#29 Daily

It should be great, but... life isn't easy. don't you know that there is something really hurts me now. got damn.

#28 Daily Journal

I don't know why my memory becomes bad now.. Actually, I am good at memorizing, but now.. Everything is changed.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties that differentiate them. Pragmatics is sometimes characterized as dealing with the effects of context. This is equivalent to saying it deals with utterances, if one collectively refers to all the facts that can vary from utterance to utterance as ‘context.’ One must be careful, however, for the term is often used with more limited meanings. Different theorists have focused on different properties of utterances. To discuss them it will be helpful to make a distinction between ‘near-side pragmatics’ and ‘far-side pragmatics.’ The picture is this. The utterances philosophers usually take as paradigmatic are assertive uses of declarative sentences, where the speaker says something. Near-side pragmatics is concerned with the nature of certain facts that are relevant to determining what is said. Far-side pragmatics is focused on what happens beyond saying: what speech acts are performed in or by saying what is said, or what implicatures (see below for an explanation of this term) are generated by saying what is said. Near-side pragmatics includes, but is not limited to resolution of ambiguity and vagueness, the reference of proper names, indexicals and demonstratives, and anaphors, and at least some issues involving presupposition. In all of these cases facts about the utterance, beyond the expressions used and their meanings, are needed. We can divide these facts into several categories. For indexicals such as ‘I,’ ‘now,’ and ‘here’ basic facts about the utterance are required: the agent, and when and where it occurred. For other indexicals and demonstratives, speaker intentions are also relevant. While it seems the referent of ‘you’ must be a person addressed by the speaker, which of several possible addressees is referred to seems up to the speaker's intentions. Within syntactic and semantic constraints, anaphoric relations seem largely a matter of speaker's intent. Speaker's intentions and the way the speaker is connected to the wider world by causal/historical ‘chains of reference’ are relevant to the reference of proper names. Far-side pragmatics deals with what we do with language, beyond what we (literally) say. This is the conception according to which Voltaire's remarks belong to pragmatics. It's up to semantics to tell us what someone literally says when they use expressions of a given type; it's up to pragmatics to explain the information one conveys, and the actions one performs, in or by saying something. Pragmatics is usually thought to involve a different sort of reasoning than semantics. Semantics consists of conventional rules of meaning for expressions and their modes of combination. Locke supposed that communication was basically a matter of a speaker encoding thoughts into words and the listener decoding words back into thoughts. The same basic picture is found fairly explicitly in Saussure and other influential theorists. This picture seems to fit reasonably well with the picture that emerged from the logicians and philosophers of language in the tradition of logical analysis, of language as a system of phonological, syntactic and semantic rules, of which competent speakers and interpreters have implicit mastering. Paradigmatically, the sincere speaker plans to produce an utterance with the truth-conditions of a belief he wishes to express; he chooses his words so that his utterance has those truth-conditions; the credulous interpreter needs to perceive the utterance, and recognize which phones, morphemes, words and phrases are involved, and then using knowledge of the meanings, deduce the truth-conditions of the utterance and of the belief it expresses. In contrast, pragmatics involves perception augmented by some species of ‘ampliative’ inference — induction, inference to the best explanation, Bayesian reasoning, or perhaps some special application of general principles special to communication, as conceived by Grice (see below) — but in any case a sort of reasoning that goes beyond the application of rules, and makes inferences beyond what is established by the basic facts about what expressions are used and their meanings. The facts with which pragmatics deals are of various sorts, including: Facts about the objective facts of the utterance, including: who the speaker is, when the utterance occurred, and where; Facts about the speaker's intentions. On the near side, what language the speaker intends to be using, what meaning he intends to be using, whom he intends to refer to with various shared names, whether a pronoun is used demonstratively or anaphorically, and the like. On the far side, what he intends to achieve by saying what he does. Facts about beliefs of the speaker and those to whom he speaks, and the conversation they are engaged in; what beliefs do they share; what is the focus of the conversation, what are they talking about, etc. Facts about relevant social institutions, such as promising, marriage ceremonies, courtroom procedures, and the like, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what he does. We will divide our discussion, somewhat arbitrarily, into the ‘Classic Pragmatics’ and ‘Contemporary pragmatics.’ The Classic Period, by our reckoning, stretches from the mid-sixties until the mid-eighties. 2. Classical Pragmatics 2.1 Far-side Pragmatics: Beyond Saying Our initial focus will be on the traditions in pragmatics inaugurated by the J.L. Austin and H.P. Grice. Both of these philosophers were interested in the area of pragmatics we call ‘beyond saying.’ In the classic period, these phenomena were studied on the premise — a premise increasingly undermined by developments in pragmatics itself — that a fairly clear distinction could be made between what is said, the output of the realm of semantics, and what is conveyed or accomplished in particular linguistic and social context in or by saying something, the realm of pragmatics. What is said is sort of a boundary; semantics is on the near side, and those parts of pragmatics that were the focus of the classic period are on the far side. 2.1.1 Austin, Searle, and Speech Acts The British philosopher John Langshaw Austin (b. 1911–d. 1960) was intrigued by the way that we can use words to do different things. Whether one asserts or merely suggests, promises or merely indicates an intention, persuades or merely argues, depends not only on the literal meaning of one's words, but what one intends to do with them, and the institutional and social setting in which the linguistic activity occurs. One thing a speaker might intend to do, and be taken to do, in saying “I'll be there to pick you up at six,” is to promise to pick his listener up at that time. The ability to promise and to intend to promise arguably depends on the existence of a social practice or set of conventions about what a promise is and what constitutes promising. Austin especially emphasized the importance of social fact and conventions in doing things with words, in particular with respect to the class of speech acts known as illocutionary acts. Austin began by distinguishing between what he called ‘constatives’ and ‘performatives.’ A constative is simply saying something true or false. A performative is doing something by speaking; paradigmatically, one can get married by saying “I do” (Austin, 1961). Constatives are true or false, depending on their correspondence (or not) with the facts; performatives are actions and, as such, are not true or false, but ‘felicitous’ or ‘infelicitous,’ depending on whether or not they successfully perform the action in question. In particular, performative utterances to be felicitous must invoke an existing convention and be invoked in the right circumstances. However, a clear delimitation between performatives and constatives proved to be difficult to establish. There are explicit performatives; a verb used in a certain way makes explicit the action being performed: “I bet that there is a dangerous animal there,” “I guarantee that there is a dangerous animal there,” “I warn you that there is a dangerous animal there.” But the same action could be performed implicitly: “There is a dangerous animal there,” where both issues of (in)felicities and issues of truth/falsity are simultaneously present. Instead of pursuing the distinction between performatives and constatives, Austin (1962a) proposed a new three-fold distinction. According to this trichotomy, a speech act is, first of all, a locutionary act, that is, an act of saying something. Saying something can also be viewed from three different perspectives: (i) as a phonetic act: uttering certain noises; (ii) as a phatic act: uttering words “belonging to and as belonging to, a certain vocabulary, conforming to and as conforming to a certain grammar”; and (iii) as a rhetic act: uttering words “with a certain more-or-less definite sense and reference” (Austin, 1962a, 95). Now, to perform a locutionary act is also in general to perform an illocutionary act; in performing a locutionary act, we perform an act with a certain force: ordering, warning, assuring, promising, expressing an intention, and so on. And by doing that, we will normally produce “certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons” (ibidem, 101) that Austin calls perlocutionary. At the point of his untimely death, Austin's work on speech act theory was far from complete. His main work, How to do things with words was published posthumously, based on lecture notes of Austin and his students. Austin's student, John R. Searle (1969) developed speech act theory as a theory of the constitutive rules for performing illocutionary acts, i.e., the rules that tell what performing (successfully) an illocutionary act (with certain illocutionary force and certain propositional content) consists in. The rules are classified as (i) propositional content rules, which put conditions on the propositional content of some illocutionary acts; (ii) preparatory rules, which tell what the speaker will imply in the performance of the illocutionary acts; (iii) sincerity rules, that tell what psychological state the speaker expresses to be in; and (iv) essential rules, which tell us what the action consists in essentially. Let's return to our case of promising. According to Searle's analysis, for an utterance by S to H to count as a promise must meet the following conditions: The propositional content represents some future action A by S; H prefers S's doing A to her not doing it, and S believes that to be so; and it is not obvious both to S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events; S intends to do A; and Promising counts as the undertaking of an obligation of S to do A. If someone, then, wants to make a (felicitous) promise she must meet these conventional conditions. The study of the these conventional conditions for illocutionary acts, together with the study of the their correct taxonomy constitutes the core of speech act theory. Based on their essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle (1975a) proposes a taxonomy of illocutionary acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes: Representative or assertive. The speaker becomes committed to the truth of the propositional content; for example, asserting: “It's raining.” Directive. The speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is represented by the propositional content; for example, commanding: “Close the door!” Commissive. The speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content; for example, promising: “I'll finish the paper by tomorrow.” Expressive. The speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act: “I'm glad it's raining!” Declarative. The speaker performs an action just representing herself as performing that action: “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.” Speech act theory, then, adopts a social or institutional view of linguistic meaning. This is sometimes opposed to the intentionalist view favored by Grice (1957) and Strawson (1964), but there need be no inconsistency. (For an interesting discussion on the relationship between intentionalist and social, institutional and intersubjective views on meaning and communication by Searle, Bennett, Habermas and Appel, see part I of Lepore & Van Gulick 1991.) 2.1.2 Grice and Conversational Implicatures Herbert Paul Grice (b. 1913-d. 1988) emphasized the distinction Voltaire makes, in our opening quotation, between what words mean, what the speaker literally says when using them, and what the speaker means or intends to communicate by using those words, which often goes considerably beyond what is said. I ask you to lunch and you reply, “I have a one o'clock class I'm not prepared for.” You have conveyed to me that you will not be coming to lunch, although you haven't literally said so. You intend for me to figure out that by indicating a reason for not coming to lunch (the need to prepare your class) you intend to convey that you are not coming to lunch for that reason. The study of such conversational implicatures is the core of Grice's influential theory. Grice's so-called theory of conversation starts with a sharp distinction between what someone says and what someone ‘implicates’ by uttering a sentence. What someone says is determined by the conventional meaning of the sentence uttered and contextual processes of disambiguation and reference fixing; what she implicates is associated with the existence to some rational principles and maxims governing conversation (setting aside “conventional implicatures” which we discuss below). What is said has been widely identified with the literal content of the utterance; what is implicated, the implicature, with the non-literal, what it is (intentionally) communicated, but not said, by the speaker. Consider his initial example: A and B are talking about a mutual friend, C, who is now working in a bank. A asks B how C is getting on in his job, and B replies: Oh quite well, I think; he likes his colleagues, and he hasn't been to prison yet. (Grice 1967a/1989, 24.) What did B say by uttering “he hasn't been to prison yet”? Roughly, all he literally said of C was that he hasn't been to prison up to the time of utterance. This is what the conventional sentence meaning plus contextual processes of disambiguation, precisification of vague expressions and reference fixing provide. But, normally, B would have implicated more than this: that C is the sort of person likely to yield to the temptation provided by his occupation. According to Grice, the ‘calculation’ of conversational implicatures is grounded on common knowledge of what the speaker has said (or better, the fact that he has said it), the linguistic and extra linguistic context of the utterance, general background information, and the consideration of what Grice dubs the ‘Cooperative Principle (CP)’: Make your conversational 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. (Grice 1967a/1989, 26.) The maxims According to Grice, the CP is implemented, in the plans of speakers and understanding of hearers, by following ‘maxims:’ Quantity Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Quality (Supermaxim): Try to make your contribution one that is true. (Submaxims): Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation Be relevant. Manner (Supermaxim): Be perspicuous. (Submaxims): Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). Be orderly. Frame whatever you say in the form most suitable for any reply that would be regarded as appropriate; or, facilitate in your form of expression the appropriate reply (added by Grice 1981/1989, 273). Grice sees the principles governing conversation as derived from general principles governing human rational cooperative action. There has been much discussion about the CP and the maxims. Are all of them necessary? Do we need more? Are they normative or descriptive? What's their exact role in the theory of implicatures: Are they principles that speakers and hearers are assumed to observe in rational communication, or simply theorist's tools for rational reconstruction? Does the CP require from speaker and hearer further cooperation towards a common goal beyond that of understanding and being understood? What is clear is that Grice attributes to these principles an essential role for the definition and the interpretation of conversational implicatures.

#27 Daily Journal

You have seen the darkest side of me. I've shown you everything I am. I just need you to keep it till the end of time. try to receive it because nobody is perfect in this world. Everybody needs changing, include myself.

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics is a branch of study which combines the disciplines of psychology and linguistics. It is concerned with the relationship between the human mind and the language as it examines the processes that occur in brain while producing and perceiving both written and spoken discourse. What is more, it is interested in the ways of storing lexical items and syntactic rules in mind, as well as the processes of memory involved in perception and interpretation of texts. Also, the processes of speaking and listening are analyzed, along with language acquisition and language disorders. Psycholinguistics as a separate branch of study emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s as a result of Chomskyan revolution. The ideas presented by Chomsky became so important that they quickly gained a lot of publicity and had a big impact on a large number of contemporary views on language. Consequently also psycholinguists started investigating such matters as the processing of deep and surface structure of sentences. In the early years of development of psycholinguistics special experiments were designed in order to examine if the focus of processing is the deep syntactic structure. On the basis of transformation of sentences it was initially discovered that the ease of processing was connected with syntactic complexity. However, later on it became clear that not only syntactic complexity adds to the difficulty of processing, but also semantic factors have a strong influence on it. All the same, certain principles of sentence processing that were formulated at that time are still valid. One of them, namely the principle of minimal attachment means that when processing a sentence which could have multiple meanings people most frequently tend to choose the simplest meaning, or the meaning that in syntactic analysis would present the simplest parse tree with fewest nodes. Thus, a sentence ‘Mary watched the man with the binoculars’ by most language users would be interpreted that it was Mary, and not the man, who was using binoculars. One other principle worth noting is the principle of late closure which states that there is a tendency to join the new information to the current phrase, or clause, which explains why in a sentence such as ‘John said he will leave this morning’ the phrase ‘this morning’ would be understood as relating to the verb ‘leave’ and not to ‘said’. Other psycholinguistic investigations into how processing of texts occurs led to conclusions that complex sentences with multiple clauses are interpreted faster and with less mental effort when the clauses are not reduced. When it comes to speech the experiments show that the interpretation of sentences can vary depending on the placing of pauses, or disfluencies. Additionally, is has been proven that visual contact between speakers also has a strong influence on the ease, or difficulty of processing texts. During experiments subjects were listening to some sentences and those who saw the speaker could understand what the speech was about better, while those who did not see him often had difficulties with it. The recent tendencies in psycholinguistics show increasing interest in discourse processing, and in particular in the ways readers create a mental representation of the narrative world. The focus of interest is on the role of readers’ schemata and the problem of inferences about the read subject matter. It has been proved that certain inferences are made in the very process of reading, while others are made later in order to resolve some problems or inconsistencies. The issues of background knowledge and automaticity of drawing inferences are still being investigated.

#26 Daily Journal

I've planned everything on this weekend, but I don't do it :( I'm extremely so lazy in addition, the deadline is so close now Just keep in mind, "LET IT FLOW"

#25 Daily Journal

On weekend. I just spent this weekend staying at home. I miss this moment because I was busy with everything before. I planned to finish my assignment, but I am very lazy to do it :(

#24 Daily Journal

I have many things in mind that I wanna say beside about love. Love that I've ever felt is so suck! If somebody say it, I wish I couldn't hear it.. what a life!

#23 Daily Journal

I'm very exhausted with this assignment! I hate it! Therefore, I don't have a free time to get relax :( In addition, I have moneeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy!!!! help me please! I'm just like an insane person!

#22 Daily Journal

Hello Friday! woke up, took a bath, prayed, dressed-up, got my breakfast, and went to campus. it was so enjoyable in dancing class. Here, I want to say something. Don't you know it? I feel warm at that time.

#21 Daily Journal

So busy with my new organization in campus, busy with some assignment, and the mid term test. I feel that my body is not good as usual. however, I feel something new in my heart. I don't know this is love or only crush, just let it flow.

#20 Daily Journal

Today, I just wanna sing this song.

The winter had passed
And the spring has come
We have withered
And our hearts are bruised from longing

(i’m singing my blues)
Used to the blue tears, blue sorrow
(i’m singing my blues)
The love that i have sent away with the floating clouds, oh oh

Under the same sky, at different places
Because you and i are dangerous
I am leaving you
One letter difference from ‘nim’^
It’s cowardly but i’m hiding because i’m not good enough
Cruel breakup is like the end of the road of love
No words can comfort me
Perhaps my lifetime’s last melodrama
Now its final curtain is coming down

I was born and i met you
And i have loved you to death
My cold heart that has been dyed blue
Even with my eyes closed, i can’t feel you

The winter had passed
And the spring has come
We have withered
And our hearts are bruised from longing

(i’m singing my blues)
Used to the blue tears, blue sorrow
(i’m singing my blues)
The love that i have sent away with the floating clouds, oh oh

I feel like my heart has stopped beating
You and i, frozen there, after a war
Trauma, that has been carved in my head
Once these tears dry up, i will moistly remember my love
I’m neither painful nor lonely
Happiness is all self-talk
I can’t stand something more complicated
It’s no big deal, i don’t care
Inevitable wandering, people come and go

#19 Daily Journal

Sunday,
weekend!
some people are happy to hear about this word,except me.
it's just same as other days,
boring, nothing special.

#18 Daily Journal

Hi!!!
Long time no post.
it has been a week I didn't post something here because I'm busy with my new organization and assignment.
it's so tiring.
i want these over soon.

#17 Daily Journal

Hi Thursday!
What a tiring day!
Actually, I'm already bored of it, but I want to pass it soon.
Only a way, that is, be patient!
I'm almost crazy to think about it.
OMG! Help me!

#16th Daily Journal

Tuesday!
It was rainy this morning but just in short time.
my first class was so funny because I love the class.
After the first class My friends and I visited our lecturer to her house and it was sooo enjoyable!
Loved it!
Nevertheless, there are some friends that don't like it.
Hate it!
bye!

#15 Daily Journal

Monday is coming!
every activities is just starting,it means that I have to struggle and struggle again.
Actually, there is a problem in my big family, some of my family members are so stupid, they don't think what they wanted to say!
What an uneducated person!
it makes me uncomfortable to live in.
Bye!

#14th Daily Journal

Bienvenue Sunday!
My timetable today is doing laundry, iron my clothes, eat, and finish my assignment.
However,suddenly my auntie asked me to accompany her to go to the market.
Now, I am doing my homework, but I am really to do it.
Keep doing it, it must finish!
Hope tomorrow will be great!
Bye!

#13th Daily Journal

Hi weekend, Saturday!
what a boring day!
nothing special I did today, just woke up, cleaned my house, cooked, took a bath,and took a nap.
However, tonight I'm gonna sleep in my uncle's house. He asked me to accompany his wife, my auntie I mean, because there is no body in his house.
Yupp, that's it for today.
See ya!

#12th Daily Journal

Weekend! Friday
My alarm rang, woke up, took a bath, prayed, dressed up, got my breakfast, and went to campus. These activities I do everyday and I almost get bored. Everyday in campus, I meet the same people.
Then, my grandma will flight to Jakarta with my auntie,I hope they'll safe.
Bye!

#11th Daily Journal

Good morning!
I was very afraid coming to the class this morning. I do not want to say that's why.
This feeling becomes so deep to ??????
*skip.
get bored with these activities, i wanna do something new!
bye!

What is Linguistics?

Language is central to our human nature, and linguistics is the systematic study of human language. Although on the face of it there is huge variation among the world's languages, linguists not only describe the diverse characteristics of individual languages but also seek to discover the deeper properties which all languages share. These common properties may give us an insight into the structure of the human mind.

Part of the appeal of linguistics is that it draws on methods and knowledge from an unusually wide range of scholarship and transcends the usual subject boundaries. For instance, the study of meaning draws on work by philosophers, whereas the part of our course concentrating on the sounds of speech takes place in our Phonetics Laboratory. Here computers are used to display and analyse the speech signal using methods from physics and engineering. This variety is what makes linguistics fascinating: at one moment you might be poring over a medieval text for evidence of how the grammar of a language has changed, and the next, learning about how the larynx creates sound energy for speech.

The flexibility of language as a tool for communication depends on combining smaller elements into larger structures. Language does this at several 'levels', and the description of languages involves different levels of analysis. Syntax describes the combination of words to form sentences; morphology describes the building of words from components such as roots and suffixes; and phonology identifies the sound-units of a language and describes aspects of their combination. These levels of language constitute a system for associating structures with meaning, and the study of meaning in language belongs to the domain of semantics. Phonetics is concerned with how people speak and understand speech, and with speech sounds themselves.

Other linguistic sub-disciplines are directed towards language in action. Pragmatics deals with the ways in which the meaning of an utterance depends on the context of its use. Sociolinguistics studies the relation between language and all aspects of society, from the way social groups mark themselves linguistically, to the dynamics of conversations. Psycholinguistics is concerned with how language is represented and processed in the mind, and how it is acquired. Historical linguistics reconstructs earlier forms of a language, and seeks general trends in the ways languages change; explanations for changes may draw on social and psychological aspects of language use.

The investigation of language has a long history, which is a topic of study in its own right, and it draws on techniques and knowledge from disciplines as diverse as philosophy, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. For many people part of the attraction of linguistics is that it transcends disciplinary boundaries, including notably the traditional boundary between the arts and sciences.

Why Language is Important

Imagine for just a moment that we developed a system of auditory symbols that also had visual conterparts, and let's say for example, that there was an auditory symbol that sounded like this: "ahh." This same symbol had a visual representation associated with it that we could reproduce for our eyes, and it looked like: "A." Furthermore, we all agreed that we would use this set of symbols according to a set of basic rules, whereby we could use them independently or in various combinations to express concepts and ideas. Finally, we agreed that the sole purpose of these symbols was so that we could share our thoughts with others, and conversely, that they could share their thoughts with us. Well, that is language.

Language is the currency with we exchange ideas; thus, language is the single, greatest skill an individual can, and should, master.

Language is complex and constantly evolving. There are over a quarter of a million words in the English language alone! Even this number excludes the roots and derivatives of words. Mastering a quality set of vocabulary to the point that we can always articulate what we want to communicate is a journey that will take most of us a lifetime. It is estimated that most people average between 12,000 to 20,000 words in their vocabularies, with college graduates learning about 20 percent more. But, language is much more than just words.

Words are not just representations of "things" that are concrete. Words are much more powerful that that when in the hands of we humans. Indeed, we have the propensity to want to talk about "things" that are abstract, intangible, unthought of and not even in existence. We humans like to talk about everything, and as you know, we're a gregarious lot!

That means words have to be able to convey anything and everything that the human mind can conceive. I am sure that your mind, like mine, is always talking, thinking, mulling, worrying, viewing the past-present-future, and fiddling with a multitude of ideas all at once. So, we are always finding ways to use our basic building blocks for language, words, to convey to others what is going on inside our "always turned on" minds.

Language is the fabric that allows cultures, with their shared sets of values, customs and history, to exist. It's the "glue" that holds societies together and allows for mankind to evolve, grow and prosper.

Language is also, at the end of the day, a mirror that allows us to understand what we are thinking and shed some light on who we are as individuals.

Language is the key that unlocks our mind.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2603801

#10th Daily Journal

Hello Wednesday!
today, I only have a class and in listening class, I did my job well.
However, there was something happened, I was out of control.
I am frustrated now, so much assignment must finish for tomorrow.
Hope tomorrow will be great.

#9th Daily Journal

Hi Tuesday!
There was nothing special today, just studied and in the 2nd class, the lecturer didn't come.
In one subject, so much homework that I must finish.
Huffh!
See ya.

#8th Daily Journal

Welcome Monday!
All activities are just starting. However, my condition is not good at all because of the camp two days ago. I couldn't come to the 2nd and the 3rd class today because I feel worse.
I still need to rest.
Hope tomorrow will be better.
Bye!

#6th Daily Journal

Hi Sunday!
Sorry for Saturday, I didn't post about my diary because I just finished "Malam Pembekalan" in UKKPK.
It was so exhausted because I don't get enough rest there. So many activities I did there.
However, it was so fun because my group got two prizes.
Okay, See you tomorrow on the beginning day of week.

#5th Daily Journal

Hello Friday!
Just finished SEA's dancing class. It was so enjoyable but it was so tiring.
I have to practice more to get a good mark on dancing class, Amiin.

I am bored with U***K, this week I always go there.
*Sigh
see you tomorrow.

#4th Daily Journal

Hi Thursday!
What a tiring day!
This week I always went home late because of UKKPK. I must pass the selection because I have been struggling to join there.
Keep Fighting!
See you tomorrow in dancing class!

Pragmatics

What is pragmatics?

“We human beings are odd compared with our nearest animal relatives. Unlike them, we can say what we want, when we want. All normal humans can produce and understand any number of new words and sentences. Humans use the multiple options of language often without thinking. But blindly, they sometimes fall into its traps. They are like spiders who exploit their webs, but themselves get caught in the sticky strands.”

Jean Aitchison

“Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.”

David Crystal

“Pragmatics is all about the meanings between the lexis and the grammar and the phonology...Meanings are implied and the rules being followed are unspoken, unwritten ones.”

George Keith

“Pragmatics is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts even when, from a semantic viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or to have a different meaning to what is really intended. Consider a sign seen in a children's wear shop window: “Baby Sale - lots of bargains”. We know without asking that there are no babies are for sale - that what is for sale are items used for babies. Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this “meaning beyond the words” can be understood without ambiguity. The extra meaning is there, not because of the semantic aspects of the words themselves, but because we share certain contextual knowledge with the writer or speaker of the text.

“Pragmatics is an important area of study for your course. A simplified way of thinking about pragmatics is to recognise, for example, that language needs to be kept interesting - a speaker or writer does not want to bore a listener or reader, for example, by being over-long or tedious. So, humans strive to find linguistic means to make a text, perhaps, shorter, more interesting, more relevant, more purposeful or more personal. Pragmatics allows this. ”

Steve Campsall


Pragmatics is a systematic way of explaining language use in context. It seeks to explain aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain sense of words or structures, as explained by semantics. As a field of language study, pragmatics is fairly new. Its origins lie in philosophy of language and the American philosophical school of pragmatism. As a discipline within language science, its roots lie in the work of (Herbert) Paul Grice on conversational implicature and the cooperative principle, and on the work of Stephen Levinson, Penelope Brown and Geoff Leech on politeness.

We can illustrate how pragmatics works by an example from association football (and other field sports). It sometimes happens that a team-mate will shout at me: “Man on!” Semantic analysis can only go so far with this phrase.

For example, it can elicit different lexical meanings of the noun “man” (mankind or the human race, an individual person, a male person specifically) and the preposition “on” (on top of, above, or other relationships as in “on fire”, “on heat”, “on duty”, “on the fiddle” or “on the telly”).
And it can also explain structural meaning, and account for the way this phrase works in longer sequences such as the “first man on the moon”, “a man on the run” or “the man on top of the Clapham omnibus”.



None of this explains the meaning in the context of the football game. This is very complex, but perhaps includes at least the following elements:

My team-mate has seen another player's movement, and thinks that I have either not seen it, or have not responded to it appropriately.
My team-mate wants me to know that I am likely to be tackled or impeded in some way.
My team-mate wants me to respond appropriately, as by shielding the ball, passing it to an unmarked player, laying it off for another team-mate and so on.
My team-mate has an immediate concern for me, but this is really subordinated to a more far-sighted desire for me, as a player on his team, to protect the ball or retain possession, as this will make our team more likely to gain an advantage.
My team-mate understands that my opponent will also hear the warning, but thinks that his hearing it will not harm our team's chances as much as my not being aware of the approaching player.
My team-mate foresees that I may rebuke him (and the other players on our team collectively) if no-one, from a better vantage point, alerts me to the danger.



If this is right (or even part of it), it is clear that my team-mate could not, in the time available, (that is, before the opponent tackles me) communicate this information in the explicit manner above. But it also relies on my knowing the methods of language interchange in football. “Man on” is an established form of warning. For all I know, professional players may have their own covert forms, as when they signal a routine at a free kick, corner or throw-in, by calling a number or other code word.

Also, though my team-mate is giving me information, in the context of the game, he is chiefly concerned about my taking the right action. If response to the alert becomes like a conditioned reflex (I hear the warning and at once lay the ball off or pass), then my contribution to the team effort will be improved. (Reflection on how I play the game is fine after the match, but not helpful at moments when I have to take action.) Note also, that though I have assumed this to be in a game played by men, the phrase “Man on” is used equally in mixed-gender and women's sports - I have heard it frequently in games of field hockey, where the “Man” about to be “on” was a female player. “Woman on” would be inefficient (extra syllable and a difficult intial “w” sound), and might even lead the uncritical player to worry less about the approaching tackle - though probably not more than once.


We use language all the time to make things happen. We ask someone to pass the salt or marry us - not, usually at the same time. We order a pizza or make a dental appointment. Speech acts include asking for a glass of beer, promising to drink the beer, threatening to drink more beer, ordering someone else to drink some beer, and so on. Some special people can do extraordinary things with words, like baptizing a baby, declaring war, awarding a penalty kick to Arsenal FC or sentencing a convict.

Linguists have called these things “speech acts” - and developed a theory (called, unsurprisingly, “speech act theory”) to explain how they work. Some of this is rooted in common sense and stating the obvious - as with felicity conditions. These explain that merely saying the words does not accomplish the act. Judges (unless they are also referees) cannot award penalty kicks to Arsenal, and football referees (unless they are also heads of state) cannot declare war.

Speech act theory is not the whole of pragmatics, but is perhaps currently the most important established part of the subject. Contemporary debate in pragmatics often focuses on its relations with semantics. Since semantics is the study of meaning in language, why add a new field of study to look at meaning from a novel viewpoint?

This is an elementary confusion. Clearly linguists could develop a model of semantics that included pragmatics. Or they could produce a model for each, which allows for some exploration and explanation of the boundary between them - but distinguishes them as in some way different kinds of activity. However, there is a consensus view that pragmatics as a separate study is necessary because it explains meanings that semantics overlooks.


What does pragmatics include?

The lack of a clear consensus appears in the way that no two published accounts list the same categories of pragmatics in quite the same order. But among the things you should know about are:

Speech act theory
Felicity conditions
Conversational implicature
The cooperative principle
Conversational maxims
Relevance
Politeness
Phatic tokens
Deixis

This guide contains some explanation of all of these, as well as related or peripheral subjects. Many of them break down further into their own sub-categories, as with the different kinds of speech acts that linguists have usefully distinguished.


Criticisms of pragmatics

Some of the criticisms directed at pragmatics include these:

It does not have a clear-cut focus
Its principles are vague and fuzzy
It is redundant - semantics already covers the territory adequately

In defending pragmatics we can say that:

The study of speech acts has illuminated social language interactions
It covers things that semantics (hitherto) has overlooked
It can help inform strategies for teaching language
It has given new insights into understanding literature
The theories of the cooperative principle and politeness principle have provided insights into person-to-person interactions.


Speech acts

Performatives | The “hereby” test | Felicity conditions

The philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960) claims that many utterances (things people say) are equivalent to actions. When someone says: “I name this ship” or “I now pronounce you man and wife”, the utterance creates a new social or psychological reality. We can add many more examples:

Sergeant Major: Squad, by the left… left turn!
Referee: (Pointing to the centre circle) Goal!
Groom: With this ring, I thee wed.


Speech act theory broadly explains these utterances as having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.
Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming and warning.
Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned.

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of categories or types. David Crystal, quoting J.R. Searle, gives five such categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. (Perhaps he would have preferred declaratives, but this term was already taken as a description of a kind of sentence that expresses a statement.)


Representatives: here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report.
Directives: here the speaker tries to make the hearer do something, with such words as: ask, beg, challenge, command, dare, invite, insist, request.
Commissives: here the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future) course of action, with verbs such as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake, warrant.
Expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs, using such verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome.
Declarations the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by making the utterance: I now pronounce you man and wife, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you be dead, I name this ship...


Performatives

These are speech acts of a special kind where the utterance of the right words by the right person in the right situation effectively is (or accomplishes) the social act. In some cases, the speech must be accompanied by a ceremonial or ritual action. Whether the speaker in fact has the social or legal (or other kind of) standing to accomplish the act depends on some things beyond the mere speaking of the words. These are felicity conditions, which we can also explain by the “hereby” test. But let's look, first, at some examples.

In the Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 19, verses 13-20) we read of some exorcists in Ephesus who tried to copy St. Paul and cast out evil spirits in the name of Jesus: “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims”. On one occasion the possessed man (or the evil spirit) attacked them, and said, “Jesus I know and Paul I know; but who are you?” Evidently St. Paul not only knew the words, but also had the means to call on divine aid for his exorcisms. In a slightly similar vein, Claudius, in Hamlet, sees that his prayer is ineffectual because “Words without thoughts never to Heaven go”.



Outside of miracle or magic, there are social realities that can be enacted by speech, because we all accept the status of the speaker in the appropriate situation. This is an idea expressed in the American Declaration of Independence where we read, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed”.

Here are some examples from different spheres of human activity, where performatives are found at work. These are loose categories, and many performatives belong to more than one of them:

Universities and schools: conferring of degrees, rusticating or excluding students.
The church: baptizing, confirming and marrying, exorcism, commination (cursing) and excommunication.
Governance and civic life: crowning of monarchs, dissolution of Parliament, passing legislation, awarding honours, ennobling or decorating.
The law: enacting or enforcing of various judgements, passing sentence, swearing oaths and plighting one's troth.
The armed services: signing on, giving an order to attack, retreat or open fire.
Sport: cautioning or sending off players, giving players out, appealing for a dismissal or declaring (closing an innings) in cricket.
Business: hiring and firing, establishing a verbal contract, naming a ship.
Gaming: placing a bet, raising the stakes in poker.

The “hereby” test

One simple but crude way to decide whether a speech act is of such a kind that we can aptly call it a performative is to insert the word “hereby” between subject and verb. If the resulting utterance makes sense, then the speech act is probably a performative. For example,

“I hereby confer upon you the honourable degree of Bachelor of Arts…”
“I hereby sentence you to three months' probation, suspended for a year…”
“I hereby appoint you Grandmaster of the Ancient, Scandalous and Disreputable Order of Friends of the Hellfire Club …”



It is crude, because it implies at least one felicity condition - whatever it is to which “hereby” refers. In the first example, “hereby” may refer to a physical action (touching on the head or shoulder with a ceremonial staff or mace, say). In the second example it may refer to the speaker's situation - in sitting as chairman of the bench of magistrates. The third example is my (plausible) invention - showing how all sorts of private groups (Freemasons, Rotarians, even the school Parent Teacher Association) can have their own agreements, which give to some speakers the power to enact performatives.

Felicity conditions

Preparatory conditions | conditions for execution | sincerity conditions

These are conditions necessary to the success of a speech act. They take their name from a Latin root - “felix” or “happy”. They are conditions needed for success or achievement of a performative. Only certain people are qualified to declare war, baptize people or sentence convicted felons. In some cases, the speaker must be sincere (as in apologizing or vowing). And external circumstances must be suitable: “Can you give me a lift?” requires that the hearer has a motor vehicle, is able to drive it somewhere and that the speaker has a reason for the request. It may be that the utterance is meant as a joke or sarcasm, in which case a different interpretation is in order. Loosely speaking, felicity conditions are of three kinds: preparatory conditions, conditions for execution and sincerity conditions.

Preparatory conditions

Preparatory conditions include the status or authority of the speaker to perform the speech act, the situation of other parties and so on.

So, in order to confirm a candidate, the speaker must be a bishop; but a mere priest can baptize people, while various ministers of religion and registrars may solemnize marriages (in England). In the case of marrying, there are other conditions - that neither of the couple is already married, that they make their own speech acts, and so on. We sometimes speculate about the status of people (otherwise free to marry) who act out a wedding scene in a play or film - are they somehow, really, married? In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has no worries, because the words of the ceremony are not spoken on stage, and, anyway, Juliet's part is played by a boy. (Though this may make the wedding scene seem blasphemous to some in the audience.)

In the UK only the monarch can dissolve parliament. A qualified referee can caution a player, if he or she is officiating in a match. The referee's assistant (who, in the higher leagues, is also a qualified referee) cannot do this.


The situation of the utterance is important. If the US President jokingly “declares” war on another country in a private conversation, then the USA is not really at war. This, in fact, happened (on 11 August 1984), when Ronald Reagan made some remarks off-air, as he thought, but which have been recorded for posterity:

“My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Click on the link below to listen to this speech as a sound file in wav format. You will need a sound card, speakers or headphones and suitable software (such as Windows™ Media Player or RealPlayer™) to listen to the file.

Listen to Ronald Reagan's 1984 off-air speech.

One hopes that this utterance also failed in terms of sincerity conditions.

Conditions for execution

Conditions for execution can assume an exaggerated importance. We are so used to a ritual or ceremonial action accompanying the speech act that we believe the act is invalidated, if the action is lacking - but there are few real examples of this.

Take refereeing of association football. When a referee cautions a player, he (or she) should take the player's name, number and note the team for which he plays. The referee may also display a yellow card, but this is not necessary to the giving of the caution:

“The mandatory use of the cards is merely a simple aid for better communication.”

The Football Association (1998); Advice on the Application of the Laws of the Game, p. 9


In knighting their subjects, English monarchs traditionally touch the recipient of the honour on both shoulders with the flat side of a sword blade. But this, too, is not necessary to the performance of the speech act.

A story is told in Oxford of a young man, taking his final exams, who demanded a pint of beer from the invigilators. He pointed out that he was wearing his sword, as required by the mediaeval statute that made provision for the drink. The invigilator (exam supervisor), believing the young man's version of events, brought the beer, but checked the statutes. Later the young man received a fine - he had not, as the statute also required, been wearing his spurs. The story may well be an urban myth (the writer heard it several times from different sources), but illustrates neatly a condition of execution.

Sincerity conditions

At a simple level these show that the speaker must really intend what he or she says. In the case of apologizing or promising, it may be impossible for others to know how sincere the speaker is. Moreover sincerity, as a genuine intention (now) is no assurance that the apologetic attitude will last, or that the promise will be kept. There are some speech acts - such as plighting one's troth or taking an oath - where this sincerity is determined by the presence of witnesses. The one making the promise will not be able later to argue that he or she didn't really mean it.

A more complex example comes in the classroom where the teacher asks a question, but the pupil supposes that the teacher knows the answer and is, therefore, not sincere in asking it. In this case “Can you, please, tell me X?” may be more acceptable to the child than “What is X?”

We can also use our understanding of sincerity conditions humorously, where we ask others, or promise ourselves, to do things which we think the others know to be impossible: “Please can you make it sunny tomorrow?”


Conversational implicature

Conversational maxims | Relevance

In a series of lectures at Harvard University in 1967, the English language philosopher H.P. (Paul) Grice outlined an approach to what he termed conversational implicature - how hearers manage to work out the complete message when speakers mean more than they say. An example of what Grice meant by conversational implicature is the utterance:

“Have you got any cash on you?”

where the speaker really wants the hearer to understand the meaning:

“Can you lend me some money? I don't have much on me.”

The conversational implicature is a message that is not found in the plain sense of the sentence. The speaker implies it. The hearer is able to infer (work out, read between the lines) this message in the utterance, by appealing to the rules governing successful conversational interaction. Grice proposed that implicatures like the second sentence can be calculated from the first, by understanding three things:

The usual linguistic meaning of what is said.
Contextual information (shared or general knowledge).
The assumption that the speaker is obeying what Grice calls the cooperative principal
Conversational maxims and the cooperative principle

The success of a conversation depends upon the various speakers' approach to the interaction. The way in which people try to make conversations work is sometimes called the cooperative principle. We can understand it partly by noting those people who are exceptions to the rule, and are not capable of making the conversation work. We may also, sometimes, find it useful deliberately to infringe or disregard it - as when we receive an unwelcome call from a telephone salesperson, or where we are being interviewed by a police officer on suspicion of some terrible crime.

Paul Grice proposes that in ordinary conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle. Speakers shape their utterances to be understood by hearers. The principle can be explained by four underlying rules or maxims. (David Crystal calls them conversational maxims. They are also sometimes named Grice's or Gricean maxims.)


They are the maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

Quality: speakers should be truthful. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements for which they have no evidence.
Quantity: a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much. (It is not clear how one can decide what quantity of information satisfies the maxim in a given case.)
Relevance: speakers' contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.
Manner: speakers' contributions should be perspicuous: clear, orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.

Grice does not of course prescribe the use of such maxims. Nor does he (I hope) suggest that we use them artificially to construct conversations. But they are useful for analysing and interpreting conversation, and may reveal purposes of which (either as speaker or listener) we were not previously aware. Very often, we communicate particular non-literal meanings by appearing to “violate” or “flout” these maxims. If you were to hear someone described as having “one good eye”, you might well assume the person's other eye was defective, even though nothing had been said about it at all.

Relevance

Some linguists (such as Howard Jackson and Peter Stockwell, who call it a “Supermaxim”) single out relevance as of greater importance than Grice recognised (Grice gives quality and manner as supermaxims). Assuming that the cooperative principle is at work in most conversations, we can see how hearers will try to find meaning in utterances that seem meaningless or irrelevant. We assume that there must be a reason for these. Jackson and Stockwell cite a conversation between a shopkeeper and a 16-year old customer:

Customer: Just these, please.
Shopkeeper: Are you eighteen?
Customer: Oh, I'm from Middlesbrough.
Shopkeeper: (after a brief pause) OK (serves beer to him).

Jackson H., and Stockwell, P. (1996), An Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language, p. 142


Jackson and Stockwell suggest that “there is no explanation for [the customer's] bizarre reply”. Perhaps this should be qualified: we cannot be sure what the explanation is, but we can find some plausible answer. Possible explanations might include these:

The young man thought his being from Middlesbrough might explain whatever it was about him that had made the shopkeeper suspicious about his youth.
The young man thought the shopkeeper's question was provoked by his unfamiliar manner of speaking, so he wanted to explain this.
The young man was genuinely flustered and said the first thing he could think of, while trying to think of a better reason for his looking under-age.
The young man thought that the shopkeeper might treat someone from Middlesbrough in a more indulgent manner than people from elsewhere.

Jackson and Stockwell suggest further that the shopkeeper “derived some inference or other” from the teenager's reply, since she served him the beer. It might of course be that she had raised the question (how old is this customer?) once, but when he appeared to have misunderstood it, was not ready to ask it again or clarify it - perhaps because this seemed too much like hard work, and as a stranger, the teenager would be unlikely to attract attention (from the police or trading standards officers) as a regular under-age purchaser of beer.


In analysing utterances and searching for relevance we can use a hierarchy of propositions - those that might be asserted, presupposed, entailed or inferred from any utterance.

Assertion: what is asserted is the obvious, plain or surface meaning of the utterance (though many utterances are not assertions of anything).
Presupposition: what is taken for granted in the utterance. “I saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre” presupposes that the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre.
Entailments: logical or necessary corollaries of an utterance, thus, the above example entails:
I saw something in the Louvre.
I saw something somewhere.
Something was seen.
There is a Louvre.
There is a Mona Lisa, and so on.
Inferences: these are interpretations that other people draw from the utterance, for which we cannot always directly account. From this example, someone might infer, rationally, that the Mona Lisa is, or was recently, on show to the public. They might infer, less rationally, that the speaker has been to France recently - because if the statement were about something from years ago, he or she would have said so.


The given/new distinction

In conveying a message, we should think about more than just “who did what to whom”. We also have to keep in mind what our listeners know already, and how to present the message in an intelligible and coherent manner.

We should not assume that our listeners have particular knowledge. Even if we are sure they do have knowledge of something about which we wish to speak, we may need to introduce it, or recall what they already know. Our listeners may do this for us, as when one's parent, irked by a personal pronoun demands to know: “Who's she? The cat's mother?”

Similarly, we should not introduce familiar things as if they were new. This may seem patronizing, but can also be confusing, since our listeners may try to find a new interpretation to match our implication of novelty.

One way in which we show that information is new is by using nouns. Once it is familiar we refer (back) to it by using deictic pronouns - like “this” or “it”.



Names and addresses

T and V pronouns | Titles and names
T and V pronouns

Some languages have different forms for “you” (French “tu/vous”, German “du/Sie”, for example). These may originally have indicated number (“vous” and “Sie”) used for plural forms, but now show different levels of formality, with “tu” and “du” being more familiar, “vous” and “Sie” more polite. In English this was shown historically by the contrast between “you” and “thou/thee”. The “thou” form survives in some dialects, while other familiar pronoun forms are “youse” (Liverpool) and “you-all” (southern USA). Where it is possible to make the distinction, this is known as a T/V system of address.


In this system the V form is a marker of politeness or deference. It may also be a marker of status, with the V form used to superiors, the T form to equals or inferiors. T forms are also used to express solidarity or intimacy. The T form is found in Shakespeare's plays, where it almost always shows the speaker's attitude to status and situation. A king is “your majesty” or “you” but a peasant is “thou”. It may be an insult, as when Tybalt addresses Romeo as “thou” (“Romeo, thou art a villain”; Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 3). It is also found in petrified or “frozen” language forms, such as the stylized speech of the Society of Friends (“Quakers”) or other non-conformist groups, like Mennonites or the Pennsylvania Amish, in orders of service and prayers. Oddly, many modern speakers think that “thou” (being “old”) is more formal or courteous than “you” - when the reverse is the case!

Titles and names

In English, we also express status and attitude through titles, first names and last names. Titles are such things as Professor, Dr, Sir, Dame, Fr. (Father), Mr, Mrs, Miss, Rabbi, Sr. (Sister) and, in the USA, even such things as coach and chef. Note that we abbreviate some of these in writing, but not in speaking - we write “Mr.” but say “mister”. First names may be given names (Fred, Susan) but include epithets such as chief, guv, mate, man, pal. Last names are usually family names. In general, use of these on their own suggests lack of deference (“Oi, Smith...”) but in some contexts (public schools, the armed forces) they are norms. If one speaker uses title and last name (TLN), and the other first name (FN) only, we infer difference in status. The social superior (the FN speaker) may invite the inferior to use FN in response:

A: Professor Cringeworthy? B: Do call me Cuthbert.
A: Lord Archer? B: Please, it's Jeffrey.


In schools teachers use FN (or FNLN when reprimanding or being sarcastic) in speaking to pupils and receive T (“Sir”) or TLN (“Miss Brodie”) in reply. “Miss” is addressed to women teachers, even where the speaker knows or believes them to be married.

In English avoidance of address is often acceptable - thus where French speakers say “Bonsoir, Monsieur”, English speakers may say merely, “Good evening” (Omitting the address in France would seem impolite.)


The politeness principle

Leech's maxims | Face and politeness strategies | Examples from Brown and Levinson | Phatic tokens

The politeness principle is a series of maxims, which Geoff Leech has proposed as a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges. Leech defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity. That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. In stating his maxims Leech uses his own terms for two kinds of illocutionary acts. He calls representatives “assertives”, and calls directives “impositives”.

Each maxim is accompanied by a sub-maxim (between square brackets), which is of less importance. These support the idea that negative politeness (avoidance of discord) is more important than positive politeness (seeking concord).
Not all of the maxims are equally important. For instance, tact influences what we say more powerfully than does generosity, while approbation is more important than modesty.
Note also that speakers may adhere to more than one maxim of politeness at the same time. Often one maxim is on the forefront of the utterance, with a second maxim being invoked by implication.
If politeness is not communicated, we can assume that the politeness attitude is absent.

Leech's maxims

Tact maxim (in directives [impositives] and commissives): minimise cost to other; [maximise benefit to other]
Generosity maxim (in directives and commissives): minimise benefit to self; [maximise cost to self]
Approbation maxim (in expressives and representatives [assertives]): minimise dispraise of other; [maximise praise of other]
Modesty maxim (in expressives and representatives): minimise praise of self; [maximise dispraise of self]
Agreement maxim (in representatives): minimise disagreement between self and other; [maximise agreement between self and other]
Sympathy maxim (in representatives): minimise antipathy between self and other; [maximise sympathy between self and other]

Face and politeness strategies

“Face” (as in “lose face”) refers to a speaker's sense of linguistic and social identity. Any speech act may impose on this sense, and is therefore face threatening. And speakers have strategies for lessening the threat. Positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee (but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party). Negative politeness is found in ways of mitigating the imposition:

Hedging: Er, could you, er, perhaps, close the, um , window?
Pessimism: I don't suppose you could close the window, could you?
Indicating deference: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I asked you to close the window?
Apologizing: I'm terribly sorry to put you out, but could you close the window?
Impersonalizing: The management requires all windows to be closed.


A good illustration of a breach of these strategies comes from Alan Bleasdale's 1982 TV drama, The Boys from the Black Stuff, where the unemployed Yosser Hughes greets potential employers with the curt demand: “Gizza job!”

Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, which was first published in 1978 and then reissued, with a long introduction, in 1987. In their model, politeness is defined as redressive action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effect of face-threatening acts (FTAs).

In their theory, communication is seen as potentially dangerous and antagonistic. A strength of their approach over that of Geoff Leech is that they explain politeness by deriving it from more fundamental notions of what it is to be a human being. The basic notion of their model is “face”. This is defined as “the public self-image that every member (of society) wants to claim for himself”. In their framework, face consists of two related aspects.

One is negative face, or the rights to territories, freedom of action and freedom from imposition - wanting your actions not to be constrained or inhibited by others.
The other is positive face, the positive consistent self-image that people have and their desire to be appreciated and approved of by at least some other people.

The rational actions people take to preserve both kinds of face, for themselves and the people they interact with, add up to politeness. Brown and Levinson also argue that in human communication, either spoken or written, people tend to maintain one another's face continuously.

In everyday conversation, we adapt our conversation to different situations. Among friends we take liberties or say things that would seem discourteous among strangers. And we avoid over-formality with friends. In both situations we try to avoid making the hearer embarrassed or uncomfortable. Face-threatening acts (FTAs) are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to maintain his/her self-esteem, and be respected. Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTAs. Suppose I see a crate of beer in my neighbour's house. Being thirsty, I might say:

I want some beer.
Is it OK for me to have a beer?
I hope it's not too forward, but would it be possible for me to have a beer?
It's so hot. It makes you really thirsty.

Brown and Levinson sum up human politeness behaviour in four strategies, which correspond to these examples: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record-indirect strategy.

The bald on-record strategy does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer's “face”
The positive politeness strategy shows you recognize that your hearer has a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity.
The negative politeness strategy also recognizes the hearer's face. But it also recognizes that you are in some way imposing on them. Some other examples would be to say, “I don't want to bother you but...” or “I was wondering if...”
Off-record indirect strategies take some of the pressure off of you. You are trying to avoid the direct FTA of asking for a beer. Instead you would rather it be offered to you once your hearer sees that you want one.

These strategies are not universal - they are used more or less frequently in other cultures. For example, in some eastern societies the off-record-indirect strategy will place on your hearer a social obligation to give you anything you admire. So speakers learn not to express admiration for expensive and valuable things in homes that they visit.

Examples from Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies

Bald on-record | positive politeness | negative politeness | off-record-indirect
Bald on-record

An emergency: Help!
Task oriented: Give me those!
Request: Put your jacket away.
Alerting: Turn your lights on! (while driving)

Positive Politeness

Attend to the hearer: You must be hungry, it's a long time since breakfast. How about some lunch?
Avoid disagreement: A: What is she, small? B: Yes, yes, she's small, smallish, um, not really small but certainly not very big.
Assume agreement: So when are you coming to see us?
Hedge opinion: You really should sort of try harder.

Negative Politeness

Be indirect: I'm looking for a pen.
Request forgiveness: You must forgive me but....
Minimize imposition: I just want to ask you if I could use your computer?
Pluralize the person responsible: We forgot to tell you that you needed to by your plane ticket by yesterday.

Off-record (indirect)

Give hints: It's a bit cold in here.
Be vague: Perhaps someone should have been more responsible.
Be sarcastic, or joking: Yeah, he's a real Einstein (rocket scientist, Stephen Hawking, genius and so on)!

Phatic tokens

These are ways of showing status by orienting comments to oneself, to the other, or to the general or prevailing situation (in England this is usually the weather).

Self-oriented phatic tokens are personal to the speaker: “I'm not up to this” or “My feet are killing me”.
Other-oriented tokens are related to the hearer: “Do you work here?” or “You seem to know what you're doing”.
A neutral token refers to the context or general state of affairs: “Cold, isn't it?” or “Lovely flowers”.

A superior shows consideration in an other-oriented token, as when the Queen says to the factory worker: “It must be jolly hard to make one of those”. The inferior might respond with a self-oriented token, like “Hard work, this”. On the surface, there is an exchange of information. In reality there is a suggestion and acceptance of a hierarchy of status. The factory worker would be unlikely to respond with, “Yes, but it's not half as hard as travelling the world, trooping the colour, making a speech at Christmas and dissolving Parliament.”


Deixis

Personal deixis | Spatial deixis | Temporal deixis

Note: this section is seriously hard. You have been warned. But first, how do you pronounce it? The term comes from the Greek deiktikos (=“able to show”). This is related to Greek dèiknymi (dyke-nimmy) meaning “explain” or “prove”. The standard pronunciation has two syllables (dyke-sis) while the adjective form is deictic (dyke-tik).

According to Stephen Levinson:

“Deixis concerns the ways in which languages encode...features of the context of utterance ... and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.”

Deixis is an important field of language study in its own right - and very important for learners of second languages. But it has some relevance to analysis of conversation and pragmatics. It is often and best described as “verbal pointing”, that is to say pointing by means of language. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called deictic expressions, deictic markers or deictic words; they are also sometimes called indexicals.


Deictic expressions include such lexemes as:

Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours),
Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),
(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),
Other pro-forms (so/do),
Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your),
Demonstrative adjectives (this/that),
Articles (the).

Deixis refers to the world outside a text. Reference to the context surrounding an utterance is often referred to as primary deixis, exophoric deixis or simply deixis alone. Primary deixis is used to point to a situation outside a text (situational deixis) or to the speaker's and hearer's (shared) knowledge of the world (knowledge deixis).

Contextual use of deictic expressions is known as secondary deixis, textual deixis or endophoric deixis. Such expressions can refer either backwards or forwards to other elements in a text:

Anaphoric deixis is backward pointing, and is the norm in English texts. Examples include demonstrative pronouns: such, said, similar, (the) same.
Cataphoric deixis is forward pointing. Examples include: the following, certain, some (“the speaker raised some objections...”), this (“Let me say this...”), these, several.


Deictic expressions fall into three categories:

Personal deixis (you, us),
Spatial deixis (here, there) and
Temporal deixis (now, then).

Deixis is clearly tied to the speaker's context, the most basic distinction being between near the speaker (proximal) and away from the speaker (distal).

Proximal deictic expressions include this, here and now.
Distal deictic expressions include that, there and then.


Proximal expressions are generally interpreted in relation to the speaker's location or deictic centre. For example now is taken to mean some point or period in time that matches the time of the speaker's utterance. When we read, “Now Barabbas was a thief” (John 18.40) we do not take the statement to mean the same as “Barabbas was now a thief” (i.e. he had become a thief, having not been so before). Rather we read it as St. John's writing, “I'm telling you now, that Barabbas was (not now but at the time in the past when these events happened) a thief”.

Personal deixis

English does not use personal deixis to indicate relative social status in the same way that other languages do (such as those with TV pronoun systems). But the pronoun we has a potential for ambiguity, i.e. between exclusive we (excludes the hearer) and the hearer-including (inclusive) we.

Spatial deixis

The use of proximal and distal expressions in spatial deixis is confused by deictic projection. This is the speaker's ability to project himself or herself into a location at which he or she is not yet present. A familiar example is the use of here on telephone answering machines (“I'm not here at the moment...”). While writing e-mails, I often edit out the use of here, when I see that the reader will not necessarily understand the intended meaning. (My here is this room in East Yorkshire, England, while yours may be this school in Maryland, this flat in Moscow or this university in Melbourne.)

It is likely that the basis of spatial deixis is psychological distance (rather than physical distance). Usually physical and (metaphorical) psychological distance will appear the same. But a speaker may wish to mark something physically close as psychologically distant, as when you indicate an item of food on your plate with “I don't like that”. Perhaps a better (real example) was Graham Taylor's famous remark on his England soccer team's conceding a goal: “Do I not like that!” This moment, from the qualifying competition for the 1994 World Cup, was recorded for, and broadcast on a documentary film for, Channel 4.

Temporal deixis

Psychological distance can apply to temporal deixis as well. We can treat temporal events as things that move towards us (into view) or away from us (out of view). For instance, we speak of the coming year or the approaching year. This may stem from our perception of things (like weather storms) which we see approaching both spatially and in time. We treat the near or immediate future as being close to utterance time by using the proximal deictic expression this alone, as in “this (that is the next) weekend” or “this evening” (said earlier in the day).

Phonetics

Dr. C. George Boeree
Shippensburg University


Phonetics is the study of the sounds of language. These sounds are called phonemes. There are literally hundreds of them used in different languages. Even a single language like English requires us to distinguish about 40! The key word here is distinguish. We actually make much finer discriminations among sounds, but English only requires 40. The other discriminations are what lets us detect the differences in accents and dialects, identify individuals, and differentiate tiny nuances of speech that indicate things beyond the obvious meanings of the words.


The Vocal Tract

In order to study the sounds of language, we first need to study the vocal tract. Speech starts with the lungs, which push air out and pull it in. The original purpose was, of course, to get oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide. But it is also essential for speech. There are phonemes that are little more than breathing: the h for example.

Next, we have the larynx, or voice box. It sits at the juncture of the trachea or windpipe coming up from the lungs and the esophagous coming up from the stomach. In the larynx, we have an opening called the glottis, an epiglottis which covers the glottis when we are swallowing, and the vocal cords. The vocal cords consist of two flaps of mucous membrane stretched across the glottis, as in this photograph:


The vocal cords can be tightened and loosened and can vibrate when air is forced past them, creating sound. Some phonemes use that sound, and are called voiced. Examples include the vowels (a, e, i, o, and u, for example) and some of the consonants (m, l, and r, for example). Other phonemes do not involve the vocal cords, such as the consonants h, t, or s, and so are called unvoiced.

The area above the glottis is called the pharynx, or upper throat. It can be tightened to make phryngeal consonants. English doesn’t have any of these, but they sound like when you try to get a piece of food back up out of your throat.

At the top of the throat is the opening to the nasal passages (called the nasopharynx, in case you are interested). When we allow air to pass into the nose while speaking, the sounds we make are called nasal. Examples include m, n, and the ng sound of sing.

Much of the action during speech occurs in the mouth, of course, especially involving the interaction of the tongue with the roof of the mouth. The roof of the mouth has several specific areas: At the very back, just before the nasal passage, is that little bag called the uvula. Its major function seems to be moisturizing the air and making certain sounds called, obviously, uvular. The best known is the kind of r pronounced in the back of the mouth by some French and German speakers. Uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal sounds are often refered to as gutterals.

Next, we have the soft palate, called the velum. If you turn your tongue back as far as it will go and press up, you can feel how soft it is. When you say k or g, you are using the velum, so they are called velar consonants.

Further forward is the hard palate. Quite a few consonants are made using the hard palate, such as s, sh, n, and l, and are called palatals. Just behind the teeth is the dental ridge or alveolus. Here is where many of us make our t’s and d’s -- alveolar consonants.

At the very outer edge of the mouth we have the teeth and the lips. Dental consonants are made by touching the tongue to the teeth. In English, we make the two th sounds like this. Note that one of these is voiced (the th in the) and one is unvoiced (the th in thin).

At the lips we can make several sounds as well. The simplest, perhaps, are the bilabial sounds, made by holding the lips together and then releasing the sound, such as p and b, or by keeping them together and releasing the air through the nose, making the bilabial nasal m. We can also use the upper teeth with the lower lip, for labiodental sounds. This is how we make an f, for example.

Incidentally, we also have two names for the parts of the tongue used with these various parts of the mouth: The front edge is called the corona, and the back is called the dorsum. Sounds like t, th, and s are made with the corona, while k, g, and ng are made with the dorsum.

Consonants

Consonants are sounds which involve full or partial blocking of airflow. In English, the consonants are p, b, t, d, ch, j, k, g, f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, m, n, ng, l, r, w, and y. They are classified in a number of different ways, depending on the vocal tract details we just discussed.

1. Stops, also known as plosives. The air is blocked for a moment, then released. In English, they are p, b, t, d, k, and g.

a. Bilabial plosives: p (unvoiced) and b (voiced)
b. Alveolar plosives: t (unvoiced) and d (voiced)
c. Velar plosives: k (unvoiced) and g (voiced)

In other languages, we find labiodental, palatal, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal plosives as well, and retroflex plosives, which involve reaching back to the palate with the corona of the tongue.

In many languages, plosives may be followed by aspiration, that is, by a breathy sound like an h. In Chinese, for example, there is a distinction between a p pronounced crisply and an aspirated p. We use both in English (pit vs poo), but it isn’t a distinction that separates one meaning from another.

2. Fricatives involve a slightly resisted flow of air. In English, these include f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, and h.

a. Labiodental fricatives: f (unvoiced) and v (voiced)
b. Dental fricatives: th (as in thin -- unvoiced) and dh (as in the -- voiced)
c. Alveolar fricatives: s (unvoiced) and z (voiced)
d. Palatal fricatives: sh (unvoiced) and zh (like the s in vision -- voiced)
e. Glottal fricative: h (unvoiced)

3. Affricates are sounds that involve a plosive followed immediately by a fricative at the same location. In English, we have ch (unvoiced) and j (voiced). Many consider these as blends: t-sh and d-zh.

4. Nasals are sounds made with air passing through the nose. In English, these are m, n, and ng.

a. Bilabial nasal: m
b. Alveolar nasal: n
c. Velar nasal: ng

5. Liquids are sounds with very little air resistance. In English, we have l and r, which are both alveolar, but differ in the shape of the tongue. For l, we touch the tip to the ridge of the teeth and let the air go around both sides. For the r, we almost block the air on both sides and let it through at the top. Note that there are many variations of l and r in other languages and even within English itself!

6. Semivowels are sounds that are, as the name implies, very nearly vowels. In English, we have w and y, which you can see are a lot like vowels such as oo and ee, but with the lips almost closed for w (a bilabial) and the tongue almost touching the palate for y (a palatal). They are also called glides, since they normally “glide” into or out of vowel positions (as in woo, yeah, ow, and oy).

In many languages, such as Russian, there is a whole set of palatalized consonants, which means they are followed by a y before the vowel. This is also called an on-glide.


Vowels

There are about 14 vowels in English. They are the ones found in these words: beet, bit, bait, bet, bat, car, pot (in British English), bought, boat, book, boot, bird, but, and the a in ago. There are also three diphthongs or double vowels: bite, cow, and boy. Diphthongs involve off-glides.: You can hear the y in bite and boy, and the w in cow. Actually, the sounds in bait and boat are also diphthongs (with y and w off-glides, respectively), but the first parts of the diphthongs are different from the nearby sounds in bet and bought.

Vowels are classified in three dimensions:

1. The height of the tongue in the mouth -- low, mid, or high

high are beet, bit, boot, and book
mid are bait, bet, but, boat, bought, bird and a in ago
low are bat, car, and british pot

2. How far forward or backward in the mouth the tongue rises -- front, center, or back

front are beet, bit, bait, bet, and bat
center are but, bird, and a in ago
back are boot, book, boat, bought, and british pot

3. How rounded or unrounded the lips are

the front vowels are unrounded
the center and back vowels are rounded

The rounding idea may seem unnecessary until you realize that many languages have rounded front vowels -- such as the German ü and ö and the French u and eu -- and many have unrounded back vowels -- such as the Japanese u. If you took French in high school, you may remember the teacher telling you to say tea with your lips rounded for French tu. It isn’t the best way to teach the sound, but it shows you where it fits in the scheme.

There is one more dimension that doesn’t have much to do with English, but is essential in many languages, and that is vowel length. Vowels can be short or long, and it is just a matter of how long you continue the sound. The closest we get in English is that the vowel in beet is longer (as well as higher) than the vowel in bit. The same goes for boot and book, and for caught and the British pot.

In some languages, such as French, there is another quality to vowels, and that is nasality. Some vowels are pronounced with airflow through the nose as well as the mouth. Originally, these were simply vowels followed by nasal consonants. But over time, the French blended the vowels and the nasals into one unit.


IPA

Over the years, linguists have developed a complex chart of phonemes for transcribing the sounds of all languages around the world. It is called the International Phonetic Alphabet, and much of it is in the charts below. If you get question marks or little squares, that means your computer isn't equipt with unicode.

Vowel length is marked with a colon after the vowel, e.g. i:

Nasal vowels are shown by placing a tilde over the vowel, e.g. ã

There are dozens more phonemes beyond the ones in the preceding charts, but one set is particularly interesting: clicks. Clicks are sounds made by creating a vacuum with the tongue and then suddenly snapping the tongue away. We use these ourselves, though not as parts of words: When we “tsk tsk,” when we make clucking sounds, and when we make a click in the side of our mouths when we tell a horse to get a move on. Clicks are used in the Bushman languages and in the Bantu languages that had prolonged contact with them. The best known is the Bantu language Khosa, because of the famous South African singer Miriam Makeba.


Stress and Tones

In many languages around the world, including English, words are differentiated by means of stress. One syllable is usually given a higher pitch ("up" the musical scale) and sometimes a bit more force. This is how we differentiate af-fect (as in influence) and af-fect (as in emotion), for example. In longer words, there may even be a second semi-stressed syllable, as in math-e-mat-ics: mat has the primary stress, math has the secondary stress. In IPA, primary stress is indicated by preceding the syllable with a high vertical line, secondary with a low vertical line.

Note that even when we do not need to use stress to differentiate words, we use it anyway. Sometimes we can tell where a person is from by how they use stress: insurance is usually stressed on the sur; southerners stress it on the in. But many languages do not use stress at all. To our ears, they sound rather monotone.

Some other languages use dynamic stress or tones. Swedish is an example. This means that there is actual change of stress within syllables. In Swedish, there are two tones:

The single tone starts high and goes down. If a single toneword has a second syllable, that syllable is unstressed. Single tone words don’t sound very unusual to English speakers.

The double tone is only found in two syllable words. The first pitch starts in the middle range of pitch and the second tone starts high and goes down. If there is a third syllable, it is unstressed. The double tone gives the word a sing-song quality to English speakers.

These tones differentiate many words in Swedish. In the single tone, anden, tomten, biten, and slaget mean the duck, the building, the bit, and the battle, respectively. In the double tone, they mean the spirit, the elf, bitten, and beaten, respectively! English uses dynamic stress or tones also, but only one whole phrases, such as the rising pitch at the end of questions.

But many languages in Africa and Asia use far more complex tones, and in fact are called tonal languages. Chinese is the best known example. Although words are often more than one syllable in length, each syllable has a particular meaning. And Chinese uses a very limitied number of phonemes. It is the tones that prevent every syllable from having hundreds of meanings. There are five of them:

Tone 1 -- high and level (as in hey!)
Tone 2 -- middle, then rising (as in was it you?)
Tone 3 -- middle, falling, then rising (as in mom!? spoken by a whining teenager)
Tone 4 -- high, then falling (as in Tom spoken by a disappointed mom)

For example, the simple syllable yi can mean many different things. With tone 1 it means cloth, with tone 2 it means to suspect, with tone 3 it means chair, and with tone 4 it means meaning. The syllable wu means house, none, five, and fog, respectively. And ma means mother, hemp, horse, and scold. In the official transcription, the four tones are indicated by ¯, ´, ˇ, and `.

Thai has five tones: high, middle, low, rising, and falling. The African language Katamba has six, adding a falling, then rising tone. Cantonese has nine tones: high long, high short, middle long, middle short, low long, low short, high falling, middle falling, and low rising.

We don't know how tonal languages arise. Many believe that it has to do with phonemes or even whole syllables that have been lost, but influenced the pronounciation anyway. But this makes it hard to explain that Cantonese, which has kept many old consonant endings, has nine tones, while its relative Mandarin Chinese, which has lost those endings, only has four. Of course a linguist from China might ask how non-tonal languages lost their tones!

One interesting tidbit is that tonality often crosses family lines. In Asia, for example, tonality is found in Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese -- which are unrelated languages. On the other hand, Tibetan and Burmese are related to Chinese, but are not tonal; neither is Khmer, a relative of Vietnamese. Most African languages are tonal, but Swahili is not. Hausa, spoken in Nigeria, is tonal, but relatives like Arabic are not. It is possible that one or another language family influenced others around it, or was original to an area before being invaded by speakers of another language.

Source:http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/phonetics.html

#3rd Daily Jounal

Welcome Wednesday !
Got a Fever, but show must go on! Hahahaa :D
Just started my day with anger because of my sister.
I have no spirit to that thing, they are not consistently.
I hate it!
I don't care anymore!

History of Linguistics

Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe and explain the human faculty of language.

In ancient civilization, linguistic study was originally motivated by the correct description of classical liturgical language, notably that of Sanskrit grammar by Pāṇini (fl. 4th century BC), or by the development of logic and rhetoric among Greeks. Beginning around the 4th century BC, China also developed its own grammatical traditions and Arabic grammar and Hebrew grammar developed during the Middle Ages.

Modern linguistics began to develop in the 18th century, reaching the "golden age of philology" in the 19th century. The first half of the 20th century was marked by the structuralist school, based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure in Europe and Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield in the United States. The 1960s saw the rise of many new fields in linguistics, such as Noam Chomsky's generative grammar, William Labov's sociolinguistics, Michael Halliday's systemic functional linguistics and also modern psycholinguistics.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_linguistics