Pragmatics

Question 1

what is pragmatics?

Answer 1

how contextual factors influence meaning

Question 2

deixis

Answer 2

words that are context bound:
- person deixis
- spatial deixis
- temporal deixis
- proximal deixis
- distal deixis

Question 3

prescriptive approach

Answer 3

• bound by a set of rules, particularly grammar
• eg. never splitting the infinitive
• eg. never ending a sentence with a preposition.

Question 4

descriptivist

Answer 4

• interested in how meaning is created and generated by language
• recognise that social and cultural, psychological context is important in the utterance.
• descriptive grammar is more a study in the “why and how” of language

Question 5

conversational maxims

Answer 5

• manner (clarity), quality (truth), quantity, relevance
• when someone flouts a maxim -> they generate an implicature (underlying meaning)

Question 6

Politeness Theory - Brown and Levinson

Answer 6

• positive face (feeling of being appreciated and valued) - negative face (independent and not imposed on)
• they claimed that these concerns about face are universal in human culture.