Chapter 2
1. Deictic expression/ indexical : deixis is a technical term for one of the most basic things we do with utterances. It means “pointing” via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this “pointing” is called a deictic expression. For example, when you notice a strange object and ask, “What’s that?”, you are using a deictic expression “that ” to indicate something in the immediate context.
2. Person deixis: forms used to indicate some people, eg, me you. 3. Spatial deixis: forms used to point to location, eg. Here there.
4. Temporal deixis: forms used to point to location in time, eg, now then.
5. Proximal terms: indicate near speaker, this here now. For example, “now” is generally understood as referring to some point or period in time that has the time of the speaker’s utterance at its center.
6. Distal terms: indicate away from speaker, that there then. 7. Deictic center: the speaker’s location/ time.
8. Honorifics: expressions which indicate higher status.
9. T/V distinction: the distinction between forms used for a familiar versus a non-familiar addressee in some languages. For example, tu familiar vous non-familiar. 10. Deictic projection: speakers acting as if they are somewhere else. Fro example, speakers may project themselves into other locations prior to actually being in those locations, as when they say”I will come later.”
11. Psychological distance: speaker’s marking of how close or distant something is perceived to be. For example, a speaker may wish to mark something that is physically close (for example, a perfume being sniffed by the speaker) as psychologically distant “I don’t like that”.
Chapter 4
1. Presupposition：a presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions. For example, in producing the utterance “Mary’s brother bought three horses.”, the speaker will normally be expected to have the presuppositions that a person called Mary exists and that she has a brother.
2. Entailment: an entailment is something that logically follows form what is asserted in the utterance. Sentences, not speakers, have entailments. For example, the sentence “Mary’s brother bought three horses” will be treated as having the entailments that Mary’s brother bought something, bought three animals, bought two horses, bought one horse, and many other similar logical consequences.
3. Constancy under negation: it means that the presupposition of a sentence will remain constant even when that statement is negated. For example, when “Everybody knows that John is gay” is negated as in “Everybody doesn’t know that John is gay”, the presupposition that “John is gay ” is still true.
4. Potential presupposition: an assumption typically associated with use of a linguistic form, eg. The use of the verb “regret” in “He regrets doing that” carries an assumption that he actually “did that”.
5. Existential presupposition: an assumption that someone or something, identified
by use of a noun phrase, does exist. For example, the noun phrase “your car” assumes the presupposition that “you have a car”.
6. Factive presupposition: the assumption that information stated after certain words, eg, “know” “regret”, is true. For example, the utterance that “I’m glad that it’s over” assumes the truth that “It’s over”.
7. Lexical presupposition: the assumption that, in using one word, the speaker can act as if another meaning will be understood. For example, each time you say that someone “managed” to do something, the asserted meaning is that the person succeeded in some way.
8. Structural presupposition: the assumption that part of a structure contained information being treated as already known. For example, the wh-question construction like “when did he leave?”, is interpreted with the presupposition that the information after the wh-form, “he left”, is already known to be the case.
9. Non-factive presupposition: the assumption that certain information, like that associated with verbs “dream”, “imagine”and “pretend”, is not true. For example, when you say”I dreamed that I was rich”, the presupposition is that what follows the word “dreamed” is not true. That is “I was not rich.”
10. Counter-factive presupposition: the assumption that certain information is the opposite of true. For example, a conditional clause like “If I had a car” presents the truth that I don’t have a car.
11. Projection problem: the meaning of some presuppositions (as parts) doesn’t survive to become the meaning of some complex sentences (as wholes). For example, the presupposition “Kelly was ill” is assumed to be true in the simple structure “Nobody realized that Kelly was ill”. But it is not true in the complex structure that “I imagined that Kelly was ill and nobody realized that she was ill”.
12. Background entailments: all logical consequence of an utterance. For example, the background entailments of “Rover chased three dogs” can be “something chased three dogs”, “Rover did something to three dogs”, or “Rover chased three of something” and so on.
13. Foreground entailment: the main logical consequence of an utterance. For example, when Rover is the focus of the utterance “Rover chased three dogs”, the main assumption is that something chased three dogs.
Chapter 5
1. Tautology: an apparently meaningless expression in which one word is defined as itself, eg. Business is business.
2. Implicature/ Conversational implicature: an additional unstated meaning that has to be assumed in order to maintain the cooperative principle, eg. If someone says “The President is a mouse ”, something that is literally false, the hearer must assume the speaker means to convey more than is being said.
3. Cooperative principle: a basic assumption in conversation that each participant will attempt to contribute appropriately, at the required time, to the current exchange of talk.
Four sub-principles of the cooperative principle are called maxims:
Quantity
(1) make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
(2) do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Quality
Try to make your contribution one that is true. (1) do not say what you believe to be false.
(2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation Be relevant Manner
Be perspicuous.
(1) avoid obscurity of expression. (2) Avoid ambiguity.
(3) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). (4) Be orderly. 4. Hedges
Certain kinds of expressions speakers use to mark that they may be in danger of not fully adhering to the principles.
Show speakers be cautious of the ...maxim
Quality: as far as I know I may be mistaken I’m not sure I guess
Quantity: as you probably know to cut a long story short I won’t bore you with all the details
Relation: I don’t know if this is important, but this may sound like a dumb question, but
Manner: this may be a bit confused, but I’m not sure if this makes sense I don’t know if this is clear at all.
5. Generalized conversational implicature: an additional unstated meaning that does not depend on special or local knowledge. For example, phrases like a/an X are typically interpreted according to the generalized conversational implicature that: an X +> not speaker’s X
6. Scalar implicature: an additional meaning of the negative of any value higher on the scale than the one uttered, e.g. In saying “some children”, I create an implicature that what I say does not apply to “all children”.
7. Particularized conversational implicature: an additional unstated meaning that depends on special or local knowledge. For example, here is a dialogue. Rick: Hey, coming to the wild party tonight ? Tom: My parents are visiting. In order to make Tom’s response relevant, Rick has to draw on some assumed knowledge that one college student in this setting expects another to have. Tom will be spending that evening with his parents, and time spent with parents is quiet (consequently +> Tom not at party).
8. Conventional implicature: as additional unstated meaning associated with the use of a specific word, e.g. “A but B” implies a contrast between A and B, so “contrast” is a conventional implicature of “but”.
Chapter 6
1. Speech act: an action performed by the use of an utterance to communicate, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request.
2. Speech event: a set of circumstances in which people interact in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome.
3. On any occasion, the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts.
Locutionary act: the basic act of utterance or producing a meaningful linguistic expression. If you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and words to create a meaningful utterance in a language(for example,because it’s foreign or you are tongue-tied ), you might fail to produce a locutionary act.
Illocutionary act/ force: the communicative force of an utterance. For example, we might utter “I’ve just made some coffee.” to make a statement, an offer, an explanation or for some other communicative purpose.
Perlocutionary act/ effect: the effect of an utterance used to perform a speech act. For example, you will utter “I have just made some coffee” on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended (for example, to account for a wonderful smell, or to get the hearer to drink some coffee).
4. IFIDs illocutionary force indicating device: indication in the speaker’s utterance of the communicative force of that utterance. It is an expression where there is a slot for a performative verb that explicitly names the illocutionary act being performed. Like I promise you that I will see you later. Other IFIDs which can be identified are word order, stress and intonation.
5. Performative verb: a verb that explicitly names the speech act, e.g. The verb “promise” in the utterance “I promise to be there”.
6. Felicity conditions: the appropriate conditions for a speech act to be recognized as intended. For some clear cases, the performance will be infelicitous if the speaker is not a specific person in a special context. General conditions: preconditions on performing a speech act. For example, participants can understand the language being used and that they are not play-acting or being nonsensical. Content conditions: in order to count as a particular type of speech act, an utterance must contain certain features, e.g. A promise must be a future event. Preparatory conditions: specific requirements prior to an utterance in order for it to count as a particular speech act. For example, when I promise to do something, there are two preparatory conditions: the event will not happen by itself; the event will have a beneficial effect. Sincerity conditions: requirements on the genuine intentions of a speaker in order for an utterance to count as a particular speech act. For example, for a promise, the speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future action. Essential condition: in performing a speech act, a requirement that the utterance commits the speaker to the act performed. For example, by the act of uttering a promise, I thereby intend to create an obligation to carry out the action as promised.
7. Performative hypothesis: a proposal that, underlying every utterance, there is a clause with a verb that identifies the speech act. The basic format is I (hereby) Vp you
(that) U
Explicit performative: a speech act containing a performative verb.I hereby order you that you clean up this mess.
Implicit performative: a speech act without a performative verb. Clean up this mess!
8. Speech act classification
One general classification system lists five types of general functions performed by speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives.
Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their utterance. E.g. A judge pronouncing a sentence.
Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not, like assertions, conclusions, and descriptions. The speaker makes words fit the world of belief. For example, the earth is flat.
Expresssives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels, like statements of pleasure,likes, pain,joy and so on. The speaker makes words fit the world of feeling. For example, I’m really sorry!
Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something, like commands, requests, orders, suggestions and so on. The speaker attempts to make the world fit the words via the hearer. For example, gimme a cup of coffee.
Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some future action, like promises, threats, refusals and so on. The speaker undertakes to make the world fit the words via the speaker.
9. Direct speech act: speech act where a direct relationship exists between the structure and communicative function of an utterance, e.g. Using an interrogative form (can you....?) to ask a question.
10. Indirect speech act: speech act where an indirect relationship exists between the structure and communicative function of an utterance, e.g. The use of an interrogative (can you...?) not to ask a question, but to make a request (can you help me with this?)
Chapter 7
1. Face means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize.
2. Politeness in an interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face.
3. Face wants: a person’s expectations that their public self-image will be respected. 4. FTA/Face threatening acts: utterance or action which threatens a person’s public self-image.
5. Face saving act: utterance or action which avoids a potential threat to a person’s public self-image. For example, I’m going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it is getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep.
6. Negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to
英语专业语用学期末考试复习整理汇总
