d. Visiting aunts can be boring. aunts who are visiting / paying a visit to aunts
e. Mr. Webster, the amiable priest, is going to marry Jane at the church. take Jane as his wife / preside over Jane’s wedding
Part 2: A general
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important to take into account the contribution of context. In simple terms, then, we can think about pragmatics as the study of the contribution of context to meaning.
Epistemic context: the epistemic context refers to what speakers know about the world. For example, what background knowledge shared by the speakers is crucially part of our epistemic knowledge when we have a conversation with someone else.
"Excuse me, could you please speak up a bit more? I missed what you said."
What do we know pragmatically about your utterance? What contributes to our understanding of why its literal meaning (i.e. please speak up) departs so much from what its intended meaning is (i.e. shut up!)? Consider some of the contextual properties of the utterance.
Social context: the social context refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers.
Example:
Think about the discussion of the library scene in Language Files. Two people come into a library and they are talking really loud. They sit at your table and continue their babbling. So, you look up at them and say:
5. Conclusion
Part 1: Warming up
Can you explain the meaning of the words in italics in each of the sentences below? Explain why and then make some alterations in the context so as to pin down the meaning. a. The police were ordered to stop drinking about midnight. stop people drinking / stop drinking by themselves
Physical context: we can think of this in terms of where the conversation is taking place, what objects are present, what actions are occurring, and so forth.
Linguistic context: the linguistic context refers to what has been said already in the utterance. For example, if I begin a discussion by referring to Jane Smith and in the next sentence refer to "her" as being a top notch athlete, the linguistic context lets me know that the antecedent of "her" (the person "her" refers to) is Jane Smith.
b. There stood a big stone house at the foot of the hill. a stone house which is big / a house built of big stones
c. I have lost Betty’s picture. a picture possessed by Betty / a photograph of Betty
英语语用学
• An Introduction to
Pragmatics
• A Course for B.A. Students
• Instructor:
Prof. Tangtline
1. Warming up 2. A general description of Context 3. Theories of context 4. The role of context
• Here are four sub-areas involved in fleshing out (完 善）what we mean by context.
• physical context
Epistemic（关于认知的）
context
linguistic context social context