M. A. I english P. C3 & C6 Modern Linguistics title pmd

Unit - 4 
PRAGMATICS 
BASIC CONCEPTS
1. 
PRAGMATICS
1.1 
History and Development of Pragmatics
1.2 
Meaning and Definitions
1.3 
Difference between Pragmatics and Semantics
1.4 
Sentence vs. Utterance
1.5 
Context
2. 
SPEECH ACT THEORY
2.1 
Austin’s Contribution to Speech Act Theory
2.1.1 Constatives and Performatives
2.1.2 Locutionary, Illocutionary, Perlocutionary Acts
2.1.3 Typology: Verdictives, Exercitives, Commissives, Behabitives
and Expositives 
2.2 
Searle’s Contribution to the Speech Act Theory
2.2.1 Constitutive and Regulative Rules
2.2.2 Searle’s Typology of Speech Acts
2.2.3 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
2.3 
Felicity Conditions
3. 
Conversational Implicature

---

80 
4. 
Principles of Conversation
4.1 
Difference between Rules and Principle 
5. 
Grice’s Cooperative Principle
6. 
Politeness Principle
6.1 
Face and Face Wants
6.2
Geoffrey Leech’s Politeness Maxims
6.3
Trade-off Relationship between the Politeness and Cooperative
Principle
7.
Presupposition
7.1
Types of Presuppositions 
8.
Entailment
9.
Deixis
9.1
Discourse Deixis and Social Deixis 
10.
Discourse
10.1 Distinction between Text and Discourse 
10.2 Discourse Analysis
10.2.1 Cohesion
10.2.2 Coherence
10.2.3 Turn Taking

---

81 
1. 
Pragmatics
1.1
History and Development
Linguistics is “a scientific study of language”. Phonetics, Phonology, 
Morphology, Syntax and Semantics are the different ‘components’ of linguistics. 
Each of these deals with a specific unit of analysis. Phonetics and Phonology deal 
with Speech sounds, Morphology studies word structure, Syntax studies the 
structure of sentences and Semantics studies the meaning of linguistic units in 
general. All these branches focus on the structure or components of language. The 
use of language and its consequences was neglected. 
The route that led to Pragmatics was variously through the inadequacy of 
semantic theory (when confronted with the problem of context of use), or the desire 
to argue for functionalist approaches (in M. A. K. Halliday's work, for example) that 
took account of linguistic variation. The latter converged, in practice, with 
developments in interactional sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics and the 
ethnography of communication (D. Hymes and J. J. Gumperz). 
Other narrower or more specific disciplines also paved the way for 
Pragmatics. The Enunciation theory (R. Jakobson, E. Benveniste), and 
psycholinguistic and cognitive theories (L. S. Vygotsky) are examples. The fields of 
text linguistics and discourse analysis also come into being, alongside Pragmatics, 
and the interrelationships between all these are multiple. 
Lastly, semiotics (with its interest in the study of signs and communication), 
has always been cited as one of the main roads leading to Pragmatics, above all, 
thanks to the work of Ch. S. Peirce and Ch. W. Morris, both in the North American 
tradition, and of M.M. Bakhtin in the Soviet tradition (more allied to literary criticism). 
To Peirce, reformulated by Morris, we owe what is arguably the most usual 
conception and definition of Pragmatics, complementary to syntax and semantics, 
which analyses the relationship between signs and uses or users. 
There were others equally important in the development of Pragmatics as a 
branch of linguistic study. In the earlier 1960s, Katz and his collaborators attempted 

---

82 
to include meaning in a formal linguistics theory. Lakoff tried to establish a link of 
Syntax with the study of language use. Independent thinkers like Firth, insisted on 
the situational study of meaning and Halliday propounded a comprehensive social 
Theory of language. Apart from Ross and Lakoff, the more lasting influences on 
modern Pragmatics owes to Austin (1962), Searle (1969), Grice (1975) and Leech 
(1983). The emergence of the Speech Act Theory, in particular, in the sixties and 
seventies played a central role in giving concrete shape to Pragmatics which was 
earlier dubbed as a ‘wastepaper basket’ for various reasons.