FUNCTIONAL APPROACH IN MODERN LINGUISTICS

Pragmatics

The use of utterances in communication: the study of speaker meaning, of contextual meaning, of how more gets communicated than said, and of the expression of relative distance

What does pragmatics study?

The factors governing the choice of linguistic means in speech and the interpretation of utterances in context

What does linguistic pragmatics study?

How language is used in real communication situations, how context influences the understanding of an utterance, and how communicators achieve their goals in speech (Formula: "Why do we say what we say, in this particular way, and in this particular situation?")

Utterance

A speech event, a concrete realization of linguistic units in an act of communication (e.g., "Milk!" in a store vs. "Milk!" warning a child)

Linguistic Context

Co-text, preceding/subsequent utterances

Situational Context

Extralinguistic conditions including participants, time, place, and goals

Cognitive Context

Background knowledge, presuppositions, and discourse models (where Discourse is broader than the Speech Situation and can refer to a genre, field of study, or system of thought)

Speech Situation Context

A structured set of conditions in which verbal communication takes place, representing a single or series of speaking events (Who? Where? Why? To whom?)

Deixis

A linguistic phenomenon where the meaning of a word or expression depends on the context of the speech act and its participants (e.g., "I’ll meet you here tomorrow" shows referential correlation, semantic incompleteness, and the necessity of pragmatics)

The deictic centre

The "Origo" or ground zero of an utterance, typically representing the speaker’s location, time, and identity (I-Here-Now)

Proximal terms

Deictic expressions indicating entities or locations close to the speaker, such as "this," "here," or "now"

Distal terms

Deictic expressions indicating entities or locations distant from the speaker, such as "that," "there," or "then"

Honorifics

Morphological or lexical forms used to express social deference, respect, or relative status between interlocutors

Social deixis (general)

The linguistic encoding of social relationships and relative social status between participants in a speech event

T/V distinction

A sociolinguistic contrast between informal (Tu) and formal (Vos) second-person pronouns used to navigate social distance or intimacy

In/exclusive «we»

A grammatical distinction where "inclusive we" includes the addressee (me and you), while "exclusive we" excludes them (me and others, but not you)

Deictic projection

The communicative act where a speaker shifts the deictic centre from their actual position to another location or perspective (e.g., saying "I am coming over" while mentally occupying the listener's space)

Spatial deixis

Refers to the spatial location of an object relative to the speaker (e.g., here, there, this, that, come, go)

Temporal deixis

Indicates temporal relationships relative to the moment of utterance (e.g., now, then, tomorrow, yesterday)

Person deixis

Refers to the participants in the speech act, such as the speaker, addressee, or third parties (e.g., I, you, we, he, she)

Discourse deixis

Refers to elements within the text or discourse itself (e.g., the former, the following, as mentioned above)

Social deixis (types)

Refers to expressions reflecting social status, hierarchy, or level of formality between interlocutors (e.g., Your Honor, Dr. Smith, Vous/Tú)

Constatives

Utterances in Austin's Speech Act Theory describing a state of affairs that can be judged as true or false (e.g., "Snow is white")

Performatives

Utterances in Austin's Speech Act Theory that are actions in themselves and are judged as successful/unsuccessful (felicitous or infelicitous), such as "I promise to come"

Felicity Conditions

The conventional procedures, appropriate participants, correct circumstances, and complete execution required for a performative utterance to be successful

Austin's Three-Level Structure of a Speech Act

The hierarchical framework consisting of the Locutionary Act, Illocutionary Act, and Perlocutionary Act

Illocutionary Act

The act performed in the process of speaking, representing the force or communicative intention of the utterance (e.g., making a request or polite order like "close the window pls")

Locutionary Act

The physical act of speaking with a specific literal meaning and reference (e.g., uttering the words "close the window pls")

Perlocutionary Act

The act performed by means of speaking, representing the actual psychological or behavioral effect on the addressee (e.g., the hearer closing the window or feeling irritated)

Representatives (or Assertives)

An illocutionary act category that commits the speaker to the truth of a proposition, following a Words-to-World direction of fit (e.g., stating, claiming, asserting, informing)

Directives (category)

An illocutionary act category aimed at getting the hearer to do something, following a World-to-Words direction of fit (e.g., requesting, ordering, questioning, advising)

Commissives

An illocutionary act category that commits the speaker to a future course of action, following a World-to-Words direction of fit (e.g., promising, pledging, threatening, vowing)

Expressives

An illocutionary act category that expresses the speaker's internal psychological state, with a null (Ø) direction of fit that presupposes a match (e.g., thanking, apologizing, congratulating, condoling)

Declaratives

An illocutionary act category that brings about an immediate change in institutional reality via social convention, following a Words-to-World-via-convention direction of fit (e.g., declaring war, pronouncing someone husband & wife, firing, sentencing)

Which question does the "Direction of Fit" answer?

Which is supposed to match which? Is the world supposed to change to match my words, or are my words supposed to change to match the world?

Assertives (Direction of Fit)

An illocutionary act where the words must conform to reality (Words → World), meaning the statement is successful only if the world matches the proposition (e.g., "The Eiffel Tower is in Paris")

Directives (Direction of Fit)

An illocutionary act where the world must be made to match the words (World → Words), meaning the success is measured by whether the hearer performs the requested action (e.g., "Please close the door")

The Cooperative Principle (CP)

H.P. Grice's fundamental assumption that communication participants implicitly follow a general principle: "Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged"

The CP is realized through four maxims

The conversational rules formulated by Grice, which are the Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Relation (Relevance), and Maxim of Manner

Maxim of Quantity

Be as informative as necessary; do not be overly informative

Maxim of Quality

Try to speak the truth; do not say what is false or insufficiently justified

Maxim of Relation (Relevance)

Be relevant and speak directly to the point

Maxim of Manner

Be clear; avoid ambiguity, be brief, and be organized or systematic

Conversational Implicatures

An additional, implied meaning that arises when the listener recognizes that the speaker intentionally and obviously violated a conversational maxim

Particularized Conversational Implicature

An implied meaning that depends heavily on the specific context (e.g., "How's the dress?"

Generalized Conversational Implicature

An implied meaning that arises by default without needing a special context (e.g., "She got married and had a baby" implies the events happened in that chronological order)

What are the features of Implicatures

Cancellability (can be denied by adding extra information), Calculability (can be logically inferred from utterance and context), and Nonconventionality (not part of the literal word meaning)

Negative Face

The universal psychological need for autonomy, freedom of action, and non-imposition (the desire not to be impeded)

Positive Face

The universal psychological need for acceptance, approval, and belonging to a group (the desire for our values and actions to be liked by others)

Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)

Any communicative action that can damage the interlocutor's or one's own face, threatening either Negative Face (orders, requests, advice) or Positive Face (criticism, disagreement, reproaches)

Face-Work (Politeness)

The communicative actions taken to preserve one's own and others' face during interaction

Weight of Face-Threatening Act (Wx)

The total weight of a threat to face calculated as Wx = P(H, S) + D(S, H) + Rx, where P is the power of the hearer over the speaker, D is the social distance, and R is the cultural rank of the threat

Five Strategies (increasing order)

The strategic options from Brown & Levinson's politeness theory: 1. Bald-on-record, 2. Positive Politeness, 3. Negative Politeness, 4. Off-record (Indirect), 5. Don't perform the FTA

Bald-on-record

Acting directly without any redressive action to minimize the threat (e.g., "Close the door!")

Positive Politeness

Redressing the threat to positive face by emphasizing commonality, solidarity, and satisfying the interlocutor's need for approval (e.g., "Hey buddy, close the door, there's a draft!")

Negative Politeness

Redressing the threat to negative face by emphasizing autonomy, deference, and satisfying the interlocutor's need for freedom (e.g., "Sorry, could you possibly close the door?")

Off-record (Indirect Strategy)

Using conversational implicatures to hint at a message without stating it directly (e.g., "It's a bit drafty in here.")

Don't perform the FTA

Choosing to remain silent to completely avoid any threat to face

Criticism of Grice's and Brown & Levinson's Theories

1. Cultural Relativism, 2. Politeness is not always good, 3. The listener does not blindly follow maxims, 4. Maxims are not equivalent (Relation is primary), 5. Does not explain specific cognitive mechanisms

Relevance Theory

Sperber and Wilson's cognitive framework stating that any utterance creates an expectation of optimal relevance, and the listener stops at the first interpretation that yields maximum cognitive effect with minimal processing effort

Presumption of optimal relevance

The automatic expectation created by any act of communication that the signal is worth the listener's processing effort

Cognitive mechanism (Relevance)

The mental path where the listener evaluates interpretations and stops at the first one that yields the maximum cognitive effect with minimal processing effort

Relevance (definition)

A non-binary measure resulting from a balance between cognitive effects (strengthening/weakening beliefs) and processing efforts (mental resources), where more effort equals less relevance

Every utterance communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance

The principle that an utterance is relevant enough to be worth the effort to process, and is the most relevant one compatible with the speaker's abilities and preferences

Discourse (general use)

Any form of language in use or naturally occurring interactive language, often contrasted with non-interactive text or monologues

Discourse in the broad sense [Van Dijk]

A communicative event occurring between a speaker and a hearer in a specific temporal, spatial, and social context, which can be spoken or written and contains both verbal and non-verbal components

Discourse in the narrow sense [Van Dijk]

The isolated written or spoken verbal product of a communicative action, which is interpreted by recipients

Discourse [van Dijk - distinction]

The actually uttered text, pertaining strictly to speech and actual speech action

Text [van Dijk - distinction]

The abstract grammatical structure of what is uttered, pertaining to the system of language, formal linguistic knowledge, and linguistic competence

Nature [Text & Discourse]

Text is a Product (Object), whereas Discourse is a Process (Event/Action)

State [Text & Discourse]

Text is Static and Decontextualized, whereas Discourse is Dynamic and Context-Bound

Focus [Text & Discourse]

Text focuses on Form & Structure (Cohesion, Grammar), whereas Discourse focuses on Function & Purpose (Coherence, Social Action)

Dependence [Text & Discourse]

Text can be analyzed in isolation, whereas Discourse is inseparable from its context

Analogy [Text & Discourse]

Text is comparable to Sheet Music, whereas Discourse is comparable to a Live Performanc