Linguistics

Pragmatics

Discourse

Discourse AnalysisGarcía, M. 2015

UNIT 1PRAGMATICS

ANDDISCOURSE ANALYSIS

BASIC CONCEPTS TO DISCUSS:

Linguistics

Language studies were made basically from a linguistic point of view

Morphology

Syntax

These branches couldn’t explain the use of different utterances in real communication

Semantics

It focused only onthe inner structure of the words

(morphemes)

It focused on the order of the words

in a sentence:

It focused on the meaning of the

words

Hungry?The telephone is crying for you!

It’s raining cats and dogs…What was wrong with these analysis?

García, M. 2015

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of language in communication.

Pragmatics

It takes into account aspects that were cast aside by the traditional branches

How people use their background

knowledge to interpret discourse

How people use and understand

speech acts

How people’s relationship

influence their discourse

Pragmatics

García, M. 2015

The relationship between contextualized sentences

Pragmatics

How different texts are organized and used

The cultural aspects that help or interfere with communication

This branch helps us understand:

García, M. 2015

ETHNOGRAPHY

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

LINGUISTICS

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

PRAGMATICS

How people learn, understand

and produce language

Cultural information about

the speech community

Description of what

people say or write

Who speaks?, About what?, To Whom?, When?, Where? and with which purpose?

Pragmatics

García, M. 2015

Discourse, Co-text and Context

Discourse

it refers to the use of language in real communication, within a specific context, with a given intention, for a determined audience. What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and it’s recognized by its receivers as coherent

García, M. 2015

Through discourse, people can…

Engage in actions and interaction with others

Organize thoughts into communicative actions

Convey their identities and relationships

Co-text and Context

Co-text

it refers to the relationship established among all the linguistic units within a discourse. That is why, one word can have different connotation, depending of the co-text that surrounds it:

Context

it refers to the variables that surround the discourse, which help us understand the real message.

May I come in? I was born in May

García, M. 2015

Contextual information relevant for discourse understanding

Speakers’ characteristics: their sex, age or nationality

Speakers’ relationship: father

and son, two friends, two politicians…

Social context: a party, a class, a TV

interview…

The channel: speech, writing, signing, smoke

signs

The communicative purpose: to

entertain, to teach…

The speakers’ knowledge about the topic: totally unknown, very familiar

García, M. 2015

Tools users of the language need to consider

USER

Language system

Contextual Knowledge

GOAL

García, M. 2015

Discourse Analysis

it’s a subject that study how utterances in spoken or written language are used to form larger meaningful units such as conversations or interviews in real communicative situations. It’s the search for what gives discourse coherence.

1I went to Caracas. My car is broke and the movie was bad. You have to study and the restaurant is closed

2When I went to Caracas my car broke down. I couldn’tgo to the movie so I stayed atThe hotel studying. At 8:00 pm, I went to the restaurant but it was closed

García, M. 2015

Discourse Analysis

D.A. is a branch of linguistics that focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence… it’s a way of describing and understanding how language is used.

IT IS NOT A METHOD FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE

It serves from different approaches to analyze written, spoken or signed language use.

García, M. 2015

Cases for analysis

Alice speaks English very well in informal situations; the problem is that when she is supposed to speak formally, she keeps using colloquial expressions that make her look uneducated.

I don’t know how to explain my students why American and Venezuelan jokes are different.

García, M. 2015

Analyze the following cases in order to reach an agreement about the necessary information for giving them a convenient

treatment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKbp4hEHV-s

After watching the video,

What aspects do you consider to be as some of the most

important ones for language use and understanding?

García, M. 2015

Aspects influencing language use and understanding

The cooperation between

the interlocutor

The cognitive efforts

Interlocutors do

The backgroundKnowledge

Interlocutors have

García, M. 2015

Discourse Analysis