Universidad Nacional de Educacin Enrique Guzmn y Valle

Pragmatics and Language Teaching

M.Ed. Rogil Sanchez Quintana

6.1.Definitions
Pragmatics is the study of "how to do things with words" (the name of a well known book by the philosopher J.L. Austin), or the study of the meaning of language in context.

6.1.Definitions
Pragmatics starts from the observation that people use language to accomplish many kinds of acts, known as speech acts (as distinct from physical acts like drinking wine or mental acts like thinking about drinking wine).

6.2 What are speech acts?

The aim of Speech acts is asking, for instance, for a glass of wine, making promises, issuing warnings or threats, giving orders, making requests for information, and many others.

6.2 What are speech acts?

There are three basic types of speech acts. A) Locutionary: saying a sentence with a specific meaning. My cat is an Exotic Shorthair where I only intend to give information about my cats race (it includes statements, descriptions, assertions). B) Illocutionary: the intent that the speaker has while saying the sentence. C) Perlocutionary: the result achieved by the sentence.

6.3. Maxims of Conversation

The maxims are four and conversationalists are enjoined to respect. A) The maxim of quality. Speakers' contributions ought to be true. 1. Make your contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary. 2. Do not make your contribution to the conversation more informative than necessary.

6.3. Maxims of Conversation

B) The maxim of quantity. Speakers' contributions should be as informative as required; not saying either too little or too much. 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

6.3. Maxims of Conversation

C) The maxim of relevance. Contributions should relate to the purposes of the exchange. Be relevant (i.e., say things related to the current topic of the conversation).

6.3. Maxims of Conversation

D) The maxim of manner. Contributions should be "perspicuous -- in particular, they should be orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity" (Crystal, p. 117). 1. Avoid obscurity of expression. 2. Avoid ambiguity. 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary wordiness). 4. Be orderly.

6.4.What is deixis?
Deixis is reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to the (usually) extralinguistic context of the utterance, such as who is speaking the time or place of speaking the gestures of the speaker, or the current location in the discourse.

6.4.What is deixis?
Examples (English) Here are examples of deictic expressions: I You Now There That The following Tenses

6.5. Why teach pragmatics in language classes?

Because language is something that one can really understand when it is in context. As you have seen meaning changes according to context. Group Task
1.What is pragmatics? 2.Give an example of each speech act. 3.What is the difference between the maxims of quantity and quality? Illustrate with examples. 4.Why do teachers of English need to study pragmatics?