ANT253H1 Study Guide - Final Guide: Paul Grice, Linguistic Competence, Communicative Competence
LECTURE 6 + 7 (CHAPTER 6)
CONVERSATION AND DISCOURSE
• There are different types of Q & A Sentences
Ex. “What’s your name?” = “Samantha” (assumes that we know that the complete sentence is “My
name is Samantha”)
Pragmatics = Charles Morris
- Indicates the study of the meanings and uses of linguistic forms in their communicative and
interactional contexts of use
- Grice added the notion of Maxims to the study of conversational pragmatics
Paul Grice
- Grice’s maxims
1. Maxim of Quantity (1) this asserts the interlocutors tend to make their message as
informative as required for the purposes of the exchange; and (2) that they generally do not
make it more informative than required
2. Maxim of Quality this asserts that interlocutors expect the contents of an utterance to be
true, because (1) people tend not to say what they believe to be false, and (2) they will likely
not say something for which they lack adequate evidence
3. Maxim of Relation or Relevance
4. Maxim of Manner this asserts that interlocutors will tend to be perspicuous by (1)
avoiding obscurity of expression, …
- Looked at conversation
- Realized there has to be some relevance in conversation
- Discussed how relevance is a necessary element in conversation
Communicative Competence (Dell Hymes)
- Linguistic competence Communicative competence
- The choice of words that are used in conversations are rule-governed this comes from the
pragmatic form of knowledge known as communicative competence
- Different from oral competence, which is more about the knowledge of word structure or sentence
structure
- Claimed that the ability to use a language was adaptive and also affected linguistic competence
- Simple linguistic interactions require a detailed knowledge of the appropriate words and nonverbal
cues that will enable a speaker to be successful
- Language is highly interactive and context-sensitive
- Lying has become very prevalent in our conversation
Ex. Donald Trump, Niccolo Machiavelli
Ex. if two newborn babies are born on a boat and their parents fall overboard, then their boat
floats to shore and a she-wolf picks them up, they can survive…and instead of talking they will
most likely develop a rudimentary form of signaling communication that is similar to that of the
wolf (they probably wouldn’t even develop bipedalism) if they aren’t found before the age of
puberty, it’s hopeless – by puberty, the brain can cure itself, but after it cannot
Conversation Analysis (Hutchby and Wooffitt)
- The study of the relationship between language use and social variables
- The study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction
- Tacit reasoning procedures
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- Compression
Ex. “Sophia went to the mall a few days ago. Sophia ran into an old friend at the mall. Sophia
hadn’t seen the friend in a while. Sophia and the friend were thrilled.” (she becomes a token of
communicative competence, not linguistic competence – because even though it is linguistically
correct to repeat the name or location, it isn’t how we want to hear it)
This happens often when people learn new languages (Ex. picking up a language, you
tend to say things the way they are mathematically outlined when learning the language)
“she” is an index of Sophia (like at the back of a book, but more simple)
Anaphora and Cataphora
- Anaphora = using particles to look back (Ex. “Sophia went to the mall yesterday, SHE…”)
Devices that refer back to some word or syntactic category (literally means “repetition-eliminating”,
it is a conversational strategy that is part of communicative competence)
- Cataphora = referral before (Ex. “Before SHE went to the mall yesterday, Sophia…”) the use of
lexeme/morpheme/etc. to anticipate some other unit
Ex. “Even though she will deny it, I tell you that Mary did it…”)
Langue and Parole
- Rules of Parole led to the formation of a branch of linguistics called systemic linguistics, or
functional grammar (Halliday)
- Research in systemic linguistics shows that lexical and grammatical choices—although they have
much leeway—are still constrained by factors such as social rules, situation, and style
Gambits a perception of sorts (a tactic)
- Refer to devices that cohere in various ways within a conversation
- Used in conversation - to keep it going, repair an anomaly with it, etc.
Ex. “Uh huh…yeah…hmm…aha” (hedges)
Ex. “like,” (fillers)
Ex. “You like this, don’t you?” (tag)
Ex. “May I ask you something?” (opening gambit)
- Many languages have versions of these (Ex. Slavic languages)
Ex. “She’s a great student, isn’t she?”
Sequence Structure conversational texts show that we are sensitive to sequence structure; we anticipate how
the forms in a text relate to each other and cohere sequentially into a message-making system
- Pragmatics is also concerned with the social framing of speech (subdued vs. aggressive
conversations, competitive vs. cooperative, etc. depending on the situation)
Cooperative Speech
- Speakers tend to build upon each others’ comments “that’s true”, “I agree”
- They tend to use well-placed hedges to indicate consent “Uh-huh”, “Yeah”, “Sure”, “Right”
Ex. Apparently, this is why Trump doesn’t like SNL (with irony, truth comes to the forefront)
- Disagreement is rare, and when it surfaces a difference of opinion is negotiated with various hedges
(“Yeah, but maybe…”_
- Tag questions are often used to ensure consent (“You agree, don’t you?”)
Competitive or Conflictual Conversations
- Speakers tend to contradict one another’s comments (“That’s really not true”, “I wouldn’t say that”)
- They tend to use hedges to indicate dissent (“No-no”, “No way”, “Not true”)
- Difference of opinion is indicated with various hedges (“Sure, but, maybe…”)
- Tag questions are used to challenge (“You don’t mean that, do you?”)
Speech Act
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- Provides a taxonomy for pigeonholing utterances in terms of their social functions
- Units of conversation providing a connection to social life
- A speech act is an utterance that aims to bring about, modify, curtail, or inhibit some real action
Ex. “Be careful!” = putting a hand in front of someone to stop them from crossing the road
carelessly
- Main Speech Acts locutionary = when things are said with a specific sense (Ex. “May name is
Mark”), illocutionary = indicates the speaker’s purpose in saying something (Ex. “She protested
against what I said”), Perlocutionary = produces sequential effects on the feelings, thoughts, or
actions of interlocutors or else conveys a speaker’s own emotional state (Ex. “I’m sorry”, “don’t
worry”)
- The main speech acts can further be broken down into
(1) REPRESENTATIVES: utterances that commit the speaker to something stating,
concluding, representing, deducing
Ex. “I will do it for you.”
(2) ASSERTIVES: statements of fact so as to get an interlocutor to form or attend to a belief
Ex. “What the President said is a fact!”, “What Trump said is bullshit.”
(3) EFFECTIVES: statements designed to change something
Ex. “You’re fired!”
(4) DIRECTIVES: attempts by the speaker to get an interlocutor to do something command,
offer, invite, ask, request, beg, permit, dare, challenge
Ex. “Just do it.”
(5) COMMISSIVES: utterances committing the speaker to some future course of action
promise, pledge, threaten
Ex. “Only a few days to go.”
(6) EXPRESSIVES: utterances revealing the psychological state of the speaker toward
something thank, congratulate, apologize, condole, deplore, welcome
Ex. “Your music is amazing!”
(7) DECLARATIONS: utterances connecting propositional content (assumptions in the
utterance) to reality appoint, resign, nominate, pronounce
Ex. “I am leaving this job because of what I said to you.”
(8) QUOTATIONS: utterances reporting someone else’s speech
Ex. “She said that she was coming too.”
Communicative Variables
- Sometimes, speakers may refrain from saying what they desire for reasons of politeness or cooperation
in its broadest sense/to fulfill one of the primary social functions of conversation (the phatic function)
- The main components of communicative competence
- Dell Hymes:
o S = Setting and Scene: the time, place, and psychological setting of a conversation
o P = Participants: the speaker, listener, audience involved in conversation
o E = Ends: the desired or expected outcome of the interaction
o A = Act Sequence: the sequence in which the parts of a conversation unfold
o K = Key: the mood or spirit (serious, ironic, jocular, etc.) of the speech act
o I = Instrumentalities: the dialect or linguistic variety used
o N = Norms: conventions or expectations about volume, tone, rate of delivery
o G = Genres: different types of performance (joke, formal speech, sermon)
Ex. laugh track
Roman Jakobson
- Modeling communication
- Constituents
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Document Summary
Conversation and discourse: there are different types of q & a sentences. What"s your name? = samantha (assumes that we know that the complete sentence is my name is samantha ) Indicates the study of the meanings and uses of linguistic forms in their communicative and interactional contexts of use. Grice added the notion of maxims to the study of conversational pragmatics. Realized there has to be some relevance in conversation. Discussed how relevance is a necessary element in conversation. The choice of words that are used in conversations are rule-governed this comes from the pragmatic form of knowledge known as communicative competence. Different from oral competence, which is more about the knowledge of word structure or sentence structure. Claimed that the ability to use a language was adaptive and also affected linguistic competence. Simple linguistic interactions require a detailed knowledge of the appropriate words and nonverbal cues that will enable a speaker to be successful.
