Pragmatics Report: Definitions & IP/CCP Article Summary

By Category: Second-Language AcquisitionTags:

Definitions of Pragmatics

“The study of meaning in context.” — McCarthy, 1991

“The study of speaker and hearer meaning created in their joint actions that include both linguistic and nonlinguistic signals in the context of socioculturally organized activities.”— LoCastro, 2006

“The study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication.” — Crystal, 1997

My favorite: “The study of how speakers mean more than they say and how listeners can understand them.” — LoCastro, 2006

My Article

Discourse Issues in Cross-Cultural Pragmatics, Diana Boxer. Annual Review of Applied Lingustics, 2002.

Key points:

  • Pragmatics still in its infancy. Began as a field in early 1980s.
  • Cross-cultural pragmatics (CCP) is applied sociolinguistics, and is distinct from interlanguage pragmatics (IP) which focuses on applied linguistics/second language acquisition. That is, IP says that the language learner needs to acquire the norms of the host community. CCP says that the misperceptions are two-way, each group misperceiving the other.
  • When people interact according to their own pragmatic norms, there can be culture clash. These in turn can result in stereotyping, discrimination, etc. CCP can help ameliorate these consequences.
  • In CCP, the speaker with societal power has the upper hand and can abuse it. Minority groups can be discriminated against. The “When in Rome” adage goes against the grain of CCP.
  • For their data, IP researchers usually rely on role-plays rather than spontaneous speech acts. Others assert that, though difficult to collect, the only valuable data is from natural situations.
  • CCP research uses contrastive pragmatics to examine how the same speech act is realized in other languages, so that they can gather baseline data. By comparing the two — say, Japanese and English — they can identify the differences.
  • The three domains most relevant to CCP are social interaction, educational encounters and work life. Because each of these are places where majority power can be wielded over the minority, they’re critical areas of study for CCP.
  • Social life: The vast difference in norms between cultures is fertile ground for resarch. E.g. sociolinguistic norms dramatically differ between Japanese and English. In Japanese, e.g., a single word (sumimasen) expresses both regret and gratitude. It encapsulates a world view and leads to misinterpretation.
  • Education is a gateway at which the majority can block the minority, with serious consequences. The “quintessential CCP study” is Heath’s Ways With Words (1983). Example: Chinese cultural norm of silence in the classroom vs. American approach.
  • Workplace is where people can be allowed or denied access to important goods and services. e.g. Southeast Asians disadvantaged because of their self-effacing language, when assertiveness was expected by their American colleagues.
  • Conclusion: CCP is essential to stimulate a two-way understanding, and to empower those groups, often minority, whose speech deviates from the norm of the majority. Important to enable both sides to understand one another. Understanding differences opens doors for everyone.

Most Interesting Aspects To Me

  • The CCP idea of the necessity to compare norms, rather than to identify the majority norm so that the minority can comply.
  • The concept of the norms of language of power leading to stereotyping and discrimination. I’d be interested to find out more how we can apply CCP practically in everyday settings.

Multimedia/Interactive Ideas

  • Find or devise some exchanges and have participants respond to what they think is the pragmatic meaning.
  • If we think the IP/CCP distinction is important, an example of each.
  • Videotape such an exchange: a natural conversation between two people, and have the “audience” identify pragmatics in action
  • From Tyler & Boxer’s 1996 study: subjects respond to twelve scenarios, responding as to whether they felt the exchange appropriate or not. They also used videotaped reenactments of the scenarios. Could we find this?

Why We Need To Study Pragmatics

  • Teach not only how to speak L2/n but how to use it in situationally appropriate ways.
  • Understand problems learners have with comprehension beyond the word
  • Help learners handle misunderstandings

Some Key Terms

  • Communicative competence
  • Negotiation of meaning
  • Speech acts
  • Crosstalk

Resources Used (in addition to above article)

  • Pragmatics in Language Teaching, Kenneth R. Rose and Gabriele Kasper. Cambridge University Press, 2001. [Gnarly, complicated, much data analysis]
  • An Introduction to Pragmatics: Social Action for Language Teachers, Virginia LoCastro. University of Michigan Press, 2006. [More reader-friendly]