The document discusses integrating discourse analysis and pragmatics into teaching grammar. It begins by defining pragmatics and outlining some key pragmatic concepts like implicature, presupposition, and conversational maxims. It then analyzes an episode of an English language TV show to identify violations of the maxims. Finally, it argues that teaching grammar should develop both grammatical competence and discourse/pragmatic competence. Teachers should focus on how sentences are combined into coherent and pragmatically appropriate discourse. This approach helps students understand and produce language in context.
7. • Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which
studies how utterances have meaning in
contexts.
(Leech, 1983)
• Pragmatics is the study of language from the
point of view of users, especially of the choices
they make, the constraints they encounter in
using language in social interaction and the
effects their use of language has on other
participants in the act of communication.
(Crystal, 1987)
• Pragmatics is the study of how more gets
commnicated than is said
8. “John broke the window”
= Utterance 1: JOHN broke ....
=> Message 1: “You and I are taking it
for granted that someone broke the
window. I’m telling you that John
did.”
= Utterance 2: John BROKE ...
=> Message 2: “You and I are taking it
for granted that did something to the
window. I’m telling you what John did
SPEAKERS’ ENTAILMENT
= SENTENCE STRESS
9. Entailment
• It is defined as what logically follows from what is
asserted in the utterance.
• Entailments are communicated without being said
and are not dependent on the speaker’s intention.
• The stress of the utterance express the entaillment
– the message that speakers intend to focus on.
10. • “You’ll want DomeBeGone, my revolutionary
cure for baldness”.
Presupposition: There is a cure for baldness.
Presupposition: The cure is revolutionary
Presupposition: I have this cure
11. Presupposition
• The information that a speaker assumes to be already known.
(The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language, 1987)
• Implicit meanings conveyed by the speaker through the use of
particular words.
• The presupposition of a statement will remain true even when
that statement is negated.
12. 1- Existential presupposition (definite noun phrase, possessive
constructions)
“David’s car is new”
2- Factive presupposition: (know, realize, be glad, be sorry)
• Tracy realized Pat ate a sandwich.
3- Lexical presupposition: (stop, again, still... )
• Tracy blamed Pat for eating the sandwich.
• Pat stopped eating a sandwich (at 2pm).
4- Structural presupposition: WH-questions
• When did she travel to the USA? ( >> she travelled)
5- Non- factive presupposition: (dream, imagine, pretend)
• I dreamed that I was rich. (>> I was not rich)
6- Counterfactual presupposition: conditional structures
• If I were rich I would buy a Ferrari (>> I’m not rich)
14. 1. Definition
• Implicature is a technical term, which refers to
what is suggested in an utterance, even though
neither expressed nor strictly implied.
H. P. Grice
• Implicature can be considered as an additional
conveyed meaning. It is attained when a
speaker intends to communicate more than just
what the words mean. It is the speaker who
communicates something via implicatures and
the listener recognizes those communicated
meanings via inference.
(Yule, 1996: 35)
15. Conventional implicature
• Part of a lexical item’s or expression’s agreed
meaning, rather than derived from principles of
language use
• Not part of the conditions for the truth of the item
or expression.
• E.g. “Joe is poor but happy”
=> Surprisingly Joe is happy in spite of being
poor”.
16. Conversational implicature
• Implications derived on the basis of
conversational principles and assumptions,
relying on more than the linguistic meaning of
words in a sentence.
• The basic assumption in conversation is that the
participants are adhering to the cooperative
principles.
18. Maxims
• Quantity: give the right amount of information as is
required for the current purpose of exchange.
+ Not too little
+ Not too much
• Quality: try to say only what is true
+ Don't say that for which you lack adequate
evidence
+ Don't say what you know to be false
19. • Relevance: make what you say relevant to the
topic at hand.
• Manner: be clear (avoid ambiguity,, obscurity,
etc.).
+ Avoid obscurity of expression.
+ Avoid ambiguity.
+ Avoid excessive wordiness
+ Be orderly.
21. • Man: Does your dog bite?
Woman: No.
• The man reaches down to pat the dog. The dog
bites the man's hand.
• Man: Quch! Hey! You said your dog doesn't bite.
Woman: He doesn't. But that's not my dog.
=> The maxim of quantity is flouted
22. Type of conversational
implicature
• Generalized conversational implicature:
Wife: I hope you brought the bread and
the cheese.
Husband : Ah, I brought the bread.
=> No special knowledge is required in the
context
+a/an X =>not speaker’s X
23. • Scalar implicature:
I ate some of the cake
=> I did not eat all of the cake
Occur when certain information is
communicated by choosing a word which
expresses one value from a scale of values.
From the highest to the lowest :
+ all, most, many, some, few
+ always, often, sometimes
24. • Particularized conversational
implicature
Rick: Hey, coming to the wild party tonight?
Tom: My parents are visiting.
=> occur when a conversation takes place
in a very specific context in which locally
recognized inferences are assumed
25. The role of pragmatics in discourse
analysis
• Discourse: none other than a sequence of sentences in
operation -in other words utterances.
• Only pragmatics: “What does this utterance mean?" and
"Why was this utterance produced?“ => helps us to know
successful interpretation of utterances is managed.
=> INDISPENSABLE: Pragmatics offers the possibility of
describing and explaining discourse facts from a linguistic
point of view, in a principled way.
26. 2. Analysis of Episode 9 of
Extr@ English series
Extr@ English series :
- a language education series in the format of a sitcom
- 30 episodes
- 4 main characters
Presented by: Le Thi Khanh Linh
27. 2. Analysis of Episode 9 of Extr@
English series
Video: Jobs for the boys
(Analyzing the violation of cooperative maxims)
28. 2. Analysis
2.1. The violation of maxim of relevance
Nick: To be or not to
be, that the question.
Whe…,oh no.
Annie: Why is it so
dark in here? What's
going on? Nick, what
are you doing? The sun
is shining outside.
Nick: oh, hi, Annie.
Nick’s answer violates the maxim
of relation
Instead of answering the question
of Annie, he greets her.
The aim of the violation is his
avoidance to answer the question
because he is ashamed.
29. 2. Analysis
2.1. The violation of maxim of relevance
Bridget: Eunice, what
are you doing here?
Eunice: Long time no
see, Bridget. And how's
Nick? Does he miss
me?
Eunice’s answer violates the
maxim of relation
She may imply her
underestimation to Bridget and
tries to delay to inform the news
30. 2. Analysis
2.2. The violation of maxim of quality
Annie: What are you
doing?
Nick: nothing.
Annie: Well, stand up then
Nick: I can’t
Annie: Why not?
Nick: Erm…
Annie: Right, I’m coming
over.
Nick: ……Ok
Annie (laughing): Oh, nice
outfit, Nick!
Both
Nick
and
Annie
violate
the
maxim
of
quality
Nick’s answer is a lie
Maybe he feels
ashamed
Annie’s praise is
untruth
Annie probably wants
to tease Nick
31. 2. Analysis
2.2. The violation of maxim of quality
Bridget: Nick!
Nick: …….?
Bridget: Are those my
tights?
Nick: No. Huh!
Bridget: Oh yes, they
are.
Nick: Oh, those tights.
Are they yours, Bridget?
Nick’s utterances are the violation
of maxim of quality
In fact, Nick knows clearly that
whose the tights are but he
pretended not to know it.
The aim of the violation is that
maybe he is afraid of getting some
punishment from Bridget
32. 2. Analysis
2.3. The violation of maxim of quantity
Annie: Did you have a
good day at work,
Bridget: Oh, I'm so
tired. Training with the
England football team
this morning.
Oh, those boys - so
cheeky! But they really
know what they're
talking about.
Bridget’s answer violates the
maxim of quantity because it
contains too much information.
Instead of only saying: “Oh, I’m so
tired”, she adds more information
on the people whom she worked
with.
Her intended meaning is to show
off her job indirectly.
33. 2. Analysis
2.3. The violation of maxim of quantity
Annie: Football?
Bridget: No. Hairstyles
and fashion, of course.
Anyway, then I had
lunch with Kylie
Minogue's agent -
lovely man. [Laughs]
So funny! I'm
exhausted.
Bridget continues violating the
maxim of quantity when giving
more information than required.
In this situation, correcting the
information is enough but Bridget
gives more information on her
lunch with a famous man.
She probably wants to show off the
opportunity on having lunch with a
famous man.
34. 2. Analysis
2.4. The violation of maxim of manner.
Bridget: I want my
tights back- now.
Nick: Ok.
Annie: You want your
tights back?
Bridget: They are
Versace. The remote,
please, Annie.
The answer of Bridget is the
violation of maxim of manner.
She doesn’t give the direct answer
“yes” or “no”. In stead of that she
talks about the manufacturer of the
tights.
Her implicature is that she want
her tights back because they are
very expensive.
35. 2. Analysis
2.5. Findings.
The violations of maxims of quality and quantity are
dominant.
Nick often violates the maxim of quality because he
wants to hide something.
Bridget regularly violates the maxim of quantity
because her characteristics is show-off.
37. Developing students' grammatical competence in
parallel with a discourse and pragmatic
consciousness-raising (discourse and pragmatic
competence).
=>two areas of inquiry can work co-operatively for
instructional purposes.
-It focuses on the grammatical item of 'clause'
(declarative, interrogative and imperative) and
offers some suggestions, through tasks and
activities, to develop these two types of
competence.
39. -A discourse processing model of language teaching and of
grammar in particular has suggestive and heuristic power
(Widdowson 1972, 1973, 1978), in that it enables both the
teacher and the learner to have more fruitful insights into the
real functioning of the language.
-High level of grammatical competence is not sufficient for
students to recognize and produce socially and contextually
appropriate language. The trend is towards a methodology that
is consistent with the use of more differentiated spectrum of
discourse and pragmatic lubricants and strategies.
40. By giving much more prominent place to discourse in teaching
grammar and enabling learners to know the conditions whereby
sentences are combined and used to form stretches of connected
discourse (Widdowson 1972, 1978, 1979) will help student to
overcome many difficulties.
+ Not only will they be able to manage discourse development on
the level of cohesion (surface linking) and coherence (underlying
relations) but they will also, and more importantly, manage it
pragmatically (on the level of illocutionary and perlocutionary
acts).
+ Learners will be taught how to produce and interpret cohesive,
coherent and pragmatically acceptable written modes of
discourse.
41. The pedagogical implications
• +It is suggested that the two
modules, Written and
Grammar, be taught by the
same teacher, who in the
course of his/her teaching
will instill in students the
insights developed along
the previous lines. This will
remove a great deal of the
backwash effect attendant
upon module
compartmentalization.
• +Teachers will see their role
change from that of the
'knower of everything' to a
collaborator, a negotiator
and to someone who works
for nurturing in his/her
students the essence of
applying cognitive skills in
appropriate ways to produce
and interpret written and
spoken language effectively
in various contexts of
communication.