A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PRAGMATICS

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CHAPTER II A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PRAGMATICS

2.1 Definitions of Pragmatics A sub field of linguistics developed in the late 1970s, Pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a communicate act or speech act in a concrete speech situation which is usually a conversation. The ability to comprehend and produce a communicative act is called pragmatic competence which often includes one’s acts knowledge about the social distance, social status between the speakers involved, the cultural knowledge, such as politeness and the linguistic knowledge. Although Pragmatics is a relatively new branch of Linguistics, research on it can be dated back to ancient Greece and Rome where the term pragmaticus is found in Late Latin and pragmaticos in Greek. The modern use of the term can be traced back to Charles Morris 1938:6. He distinguishes three fields of study; 1 Syntax, the study of the formal relations of signs to one another. 2 Semantics, the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable and 3 Pragmatics, the study of the relations of signs to interpreters. This later distinction became normalized in Linguistics. Pragmatics, a basic field of linguistics today, originally had its roots in Morris’ idea of a division of sign concerned with the relations of sign to their interpreters or users. The sign meant in this term are the sign of language, not others. The definition and study of pragmatics, in fact, do not quit until here. A number of linguists had attempted to Universitas Sumatera Utara 13 define it in accord with the rapid advancement and development of the Pragmatics itself and language in general. Morris had given a very wide scope to Pragmatics in which it includes what is now known as Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Neurolinguistics. Basically, pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by speaker writer and interpreted by a listener reader or the using of language that are crucial to an understanding of language as a system and especially to an understanding of meaning in context. Therefore, Pragmatics focuses on what people mean by their utterances might mean by themselves. In other word, Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning. The term of Pragmatics also focuses on the ability or proficiency to make use of language that relates with determinant factors of communicative acts. It means that Pragmatics discusses the structure and the form of language to the context situation and at the same time is closely related to the atmosphere of hearer, speaker, and surroundings. In this case, to relate these three atmospheres, the language user must have communicative competence. Communicative competence is the ability to use language that functions in a communicative situation that is in a spontaneous transaction involving a person or a group of persons. The communicative competence includes not only linguistic form but also its social; rules, such as notion of when, how, and to whom a certain linguistics form is appropriately used. It requires a consideration how speakers organize what they want to say in accordance with who they are talking to, where, when and order what circumstance. It describes pragmatics as a contextual meaning. Universitas Sumatera Utara 14 Meanwhile, H. P Grice 1989:15 concerns with the nature of the relation of signs to interpreters, and in particular how a speaker manages to communicate a specific communicative intention to his or her interlocutor and how the interlocutor recognizes this intention. He formulated a set of maxims that guide the process by which the interlocutors recognize each other’s communicative intention. However, most of the contributions restrict Pragmatics to linguistic communication in context. This is rooted in traditional rather than theoretical reason. It means that pragmatics must deal not only with the communicative uses of language but also the atmosphere of context. It also stresses the importance to study discourse as a phenomenon of human action and to view discourse as a form of manifestation of the interaction between organism and environment. Based on the explanation above, we can conclude that Pragmatics focuses on human communication. Communication is not merely something that happens but it is functional form to give some effects on the environment of the speaker and hearer. When one focuses on the intentions, purposes, beliefs, and wants that a speaker has in speaking and on what a person is doing with words in particular situation, one focuses on what people use language to do. Universitas Sumatera Utara 15 2.2 Scope of Pragmatics Dr. Levinson 1983: 32 has provided a lucid an integrative analysis of central scope of pragmatics. They are: 1. Entailment

2. Deixis

3. Implicature

4. Presuppotion 5. Speech act 1. Entailment Entailment is inferences that can be drawn solely from our knowledge about the semantic relationship in a language. • Types of entailment: 1. one-way entailment One-way entailment means the sentences are not true paraphrases each other. e. g.: Harry saw a bear. Harry saw an animal. If Harry saw a bear, then he necessarily saw an animal. But, if he saw an animal, he could have seen a bear but not necessarily. It could have been a big wolf, for example. Universitas Sumatera Utara 16 2. two-way entailment mutual entailment Two-way entailment means the sentences which are paraphrases of each other. e. g.: Anne is in front of Annie. Annie is behind Anne. The examples above have meaning relationship between in front of behind. We have a situation of two-way mutual entailment between the sentences in each other. These sentences are paraphrases of each other.

2. Deixis

In pragmatics and linguistics, deixis Greek: δειξις display demonstration, or references, the meaning “point of reference” is a process whereby words or expressions rely absolutely on context. The origo is the context from which the reference is made. In other words, the viewpoint that must be understood in order to interpret the utterance. e. g.; if Tom is speaking and he says “I”, he refers to himself, but if he is listening to Betty and says “I”, then the origo is Betty and the reference is to her. Pro-form are generally considered to be deictics, but a finer distinction is often made between personal pro-forms such as I, you, and it commonly referred to as personal pronouns and pro-forms that refer to places and times such as now, then, here, there . In most texts, the word deictic implies the latter but not necessarily the former. Universitas Sumatera Utara 17 • Types of deixis 1. Person deixis 2. Discourse deixis: where reference is being made to the current discourse or part thereof. Examples: “that was a really mean thing to say”. This sentence is false. The last is an example of token- reflexive discourse deixis, in which a word in the utterance refers to the utterance itself. 3. Switch reference is a type of discourse deixis and grammatical feature found in some languages, which indicates whether the argument of one clause is the same as the argument of the previous clause. In some languages this is done through same subject markers and different subject markers. 4. Empathetic deixis: where different forms of the deictic are used to indicate the speaker’s emotional closeness or distance from the referent. 5. Place deixis: a spatial location relative to the spatial location of the speaker. It can be proximal or distal or sometimes medial. It can also be either bounded indicating a spatial region with a clearly defined boundary, e.g. in the box or unbounded indicating a spatial region without a clearly defined boundary, e. g. over there. 6. Social deixis: is the use of different deictics to express social distinction, an example is difference between formal and polite pro-form. Relational social deixis is where the form of word used Universitas Sumatera Utara 18 indicates the relative social status of the addressor and the addressee. For example, one pro-form might be used to address those of lesser social rank, another to address those of the same social rank. By contrast, absolute social deixis indicates a social standing irrespective of the social standing of the speaker. Thus, village chiefs might always be addressed by a special pro-form, regardless of whether it is someone below them, above them or at the same level of the social hierarchy who is doing the addressing. 7. Time deixis: is reference made to particular times relative to some other time, most currently the time of utterance. For example, the use of the words now or soon, or the use of tenses.

3. Implicature

Unlike presupposition and entailment, implicature is inferences that cannot be made from isolated utterances. They are dependent on the context of the utterance and shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. Implicature is a technical term in the linguistic branch of Pragmatics coined by Paul Grice. It describes the relationship between two statements where the truth of one suggests the truth of the other, but distinguishing implicature from entailment does not required it. For example, the sentence “Mary had a baby and got married”, strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would still strictly true if Mary had her baby after she got married. Universitas Sumatera Utara 19 Here are two implicatures: “I don’t like it” and “I’m not going”: 1. A: “We’re going to the movies” B: “I’ve got an exam tomorrow” Relation : the B’s exam is not apparently relevant to a discussion about going to the movies. 2. A: “Are you going to Steve’s barbeque?” B: “A barbeque is an outdoor party.” Quantity : stating that a barbeque is an outdoor party is apparently both too informative since people know that a barbeque is an outdoor party and not informative enough since B has not directly answered the question.

4. Presupposition

In Linguistics, a presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that: • Must be mutual known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context. • Will generally remain necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of as assertion, denial, or question, and • Can be associated with a specific lexical item or grammatical feature - presupposition trigger. In Pragmatics, a presupposition is an assumption about the world whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presupposition include: Universitas Sumatera Utara 20 • Do you want to do it again? Presupposition: You have done it already, at least once. • My wife is pregnant. Presupposition: The speaker has a wife.

5. Speech Act

Speech act theory was first developed by J.L Austin in a series of lectures at Oxford University. His book “How to Do Things with Words” , is the first to introduce the idea of speech act, analyzing the relationship between utterance and performatives . A speech act is the action performed by language to modify the state of the object on which the action is performed. Austin 1962:12 states,”… to say something, at least in all cases worth considering, i.e. all cases considered, is always and simply to state something”. It means what the speaker is doing is creating social realities within certain social context. Speech act also usually appear in the first person and use the simple present tense, indicative for example: I promise I will come tomorrow. Speech act is not descriptive, instead they are pronounced to affect an actual situation, and they usually do not refer to past events. Performatives did not report about doing something, their utterances actually constituted performing an action. Because performatives are actions, they cannot be considered to be either true or false but only “felicitous” or “infelicitous”. Austin defined an illocution, or an illocutionary act, as an act performed in uttering a sentence with a performatives verb, for example; I Universitas Sumatera Utara 21 pronounce you husband and wife. While the constative utterance, under the name of statement, has the property of being true or false, for example: I name the ship Queen Elizabeth. • Types of Speech Acts J.L Austin and John Searle identify three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterances itself. Austin distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it and what one does by saying it and called these the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. In addition, each type of illocutionary act can have different propositional contents. Therefore, propositional act is added in to the types of speech acts. So, they have developed four categories of speech acts. 1. Locutionary Act Austin 1962:109 states, “Locutionary act, which is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sense and reference, which is again roughly equivalent to ‘meaning’ in the traditional sense.” It means locutionary act which is also known as utterance act, is simply an act of uttering sounds, syllables, word, phrases, and sentences from a language. It is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic expression. From a speech act point of view, this is not very interesting act because an utterance act is not communicative, it can be performed by tape recorder or voice synthesizer . 2. Illocutionary Act Universitas Sumatera Utara 22 Mostly we do not just produce well-formed utterances with no purpose. We form an utterance with some kinds of function in mind. This is the second dimension, or the illocutionary act. Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something that is we talk about the relevant intention, function of force, and question ‘what is the act done for?’ All illocutionary acts are governed by two rules: regulative rules and constitutive rules. Regulative rules regulate or govern existing forms of behavior, while constitutive rules help to establish the existence of a kind of behavior that needs the rules. 3. Perlocutionary Act We do not simply create an utterance with a function without intending it to have an effect. It is described in perlocutionaryact. It is an act performed by saying something. Depending on the circumstances, you will utter on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended. For example, that a bartender utters the word, ”the bar will be closed in 5 minutes.” Perlocutionary act is performed with the intention of producing a further effect. The bartender intends to be performing the perlocutionary act of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to close and of getting them to order one last drink. Universitas Sumatera Utara 23 Some typical examples of Perlocutionary act are: - inspiring - impressing - embarrassing - misleading - irritating - encouraging - persuading - intimidating - deceiving - amusing - frightening Perlocutionary act seems to involve the effects of utterance act and illocutionary act on the thoughts, feelings, and actions of hearer, while illocutionary act does not 4. Propositional Act Propositional act is an act of referring and predicating wherein speaker refers to something and characterizes it. Suppose that a speaker speech act utters the sentence. Phil is smiling. In making this assertion, the speaker would also be performing the propositional act of referring to Phil with the name Phil and of characterizing him with the predicate is smiling. Universitas Sumatera Utara 24 2.3 Goals of Pragmatic Theory In a pragmatic theory, what we mean by the goal here is more than merely a theory, but, it is concerned much with a function of the roles of grammatical description of a sentence, the context in which it was uttered, the full meaning of the utterances in the context in theory of Pragmatics. Furthermore, the minimal requirements on a adequate pragmatic theory are as follows: A Pragmatic Theory: a. must contain a classification of speech act. b. must contain analysis and definition of the various speech act. c. must contain a specification of various uses of expression: it must say that: i expression e is standard literally and directly used to do X in context C. ii expression e has n different uses. iii expression e and e’ have the same use or user. d. must relate literal and direct language use to such phenomenon as: i linguistic structure semantics, syntax, and phonology. ii the structure of the communication situation, the course of conversations and social institutions. iii speaker-meaning, implication, pragmatic presupposition, and understanding At least five disciplines have been interested in pursuing these pragmatic goals over the last ten years: Philosophers, Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, Universitas Sumatera Utara 25 and Anthropology. Philosophers have been mainly concerned with categorizing types of speech act and with defining each category. They have pursued goals a and b. Linguists have been mainly concerned with specifying which expression in the language have been uses or condition on uses. In short Linguists have been concerned mainly goals c, i, d, i, and d, ii. Psychologists have been concerned with the investigation of how information concerning language use is processed, stored, and acquired. Finally, Anthropologists and Sociologists have been concerned with regularities between language use and social role, as well as the structuring of speech act into conversations. We can see from this that a successful pragmatics will require the cooperation of many disciplines. However, we will be concentrating mainly on Linguistics and Philosophical concerns. 2.4 Cooperative Principle Proposed by Grice H.P Grice had worked with J.L Austin at Oxford in the 1940s and 1950s and his work on the Cooperative Principle and its related maxims arises from the same tradition of ordinary language philosophy. Grice’s theory is an attempt at explaining how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant, from the level of expressed meaning to the level of implied meaning. Principle signifies a point of probability on a subject, whish allows for the formation of rule or norm or law by human interpretation of the phenomenon that can be created. The rules, norms, and laws depend on and co-create a particular context to formulate. In this analysis, the subject is language that used to Universitas Sumatera Utara 26 communicate by conversation. Such of the rules were the convention that help speaker and hearer to prevent misunderstanding in the conversation. Cooperative principle is a principle used in the analysis of conversation which status that speakers try to cooperate with each other when communicating, in particular, they try to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear. Listeners normally assume that speaker is following these conventions. The concept of cooperative principle expected amount of information provided in conversation, as one aspect of the general idea that people involved in a conversation. Therefore, people will cooperate with each other. For example, for reference to be successful, it was proposed that collaboration was necessary factor. In accepting speakers’ presupposition, listeners normally have to assume that a speaker who says ‘my motorcycle’ really does have the motorcycle that is mentioned and isn’t trying to mislead the listener. This sense of cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not normally assumed to be trying confuse, trick, or withhold relevant information from each other. In most circumstance, this kind of cooperation is only the starting point for making sense of what is said. Grice proposed four maxims, the maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. In analyzing the expression, there would be two cases whether it observing obey the maxims or non-observing of the maxims. 1. Observing obey the maxim The least interesting case is when a speaker obey all maxims as in following example: Universitas Sumatera Utara 27 Husband : “Where is the motorcycle key?” Wife : “it is in the drawer in the living room.” The wife has answered clearly manner, truthfully quality, has given just the right amount of information quantity and has directly addressed her husband’s goal in asking the question relation. She has said precisely what she meant, no more and no less, and has generated no implicature. Here, there is no distinction to be made between what she says and what she means, and there is no additional level of meaning. 2. Non-Observing of the Maxims In his paper 1975:49 Grice was well aware, however, that there are very many occasions when people fail to observe the maxims. There are five ways of failing to observe a maxim. Flouting a maxim Violating a maxim Infringing a maxim Opting out a maxim Suspending a maxim A flout occurs when a speaker fails to observe a maxim at the level of what is said, with the deliberate intention of generating an implicature. I shall give examples of violating of each of the maxims in turn and at the same time review Grice’s discussions of the reasons for flouting a maxim. Universitas Sumatera Utara 28

2.4.1 Maxim of Quantity Quantity:

Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose of the exchange. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Violating Maxim of Quantity A violating maxim of quantity occurs when a speaker gives more or less information than the situation requires. We have already seen one instance of a person giving less information than required by the situation, and the following examples operate in the same way: 1. A: “How are we getting there?” B: “Well we’re getting there in Dave’s car.” B gives less information than A needs, thereby generating the implicature that, while B and B’s friends have a lift arranged, A will not be traveled with them. 2. Bill is asking Jhon about Bill’s girlfriend. Bill :”Is he nice?” Jhon :”She seems to like him.” Jhon can simply have replied:”No”- this will give the maximum amount of information possible in the situation. Instead, Jhon gives less information response. It will be possible to argue that his failure has violated maxim of quantity. [Jhon cannot say for certain whether Bill’s new girlfriend is nice or not Universitas Sumatera Utara 29 and speaks only on the basis of the evidence he has. But the explanation is rather reasonable.

2.4.2 Maxim of Quality Quality:

Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Violating Maxim of Quality Violating maxim of quality occurs when the speaker says something which untrue or for which he or she lacks adequate evidence. Example: B was on a long train journey and wanted to read her book. A was a fellow passenger who wanted to talk to B: A: “What do you do?” B: “I’m a teacher.” A: “Where do you teach?” B: “Outer Mongolia.” A: “Sorry I asked” Outer Mongolia is seen as somewhere impossibly remote, so that B’s improbable response prompted the hearer to look for an implicature in this case that his attention was unwelcome. The funny thing about this example was that B really did teach in Outer Mongolia, but A was nevertheless correct in assuming that B was trying to give A the rejection. Universitas Sumatera Utara 30

2.4.3 Maxim of Relation Relation:

be relevant. Violating Maxim of Relation Violating maxim of relation occurs when the speaker says something which is not relevant. Example: The speaker Ann has accidentally locked herself out of her house. It is winter, the middle of night and she is stark naked: Bill : “Do you want a coat?” Ann : “No, I really want to stand out here in the freezing cold with no clothes on.” On the face of it, Ann’s reply is irrelevant and uncooperates. So, how do we interpret it? According to Grice, if A assumes that, in spite of appearances, Ann is observing the Cooperative Principle and has made an appropriate response to his question, he will look for an alternative interpretation. Grice argues that without the assumption that the speaker is operating according to the CP, there is no mechanism to prompt someone to seek for another level of interpretation. The observation that the speaker has said which is in manifestly untrue combined with the assumption that the CP is in operation sets in motion the search for an implicature. Universitas Sumatera Utara 31

2.4.4 Maxim of Manner Manner:

Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief avoid unnecessary prolixity. Be orderly. Violating Maxim of Manner The following is an example of violating maxim of manner. This interaction occurred during a radio interview with an un named official from the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti Interviewer: “ Did the United States Government play any part in Duvalier’s departure? Did they, for example, activity encourage him to leave?” Official: “ I would not try to steer you away from that conclusion.” The official could simply have replied “yes”. Her actual response is extremely long winded and convoluted and it is obviously no accident, nor through any inability to speak clearly, that she has failed to obey maxim of manner. There is, however, no reason to believe that the official is being deliberately unhelpful she could, after all, have simply refused to answer at all, or said “no comment” Universitas Sumatera Utara 32

CHAPTER III VERBAL OFFERS IN COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE