LEL1B Semantics and Pragmatics

Language as conduit

Model of language as a process of encoding, transmission, and decoding

Language as social action

Viewing language as something which can construct meanings, generate knowledge, and shape identities

Social cognition

Speakers and listeners reasoning about each others’ beliefs and intentions

Speech acts

Utterances which perform actions, such as promising, apologising, ordering, etc.

Context-dependence

Some words (pronouns, deixis, time, environment, etc.) change in exact meaning based on the situation, with context being required to understand its full meaning

Implicature

Addition to meaning generated by counterfactual reasoning about what a speaker would have said in various circumstances

Informativity/quantity implicature

Information is assumed based on the specified quantity: e.g. the sentence “I have two children” would lead to people understanding you have exactly two children

Truth/quality implicature

People assume what you say to be truthful

Relevance implicature

Sentences are assumed to be of some relevance to the conversation/people at hand

Politeness implicature

People are assumed to cooperate with each other with a degree of politeness

Presupposition

Implying some information based on a sentence, which is understood but not explicitly stated

E.g. “My dog is here” presupposes the speaker having a dog

Focus

The part of the utterance attention is drawn to, often using intonation

Extension

AKA denotation/reference, the real world thing that a word ‘picks out’ in a particular context

Intension

What language users know about a word based on assigned properties and information, which they use to work out the extension in a certain context

Compositionality

The meaning of a complex phrase is determined both by the meanings of individual constituents and by its syntactic structure

Entailment

Where sentence A being true necessitates sentence B also being true

Inclusion

Where one concept is a member of a broader category represented by another concept

Synonymy

Where two expressions have the same meaning

Compatibility

Where one concept can be a member of multiple subcategories

Exclusion

Where a concept cannot simultaneously belong to two categories due to contradiction

Aristotelian Theory of Concepts

A set of properties that characterises all and only instances of one singular concept

Relational

Describing how sets of concepts are defined in relation to each other

Hyponym

A word that is a more specific concept than, and a subset of, another

E.g. dog is a type of mammal

Meronym

A concept that is a part of another

E.g. nose is part of a dog

Predicate

A linguistic object

Properties

The meanings denoted by a predicate

Information transfer

The idea that language is used to make statements about the world

Pipeline Model

Theory that language language is processed through a combination of:

• Identifying sounds

• Analysing how sounds are combined into morphemes

• Analysing how morphemes and words are connected in a syntactic tree

• Interpreting on a semantic level

• Comparison to the real world through observation

Austin

Coined the theory of speech acts

Performative

Utterances which are performative can bring about the actions they describe and enact the meaning

Hereby test

If you can add the word hereby to an utterance without significantly changing the meaning, it can be classed as performative

Felicity conditions

The contextual rules and criteria that must be met in order for a speech act to be successful

Social facts

Information about people’s backgrounds that is used to understand their intended meanings and whether felicity conditions are met

Locutionary

What was said

Illocutionary

What social action was performed by it

Perlocutionary

The higher-order goal achieved by a speech act

Declarative

Basic sentences structure like the window is open

Can be used for questions, requests, or simple statements

Interrogatives

Sentence structure with do-support or wh-words phrased like is the window open?

Can be used as statements or requests

Imperative

Sentence structure with an uninflected verb and no subject, like open the window!

Can be used as statements, orders, or offers/permissions

Cooperative principle

Conversation is assumed to be based on the premise that people will offer information in a way that makes sense and allows the conversation to progress as a joint activity

Pragmatic enrichment

You can infer a speaker’s reason for saying something in a particular way through context and adherence to social norms

Grice’s maxims

Rules of conversation proposed to explain what people expect of their interlocutors

Maxim of Quality

Try to make your conversation true; do not say something that you believe to be false, or that you do not have enough evidence to support being true

Flouted for positive effects (humour, exaggeration, etc.) or to violate the cooperative principle by lying

Maxim of Quantity

Make your contribution as informative as is required for the exchange; do not be more informative than required

Can be violated to give an unspoken effect; if little has been said, it is often for a reason

Maxim of Relation

Be relevant to the given context and situation

Can be flouted to avoid awkward interactions and move on from a violation of politeness norms

Maxim of Manner

Be perspicuous (“easily understood; clearly expressed; lucid”) and avoid obscurity of expression and ambiguity; be brief and orderly

When this is violated, there may be additional information the speaker wishes to convey subtly without being overt

Dale & Reiter (1996)

Argument that, in a goal-oriented view of language, Grice’s Maxims are irrelevant as desired behaviour is likely to happen naturally

Ochs (1976)

Not every culture obeys every Gricean Maxim: e.g. Malagasy speakers do not obey the Quantity maxim due to their custom of secret guarding