10 INTRODUCTION: KEY BASIC CONCEPTS SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS Semantics and pragmatics are closely related terms in language study. Semantics refers to the construction of meaning in language, while pragmatics refers to meaning con- struction in specific interactional contexts. Pragmatics is also sometimes referred to as the study of ‘meaning in use’ or ‘meaning in interaction’, whereas semantics is concerned with the more abstract study of general, conventional meaning within language structure. These two disciplines of language study are thus firmly linked, and establishing a clear distinction between them is difficult as they tend to blur into one another. Similarly, in recent years there has also been a blurring of the boundaries of semantics and other disciplinary areas of language study as linguists have increasingly realised that it is misleading to treat sentence meaning in isolation from its surrounding context. One example of such blurring is with lexical semantics in B2, which illustrates the inter- relationship between lexicology and the semantic study of meaning construction. Pragmatics is also heavily interrelated with studies of discourse, as we will see in strand 5. Elements of pragmatics study are also utilised within sociolinguistics (see A9). In this unit, we begin by briefly introducing you to more traditional terms and foundational elements of semantics; we then consider how semantics and pragmatics interrelate with one another; finally we move on to examine some foundational prin- ciples of pragmatics study. Sense and reference An important distinction in semantics and a useful principle for our exploration of the traditional role of semantics in English language study is to define the sense and reference of linguistic expressions. Sense and reference are crucial components, as they form part of the foundation of every facet of study within semantics. Sense refers to the central meaning of a linguistic form and how it relates to other expressions within the language system. Reference can be defined as characterising the relation- ships between language and the world, in particular, specific entities that are being focused upon. A classic example to help illustrate the distinction between the two terms is con- sideration of the noun phrases ‘the morning star’ and ‘the evening star’ (see B4 for a definition of noun phrase). Both can be defined as having the same reference – they both refer to the planet Venus – but they clearly have different senses. This example also neatly illustrates the crucial role of context in determining reference. Whilst there are some terms in the English language that have constant reference, such as ‘the moon’ (at least while on this planet) or ‘Great Britain’, most often terms which express reference are reliant upon context for their meaning. Sense is more difficult to define than reference, as it does not refer to a particular person or thing – it is a much more abstract concept. The best way to consider the sense of a linguistic form, and thus define its central meaning, is to compare it with other entities. For example, if we compare a dog to a cat or a giraffe, we get a better understanding of the semantic features of the lexical term ‘dog’. By making such comparisons we are defining the senses of the linguistic form ‘dog’. It is important to remember that all expressions which have meaning can be defined as having sense, but not all expressions of meaning will have reference. A3 SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 11 A key concept when defining reference is the term referring expression, denot- ing a word or phrase that specifically defines a particular entity in the world. Noun phrases are classic examples of referring expressions. However, as we have seen above, it is important to bear in mind that reference cannot be ascribed in a vacuum. Reference is context-dependent, and ascertaining the meaning of particular referents depends entirely upon who is speaking, whom they are speaking with and in what setting the interaction is taking place. Some utterances may be referring expressions in one context but not in another. For example, indefinite noun phrases need to be viewed in context – on some occa- sions they will be referring expressions, on other occasions that will not fulfil this func- tion. Compare the utterance ‘A woman was just staring at you’ with ‘This apartment needs a woman’s touch’. In the former example, ‘a woman’ is a referring expression but in the latter example it has indefinite reference: it does not refer to one particular woman and so it is not operating as a referring expression in quite the same way. Can you think of other, similar examples where the same phrase has different reference, depending upon context? The contextual difference between the same referring expression can be exploited for humorous purposes. In the Irish television situation comedy Father Ted, Father Ted comments to Father Dougal that their parochial house is in need of ‘a woman’s touch’. Unable to understand the indefinite reference, Father Dougal accuses the only woman who is present, a visiting nun, of physically touching Father Ted – making the accusatory statement ‘Ted said you’ve been touching him’. Dougal has failed to understand Ted’s indefinite, metaphorical meaning, resulting in humour through his interpretation of ‘a woman’ as having lit- eral, definite reference. The blending between the study of semantics and meaning in context (pragmatics) can be further illustrated by the related concept known as deixis. The term deixis is borrowed from Greek, and translates as ‘pointing’. The English language, along with all other languages, contains a specific set of words known as deictic expressions which will vary in meaning depending upon who is using them, where they are being uttered and when they are being uttered. The crossover of deixis between the two linguistic sub-disciplines of semantics and pragmatics results in the term being defined and discussed within both disciplines of language study. Deictic expressions always take their meaning from some aspect of the context in which they are uttered. These words all operate as indexes of specific meaning in con- text and thus belong to investigations of what is commonly known as the indexical- ity of language. Many referring expressions can be seen as belonging within the category of deixis (for example ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘there’, ‘yesterday’). Some modifiers with deictic reference are used alongside referring expressions such as demonstrative pronouns, as in ‘this dog’, ‘that woman’, ‘these tables’, ‘those helicopters’, in order to help inter- locutors identify the particular referents of a referring expression. It is also possible for some verbs to be deictic too. For instance, ‘come’ and ‘go’ are good examples of verbs that give evidence of location, and thus qualify as deictic expressions. In order to consider deictic expressions from a more systematic perspective, they can be usefully grouped into the following categories. The three most common deictic sub-types are as follows: 12 INTRODUCTION: KEY BASIC CONCEPTS Person deixis: I, you, her, Peter, Louise Place deixis, sometimes referred to as spatial deixis: here, there, this, that Time deixis, sometimes referred to as temporal deixis: now, today, yesterday, tomorrow, next month Social deixis is another category which is sometimes used. It includes referring expressions which clearly encode social meaning. In modern English, this includes categories known as address terms where social status is indexicalised through the linguistic terms that we use, for example ‘Madam’, ‘Sir’, ‘Professor’, ‘Doctor’, or through the more informal terms of endearment such as ‘mate’, ‘love’ or ‘flower’. Social en- coding was once included with English pronoun usage through the use of ‘thou/you’. Such pronoun usage is termed the T/V system of address (named after the French pro- nouns ‘tu/vous’) and it is still present in many languages other than English, including French and German. One further deictic category is known as discourse deixis. This applies to forms such as ‘the former’, or ‘the latter’, ‘when I said that . . .’, where such expressions are used to point backwards or forwards to particular moments within written or spoken texts. Studies investigating pragmatics in the English language have grown rapidly in recent years. This growth can arguably be traced to a shift in language researchers’ focus, from being less interested in language as a theoretical, abstract system with idealised speakers, to being more interested in actual language usage. Most recently this has been dominated by a focus upon the interactions of specific speakers in real-world contexts. Speech Act Theory Speech Act Theory is a foundational part of the study of pragmatics. It was originally developed by philosopher J. L. Austin (1975) as an attempt to explain the processes of how meanings are constructed within conversation. Speech acts are defined as what actions we perform when we produce utterances. Austin characterises a three-part system for describing different components of speech acts: Locution: what the speaker literally utters, and, drawing upon semantic termin- ology, consisting of sense and reference. Illocution: the force of what has been said, defined by social convention in the context in which it is uttered. The locutions ‘Do that now’, ‘What time is it?’ and ‘Buster is six years old’ have the illocutionary force of a command (an impera- tive), a question (an interrogative) and a statement (a declarative) respectively (see B4). Perlocution: the actual effect of the utterance: exactly how it is interpreted by the hearer(s). Ideally, the perlocution should match what the speaker intended, but this is not always the case. Unintentional effects may well result, and on occasion this can result in miscommunication or even communication breakdown. Other utterances are ambiguous and it can be difficult to assign the exact perlocution. Also, if the sincerity of the utterance is called into question then this can also affect the perlocution of the SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 13 utterance (see below). It is worth noting at this point that the term ‘illocutionary force’ is sometimes known by its longer definition illocutionary force-indicating device. Examples of illocutionary force-indicating devices are ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologise’, oper- ating to signal the speech act of apology (further discussed in C3). Austin also devised a category known as a performative speech act. This term can be applied to an utterance which simultaneously performs the speech act as well as describing the act itself. Most performative speech acts take the form of first person + performative verb as in ‘I promise’, ‘I apologise’, ‘I inform you’, ‘I warn you’. In order for all speech acts, including performatives, to be described as success- fully produced, then a set of criteria known as felicity conditions needs to be fulfilled. According to Austin (1975), there are three different elements to felicity conditions. The first is that a conventional procedure should exist for what is being carried out. The second condition is that participants within the event need to fulfil their roles properly. This can include enacting professional role responsibility appropriately, such as the job of a qualified registrar to perform a marriage ceremony. Thirdly, the necessary thoughts and intentions need to be present in all partici- pants. Within this third category lie sincerity conditions: a participant must be sincere about the act in order to fulfil this condition. For example, if a speaker utters ‘I’m really sorry I disturbed you’ when they have woken you up by telephoning, and they are sincerely sorry that they have disturbed you, then the sincerity conditions have been met. If they are not genuinely sorry, then this is not a legitimate apology. These conditions can often be difficult to gauge in everyday conversation, due to our inability to read speakers’ minds and also due to the potential ambiguity of cer- tain utterances. Though speakers often give verbal and non-verbal clues as to whether we can interpret their utterance as sincere or not, including intonation (voice pitch) and body language, ultimately, sincerity will be ambiguous on some occasions. As inter- actants we may well spend time after a speech event has taken place pondering over exactly what someone has said to us, to try to ascertain their intention. Speech acts can be further categorised as either direct or indirect. A direct speech act is where the meaning of the utterance is literal, so the meaning is the sum of its constituent parts. An example of a direct speech act is the following question: ‘Are you coming to the theatre tonight?’, uttered by a speaker to his housemate, where the speaker genuinely wants to know whether his housemate is coming to the theatre that evening. Compare this direct example with the following utterance: ‘Can you pass the remote control?’ uttered between the same two speakers in their living room while they are watching television. This utterance is also interrogative in form. However, despite its form, the illocutionary force behind this utterance is actually a command not a ques- tion. The speaker wants the remote control given to him – he does not want to know whether the hearer is literally capable of passing the remote control to him. This is an indirect speech act, where the meaning of the utterance depends upon context and the hearer’s ability to interpret the implicature contained within the utterance. Indirect speech acts regularly occur in everyday conversations. They play an important role in pragmatics study, and in the study of politeness in particular. We will develop this focus on the important interplay between speech acts and linguistic politeness in B3 and C3. 14 INTRODUCTION: KEY BASIC CONCEPTS In preparation for this, think of examples of indirect speech acts which have taken place in your everyday conversations. Decide upon the difference between the illocu- tion and perlocution of the indirect speech act. What do you think the consequences would have been if direct speech acts were used instead? GRAMMATICAL PARTS As native speakers of a language, we all have the rules of that language interiorised in our minds: we know how to express just about any concept, event, state or argument, and we also recognise how not to articulate these things. Our interiorised rules are not easy to discover, and there are many dozens if not hundreds of different theories which try to set out precisely what those patterns are. These theories about how language works are called grammars, and they can differ from each other quite radically (even talking about the ‘rules’ of language would be contentious for some grammarians). We know that English (and every other language) undoubtedly has a grammar, since it is possible to imagine utterances using the vocabulary of the language that are never- theless badly formed: ‘?book the table the down put on’, ‘?to to or be be the question not that is’, ‘?was beginning the in word the’. We must already have a set of well-formedness rules in our minds to recognise these as ungrammatical, rather than as their resequenced proper forms. Deciding what the constraints are that produce only the good sentences is a difficult and debatable matter. There is, then, no such thing as ‘the grammar of English’, only different grammars of English with different emphases and principles. Constituents Having said all that, there are some broad matters of consensus about what any gram- mar needs to account for, and these patterns will be described in this unit. Firstly, there are a finite number of words in the language, but a very very large number of possible utterances, and native speakers are creative, in the sense that it is possible to utter a string of language that has never been uttered previously. You can be novel either by collocating two or more words together that do not usually go together, or by extending your utterance with longer and longer material that quickly produces a permutation that must be unique. In spite of this, and in spite of the related problem that language and its rules are constantly changing, communication happens. This astonishing set of facts relies on at least three properties of English that most grammarians would agree on: constituency, dependency and recursion. When we want to say something, we do not simply reproduce a combination of set phrases in an unstructured way. Every utterance that is well formed displays constituency. Every sentence is not simply a list of individual words, but can be seen to be a systemic structure of words in well-formed phrases, and these phrases are in well-formed positions in clauses. Further down the grammar, words are constituted of morphemic ‘chunks’ in the correct pattern, and phonologically allowable structures within those morphemes. Further up the grammar, the well-formed clauses combine in proper ways in sentences and texts and extended discourse. A4 GRAMMATICAL PARTS 15 If you take the last sentence of that paragraph, the comma marks out a mean- ingful chunk that goes before it. You could draw lines round other meaningful chunks as follows: the well-formed clauses / combine / in proper ways / in sentences and texts and extended discourse It would be odd to carve up this sentence as follows: the / well-formed clauses combine / in proper / ways in sentences and / texts and extended / discourse The fact that this last version looks odd shows that you have an interior sense that your language has a constituent structure. Furthermore, that sense of structure can be understood independently of the meaning of the words that are involved. For example, all the following sentences (and many others you might think of) have exactly the same syntactic structure: The well-formed clauses combine in proper ways in sentences and texts and extended discourse. An especially fat man arrives in good time before me and you and almost everyone. Some semi-skimmed milk pours without a splash into flour and eggs and the fruity mixture. A nineteenth-century traveller moved at top speed by horses and carriages and steam trains. The beautifully decorated cakes fit with no difficulty into boxes and cartons and little papercups. The boundaries marked by the lines in the first example above show the constituent structure of the sentence. ‘The well-formed clauses’ is a complete and meaningful unit: in the sentence, this unit stands as the subject of the verb ‘combine’ that follows it, and ‘the well-formed clauses’ is the theme of the sentence – the starting argument for the propositional material that attaches to it afterwards. Equally, ‘an especially fat man’ is the subject of ‘arrives’; ‘some semi-skimmed milk’, ‘a nineteenth-century traveller’ and ‘the beautifully decorated cakes’ are all subjects and themes of their sentences. These are all noun phrases or NPs. Each of the chunks in the first, properly carved- up sentence is a phrase, and most grammarians agree that there are five types of phrasal category in English: noun phrase (NP) The well-formed clauses verb phrase (VP) combine adverbial phrase (AdvP) in proper ways prepositional phrase (PrepP) in sentences and texts and discourse adjectival phrase (AdjP) well-formed or, noun phrase (NP) The beautifully decorated cakes verb phrase (VP) fit adverbial phrase (AdvP) with no difficulty prepositional phrase (PrepP) into boxes and cartons and little paper cups adjectival phrase (AdjP) beautifully decorated . traditional role of semantics in English language study is to define the sense and reference of linguistic expressions. Sense and reference are crucial components, as they form part of the foundation of. relates to other expressions within the language system. Reference can be defined as characterising the relation- ships between language and the world, in particular, specific entities that are being focused. deixis. The term deixis is borrowed from Greek, and translates as ‘pointing’. The English language, along with all other languages, contains a specific set of words known as deictic expressions which will