【PDF】语用学教学大纲

《语用学》 张连文 编写 英语专业课程教学大纲 850 目 录 前 言 ....................................................................................................................................................... 851 一、课程性质与教学对象 ....................................................................................................... 851 二、课程教学目的和基本要求 ............................................................................................... 851 三、课程主要内容及学时分配 ............................................................................................... 851 四、教学原则与 ............................................................................................................... 852 五、考核方式、成绩评定 ....................................................................................................... 852 Chapter One What is Pragmatics? ............................................................................................................. 853 Chapter Two Entailment ............................................................................................................................ 855 Chapter Three Presupposition ................................................................................................................... 856 Chapter Four The Co-Operative Principle and Implicature ...................................................................... 858 Chapter Five More On Implicatures .......................................................................................................... 860 Chapter Six Speech Acts ........................................................................................................................ 862 Chapter 7 More About Speech Acts .......................................................................................................... 866 Chapter 8 Politeness .................................................................................................................................. 869 六、主要参考书目、和集 ....................................................................................... 874 语用学 851 前 言 一、课程性质与教学对象 语用学是研究在具体语境中语言的使用的学科，主要研究语言和行为之间的关系。也可以高度 概括和抽象为对语言的使用科学地进行研究的学科。语用学研究范围的界定一直是一个颇有争议的 问。就其研究大致有两种观点：一、语用学是语言学的一个分科‘如同句法学、语义学一样，有 自己的研究单位，如指示语、含意、前提、言语行为等；二、语用学是对语言各曾面的功能性综观。 我们认同 Verschueren 的观点，即语用学只有跨出语言学学科的范围，与社会、文化、心理、认知 等结合起来学习和研究，才能有效的发挥作用。 由于语用学探讨的是如何正确理解说话人或作者的真实意思、说话人或作者如何恰当地表达真 实意思，而外语教育的最终目的是使学生能用外语进行有效的交际（而不仅仅是具有丰富的语言技 能、语言知识本身），语用学对提高英语专业学生的外语技能、知识水平、外语交际能力、提高研 究生的理论和实际结合的水平具有重大的意义。 语用学主要探讨四个领域：（1）说话人在说出一句话时所想表达的意思；（2）话语在具体语境 中的意义；（3）言外之意的传达和领会，特别是听话人怎样在说话人提供的有限的话语基础上根据 上下文及语境做出推论；（4）说话人在决定哪些意思需要明确表达、哪些意思可由听话人领会时起 主要作用的因素，即说话人和听话人之间相对距离的远近。 语用学是外国语学院英语语言文学专业研究生课程。我们以 Peccei 的语用学作为教材，因为此 书与其它的教材相比深入浅出，并不要求过高的哲学和逻辑学基础，适合作为研究生的基础教材。 有一定的覆盖面，并为学生日后更深入地研究语用学和语言学打下基础。但是我们不局限于此教材 的内容，结合其它语用学专著的优点，展开对语用学的热点和专题讲授，增加研究生的知识广度和 深度。 二、课程教学目的和基本要求 教学目的：区分语用学与语义学和其它相关学科在研究意义上的差别，在了解英语语言的基本 特征以后，从语言使用的各种情况解释语言使用的意义、规则和条件，从而以更高、更广的视角了 解语言的特征。系统讲授语用学的研究范围、基本理论和研究方法，使学生了解近二、三十年来语 用学的发展、目前最新的研究动态及趋势，增强外语教学与学习中的语用观念。提高研究生对语用 学的兴趣和掌握研究方法。 教学要求：（1）研究语言与情景结合而出现的种种用法和人们在语境中有效使用语言和正确理 解语言的能力。2) 能够熟练地运用语用学和认知语言学的理论和方法对语言的意义、形式和用法 做细致的分析，对语法和语义现象做出相应的解释。（3）对交叉学科尤其认知语用学有清楚的把握。 三、课程主要内容及学时分配 1、主要内容：介绍语用学的基本理论和方法，包括指别、言语行为理论、会话含义理论、预 设、关联理论、新格赖斯原则、会话分析的语用学解释，以及社会与语用、文化差异与语用翻译等。 区分语用与句法、语义在解释意义的方法论的差别和关系。把语用学的研究和最新成果联系和应用 到外语教学中。引导研究生从事实证研究。 2、课时安排：根据讲授的内容课程分为引言、微观语用学和宏观语用学三个大的部分。引言 用两课时；微观语用学用 18 课时，具体内容包括指示、所指（指称）和照应、言语行为、语用推 英语专业课程教学大纲 852 理、关联理论和语用推理、语言学的礼貌和话语分析；宏观语用学用 16 课时，具体内容包括跨文 化语用学、社会语用学、元语用学、语用学与翻译的关系、语用学与外语学习、语用学与外语教学 等。共计 36 课时。 四、教学原则与方法 本课程以描写语用学教学为主，学习来自人们经验的有关自然语言的应用原则，分析自然语言 如何同语境相联系。引导学生注意特定话语在特定语境中的应用，学会研究非语言知识和非语法原 则下的话语行为的意义，即在语境中才能确定的意义。重点关注语言和语言使用者之间的关系，即 符号和符号解释者之间的关系。本课程注重实证观察与分析。每一、二次讲课配有一次以学生为中 心的专题讨论。增强学生解决实际语言问题的能力，尤其使用语用学理论解释语言的能力。 五、考核方式、成绩评定 1.考核方式： 本课程的考核方法是试卷考试和撰写课程论文。 2.成绩评定： 平时考试（50%） + 期末课程论文成绩(50%) 语用学 853 Chapter One What is Pragmatics? We try to explore the different meanings of meaning and kinds of issues which are dealt with by semantics and pragmatics. The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is easier to apply than to explain. Semantics and pragmatics are the two main areas of linguistic study that look at the knowledge we use both to extract meaning when we hear or read, and to convey meaning when we speak or write. Within linguistics itself, the dividing line between these two disciplines is still under considerable debate. Explaining it is complicated by the fact that many conflicting formulations have been proposed over the past sixty years. This might suggest that there is no one way of drawing the distinction and that how to draw it is merely a terminological question, a matter of arbitrary stipulation. Though, these diverse formulations, despite their conflicts, all shed light on the distinction as it is commonly applied, in both linguistics and philosophy. Although it is generally clear what is at issue when people apply the distinction to specific linguistic phenomena, what is less clear, in some cases anyway, is whether a given phenomenon is semantic or pragmatic, or both. Fortunately, there are other phenomena that are uncontroversially semantic or, as the case may be, uncontroversially pragmatic. Their example will help us get clear on what the semantics-pragmatics distinction is. In terms of rationale perhaps the main reason for introducing the semantics-pragmatics distinction is to provide a framework for explaining the variety of ways in which what a speaker conveys can fail to be fully determined by the (conventional) linguistic meaning of the sentence he utters: indexicality, ambiguity, vagueness (and open-texture), semantic underdetermination, implicitness, implicature, nonliteralness, non-truth-conditional content, illocutionary force. The null hypothesis is that there is always some pragmatic explanation for how, in any given case, sentence meaning can underdetermine what the speaker means. The semantics-pragmatics distinction has long been methodologically important in both linguistic and philosophy, hence the linguistic and philosophical backgrounds. However, generally speaking, SEMANTICS concentrates on meaning that comes purely linguistic knowledge, while PRAMATICS concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and takes into account knowledge about the physical and social world. Meaning Analyses Provide a semantic meaning (SP) and a pragmatic meaning (PP) for It’s cold in here in two different contexts, (a) and (b) below: (a) Mike ad Annie are in the living room. Mie asks Annie whether she’d like to eat dinner in the living room or the kitchen. Annie replies: It’s cold in here. (b) The Queen and her butler, James, are in the drawing room. The window id open. The Queen says: It’s cold in here. Further Reading For short, beginner-level overview of the types of questions that pragmatics deals with and the relationship between semantics and pragmatics: Crystal, D. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University 英语专业课程教学大纲 854 Press. Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. For more advanced treatment of these issues: Blackmore, D. 1992. Understanding Utterances, Oxford: Blackwell. Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics, London: Longman. Bach, K. 1997. The Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction: What Is It and Why It Matters. In: Eckhard Rolf (ed.), Pragmatik: Implicature und Sprechacte. (Linguistiche Berichre Sonderheft 8/1997), pp. 33-91. 语用学 855 Chapter Two Entailment In this unit, we investigate entailment, a relationship between sentences that forms the basis for some of the inferences that interpreting utterances involves. More specific terms, entailment is the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B).For example, the sentence (A) The president was assassinated. entails (B) The president is dead. Entailment differs from implicature, where the truth of one (A) suggests the truth of the other (B), but does not require it. For example, the sentence (A) Mary had a baby and (B) got married implicates that (A) she had a baby before (B) the wedding, but this is cancellable by adding -- not necessarily in that order. Entailments are not cancellable. Entailment also differs from presupposition in that in presupposition, the truth of what one is presupposing is taken for granted. In another phrasing, A sentence S1 entails another sentence S2, if and only if S1 is true then S2 must also be true in all circumstances. In other words, there is no situation where X is true but Y is false. A sentence S1 implicates S2 if (a) S2 is not the entailment of S1 and (b) the hearer believes, based on the Cooperative Principle, that S2 is true, or that the hearer does not realize that the speaker violates or manipulated the Cooperative Principle. For example: “This lesson will make a student smarter.” does not entail “This lesson will make John smarter.” but the reader implicates that “This lesson will make John smarter” because “John is a student.” Analysis Work 1. In each of the following dialogues, spot the information which appears redundant or contradictory from a semantic point of view. Then decide in pragmatic terms what this sort of information might be telling the hearer. (a) Tom: What’s his stepmother like? Bob: Well, she’s a woman and she married his father. (b) Dave: There’s his Uncle George. Lucy: That man’s a snake. (c) Jane: You ate all the cookies! Steve: I ate some of the cookies. 2. The entailment of a sentence can be regarded as those propositions that can be inferred from it in any context ( Simpson 1993:122). What problems, if any, are posed for this definition by a sentence like George saw a nut? Further Reading For more about the role of entailment in pragmatic analysis: Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simpson, P. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View, London: Routledge. For more about different meaning relationships between words and different types of entailment: Hudford and Heasley, 1998. Semantics: A Coursebook, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Units 9-11. 英语专业课程教学大纲 856 Chapter Three Presupposition In this unit, we examine presupposition, another kind of inference which is closely linked to the working of the utterance. Declarative sentences can be true or false (or undecided) either on the basis of knowledge about the given language or knowledge about the world. Imperative and interrogative sentences cannot be true or false, therefore, no entailment (strong inference) can automatically follow from such sentences. What inferences can we draw from imperatives and interrogatives? 1. (a) Where has Claire looked for the keys? (b) Claire has looked for the keys. 2. (a) Did you buy this aweful wine? (b) This wine is aweful. 3. (a) Don’t sit on Ann’s sofa. (b) Ann has a sofa. These inferences are not entailments, they are called presuppositions. They are useful when analyzing speaker meaning. The definition problem is partly a reflection of the fuzzy boundary between semantics and pragmatics. Some definitions of presupposition are speaker oriented (anything the speaker assumes to be true before making the utterance), that is, presuppositions as inferences about what is assumed to be true in the utterance. Some definitions are sentence oriented (a necessary precondition for a sentence to be true), that is, presuppositions as inferences about what is directly asserted to be true. 4. (a) Claire has looked for the keys – directly asserts Claire has looked for the keys. (b) Where has Claire looked for the keys? - presupposes Claire has looked for the keys. It can be concluded that presuppositions are inferences that are very closely linked to the words and grammatical structures actually used in the utterance, but they come from our knowledge about the way language users conventionally interpret these words and structures. In terms of negation, presuppositions remain constant under the negation of the main sentence, as in (5). 5. (a) You didn´t buy this aweful wine, did you? (b) This wine is aweful. Presupposition triggers: definite noun phrase – existential presupposition as in (6). 6. (a) Did Mike give Anne that chockolate cake? (b) There was a chocolate cake. It is important to note that verbs and expressions like regret, know, realize, discover, find out, I´m aware that...., It´s strange that... pretend, imagine, dream, If I were...., stop can trigger different presuppositions. And presuppositions can be drawn even when there is very little or no surrounding context. Analysis Work For each of the following utterances, decide which ones contain the presupposition that ‘Mike smashed the television’. What do the utterances have in common? 8. (a) Did Mike smash the television? (b) When did Mike smash the television? (c) I was eating popcorn when Mike smashed the television. (d) Why did Mike smash the television? (e) I don’t understand why Mike smashed the television. 语用学 857 (f) I wonder if Mike smashed the television. Further Reading For the discussion of how presupposition fits into semantics and pragmatics: Simpson, P. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View, London: Routledge. For a review of the problems in defining presupposition: Leech, G. 1981.Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 英语专业课程教学大纲 858 Chapter Four The Co-Operative Principle and Implicature In this unit, we examine a third of inferencing, implicature, and at how speakers co-operate in a conversation to achieve a shared meaning for utterances. Grice proposed that all speakers, regardless of their cultural background, adhere to a basic principle governing conversation which he termed The Co-Operative Principle. We assume that in a conversational setting the interlocutors/participants will cooperate with each other when making their contributions. Grice broke his principle down to four basic MAXIMS which go towards making a speaker´s contribution to the conversation “cooperative”. RELEVANCE: Make sure that whatever you say is relevant to the conversation at hand QUALITY: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. QUANTITY: Make your contribution sufficiently informative for the current purposes of the conversation. Do not make your contribution more informative than is necessary. MANNER - CLARITY: Do not make your contribution obscure, ambiguous or difficult to understand. Quiet VIOLATION of the maxims incurred no implicatures, while Open, deliberate FLOUTING of the maxims gives rise to implicatures. FLOUTING of a maxim: it is 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. Example: teacher’s opinion about X’s writing skills “X has regularly and punctually attended all my classes. All his assignments were handed in on time and very neatly presented. I greatly enjoyed having X in class.” Analysis: The teacher is only being apparently uninformative, however she is cooperative. She makes her response in such a way that the hearer can infer that X’s performance was not very good in class without her having to state it. She knows the hearer is able to work out the inference that X hasn’t got very good writing skills. Therefore, she has implied (or implicated) that the student´s writing skills are not very good. This sort of inferencing occurs in stages: in the first stage the hearer recognizes the apparent irrelevancy, inadequacy, lack of clarity, etc. This in turn triggers the implicature. Implicatures are inferences which cannot be made from isolated utterences (unlike presuppositions and entailments). They are dependent on the context of the utterance and shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. Grice has poroposed a way of analyzing implicatures based on the Cooperative Principle and its maxims of relevance, quality, quantity and clarity. In Grice´s analysis the speaker´s flouting of a maxim combined with the hearer’s assumption that the speaker has not really abandoned the Cooperative Principle (has not really opted out) leads to an implicature. HEDGES may indicate that speakers are aware of the cooperative principle and the likelihood that they may be violating a maxim: 1. (a) I don’t mean to change the subject, but there is an enormous wasp in here. (b) Well, I think he’s honest. 语用学 859 (c) You probably already know this but ..... By comparison, conversational implicatures seem to be less straightforward than those inferences based on entailment or presupposition, for drawing the appropriate implicature can require a considerable amount of shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. Distinguishing: In each of the following decide whether the inferences in brackets is a presupposition or an implicature derived from the underlined utterance. (a) A: My boyfriend lives in Luton B: My boyfriend lives in Paris. (b) A: Is Mike giving his mother a present? B: He’s bought a ring. (c) A: You look pleased. B: I managed to pass the exam. Further Reading For more about Grice’s theories: see Grice 1989 or Yule 1996:100-101 for a short extract from Grice. For a discussion of children with pragmatic disorder: see Bishop 1997: cha 7-8. 英语专业课程教学大纲 860 Chapter Five More On Implicatures In this unit we examine in more detail different kinds of implicatures and find that some are less dependent on background knowledge of the context than others. The most important point is to illustrate Scalar Implicatures and distinguish Generalized Conversational Implicatures from Particularized Conversational Implicatures. Definition: A scalar implicature is a quantity implicature based on the use of an informationally weak term in an implicational scale. The use implicates that all similar utterances using an informationally stronger term are not true because, according to the conversational maxim of quantity, a speaker would ordinarily be required to make a stronger, more informative utterance if a true one were available. Example (English) : In the utterance some of the boys went to the party, the word some implicates “not all of the boys went to the party.” The words none, some, and all form an implicational scale, in which the use of one form implicates that the use of a stronger form is not possible. (Levinson 1983: 133) According to Grice, some conversational implicatures are ‘generalized’, i.e. they do not arise ‘in virtue of special features of the context', but are normally carried by saying a certain thing or type of thing. The implicature arises 'in the absence of special circumstances’, he says (Grice 1989: 37). The fact that, in a narrative, a conjunction such as ‘They got married and had many children’ is interpreted as mirroring the temporal order of the reported events is seen by Grice as resulting from a generalized conversational implicature: such an implicature is normally carried by an event-reporting conjunctive utterance such as 1. 1.Bill and Jane got married and had many children Particularized Conversational Implicatures are inferences that require a shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. That is, particularized implicatures require not only general knowledge but also knowledge which is particular or local to the speaker and the hearer, and often to the physical context of the utterance itself. Both generalized and particularized implicatures differ from presupposition that they sound much less contradictory when they are cancelled