. 1(b) That grub was yummy. à semantically they do convey the same message; pragmatically they do not convey the same message, the level of formality is not the same. 2(a) She designs clothes for adult male humans. 2(b) She designs clothes for men. à there are extra meanings. Men could also be XXL men 3(a) That guy's a bachelor. 3(b) That guy never got married. à a) no register marriage but is living with a partner while a bachelor should live “alone”, marriage is also a concept of lifestyle. Priest is a bachelor? Technically yes, but he can’t be married, so not. Semantics vs Pragmatics Simpson – the entailments of a sentence can be regarded as those prepositions that can be inferred from it in any context - utterances come with preposition in any possible context è George saw a nut – different interpretations may exist, but what George did see? He can be a crazy person, or he saw a testicle, or a pineapple etc… Understanding entailments depends on lexical knowledge; 6

Potential issue for English foreign language speakers, but also for different English varieties. Entailment it’s not just a philosophical notion. Cultural interpretation of entailment – John kissed Mary, should be a reciprocal action but kissing is not a reciprocal action it could mean that John was the one who initiated the kissing. A statement is entailed by another statement if, when the first is true, the second is also true and when the first is false, the secondo remains true. - Falso 1/10/2020 Presupposition and Informational pragmatics Presupposition?? It is another TYPE of INFERENCE (= building block used in reasoning to arrive to a meaning). Trump’s Inaugural Speech So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love ill forever guide us along the way. Together, We Will Make America Strong Again. We Will Make America Wealthy Again. We Will Make America Proud Again. We Will Make America Safe Again. And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America. ..Again à presuppose that before wasn’t. Presupposition is used to “seduce” Clinton’s speech An America where a father can tell his daughter: yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even President of the United States. EVEN à presupposes thar few american women became American president. Presupposition can be used for a big amount of meanings. Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse? He admitted his guilt by presupposing the preposition that followed (when I took your purse) The Toure Eiffel is in Paris – True But… Have a Cookie/Where was Abraham Lincoln born? à you cannot attach a true value. Are NON-declarative sentences. Where has Faye looked for the keys? à you know that I’m already presupposing that faye has looked for keys. Did you buy this awful wine? à it’s automatically true that this wine is awful. Don't sit on Annie's sofa. Stop being lazy. à true that you are lazy and Annie has a sofa. Annie has a sofa – you directly assert that she has a sofa. But, don’t sit on Annie’s sofa presuppose that she has a sofa. Lucy knows that George is a crookà True that George is a crook In linguistics finding a definition of presuppositions is hard, there are different definitions: - Type of inference 7

Anything the speaker assumes to be true before making the utterance – broad and speaker oriented because it depends from the speaker, even before he pronounced it - A necessary precondition for the sentence to be true – narrow and sentence oriented. Presuppositions = inferences about what is ASSUMED to be true in the utterance rather than directly ASSERTED to be true. Entailment – automatic. Derives through the knowledge of the language. Presupposition came from how people will use the language. How people will interpret the language. -

Presuppositions and negation Each presuppositions remains constant constant under NEGATION of the main sentence 4. Which of the following presupposes “There was a chocolate cake”? 1(a) Mike might find the chocolate cake in the kitchen. 1(b) Mike might find a chocolate cake in the kitchen. 2(a) Is Mike giving Annie that chocolate cake? 2(b) Is Mike giving Annie a chocolate cake? 3(a) Did Mike hide a chocolate cake? 3(b) Did Mike hide Annie's chocolate cake? IN COMUNE: Existential presupposition. Common in adv. You’ll want DomeBeGone, my revolutionary cure for baldness a- There’s a cure for boldness b- The cure is revolutionary c- The company has this cure Which of the following presupposes “Mike smashed the television?” Did Mike smash the television? When did Mike smash the television? I was eating popcorn when Mike smashed the television. Why did Mike smash the television? I don't understand why Mike smashed the television. I wonder if Mike smashed the television. I wonder how Mike smashed the television. Which presuppositions à depend on the VERB (a) Steve regrets buying a dog. = he bought a dog (b) Meridyth pretends she's a rock star. = she not a rock star (c) Ed should stop eating raw oysters. = Ed eats raw oysters VERBS: • Know, realize, discover à factive verbs, u can pretty much assume what ? • I’m aware that… and it’s strange that… • Pretend, imagine, dream, if I were… à counting fact verbs • Stop Types of presuppositions – Levison identified 10 kinds:

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1) Existential – in a sentence u presuppose that something else exists or did ecist. Triggered by definite expressions – used to invite to identify a particular referent from a specific context which is assumed to be shared by the interlocutors; Determiners; 2) Possessive – subclass of existential triggerd by possessive expressions 3) Change of state verbs à Stopped/finished = A had been doing X; Started/began = A had not been doing X; A left Y = A was at(with Y; A arrived at Y = A was not at/with Y 4) Factive verbs = 5) Counterfactive conditionals à if A had done X, Y wou...