CONTRASTIVE PRAGMATICS

CONTRASTIVE PRAGMATICS

1. Pragmatics

   • A subfield of linguistic that studies how context and speakers contribute to meaning
     • Text: a linguistic unit of variable size
     • Co-text: the linguistic environment of words
     • Context: the extralinguistic setting the text is embedded in

2. Speaker factors

   • Identities; intentions- intended/unintended meaning-; previous interactions, relationships and shared knowledge or beliefs, personal/cultural values, and views and perception of reality

3. Physical context

   • Implying time and space factors or the distance between speakers and objects/places

4. Identifies possible clashes of assumptions or interpretations in order to provide knowledge for mastering intercultural contacts

5. Studies how context contributes to meaning cross-linguistically and also cross-culturally

6. Speech acts

   • Utterances that have performative function in language and communication
     • Assertives: commit speakers to the truth of what's said
     • Commisives: commit the speaker to some future action
     • Expressives: state what speakers feel
     • Directives: call upon the listener to do something
     • Veridictives: expresses evaluation of something
     • Declaratives: through them acts are performed
   • Can be analysed in three levels:
     • Locutionary
     • Illocutonary
     • Perlocutonary