Pragmatics

This is an advanced course in Pragmatics, a field of linguistic study that concerns the scientific and detailed understanding of how language is used in naturalistic settings. The main focus will be on the social and psychological implications of various phenomena in natural languages that cannot be explained simply by appeal to the syntax and semantics of particular languages. We will be concerned with aspects of meaning that go beyond truth-conditional content and are related to how language is used in context, including conversational implicatures (inferences that arise through reasoning about the speaker’s adherence to conversational maxims like “Be as informative as you can”), presuppositions (notions that a speaker or an utterance present as taken for granted) and speech acts (that is the various linguistic forms through which people accomplish actions with language). Phenomena like these will lead us to consider the view that meaning in human conversation is a product of the lexical meaning of words, the syntax/semantics of the linguistic constructions employed, and how these interact with the context of use and speakers'/hearers' assumptions (the common ground).

The course is geared towards students who want to deepen their understanding of concepts in pragmatics needed to pursue their studies in linguistics and related disciplines (such as psychology, information science, computational linguistics, philosophy, literature, etc.). On this basis, the course then provides a detailed and thorough understanding of basic pragmatic concepts, how pragmatic theories are developed under the guidance of current scientific methodologies, and how to conduct sound pragmatic analyses of authentic linguistic materials. Several current pragmatic theories are discussed in detail and partially formalized. Opportunity will also be given to analyse authentic natural language materials, e.g., conversational dialogue or narrative texts, to determine how the theories and ideas taught apply in empirical research areas. The course will also briefly introduce the history of pragmatics as a discipline within linguistics with roots in philosophy, the relationship of pragmatics to neighbouring linguistic fields, and the practical uses of pragmatics research in sociology, psychology, and language technology.