Pragmatics (Ambiguity)

The sentence "You have a green light" is ambiguous. Without knowing the context, the identity of the speaker, and his or her intent, it is difficult to infer the meaning with confidence. For example:

• It could mean that you have green ambient lighting.
• It could mean that you have a green light while driving your car.
• It could mean that you can go ahead with the project.
• It could mean that your body has a green glow.
• It could mean that you possess a light bulb that is tinted green.

Similarly, the sentence "Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" could mean that Sherlock observed the man by using binoculars, or it could mean that Sherlock observed a man who was holding binoculars. The meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the speaker's intent. As defined in linguistics, a sentence is an abstract entity — a string of words divorced from non-linguistic context — as opposed to an utterance, which is a concrete example of a speech act in a specific context. The closer conscious subjects stick to common words, idioms, phrasings, and topics, the more easily others can surmise their meaning; the further they stray from common expressions and topics, the wider the variations in interpretations. This suggests that sentences do not have meaning intrinsically; there is not a meaning associated with a sentence or word, they can only symbolically represent an idea. The cat sat on the mat is a sentence in English; if you say to your sister on Tuesday afternoon, "The cat sat on the mat," this is an example of an utterance. Thus, there is no such thing as a sentence, term, expression or word symbolically representing a single true meaning; it is underspecified (which cat sat on which mat?) and potentially ambiguous. The meaning of an utterance, on the other hand, is inferred based on linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the non-linguistic context of the utterance (which may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity). In mathematics with Berry's paradox there arose a systematic ambiguity with the word "definable". The ambiguity with words shows that the descriptive power of any human language is limited.

Source : Wikipedia.org

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology. Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors. In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.

The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.

Source : Wikipedia

Pragmatics Paper about Speech Acts

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1       The background of the study

People always communicate one aother by using language in their social environment. Language is one of tools of communication. In communication, language has an important role because it has to explain what the speaker wants the listener to do. The purpose of communication itself is informative which means an appeal to the mind that is accomplished through language.

While people communicate, they use utterances to express what they have in their mind toward the listener. Utterance produced by speaker does not only function to explain the speaker mind toward the listener, but also means to show the relationship between them. When we want to know people’s relationship through their utterance, we can see it from speech act. That is why this paper presents definition of speech acts and the types of speech acts so that you know what someone means.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

SPEECH ACTS

A.     Definition of Speech Acts

Yule (1996:47) proposes that speech acts is performed action via utterance. Another definition from Crystal in Soekemi (1995:121) mentions that speech act is a theory which analyses the role of utterance in relation to the behavior of speaker and listener in interpersonal communication According to Austin (1960), speech act is a theory of performative language, in which to say something is to do something.[1] In brief when speakers are saying words, they not only produce utterance containing words and grammatical structure, but they also perform action in those utterances.

Speech acts reveal the intentions of speakers and the effects the speaker’s utterances and expressions have on the hearers. The implication of speech acts is that every utterance has a purpose which derives from the specific context. It has been observed that language use depends on such contextual factors as social and physicalnconditions, attitudes, abilities, beliefs and the relationship existing between the speaker and the listener.[2]

B.     Type of Speech Acts

There are three types of speech acts, they are :

1.      Locutionary Acts

A locutionary act is the performance of an utterance, and hence of a speech act. The term equally refers to the surface meaning of an utterance because, according to J. L. Austin's posthumous "How To Do Things With Words", a speech act should be analysed as a locutionary act (i.e. the actual utterance and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts corresponding to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance).[3] It can be recognised by the hearer.

E.g : if someone says ‘Knock the door!’ the locutionary acts is the realization of the speaker’s utterance.

2.      Illocutionary Acts

Illocutionary acts is performing an act in saying something, what is done in uttering the word’, the function of the word, the specific purpose that the speaker’s have in mind. Searle (1975) set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts :[4]

v  Assertive: an illocutionary act that speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. The acts are stating, claiming, hypothesizing, describing, telling, insisting, suggesting, asserting that something is the case.

Example :

Stating                          : staff and VIP permitted here

v  Directive: an illocutionary act for getting the addressee to do something by responding to an utterance or by performing some physical actions.
The acts are ordering, commanding, defying, advising, asking, begging, challenging, daring, demanding, forbidding, insisting, inviting, permitting, recommending, requesting, suggesting, etc.

Example:

Command                    : Close the door please!!!

Forbid, Prohibit            : Don’t close the door!!! Don’t go to the party!

v  Commissive: an illocutionary act that the speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. The acts are committing, guaranteeing, offering, promising, refusing, threatening, volunteering, vowing, threatening, intending, vowing to do or to refrain from doing something.

Example :

Promising                     :We promise to give you much money.

Vowing                        : I will be the best husband in your life my darling.

v  Expressive: an illocutionary act that expresses the speakers feeling and attitudes toward events or affairs. The acts are congratulating, thanking, deploring, condoling, welcoming, apologizing.

Example :

Condoling                     : I am sorry to hear that.

Congratulating              : Hey Bro, congrats for your success

v  Declaration: an illocutionary act that brings into existence the state of affairs to which it refers. The speaker brings about a change in the word by uttering an Illocutionary act. The acts are blessing, firing, baptizing, bidding, passing sentence, excommunicating, marriage, arresting, approving, naming, etc.

Example :

Naming                        : I named my baby Amanda.

v  Verdictive : an illocutionary acts in which the speaker makes an assessment or judgement about the acts of another, usually the addressee. The acts are ranking, assessing, appraising, condoning. Verdictive verbs include accuse, charge,excuse, thank in the explicit forrame.[5]

Example :

Assessing                     : you have low score in undestanding Syntax.

3.      Perlucotionary Acts

Perlocutionary act is an act that is uttered to affect the listener. An utterance that is uttered by someone often has effect to the listener. Which can be expected or unexpected affect that created by the speaker. So, in other word, a perlocution is listener behavioral response to the meaning of the utterance, not necessarily physical or verbal response, perhaps merely a mental or emotional response.

There is an example of speech acts. A child refuse to lie down and go to sleep, then his mother says, “I’ll turn your light off”. The locutionary act is utterance of this sentence “I’ll turn your light off”. However, the mother may be intending that the utterance to be interpreted as a threat. The threat here is the illocutionary acts. It means that child does not sleep, his mother will turn off the light. As consequence behavior of that child, he must be frightened into silence and sleep is Perlocutionary act.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Speech acts reveal the intentions of speakers and the effects the speaker’s utterances and expressions have on the hearers. In brief when speakers are saying words, they not only produce utterance containing words and grammatical structure, but they also perform action in those utterances.

There are three types of speech acts, they are:

a.       Locutionary acts

b.      Illocutionary acts

Ø  Assertiv

Ø  Directive

Ø  Commissive

Ø  Expressive

Ø  Declaration

Ø  Verdictive

c.       Perlocutionary acts

REFERENCE

Dwi Purnomo, Maslathief. 2012. Diktat of Semantics In linguistics. Medan.

Kreidler, W. Charles. 2002. Introducing Semantic English. London : the Taylor and Francis e-library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act

---

[1] http://www.managementfile.com/journal.php?id=161&sub=journal&page=strategic&awal=50. Access on 19 April 2013.

[2] Dwi Purnomo, Maslathief. 2012. Diktat of Semantics In linguistics. Medan.hl, 46

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act. Access on 19 April 2013.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act. Access on 19 April 2013.

                   [5] Kreidler, W. Charles. 2002. Introducing Semantic English. London : the Taylor and

 Francis e-library, page 187.