INSTITUTE OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN STUDIESFACULTY OF ARTS, PREŠOV UNIVERSITY

Students´ Papers in Pragmalinguistics I

2009/10

CONTENTS

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A CALVIN AND HOBBES COMIC STRIP(presupposition and politeness strategies)Libuša Banová 4

PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN IT CROWDJana Susová 6ANALYSIS OF A CONVERSATION IN THE BIG BANG THEORYMonika Laurová 8

PRAGMALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMOROUS CONVERSATIONSLucia Tóthová 10

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A CONVERSATION FROM IT CROWD (Politeness Principle & Co-operative principle)Lenka Bilecová 12

PRAGMALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF A STATEMENTVeronika Meyer 14

THE BIG BANG THEORY: SHELDON AS A BOTTOMLESS RESOURCE OF PRAGMALINGUISTIC PHENOMENASoňa Škripková 16

PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN TWO AND A HALF MENĽuboslava Bukátová 18

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHERDaniela Hladká 20

MASKING THE REAL PURPOSE (The Office, Season 1, Episode 4 – The Alliance)Kristína Reguliová 22

PRAGMATICS OF THE EVERYDAY Lenka Krochmaľová 24

IMPLICATURE AT WORKKatarína Nemjová 26

GRICE´ S MAXIMS IN HOW I MET YOUR MOTHERSilvia Ištenešová 28

GRICE´S MAXIMS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHESTIveta Hycová 30

JOEY SPEAKS FRENCH: PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM FRIENDSVeronika Varmusova 32

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PRAGMATIC IMPLICATURES IN THE AIRLukáš Sopko 35

THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE IN SHREKVeronika Kolcunova 37

ANALYSIS OF THE PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN THE BIG BANG THEORYJuliána Blanárová 39

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM FRIENDSMarcela Želinská 41

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PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A CALVIN AND HOBBES COMIC STRIP(presupposition and politeness strategies)

Libuša Banová

The material for analysis I have chosen is from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. This particular strip presents family environment, father and son discussing certain things. Calvin is approaching his father with clear task that is to find out what is his father’s opinion about profitable issues for Calvin. However, he does not do it straightforwardly, but because Calvin is very clever boy for his age, he makes use of the language to achieve his goals resulting in good humor.

Calvin approaches his father with the statement “Election day is coming up, Dad”. To do so, he must have known, i.e. presuppose that the elections are of the father’s concerns, therefore would be applicable and valid in asking. What makes this first situation funny is the paradox that we presuppose that little children have no idea about elections whereas Calvin here does. This helps Calvin to address his father’s positive face. Firstly, it is achieved by saying ‘dad’, reflecting good relationship between Calvin and his father. Secondly, Calvin brings about the mentioned topic of elections, something that is of the interest of his father, and therefore may be the common ground for them. However, this emphasis of the commonality between Calvin and his father produces rather humor, since, as it was said, such topic is not typical for children. He continues by saying “People want to know where you stand on the issues” where he reveals his awareness of the face-threatening act. Instead of stating directly ‘I’, he uses ‘people’ to hide behind, to protect his face and intentions. Calvin also prefers using statement as an indirect speech act of the question instead of directly posing a question. Such indirectness is a mark of negative politeness, thus Calvin is trying not to impose on his father but give him space to decide freely whether he wants to participate in this conversation or not.

Even though Calvin’s first success is achieved when his father asks “Such as?”, father’s real interest in conversation is rather questionable. He apparently seems to uphold the principles of positive politeness strategy by co-operating and contributing to this interaction and reflecting that it is of his interest. What cannot be overlooked, however, is that he does so while reading his newspapers. This reveals that father as an adult more likely anticipates what is going on, but does not want to dismiss his son at the very beginning. As Calvin is allowed to continue, he names all the issues that are not typically dealt in the elections, such as later bedtimes or TV privileges. By doing so, he exposes himself to great possibility of threatening his face. Humor created by the absurdity of such personal issues presented as political ones by Calvin is strengthened by the fact that it is discussed on impersonal level.

Since Calvin’s naming the issues was an off-record request for father’s allowance or agreement of such conditions, it is his turn to react. However, he chooses dispreferred option stating that he is against them all. Father using scalar implicature with the upmost point expressed in a word ‘all’ ensures that his son will not interpret it differently. Evidently, Calvin’s request was the face-threatening act and any form of accusation or disagreement (‘but Dad…’) would reveal his real intentions. Therefore he decides to remain neutral and use face-saving act based on his response “I see”. By doing so, he addresses politeness maxim of agreement which allows him to continue in asking.

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However, Calvin’s last questions are more direct, such as “How’s your IRA? Pretty well funded?”, through which he destroys father’s own territory and distance between them. Therefore, a shift from off-record and negative politeness to bald politeness can be observed. This also results in violation of politeness maxim of tact, whereas Calvin’s benefit is maximized, if answer by father provided. Moreover, father’s cost would be maximized as well, because he would have to reveal something from his own territory. Consequently, father orders his son “Go to bed.” This is not seen as impolite, however, because of the authority a parent has over his child. It is rather father’s recognition of Calvin’s intentions and the way of expressing ‘you have overstepped my personal territory’, ‘you have no right to go into such details’ and ‘it is none of your business’.

This particular comic strip displays Calvin’s admirable cleverness to use the language to achieve his goals. Although his intentions are recognized by his father in the end, Calvin’s either upholding the rules of politeness maxims or following the politeness strategies can be strongly observed. This strip also reflects his ability to switch from positive to negative or off-record politeness in order to create situation from which he can benefit. Good humor in this family environment is reached by Calvin’s ability to presuppose father’s interest in the elections and by presenting the absurd political issues which would be very beneficial for Calvin, if approved.

LiteratureSendos, M. Comics [online]. [retrieved 07-12-09] dostupné na:

<http://www.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/1988/10/198810.html>.Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C., 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language use.

Cambridge: CUP.Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman.Peccei, J.S. 1990. Pragmatics. London and new York: Routledge.Tárnyiková, L. 2000. Pragmatics. In P. Štekauer (ed.). Rudiments of English Linguistics.

Prešov: Slovacontact.

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PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN IT CROWD

Jana Susová

This analysis deals with three inter-connected situations chosen from the British situational comedy the IT Crowd. The scenes were chosen from the third episode of the third series, and they illustrate various politeness principles, or their breaching, in action.

Leech’s Politeness Principle:In the first situation Moss, a computer genius with remarkably low level of social

skills, enters the office canteen to buy some sandwiches and coffee for lunch. The brief encounter that takes place between Moss and the elderly lady who serves him shows several pragmatic principles at play: Moss’s inquiry about Olive’s well-being can be interpreted both as a positive politeness strategy (the use of you, and the first name Olive by Moss), thus indicating that the two have known each other for some time. Yet the very second part of Moss’ utterance is somewhat problematic: “You look a bit peaky” can be interpreted either as an earnest worry about a friend, or as a rather impolite remark, breaching the Approbation Maxim. Moss’ follow-up than points out clearly to his inability to recognize what is appropriate to say to another person and what is not: “Well, you’re terrifically old. But don’t worry, not long now till you're at peace.” This utterance demonstrates well how the intention and the actual effect achieved can differ: Moss clearly meant his words to cheer Olive up, but he certainly failed. By pointing out quite insensitively to Olive’s age and approaching death, he managed to breech the Approbation Maxim, the Tact Maxim and even the Sympathy Maxim, since his remark is more offensive than creating the air of sympathy.

In the second situation, Moss brings the sandwiches and coffee back to the office and shares both with his colleague Roy. Here the issue of face threatening and face saving acts is demonstrated. When the practical joke Moss intended to play went wrong and instead of having a good laugh Roy ended wet with coffee, instead of trying to escape the “crime scene” Moss should have reacted by apologizing and maybe offering some sort of help. An apology would to some extent improve his face in the eyes of his friend Roy, yet Moss seems to be unaware of that fact.

The third situation is rooted in the second one, and is a continuation of the first one as well: Roy, wearing only his jacket, since his t-shirt got wet with coffee, enters the canteen to find that Olive, the old lady, has fainted and is lying on the floor. There are several men from the office trying to help her, all of them wearing shirts with ties. The direct command of the man, aimed at Roy – “Give us your jacket, mate” might seem impolite in other context, yet it is perfectly acceptable in the situation where health of another person is involved. However, Roy is reluctant to give away his jacket, since he is wearing nothing underneath, and is therefore afraid of losing his face. Yet the refusal of helping the old lady is a face threatening act of even greater force, therefore he complies after a while, when he realizes that there is no polite way of refusing. Roy’s behaviour can also be regarded as flouting the maxim of quality, since he is not telling the truth when he tries to persuade Olive that she is actually fine and does not need his jacket after all.

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Transcript of the chosen situations: Situation 1: I: Moss: Are you all right, Olive? You look a bit peaky.R: Olive: Yes, I-I'm, I don't feel up to it any more.

I feel sort of dizzy all of a sudden.F: Moss: Well, you're terrifically old.

But don't worry, not long now till you're at peace.Situation 2:Moss: Sandwich. (throwing a sandwich at Roy)Roy: Oh, right.Moss: Coffee. (throwing coffee in a paper mug at Roy)Roy: Oh, no, no, no! (coffee spills all over Roy’s t-shirt)Moss: Got you! That one's empty, this is the real one!

I've been planning that for ages.The look on your face!(Moss sees the result of his action, turns to run away, and bangs his head into the door)

Situation 3: Roy: What happened?Man: She just collapsed.

I've phoned for an ambulance.Give us your jacket, mate.

Roy: What?Man: She looks cold, I want to put it round her shoulders.Roy: She doesn't look cold.Man: What? Just give us your jacket, man.Roy: She's fine!

You're fine, aren't you, Olive?Olive: (laying on the ground, moaning)Roy: She's moving about.

Oh, and she's talking.Roy: That's it, keep the spirits up, Olive.Olive: I'm cold!Roy: It's all in your head, Olive.Man: Your jacket, man.Roy: What? Come on!Man: Hurry up.

Thank you.(To Olive) Come on. Here we go.

Literature Tárnyiková, J. Pragmatics. In Rudiments of English Linguistics, ed. Pavol Štekauer. Prešov: Slovacontact, 2000Peccei, J.S. Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

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ANALYSIS OF A CONVERSATIONAL ENCOUNTER IN THE BIG BANG THEORY

Monika Laurová

This work deals with a piece of conversation from a well-known series called The Big Bang Theory- the series that provides an inexhaustible means of conversational turns suitable for linguistic analyses. The aim of this work is to investigate a short piece of conversation between two protagonists in order to reveal, from a linguistic and pragmatic point of view, what processes are hidden behind a common talk.

Sheldon and his Jewish friend Wolovitz hear a cricket while sitting and eating in the dining room. Sheldon who believes in his inerrability immediately claims the cricket belongs to the field cricket species. However, Wolovitz has a different opinion. After a short discussion without revealing the true nature of the cricket, both of them agree upon making a bet concerning the true nature of the cricket in which Sheldon finally loses.

Sheldon and his neighbor Penny meet and involve in a very interesting conversation. However, what is necessary to pinpoint is the fact that both of them perceive reality from different angles. We can say that Penny represents relatively casual character in a way of comprehending reality. She follows the social norm and the politeness principle. On the other hand, Sheldon is usually not able to draw adequate inferences and he often misses the pragmatic meaning taking Penny’s conversational contributions literally- semantic meaning. The reason for this may lay in Sheldon’s IQ of 180. There is a generally spread belief that those with higher IQ than the norm often perceive reality differently and in certain situations lack the ability to follow the politeness principle or to comprehend the utterances pragmatically. Whether it is true or not, one cannot say without deeper exploration of the subject, however, the Big Bang Theory clearly supports the belief.

Sheldon explains he lost comics to his friend in an ill-considered cricket wager.Penny responds: What are there a wii criket now? That can’t be very popular.

In this three turn taking unit of question - answer - question, the word cricket is not comprehended adequately. It has two semantic meanings - the first one as an insect, the second as a game. Whereas Sheldon talks about an insect, Penny infers that he talks about a game. The reason for her misinterpretation lies in a fact that the word cricket is being used with the word wager. Penny draws on a presupposition that wagers are usually being made about games but certainly not about insect crickets.

P: Well if it makes you feel any better, I am not feeling so hard either.S: Why would that make ME feel better?P: I don’t know – empathy?

In this exchange of turns, Penny tries to be polite and emphatic. She uses expressive through which she expresses her feelings by making her words fit her internal psychological world. One can assume that she probably even tries to manipulate the conversation so that she could share her sorrows, too. However, it seems that Sheldon simply does not want to save his face by cooperating in a way that is expected, by being polite (it is expected that one would react emphatically, e.g. Oh, really? What happened to you? One would do so even if he/she were

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not interested in the matter just to protect their face - being liked by the other person.) The question is, whether Sheldon’s reaction can be appreciated in this case as being sincere. Would it not be better to pretend? He openly demonstrates rudeness. He openly manifests his surprise and does not respond as expected from a person in such a situation- why would that make ME feel better (paraphrase can be made e.g. how it is related to me, what do I have in common with you and your feelings?) What he communicates is – I do not care about you and your feelings. I even do not know what empathy means…

P: Anyway, I’m just saying that you’re feeling upset about something with Howard and I am upset about something with Leonard. S: Yes, yes, the disappointing sex.

Once again, Sheldon has no right to speak about Penny’s intimate life. They are not so close friends. He does not preserve the social distance between the speaker and the hearer, he is intruding in fact.

S: You and Leonard can always return to being friends whereas I can never return to a state in which Wolovitz has not bested me like Mrs. Riley’s chicken.P: What’s Mrs. Riley’s chicken?S: The chicken that was owned by Mrs. Riley.P: Ok, forget the chicken.S: Oh, I wish I could.

To explain it was a chicken that used to chase Sheldon when child. In this last part of conversation, it seems that Penny and Sheldon are coming from two different planets. The violation of quantity by Sheldon can be found here. When Penny asks what Mrs. Riley’s chicken is she is perfectly aware it be the chicken belonging to Mrs. Riley. She wants to know the story hidden behind but Sheldon does not take it.

LiteratureBrown, P. and Levinson, S.C., 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language use.Cambridge: CUP.Mey, J. 1993. Pragmatics. Blackwell.Verschueren, J. 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. Arnold.Watts, R.2003. Politeness. CUP.Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. OUP.The Big Bang Theory: series 03, episode 02

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PRAGMALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMOROUS CONVERSATIONS

Lucia Tóthová

During a conversation, speakers are required to adhere to the cooporative principle. However, there are situations when the conversationalists deliberately choose not to obey this principle and they are flouting or violating the conversational maxims.

Two short conversations below illustrate how this violation of maxims can produce a comic effect. Both dialogues represent a parent-child conversation dealing with the children’s performance in school. In both cases, the children are breaking the rules of cooperative behaviour in conversation, in order to prevent being scolded by their parents.

In the first dialogue a son is enquired by his father about his school grades. The son, knowing that his grades are nothing to be proud of, openly violates the maxim of manner. He does not state clearly that his grades are not too good. Instead, he chooses an unclear answer (“My marks are under water”) in order to prevent his father from finding out the truth about his test results. Doing this, he defers the negative reaction of his father. When he is asked by his father to make himself clear, he provides an ambiguous reply: “They are below SEA LEVEL” Thus, he is flouting the maxim of manner, making his contribution to conversation obscure and ambiguous. As the “Sea level” and “C-level” are pronounced identically, the hearer has to make some effort to decipher the real meaning – that the child’s grades are either D or E.

Another example represents a dialogue between a mother and her daughter. The little girl is complaining about the unfair treatment in school and about being unjustly punished. However, in her first conversational turn, the little girl is not providing sufficient information which is required for the full comprehension of the actual situation. By stating only that she was punished for something she didn’t do, she does not tell the whole story. Thus, she is violating the maxim of quantity. As a result, her mother gets angry with the school teacher of her daughter and decides that she’s going to talk to her. However, after further inquiry, the situation gets clearer. The mother finds out that her daughter didn’t do her homework. When all the facts of the situation are revealed, it is clear that the school teacher was right when she punished her pupil.

After analyzing this examples we can see that flouting or violating the maxims of conversation can lead to misunderstandings between a hearer and a speaker and, what is more, this misunderstandings often produce humorous situations.

Conversations:

1. A boy came home from school with his exam results:father: What did u get?Son: My marks are under water.Father: What do u mean 'under water'?Son: They are all below sea level. ( C-level )

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2. A little girl came home from school and said to her mother:

Daughter: Mommy, today in school I was punished for something that I didn't do.Mother: But that's terrible! I'm going to have a talk with your teacher about this ... by

the way, what was it that you didn't do?Daughter: My homework.

LiteratureAcademicTips Blog. Moral Tales, Inspirational Stories. [online] 2008 [Accessed 2009-12-7] Available at: <http://academictips.org/blogs/jokes/>Peccei, J.S. 1999. Pragmatics. London and New York: RoutledgeTárnyiková, L. 2000. Pragmatics. In P. Štekauer (ed.) Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact

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PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A CONVERSATION FROM IT CROWD (Politeness Principle & Co-operative principle)

Lenka Bilecová

The subject of this analysis will be one the conversations from the IT Crowd series. I have chosen this series because there are many unexpected situations which lead to the even more unexpected reactions of their participants and thus not only entertain us but at the same time offer us a great material for the various analyses.

The given conversation is taken from the 3rd part of the 1st series. It is held among Roy and Moss who work at the IT department and Daniel who works at the security department.

The conversation starts when the Daniel (who is sitting on the sofa and reading some material) asks Moss and Roy whether they don´t mind him chilling out there. Their reply was polite when they answered “No” to this. However, Daniel wanted to continue in the conversation and he as a man asked a quite typical man question concerning football. Watching or playing the football is considered conventionally to be typical issue among the men. And he asked them: “So, did you see the match last night?” They seemed little bit surprised by this question, Moss looked at Roy for support what to say and so they lied to Daniel when they confirmed that they saw this match with their answer: “Oh, Yeah!” Here we come to the point: Roy and Moss lied in order to save their faces in this conversation with another man because they wanted to avoid to be considered weird in some way because they are not interested in a football (or in some other issue typical for men). Their purpose was not to loose their position of “being a man” and thus no to loose their faces but to save them.

The act of saving faces is developed and supported by their further arguments when Roy shouted: “What a match!” Roy continued in their lie (in the lines 8 -10) when he tried to comment the match which he actually has never seen. By this Roy was saving their faces but at the other side he broke the rule of the Grice's Co-operative Principle when he violated the Maxim of Quality because he lied and he also said something for which he lacked evidence (as far as he was speaking about the match which he had not seen).

Daniel asked another question concerning the match: “What was Rooney thinking over there?” Daniel was referring to the one of the football players and particularly to his last performance on the pitch. However, the “IT men” had no idea of what was Daniel talking about, so they just continued in their little lies in lines 12 – 13. The conversation is coming to its end by the statement of the Daniel: “Yeah but...that referee... I'm sorry the referee is just an idiot.” and it is finished by the comment of the Moss still violating the Maxim of Quality: “Yes, he was certainly the villain of the piece.”

Even in such short conversation we become witnesses of the breaking of the various rules. We can see it all around us, in our everyday lives, neither purposefully or not.

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Transcription of the conversation:

1. Daniel: You guys, don´t mind me chilling out in here, do you?

2. Moss: No. Chill out!

3. Daniel: So, did you see the match last night?

4. Roy: Oh yeah!

5. Moss: Oh yeah! God!

6. Roy: Did we?! Wow! What a match!

7. Moss: Yeah!

8. Roy: Yeah, ooh. All of the players running up....the pitch

9. Moss: Running up....

10. Roy: and running down it again. Such athleticism!

11. Daniel: What was Rooney thinking over there?

12. Roy: Who knows? That is Rooney!

13. Moss: He is a foolish boy!

14. Daniel: Yeah but...that referee....I m sorry the referee is just an idiot.

15. Moss: Yes, he was certainly the villain of the piece.

Literature

Ferenčík, M. (2004). A Survey of English Stylistics. http://www.pulib.sk/elpub/FF/Ferencik/INDEX.HTM

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PRAGMALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF A STATEMENT

Veronika Meyer

Situation: Mother is making a dinner. In the background her family: husband, daughter and son, wait happily at the table for the dinner she has prepared. Mother says as if to the audience, the reader, “Every day I give my family two options for dinner: Take it or Leave it.”

Politeness:- the first half of the statement seems, according to Leech’s approach, very tactful, “I give my family two options for dinner.” - the second part is according to Brown and Levinson’s approach without redressive action – bald, “Take it or Leave it.” The audience may also perceive this statement as funny, a joke on the account of the family. These approaches bring us to entailments.

Entailment:- bearing in mind our culture and hearing someone giving us two options for dinner might seem very nice and caring because most of us would imagine two different types of meal. However, the second part of the sentence “kills” the caring nature of the statement and brings us to a cruel reality, “You have only two options for dinner: you either eat what I cooked or you stay hungry.”

Foregrounding:- asking a question “What options?” we get the answer, “Take it or Leave it.”

Presupposition:- the statement is factive, the mother is just plainly stating a fact, “You have two options: Take it or Leave it.”- we may call this sentence a declarative sentence; mother is making a statement, “the world goes as she says.”

Implicature:- the statement “Take it or Leave it” may be interpreted as “Eat it or don’t,” “If you don’t like it, you might be left hungry,” etc.- even though Grice in his approach discusses his maxims in relation to a dialog, I think, here we may talk (although it is just one statement) about the maxims of relevance and clarity, which are present in the explanation of what the two options that the family has are.- we may also call it a generalized implicature; not additional knowledge is required by the hearer, the reader, to understand the statement.

Speech Acts:- the statement “Take it or Leave it” may seem as a threat or a warning, “there are only two options, if you don’t eat, you will be hungry.” At the same time it may seem as a promise as well, “you always have two options to choose from.”- illocutionary force represents what the speaker does with the words; in this case the mother uses a performative verb “I give them two options,” which may be interpreted as “I offer them two options.”- it is a representative sentence stating the external reality, “I give my family two options.”- we may also call it a direct speech act, the sentence is a direct statement of a fact.

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LiteratureBrown, P. and Levinson, S.C., 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language use.

Cambridge: CUP.Mey, J. 1993. Pragmatics. Blackwell.Polish, E. and Watz, D. 2007. I Bitch, Therefore I Am. Bercley: Ten Speed Press.Verschueren, J. 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. Arnold.Watts, R.2003. Politeness. CUP.Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. OUP.

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THE BIG BANG THEORY: SHELDON AS A BOTTOMLESS RESOURCE OF PRAGMALINGUISTIC PHENOMENA

Soňa Škripková

As my title indicates, I focus on one of the main protagonists of the Big Bang Theory – Sheldon. He is one of four friends, scientists that have some kind of creepy interests and hobbies. I dare to say that they are out of normal comprehension of the world. Other protagonist is their neighbour Penny who is quite ordinary American girl and she is very often perplexed by the topic of their discussion or activities. The extract which I choose for my analysis is situation when Penny dislocates her shoulder and calls for help while Sheldon is working on his experiment.

Fans of the Big Bang Theory and its characters will be not surprised at Sheldon’s behaviour, because he doesn’t follow several social conditions, which is for ordinary people quite normal, and he really often crosses some sort of line in structure of politeness. As for instance, he is rude, he has his spot on the sofa where nobody can sit beside him, or he is really scared of illnesses so he is not afraid to kick out sick person. But on the other hand, he really tries to find out why his friends are upset with him when he said or done something. Therefore, he has already learnt than when he receives a gift the social rule says that it is recommended to give another gift for that person in return. What I find really hilarious is his inability to hug somebody- he has done it once and I think it was quite challenging for him.

The chosen extract of The Big Bang Theory clearly indicates that Sheldon frequently violated certain Grice’s maxims. But let’s start by his entrance to the apartment of Penny. He respected the privacy of Penny by his “creepy” knocking on the door, every time he approaches to some door in her apartment. Even though, calling of Penny sounds as case of emergency, he illogically respected the rule of others´ privacy by mentioned knocking and then when he noticed that she is in the bathroom, he politely asked:”Shall I come back in better time?” Also, when he enters the bathroom, first what he said was “hello” and not, for instance, what happened?

Another thing which I observed is that Sheldon violated two Grice’s maxims at once: maxim of quantity and maxim of clarity. It was the situation when Penny said to him that she dislocated her shoulder. Sheldon said:”Not surprising, you have no safety mat or adhesive stickers to allow for purchase on a surface with a low coefficient to static friction.” He didn’t violated the maxim of relevance because he is speaking to the point of the conversation, but he is inappropriately more informative and quite obscure as Penny expects, and result is that she doesn’t follow the main point of his speech. Therefore, she asked: “What?”

Sheldon slightly violated the maxim of relevance when he informs Penny that he has “duck stickers in his tap” He is in the topic of slippery tap, but it is quite illogical to mention it when somebody is suffering by pain from injury. Again, he violated the maxim of relevance when he continued to inform Penny that those ducks hold umbrellas. When Penny again asked: “What?” - he continued in violating of the maxim of clarity in his explanation that ducks don’t have need to hold or use umbrellas.

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In the section when Penny needs to be driven to the hospital, she appeals on Sheldon positive face when she asks Sheldon to drive her there, by saying “you gotta help me”. By this expression is clear that Penny doesn’t have to be careful about her form of asking for help, because they are friends and she is injured. Firstly he refuses, but when Penny used word:”please” he surprisingly accepts her request of Penny to drive her to the hospital, even though he has never driven a real car before, because:” Let it never be said that Sheldon Lee Cooper ignores the pleas of damsel in the stress.” I said surprisingly, because those who known Sheldon are familiar with his really, really bad driving skills, but probably he wanted to fulfil the role of man and help “damsel in the stress.” Therefore, we can talk about the Leech’s generosity maxim, when Sheldon relatively maximises the benefit of Penny and minimises his benefit, because he is going to die in car crash, according to him.

At the end, Sheldon doesn’t forget to behave as Sheldon and ironically mentioned:” It seems ironic that for a one of 99 cents adhesive ducks, we will die in the fiery car crash.”

For a conclusion of my analysis I would like to say that Sheldon is quite extreme case of breaking social rules. To be more exact, Sheldon doesn’t understand social principles or simple elements of communication. For instance, he is not able to notice when somebody uses sarcasm, or he understands meaning of sentence literally and doesn’t catch the underlying meaning. On the other hand, when he learns some social rule, he follows it really strictly or exaggeratedly. In this way, I think, I made my point when I said that Sheldon is bottomless resource of pragmalinguistic analysis.

LiteratureBrown, P. and Levinson, S.C., 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language use.

Cambridge: CUP.Mey, J. 1993. Pragmatics. Blackwell.Watts, R.2003. Politeness. CUP.

Analysed extract is available on:

http://rapidshare.com/files/322278225/the.big.bang.theory.s03e08.hdtv.xvid-fqm.avi.html

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PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN TWO AND A HALF MEN

Ľuboslava Bukátová

The object of this analysis is a part of the conversation between three actors who perform in American sit-com called “Two and a Half Men”. It is a situation from the very beginning of one episode when Charlie runs into an old buddy while he is sitting for a coffee with his brother Alan. The old buddy is Mia who Charlie once almost married. In the time stated, Charlie is engaged again and his brother Alan is the one who is always calling up this fact during their conversation. What is quite important to mention is that Charlie is a guy who has troubles to keep in a stable relation for a longer period of time.

The number of participants cooperating in the analyzed part of conversation is three. In fact, it was initially intended to be a conversation between Charlie and his ex-fiancée Mia who met after many years. Third participant is Alan who is always interrupting their turn-taking with some kind of additional information which is recognized as flouting of a maxim of quantity. The maxim of quantity is floating in every contribution of Charlie´s brother. In this particular situation, Alan´s utterances make the conversation humorous. That simply means the flouting maxim of quantity is used to serve as a basis for the humor.

Alan makes all his contributions to conversation in very informative way. For instance, when Mia asks how Charlie is doing, he amends the Charlie´s answer “Fine, fine” by a statement “Still engaged” whereby he produces more informative answer than is necessary from the point of view of his brother. Another contribution of Alan is very similar, when he adds that Charlie´s fiancée has just gone and confirms that Mia is really not interrupting, momentary. Moreover, saying “Oh, I bet she is still out in the parking lot. I´ll go get her” Alan is not just saying enough and to spare, but he is also trying to do more than is expected in this particular situation when he wants to find Charlie´s fiancée Chelsea.

Alan likewise very strongly floats the maxim of quantity in another situation when Charlie is talking about Mia, how she looks great, young, vibrant and taut. In this particular part of conversation, Alan surprises both Charlie and Mia with a question “You know who else has a great body?” immediately answering it by “Charlie´s fiancée. In fact, Charlie calls her boobalicious.” These and also all others contributions produced by Alan are open floutings of a maxim of quantity that means he deliberately supplies redundant and form Charlie´s point of view really insufficient information in their conversation.

Concerning every Alan´s contribution to conversation, he is not violating or even flouting the maxim of clarity, forasmuch as there is no indication that Charlie or Mia would in some way misunderstand his utterances. Even the maxim of quality is not violated or floated by Alan, because he has really good information about Charlie and no reason to lie as regards the relationship between Charlie and his fiancée Chelsea. The issue of a maxim of relevance may be controversial. From the perspective of Alan, everything what he is saying seems to be relevant, forasmuch as he is in some way controlling the conversation between Charlie and his ex-fiancée. Nevertheless, from the Charlie´s point of view, Alan´s contributions have no relevance anyway. He would rather not state these facts.

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Transcript:Mia: Hi, Charlie.Charlie: Mia! (Looking at her surprisingly) So, how are you?Mia: Great, how are you?Charlie: Fine, fine.Alan: Still engaged. Charlie: Come, sit… join us.Mia: Are you sure I´m not interrupting?Charlie: No, no, of course not.Alan: Yeah, his fiancée just left. Mia: Oh, I´m sorry I missed her.Alan: Oh, I bet she is still out in the parking lot. I´ll go get her. (Charlie stopped him)Charlie: So... What´s going on with you these days? You still dancing?Mia: Not so much. I´m a little old for ballet now.Charlie: Oh, that can´t be right. You look great. Young and vibrant, and... Taut.Alan: You know who else has a great body? Charlie´s fiancée. In fact, Charlie calls her boobalicious.Mia: I´m really happy you find somebody, Charlie.Charlie: Thank you, she is great. Really, really great.Alan: Boobalicious. Charlie: So, if you´re not dancing what are you up to?Mia: Well, believe it or not, I´m trying for a singing career.Charlie: No kidding. That´s terrific.Alan: You know who´s a wonderful singer? Mia: Charlie´s fiancée?Alan: Actually, I was gonna say Ms. Celine Dion. I have no idea about Chelsea. Although she does have a set of lungs on her.Mia: Right. So listen, I´m putting together a demo of some songs. Any chance you could help me with the arrangements, maybe play piano?Charlie: Oh, wow. That sound like fun. Just you know, kinda awkward, because... You know...Alan: He´s getting married. Charlie: Maybe I can find you somebody else.

Literature:Peccei, J. S. 1987. Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge.Tárnyiková, L. 2000. Pragmatics. In P. Štekauer (ed.) Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact.

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PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

Daniela Hladká

For my analysis I have chosen some episodes from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. I have found maxims according to Henry Paul Grice´s Cooperative Principle.

In the first situation I have described there is flouted a maxim of quality, because Ted claims that he put on a suit but he really put on a blazer. For Ted suit and blazer are two different things and it seems that Ted does not care about it.Barney: Okay, meet me at the bar in 15 minutes. And suit up!Barney: Where's your suit?Barney: Just once, when I say suit up, I wish you'd put on a suit.Ted: I did that one time.Barney: It was a blazer!

Another situation deals with flouting of maxim of quality when Barney tells Ranjit that the woman on the photo is lovely, but on the other hand he tells Marshall “A simple "no" would have sufficed” whereby he means that the woman is not lovely.Ranjit: Here's a picture of my wife.Barney: A simple "no" would have sufficed.Barney: She's lovely.

Ted: We're, uh, we're having a party next Friday, if you feel like swinging by.Ted: But, you know, whatever.Robin: Oh, I'm going back home next weekend.Robin: It's too bad it's not tonight.Ted: It is... it's tonight.Ted: This Friday. Did I say next Friday?Ted: Sorry, I guess I've been saying next Friday all week.Ted: But, yeah, it's tonight, the, uh, the party's tonight.In this situation Ted changes his utterance in order to get Robin to the party so it is flouting of a maxim of quality.

Barney: Solid plan, my little friend.Ted: We're the same height.In this situation Barney talks about plan which is the main theme of the dialogue but Ted is focused more on height than on the plan so it seems that it is flouting of a maxim of relevance as Ted does not say anything about “plan” what Barney expects but about “height” which is not quite relevant to the conversation.

A man: So where are you from?A man: Heaven?Robin: Yeah, I'm a ghost.In this dialogue there is flouted a maxim of quantity because Robin agrees that she is from the heaven that is impossible and moreover she specifies that she is a ghost as she lives in the heaven like the man said.

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Ted: Barney, I am going to kill you.Barney: Don't say you're gonna kill someone in front of airport security.There is violated a maxim of quality because it is unreal situation when Ted says: “I am going to kill you”, it is metaphor because Ted does not really want to kill Barney but he is angry at him.

I have found also disagreement when Barney sais: “There’s no such thing as the signal” and immediately he denies what he has said: “But, yeah, that was the signal.”

LiteratureMey, J. 1993. Pragmatics. Blackwell.Verschueren, J. 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. Arnold.Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. OUP.How I Met Your Mother. Dir. Pamela Fryman, Rob Greenberg. USA, 2005. [DVD]. [Cit. 2009-12-09]

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MASKING THE REAL PURPOSE (The Office, Season 1, Episode 4 – The Alliance)

Kristína Reguliová

What is in the centre of attention here is the fact that you cannot enter a person´s mind to reveal his or her true intentions and you can easily become misled by the pretended intentions. Well, be careful with conversation(-:

Dwight: (not making eye contact) Hey, so listen, I was thinking that it might be a good idea if you and I formed an alliance. ´Cause of the downsizing? I think an alliance might be a good idea, you know. Help each other out. → suggestion; indirect request, negative politeness strategy is employedDwight uses face-saving act by phrasing his request in such a way that Jim is not directly ordered to form the alliance. Dwight mitigates his request by means of “extending” his utterance; by making it more wordy than usual and by means of modality – Dwight expresses his judgement about the possibility of forming the alliance – it might be a good idea (epistemic modality). He also employs another mitigating devices such as “you know”, or the complementary explanation – help each other out.(Jim thinks about it)Dwight: Do you want to form, an alliance, with me? → open, direct request Dwight is less careful with strategies now because he noticed Jim´ s hesitation to answer thus he goes on record. Jim: (serious) Absolutely, I do. → acceptance of the requestDwight: Good, good. Excellent, okay. Now we need to figure out who´ s vulnerable and who's protected...

- At first glance it seems to be a normal dialogue conforming to co-operative principle. With respect to the context, however, we will see that reverse is true- What happened here is that Jim did not follow Searle´ s felicity conditions and violated Grice´s co-operative principle. Consequence of this is that Dwight thinks it will be beneficial for him which it will be not.

Context: Jim and Dwight are co-workers who do not share the same interests whatsoever. Dwight sticks to rules because he would like to pursue his career in the company. Jim, on the contrary, is bored with his job and becomes more and more irritated by Dwight´ s behaviour. What happens here is that Jim grabbed the opportunity to pay Dwight back his boot-licking behaviour, disregarding any co-operative principles (see the monologue in square brackets).

CUT TO INDIVIDUAL SHOT OF JIM[ Jim: At that moment, I was so happy. I mean, everything Dwight does annoys me. And I spend hours thinking of ways to get back at him, but only in ways that could get me arrested. (chuckles) And then here he comes and he says “No, Jim, here's a way.” ]- First of all Jim´ s answer is not sincere; Jim deliberately lied. He does not really intend to form an alliance with Dwight because he dislikes him → felicity conditions are not followed, specifically the sincerity conditions and preparatory conditions as well – the act of forming the so-called alliance is not an act that would be beneficial for Dwight. What Jim really intends to do is play against Dwight not on the same team.

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- In addition, Jim violated the maxim of quality, the “do not say what you believe to be false” maxim. He knew at the moment he was answering the question that he does not want to form that kind of alliance which Dwight is driving at. Jim hided his true intentions from Dwight pretending that he co-operates with him.

LiteratureThe series is available on http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/Štekauer, P. 2000. Rudiments of English Linguistics. Cutting, J. 2007. Pragmatics and Discourse.Lecture notes

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PRAGMATICS OF THE EVERYDAY

Lenka Krochmaľová

All the examples used in my analysis are from my own environment. All of them are from Slovakia.

Examples1. The first example is from my own experience. It happened on one Friday evening when we were sitting in one of the Prešov’s pubs. My friend Vlado took a menu and was browsing through it when my husband Matej pointed out that pistachios are at the end of the menu. By this statement he wanted to draw Vlado’s attention to pistachios and he inconspicuously hinted that he might order some. A: (Vlado browsing the menu)B: The pistachios are at the end.B presupposes that when he draw A’s attention to pistachios then A could order them.

2. The second example is the hottest one as I discovered it only yesterday on my way home. I found it on one billboard. A slogan goes like this: OBNOVME ÚSPEŠNÉ SLOVENSKO. I consider the first two words of this slogan as contradictory. I ask: when something (in this particular issue it is Slovakia) is successful is there a need to restore/reestablish it; and the second (even more disputable) question is: Is Slovakia successful? I think the slogan could go more like OBNOVME ZNIČENÉ SLOVENSKO since its authors (representatives of government opposition) point out the failure of the current government of our Prime Minister. The slogan could be an intended implicature on a viewer. It is more ironic and mocking than truthful. It is flouting of maxim of quality.

3. You can come across with my third example when visiting one of the Tesco stores. What struck me when I first heard this teaser ad was the ability of Tesco marketing department. How they know what am I doing every day? The ad goes like this: Získajte výhody za to, čo robíte každý deň (a small pause), za to, že nakupujete. From where they know if I do the shopping every day? They definitely want to force us to go shopping even more. They want to support our need to buy and if we do they would reward us with the points. You definitely find out that it is an ad for Tesco CLUBCARD.

4. The last example was found on a bus stop near our University. It is also an ad, this time it promotes a hair spray. The slogan goes KRÁSA JE SEBAVEDOMIE from which we can presuppose that when someone is not beautiful s/he cannot be self-confident. Do you agree?

5. The fifth example is taken from the journal GEO. It is an advertisement for one particular type of car which is Honda CR-V. You can see the car on the picture and above it the slogan goes (in Slovak) Vaše právo výberu! I think it is an intended implicature on a viewer. It directly infers that you should buy this car. It is definitely flouting the maxim of quality because when you have a right to do something it means that you can choose from at least two options but the author of this slogan offers us only one option.

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Literature

GEO (journal). 2009, November. ISSN 1336-8001Peccei, Jean Stiwell, 2001. Pragmatics. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20523-9

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IMPLICATURE AT WORK

Katarína Nemjová

This paper focuses on scalar, particularized and generalized implicature The corpus consists of a few episodes of the series How I met your mother.

Scalar implicature

Example:

Girl: “This wrong guy, is he a huge jackass?”Ted: “Absolutely.”Girl: “Kinda like Barney?Ted: “Kinda.” (How I met your mother, S01, E22)

This example is taken from the situation where two friends are talking about another one. Ted´s last reply implicates that Barney is a “jackass” on some scale. “Kinda”, can refer to either very much or a little. Thus, here we can observe the scalar implicature. In this case it is a scale of quantity. In this case, it would be interesting to see the facial expression of Ted to see on which scale he expresses his opinion by saying “kinda”.

Particularized implicature

Example:

Lilly: „So how is Gaiel? Is it still strong between you two?“Robin: „Oh...., yeah.... It is...great. It´s awesome..., amazing.“ (It is not amazing any more). (HIMYM S03, E 02)

This illustrates the particularized implicature as in this case we need to have some extra non-linguistic knowledge that is local or common to both speakers. Robin hesitates while answering the question and thus it is rather not clear whether the relationship she talks about is that amazing. From the context we know that her relationship with Gaiel is not as it used to be and thus we can see that the maxim of quality is being violated and at the same time the maxim of quantity is flouted as the answer is too informative.

Generalized implicature

Example:

Marshall: „So Blah, how did you two meet?“Blah: „Well I was taking this cooking class – ´French fusion´and everyone already had a partner but then I looked up and across the crowded room, I saw Ted. It was magical.“ (HIMYM S03, E02)

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This implicature is an example of a generalized implicature. We do not need any background knowledge about the story as we can easily understand the utterance of Blah. It is typical for generalized implicature to be based on a flouting of the quantity maxim. This example is not an exception. Blah was providing a too informative answer to a simple question.

LiteratureHow I met your mother . Dir. Pamela Fryman, Rob Greenberg. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil P. Harris, Alyson Hannigan. 2005. DVD. 7.12.2009 Peccei, J. S., 1999. Pragmatics Language Workbooks. London: Routledge.

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GRICE´ S MAXIMS IN HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

Silvia Ištenešová

In my work I am going to present one example on the Grice´s four types of maxims. The corpus for the examples was a situation comedy How I Met Your Mother.

Maxim of relevance

Example:

Lilly: “So? The dress?” Ted: “I don’t have a plus one for the wedding.” (Season 1, episode 12)

The relevance maxim has not been observed in this case, because Ted´s reply was not relevant to Lilly´s question. The maxim of relevance was flouted because it is immediately obvious to Lilly that this maxim was not observed. This leads to implicature that Ted does not care about the dress Lilly is asking his opinion about. Ted´s response may suggest that Ted has more important things to tell Lilly.

Maxim of quality

Example:

Barney: “You like Ted! Wow! This is huge!” Robin: “Barney, I don’t like Ted. He´s moved on and I´m really happy for it.” (Season 1, episode 14)

The maxim of quality has not been observed here because Robin says what is believed to be false. The quantity maxim is flouted since Barney knows that Robin likes Ted and thus she is lying when she says she does not. This leads to an implicature that Robin is embarrassed to say the truth.

Maxim of quantity

Example:

Ted: “Hey, how is it going?” Claudia: “My wedding is in two days, that’s how it´s going.” (Season 1, episode 12)

The maxim of quantity has not been observed because Claudia is too informative for the current purposes of the conversation. The quantity maxim is flouted because at the moment of Claudia´s utterance it is obvious that she failed to observe this maxim. This leads to several implicatures. One of them might be that Claudia is stressed because of her approaching

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wedding and therefore not very happy; or Claudia is cheerful because she is looking forward to the event.

Maxim of clarity

Example:

Lilly:” So, there's more surprises? Like what?” (P. Fryman)Marshall: “Boogedyboo!” (P. Fryman)(Season 1, episode 1)

In this case the clarity maxim has not been observed because Marshall made a contribution which was obscure and difficult to understand. The maxim of clarity is flouted because it is obvious at the moment of Marshall´s utterance that he failed to observe it. This leads to an implicature that Marshall was not supposed to say anything about surprises so he tries to conceal his mistake.

LiteratureHow I met your mother. Dir. Pamela Fryman, Rob Greenberg. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil P. Harris, Alyson Hannigan. 2005. DVD. 2005Peccei, J. S., 1999. Pragmatics Language Workbook. London: Routledge

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GRICE´S MAXIMS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST

Iveta Hycová

The sample which will be analyzed in terms of co-operative principle is from the film Pirates of the Caribbean. It is the passage where Elizabeth Swann dressed as a young man approaches Jack Sparrow in order to find out where her loved man – William Turner is. She does not know that William is captured on the Davy Jones’ ship because of Jack Sparrow who sent him there to get a key for him. Jack needs the key to open a chest with Davy Jones’ heart to save his life. But Jack has troubles to get a course to the chest. This passage shows how Jack Sparrow tricks Elizabeth that the only way to save Will is to get the chest. The analysis concentrates only on the conversation between Elizabeth and Jack.

The conversation between Elizabeth and Jack begins with summons-answer adjacency pair where summons function as an attention getting device. In such instances of conversation a summoner is the one who provides the first topic. Here Jack Sparrow violates the maxim of relevance. He offers joining his crew even welcomes Elizabeth on his boat without knowing why the conversation has started. The answer of Elizabeth is flouting of the maxim of relevance. Jack should deduce from the answer that she refuses his offer and that the purpose of her coming is different. Moreover, she violates the maxim of clarity by using the noun phrase “the man”. Jack would know who she is talking about if he knew that the young boy is Elizabeth since they share this particular knowledge. But in this case, she is aware of the fact that Jack does not recognize her as he addressed her by using the word “lad”. Following Jack’s answer is the flouting of the maxim of quantity from which Elizabeth should infer that he is not interested in her. The next sentence, the flouting of the maxim of relevance, makes it clear that she is Elizabeth. After this realization, Jack violates the maxim of relevance in order to change the topic but he is not successful. His next violation of the maxim of quantity is made on purpose to present himself as innocent. To persuade Elizabeth that the only way to find and save Will is to find the chest, Jack Sparrow violates other maxims. The maxim of quantity (turn 15) is violated when only part of the truth is presented because the chest would especially save Jack from grim fate.

When Elizabeth starts to cooperate and asks about the chest, Jack Sparrow is also being cooperative. There is only the violation of the maxim of quantity (turn 19) to create a feeling of mystery about his compass but later on he reveals the secret. Then Jack Sparrow violates the maxim of quality by claiming that his every word is true.

The passage nicely demonstrates the non-observance of the maxims. Firstly, it is Elizabeth who does not reveal she is not a boy. This violation of the maxim causes the misunderstanding. Secondly, Jack violates the maxims in order to save his face and to persuade Elizabeth to achieve his goal to get the chest, and even to create a mystery. Moreover, it shows that the flouting of the maxims can, for instance, be used to refuse an offer.

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TRANSCRIPT:

1. ELIZABETH SWANN Captain Sparrow!2. JACK SPARROW Come to join me crew, lad? Welcome aboard.3. ELIZABETH SWANN I'm here to find the man I love.4. JACK SPARROW I'm deeply flattered, son, but my first and only love is

the sea.5. ELIZABETH SWANN Meaning William Turner, Captain Sparrow.6. JACK SPARROW Elizabeth. Hide the rum.7. JACK SPARROW You know, these clothes do not flatter you at all. It

should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin.

8. ELIZABETH SWANN Jack. I know Will came to find you. Where is he?9. JACK SPARROW Darling, I am truly unhappy to have to tell you this

but... through an unfortunate and *entirely* unforeseeable series of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me, poor William has been press-ganged into Davy Jones' crew.

10. ELIZABETH SWANN Davy Jones? Jack. All I want is to find Will.11. JACK SPARROW Are you certain? Is that what you really want most?12. ELIZABETH SWANN Course.13. JACK SPARROW Because I would think, you'd want to fnd a way to

*save* Will the most.14. ELIZABETH SWANN And you have a way of doing that?15. JACK SPARROW Well, there is a chest... 16. JACK SPARROW A chest of unknown size and origin. 17. JACK SPARROW And whoever possesses that chest possesses the

leverage to command Jones to do whatever it is he or she wants, including...saving brave William from his grim fate.

18. ELIZABETH SWANN How do we find it?19. JACK SPARROW With this. My Compass... is unique.20. NORRINGTON "Unique" here having the meaning of broken.21. JACK SPARROW True enough. This Compass does not point north.22. ELIZABETH SWANN Where does it point?23. JACK SPARROW It points to the thing you want most in this world.24. ELIZABETH SWANN Oh Jack! Are you telling the truth?25. JACK SPARROW Every word, love. And what you want most in this

world is to find the chest of Davy Jones, is it not?26. ELIZABETH SWANN To save Will?27. JACK SPARROW By finding the chest of Davy Jones.

Literature:Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Director Gore Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. DVD. Walt Disney Pictures, 2006.Rudiments of English Linguistics. 2000. Edited by Pavol Štekauer. Prešov: SLOVACONTACT, 2000. ISBN 80-88876-04-4FERENČÍK, M. date unknown. A Survey of English Stylistics. [online]. date unknown [cit. 2009-12-05]. Available on the Internet: <http://www.ferencik.webgarden.cz/stylistics>.

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JOEY SPEAKS FRENCH: PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM FRIENDS

Veronika Varmusova

FRIENDS, is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, premiered on NBC on September 22, 1994. The series revolves around a group of six friends in the Manhattan, New York City. The series won many awards and was nominated for 63 Primetime Emmy Awards. The sitcom made a large cultural impact as well. The Central Perk coffee house has inspired various imitations throughout the world. In my opinion, Friends is the best sitcom I have seen so far and that is why I have chosen it for my pragmatics analysis, particularly I analyzed episode 231 from season 10, “Joey speaks French.” (Friends, 2009)

Joey wants to get an audition where he needs to speak French. He asks his friend Phoebe who is fluent in French to teach him some basis. Joey, as we all know is not very bright fellow and he is not able to learn even one French line from his act. Instead of speaking French he creates some weird sounds. Phoebe was trying really hard to teach him but after couple of hours she gave up. But because they are very good friends she did not want to let him down and she made up a back up plan. She went to Joey’s audition and supported him. At the end, Joey did not get the role but the fact that Phoebe saved him from fiasco was far more important. The entire episode is so funny that I could not stop laughing and it is an excellent example of strong friendship.

In my work I analyzed Paul Grice’s co-operative principle and its four maxims (maxims of relevance, quality, quantity and clarity) which go towards making a speaker’s contribution to the conversation and Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness. In the following utterances I analyzed the flouting of maxims or situations where it was obvious to the hearer at the time of the utterance that the speaker has deliberately and quite openly failed to observe one or more maxims. I also analyzed the appropriateness of directives and applied Brown and Levinson’s positive and negative politeness framework.

Transcript and analysis of Joey’s auditionDirector: Whenever you ready Joey.

The director is challenging Joey to start the audition. In order to do it, he uses indirect directive and negative politeness.

Joey: Right. + Dza bu bu Clod. + La lu la bla blu. The co-operative principle means that we assume in a conversation that the

participants will co-operate with each other when making their contribution. Joey is flouting the maxim of relevance by not saying what is relevant in a conversation (even though he thinks he is speaking French) and the maxim of clarity (he sounds ambiguous to the hearer).

Actor: I am sorry, + what is going on? The Actor is confused and he does not understand what is going on.

Joey: Dude come on, French it up. Joey tries to protect his face and save his position in the audition and

challenges the actor to continue in their dialogue (we know that it is not possible). He uses direct directive and positive politeness strategy even though they have seen each other for the first time.

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Director: Joey, do you speak French? The director is asking Joey a question and this speech act is called – rogative

(S asks H for info). Joey: To te la spor. Blu blue ….

Joey again is not using the co-operative principle and he is flouting maxims of relevance and clarity.

Director: + You know what; I think this audition is over. The director uses the representative speech act to announce to Joey that the

audition is over and he does not want to hear his French any more. In my opinion, the director is using very soft language and he is being very polite (he is not making any ironical comments about Joey’s French as it would be expected).

At this moment Phoebe who was sitting in the auditorium during the whole audition comes to the scene and it becomes even more interesting. At first she speaks English but with some special unidentified French accent.

Phoebe: + Excuse me. + I am Regime Philange, + I was just passing by when I heard this man speaking the the regional dialect of my French town of + Estelodour +++

We as viewers know that she is flouting maxims of relevance, quality, quantity and clarity but the director who does not have a clue who she is, just listens to her (we could see on his face that he does not believe her a single word).

Director: + You really think this man is speaking French? The director asks Phoebe a question (rogative speech act) but he does not

expect it to be answered because he already knows what the answer would be. Joey: So so…

Now Joey, who still does not have a clue what a French language looks like, tries to support Phoebe’s arguments and provides some kind of conformation with Phoebe.

Phoebe starts to speak French because she does not what Joey to understand what she is saying. She is being purposely ambiguous (to Joey) because she is his friend and she does not want to hurt his feelings. She hopes that the director will co-operate with her.

Phoebe: Okay. I’ll tell you the truth. He is my little brother. + He is a little retarded.

Phoebe is still lying to the director but only we as the audience know the truth. From the point of view of the director she making a representative speech act (she is claiming facts).

Joey: no words only body language The director and Phoebe look at him but he does not say anything he only

agrees with Phoebe via his body language (He did not understand what she was saying. Because they are very good friends and he trusts her, he believes that Phoebe is always on his side).

Phoebe: Would you please just humor him? Phoebe is asking the director to do her a favor and to indulge Joey. She is

using negative politeness and the pseudo-directive because she does not know the director and on the other hand emotions are involved.

Director: + Good job little buddy. + + There was some really good French but I think we are going to go with someone else for the part.

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The director understands and co-operates with Phoebe. He complimented Joey’s French and he used the vocabulary that is understandable even for “retarded” people.

Joey: Oh. ++ All right, but my French was good? Joey is delighted so much that his French was good that he does not care about

the role any more. Director: Great.

The director is again lying to Joey in order to accomplish Phoebe’s wish (flouting of maxims of relevance and clarity).

Joey: See… Joey is happy and the other 2 (Phoebe and the director) pretend that everything

is ok.Phoebe: Mercy, au revoir.

Phoebe is grateful to the director and she leaves with French good bye.Joey: Tut de la frut.

And Joey who does not have a clue what have just happened leaves very happy with his “French” greeting.

Transcription symbols: ? rising intonation+ pause. falling intonation

To watch the segment of the episode go to: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwzvtjeYBQ>

Literature:Primary sources:

BROWN, P. and LEVINSON, S. C. 1987. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ŠTEAKUER, P. Rudiments of English Linguistic. Prešov: Slovacontact. 2000.

Secondary sources:

Seminar notes

PARTRIDGE, D. and WILLIAMS, A. 2009. Friends <http://www.friends-tv.org/>.

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PRAGMATIC IMPLICATURES IN THE AIR

Lukáš Sopko

The following conversation illustrates how wrong implicatures can be drawn and that how they are interpreted depends on language users, social environment and situation they appear in. The conversation takes place chiefly among two pilots, sitting in the cockpit of their plane, being bored to death so they decide to amuse themselves by irritating passengers with special announcements during the flight.

Pilots float maxim of quantity, say more than is necessary and rely on the fact that passengers will subsequently conclude conventional, however, in this situation wrong implicatures from their in fact true statements. The following implicatures would be categorized as particularized implicatures as they require not only general knowledge but also knowledge which is particular or shared between speakers (pilots) and hearers (passengers). In our case passengers lack knowledge, that pilots are only joking, causes feelings of irritation and desperateness among passengers and fun among pilots.

Pilots sitting in the cockpit bored to death: 1) Pilot1 into mic: Hello, eh, this is your captain speaking. There is absolutely no cause for alarm.

Both burst into laugh.

When analyzing this announcement, first important notice is that he mentions his status, authority – this is captain speaking; to give his announcement validity. Then, he continues that there is absolutely no cause for alarm. This utterance in passengers’ minds might be interpreted as true that there is really no cause for an alarm, intensified by absolutely, but then it would be unnecessary to mention it. This way, although adhering to the manner of quality, pilot floats the manner of quantity – saying too much what immediately triggers anxiety, questions and following implicature among passengers that there is something wrong with the plane.

Pilot 2 tries to say something into mic too but: 2) Pilot1: no no no no , they are thinking ... eh, what is the absolute no cause for alarm all about? ... Are the wings on fire?3) Pilot1 in the mic: The wings are not on fire. 4) Pilot1: Now they are thinking why should we say that. We say...

Pilot 1 correctly forecasts passengers’ behaviour and the drawn implicature in replica 2, and picks up again with the implicature that perhaps wings are on fire in replica 3 where he subverts this implicature. His assurance, however, does not settle passengers but even more irritate them that wings are OK, but implicates that there might another problem. Again Pilot 1 floats maxim of quantity by saying what is true and what need not to be mentioned.

Flight attendant enters cockpit: 5) Pilot2: Oh Oh, how are we doing?

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6) Flight attendant: They´ve stopped eating. They are a bit worried.7) Pilot1: Good8) Flight attendant: Hang on, one is going to the washroom. 9) Pilot2: Is he there yet? 10) Flight attendant: Yeah11) Pilot2 into mic: Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts immediately, please.

Encouraged by the pilot 1, pilot 2 makes announcement too, in replica 11, however deliberately and maliciously waits for one of the passengers to go to the washroom. This replica would normally in the environment of the plane implicate that strong turbulence is coming. However, by using intensifier immediately, pilot 1 gives this utterance a flavour of urge and seriousness and thus from pseudo-directive request becomes direct directive. Bearing in mind the previous implicature that something is not right only intensifies the feeling of anxiety or even panic among passengers.

12) Pilot1 into mic: Hello, you will find your life jackets under your seats.13) Pilot 1 into mic: Do not leave your seats!14) Pilot2 into mic: Do not panic!!!15) Pilot2 into mic: Inflate your life jacket.16) Pilot1 into mic: Aaand extinguish all cigarettes.

The climax comes early in replicas 12 to 16 where replicas are now altered rapidly and delivered in imperative mood to trigger panic and feeling of helplessness. The mentioned replicas are delivered as direct directives implicating that there is something seriously wrong.

Replica 12 would sound naturally in the situation prior to take off, when flight attendants instruct the passengers. Here no further implicatures are needed. However, if it appears isolated, out of context of instructing, and without any further knowledge (it is only a joke), immediately implicature of danger is established.

All the fun ends when flight attendant announces that all passengers have jumped out what forces to conclusion that passengers, lacking the knowledge that it is all just a joke of pilots, have inferred negative implicatures and subsequently completely felt for panic.

LiteratureBrown, P. and Levinson, S.C., Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge:

CUP, 1987PECCEI, J.S. Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.YULE, G. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

VideoMonty Python Sketch. December 2009. ONLINE <http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Hh_shsRfXqk >.

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THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE IN SHREKVeronika Kolcunova

The object of this mini project is a dialogue from the famous cartoon movie Shrek the Third. In order to understand the analysed situation, it is important to explain the story in short. Prince Charming is looking for Shrek and Fiona, because he wants to get rid of them and become a new king of Far Far Away Kingdom. In the presented situation, Prince Charming does not know where Shrek and his wife are and demands information from Shrek’s closest friends – three pigs, Pinocchio, and Gingy. These friends are obviously not cooperating. According to Co-operative Principle of the philosopher Paul Grice, all participants of conversation should co-operate with one another to make their contribution as required. However, the analysed situation apparently presents violation of all maxims of conversation (quality, quanity, relevance, manner).

The dialogue starts with Prince’s question: “Where are Shrek and Fiona?” (Turn 1). As it was said, pigs, Pinocchio, and Gingy try to protect the couple and thus they do not contribute to the conversation. Since all of them know Shrek very well, Gingy’s response as well as responses of pigs are clear violations of the maxim of quality (Turns 2 – 4).

Prince Charming wants to move in the issue and thus addresses Pinocchio, puppet known for inability to lie. As Pinocchio does not want to reveal the truth and at the same time does not want to lie, he answers ambiguously: “Well, I don’t know where he’s not” (Turn 7) which is violation of the maxim of manner or clarity. Such response leads to quite expected question of confused Prince who does not understand: “You are telling me you don't know where Shrek is?” (Turn 8).

“It wouldn't be inaccurate to assume that I couldn't exactly not say that is or isn't almost partially incorrect” (Turn 9) is another Pinocchio’s answer. This time it is even more confusing, but it mostly contains a lot of unnecessary information – violation of the maxim of quantity. The same situation can be observed in Turns 11 and 13.

As it was stated at the beginning, this dialogue contains violations of all kinds of maxims. The remaining one is violation of the maxim of relevance. While discussion goes on, Gingy is somewhere else with his thoughts and sings: “On the good ship Lollipop” (Turn 14) which does not follow the content of the conversation at all.

The situation gets uncontrollable and noisy. Pig № 2 cannot stand it and finally follows the maxim of quality and reveals the truth: “Shrek went off to bring back the next heir” (Turn 16).

The closing Turn presents how Pinocchio once again tries to protect Shrek. This time he shouts a lie without any hesitation and also without thinking: “No!” (Turn 18). As a consequence his nose grows longer.

The result of the analysis is simple. All of Shrek’s friends are not cooperating with Prince Charming and thus not contributing to the conversation. The only exception is sudden answer of Pig № 2 which can be considered to be an unintentional shout. It is interesting that even Prince Chraming calls for cooperation of other characters (Turn 5), but without any success.

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Shrek the Third Transcript

(passage 00:36:09 - 00:38:12)

1) Prince Charming: Where are Shrek and Fiona?2) Gingy: The name doesn't ring a bell.3) Pig № 1: Yeah4) Pig № 2: No bell.5) Prince Charming: I suggest you freaks cooperate with the new King of Far Far Away.6) You, you can't lie. So tell me, puppet, where is Shrek?7) Pinocchio: Well, I don't know where he's not.8) Prince Charming: You are telling me you don't know where Shrek is?9) Pinocchio: It wouldn't be inaccurate to assume that I couldn't exactly not say that is or

isn't almost partially incorrect.10) Prince Charming: So you do know where he is!11) Pinocchio: On the contrary, I'm possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea

that in no way, with any amount of uncertainty that I undeniably12) Prince Charming: // Stop it!13) Pinocchio: // I do not know where he shouldn't probably be. If that indeed wasn't

where he isn't. Even if he wasn't not where I knew he was, it could mean14) Gingy: // On the good ship Lollipop15) Pig № 1: // Enough! 16) Shrek went off to bring back the next heir!17) Prince Charming: He's bringing back the next heir?18) Pinocchio: No!

LiteratureShrek the Third. Directors Chris Miller and Raman Hui, writers Jeffrey Price et al. DVD. Dream Works Animation, 2007.P.Štekauer (ed.) Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact.

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ANALYSIS OF THE PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN THE BIG BANG THEORY

Juliána Blanárová

One of the most appropriate examples of interaction concerning pragmatic aspects of communication are undoubtedly sitcoms, that are, in fact, great analysable in terms of issues such as politeness and cooperation principles – flouting the maxims in particular, presupposition or implicature. On that account, I decided to make a short analysis concerning The Big Bang Theory sitcom, based on my observations in a short illustrative sequence of dialogue.

Just at the beginning, Leonard´s (negative) polite statement (1) is followed by an impolite (bold-on-record) response from the receptionist showing that they are disturbing her actually (2), which threatens her face (FTA) in relation to Leonard and Sheldon. Consequently, Leonard aslo crosses the border of polite and appropriate behaviour by helping the receptionist to fill in a crossword puzzle withou asking her for permition to help her with filling it in (3-5). Leonard´s inappropriateness is even doubled in line 6 by making a completely unacceptable act. But he still does not hesitate to continue, telling her right answers (7-9). Moreover, a several flouting maxims may be observed here, e.g. maxims of relevance, quantity and clarity are floated. This implies that Leonard´s contributions are irrelevant to the situation, carrying too much information that are (probably) unintelligible for the receptionist.

Next, the receptionist asks politely (negative politeness), but not very enthusiastically (FTA) if she can help them (10). Leonard makes possitive declaration saying "yes" (11) which is followed by a little bit hesitative (pragmatically neutral) question about the place they have already entered (12), although he is totally aware of the fact what place it is, what demonstrates (implies) Leonard´s uncertain behaviour in such places (institutions) he has (probably) never been at before. Therefore, this question might be regarded as an irrelevant (flouting the maxim of relevance) considering the fact, that they should have high IQ when they are at the high-iq sperm bank. That is exactly what the receptionist tries to point out in her response (13). And her statement implies indirectly that they are probably not wise enough to be there (both Leonard´s and Sheldon´s faces are threatened). Consequently, Sheldon tries to save their face declaring that he thinks this is the right place (14).

Then, the receptionist asks them directly to fill out some kind of a form without showing any effort to be polite to them (15). Leonard, being polite on the other hand, thanks her, what is usually expected in such situation, and it is also relevant in such case as well (16). Thereafter Leonard informs the receptionist they will be right back (17) in order to imply that they are clever enough to be finished in a while, or to indicate that they do not want to waste her time (FSA). The receptionist responds rather politely that they do not need to hurry, because she has something to do (crossword puzzle) but she maybe wants to save their faces in case they will not be fast enough to complete the form, what may imply that she may also think they are not sufficiently intelligent for that (18). But then (saying: "oh, wait") she

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realizes (makes implication) that there is nothing to do with the crossword puzzle, because it has already been done (19).

This analysis portrays the basis of most of the sitcoms, which, trying to be funny, usually use impolite structures, sometimes in opposition to the polite ones in order to fulfill its aim of being laughable or to entertain. Flouting of maxims is also one of the essential features of such series, especially in this one that I have chosen for the analysis, considering too much irrelevant informativeness (what is actually the main characteristics of the main protagonists of the sitcom who are scientists) especially when talking to other poeple in their environment. There are also many indirect reactions implying what is actually meant by.

Transcript:

(1) Leonard: Excuse me. (2) Receptionist: Hang on.(3) Leonard: Uh,one across is "aegean. "(4) Eight down is "nabokov. "(5) 26 across is "mcm. "(6) 14 down is... move your finger...(7) "phylum" which makes 14 across "port-au-

prince"(8) see,"papa doc's capitol idea," that's "port-au-

prince". (9) Haiti.(10) Receptionist: Can I help you?(11) Leonard: Yes.(12) Um... is this the high-iq sperm bank?(13) Receptionist: If you have to ask, maybe you shouldn't be here.(14) Sheldon: I think this is the place.(15) Receptionist: Fill these out.(16) Leonard: Thank you.(17) We'll be right back.(18) Receptionist: Oh,take your time. I'll just finish my crossword puzzle.(19) Oh,wait.

.............

Source: http://www.anysubs.com/subdetails.php?subid=47048&season=1&episode=-1

LiteraturePeccei, J.S. 1999. Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge.Tárnyiková, L. 2000. Pragmatics. In P. Štekauer (ed.) Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact.

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PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF A SCENE FROM FRIENDS

Marcela Želinská

A general definition of pragmatics is that it is the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to realize successful communication. It is a process of conveying and undestanding meaning in certain context, thus pragmatics can be also regarded as a kind of meaning study. To my analysis, I decided to choose the American sitcom Friends that is one of most famous and welcome sitcoms in America and even in the world for its unique conversational humor. By choosing this sitcom, I would like to focus my attention on explaining the relationship between the verbal humor and Henry Paul Grice´s Cooperative Principle (CP) to show how this humor flouts maxims of CP, and how these humorous conversation are achieved. In particular, some funny dialogues were selected to be illustrated in this analysis paper with the hope of discovering which maxim and how the maxim is flouted by paticular participants.

MAXIM OF QUANTITY

Monica: “Hey. It´s him. (somebody´s knocking on the door) Who is it?“

Alan: “It´s Alan.“

Joey: (shouting to Chandler) “Chandler! He´s here!“

Monica: (to all) “Ok, please be good, please. Just remember how much you all like me.“ (She

opens the door and Alan enters).

Monica: “Hi Alan, this is...everybody. Everybody, this is Alan.“

Alan: “Hi.“

All: “Hi, Alan.“ (Friends. 1995)

In this case, Monica flouts maxim of quantity. Instead of introducing her five friends one by

one to her new boyfriend, she just uses word “everyone“. She, obviously, withholding some

required information in this scene, thus the maxim of quantity is flouted. In this case, humor

occurs very gently in the way that everybody were too nervous before seeing Alan which is in

the contrast with this simple introduction.

MAXIM OF RELEVANCE

Phoebe: “I started making this little sock bunnies.“

Rachel: “Heey, wait a minute! That is my sock!“

Phoebe: “And that´s your little bunny friend.“ (swinging with Rachel´s sock bunny in front of

her face.)

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By the maxim of relevance, we should try to make a contribution relevant to the exchange. In

this case, Phoebe is flouting this maxim and thus she contributes to the humorous situation

with the totally irrelevant answer to the Rachel´s detection of her destroyed sock.

MAXIM OF QUALITY

Phoebe teaches Joey French.

Phoebe: “My name is Claude. Repeat after me. Je m´apelle Claude.“

Joey: “Je te quo Plao.“

Phoebe: “Let´s try it again. Je m´apelle Claude.“

Joey: “Je te plee, mlu.“

Phoebe: “It´s not quite what I´m saying.“

Joey: “Really?? It sounds exactly the same to me.“

By the maxim of quality we should not say what we believe to be false. This dialogue appears

in the scene when Joey wants to learn French and does not know to repeat after Phoebe

exactly. That is why he lies that his distortions sound excellent. From this flouted maxim very

humorous situation appeared.

MAXIM OF MANNER

Phoebe: “Ooh! Oh! (She starts waving the air just in front of Ross.)

Ross: “No, no don´t! Stop cleansing my aura! No, just leave my aura alone, okay?“

Phoebe: “Fine! Be murky!“

By the maxim of manner, we try to avoid obscurity, ambiguity, we try to be brief and orderly.

In this conversation, Phoebe does not know how to catch Ross´ attention that´s why she

shaking air in front of him. He feels disturbed and instead of saying that she is bothering him,

he makes excuse by refering to his aura. Ross used obscure expression and thus flouted the

maxim of manner.

LiteraturePeccei, J.S. 1999. Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge.Tárnyiková, L. 2000. Pragmatics. In P. Štekauer (ed.) Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact.

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