Contoh Menbuat Tugas PRAGMATICS dengan pokok bahasan "Language"

PRAGMATICS

Chapter I

1.1  Background of the problem

Language is a tool for human to communicate and relate to many people.  Language is a blessing from the Almighty God for human. Human uses language every time in their life. We can not express what we want to share, if we don not use language in our life. It is the reason why language is very important for human. Language is expressed in a word and arranged in sentence. These sentences have specific meaning which is a purpose from the speaker. Communication word has explicit and implicit meaning. This matter will be explained in Discourse Analysis , Pragmatic Sentence.

In Pragmatic sentence, there are some misunderstandings of interpreting meaning. So, the purpose of the sentence isn’t accepted. It makes people difficult to interpret the meaning of the pragmatics sentences. However, in our paper, we want to explain the factors that make people misunderstanding about the pragmatic meaning and how to minimize this misunderstanding.

1.2 PURPOSE

1.      To analyze what the speaker’s intention and beliefs are.

2.       To inform to the readers about the factors of misunderstanding of pragmatic meaning.

3.      To inform how to minimize the misunderstanding of the pragmatic meaning

about what the speaker talk about.

1.3 THEORITICAL BASES

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistic knowledge (e.g. grammar, lexicon etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and so on. In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence. So an utterance describing pragmatic function is described as metapragmatic. Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and comes only through experience.

Pragmatics is the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context of utterance, such as the following:

The effect that the following have on the speaker’s choice of expression and the addressee’s interpretation of an utterance:

• Context of utterance
• Generally observed principles of communication
• The goals of the speaker

·  Programmatic concerns, such as

• the treatment of given versus new information, including presupposition
• deixis
• speech acts, especially illocutionary acts
• implicature, and
• the relations of meaning or function between portions of discourse (see interpropositional relation) or turns of conversation (see conversation analysis)

Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties that differentiate them. Pragmatics is sometimes characterized as dealing with the effects of context. This is equivalent to saying it deals with utterances, if one collectively refers to all the facts that can vary from utterance to utterance as ‘context.’ One must be careful, however, for the term is often used with more limited meanings.

1.4. The kinds of pragmatics

1.4.1 Classical Pragmatics

A. Far-side Pragmatics: Beyond Saying

Our initial focus will be on the traditions in pragmatics inaugurated by the J.L. Austin and H.P. Grice. Both of these philosophers were interested in the area of pragmatics we call ‘beyond saying.’ In the classic period, these phenomena were studied on the premise — a premise increasingly undermined by developments in pragmatics itself — that a fairly clear distinction could be made between what is said, the output of the realm of semantics, and what is conveyed or accomplished in particular linguistic and social context in or by saying something, the realm of pragmatics. What is said is sort of a boundary; semantics is on the near side, and those parts of pragmatics that were the focus of the classic period are on the far side.

Far-side pragmatics deals with what we do with language, beyond what we (literally) say. This is the conception according to which Voltaire's remarks belong to pragmatics. It's up to semantics to tell us what someone literally says when they use expressions of a given type; it's up to pragmatics to explain the information one conveys, and the actions one performs, in or by saying something.

The facts with which pragmatics deals are of various sorts, including:

• Facts about the objective facts of the utterance, including: who the speaker is, when the utterance occurred, and where;
• Facts about the speaker's intentions. On the near side, what language the speaker intends to be using, what meaning he intends to be using, whom he intends to refer to with various shared names, whether a pronoun is used demonstratively or anaphorically, and the like. On the far side, what he intends to achieve by saying what he does.
• Facts about beliefs of the speaker and those to whom he speaks, and the conversation they are engaged in; what beliefs do they share; what is the focus of the conversation, what are they talking about, etc.
• Facts about relevant social institutions, such as promising, marriage ceremonies, courtroom procedures, and the like, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what he does.

Based on their essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle (1975a) proposes a taxonomy of illocutionary acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes:

• Representative or assertive. The speaker becomes committed to the truth of the propositional content; for example, asserting: “It's raining.”
• Directive. The speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is represented by the propositional content; for example, commanding: “Close the door!”
• Commissive. The speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content; for example, promising: “I'll finish the paper by tomorrow.”
• Expressive. The speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act: “I'm glad it's raining!”
• Declarative. The speaker performs an action just representing herself as performing that action: “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.”

B.  Near-side Pragmatics

In logic and in many of the investigations of logical empiricists in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, artificial languages were the focus of attention. First the predicate calculus, and then various extensions of it incorporating modal and temporal operators seemed the appropriate linguistic vehicles for clear-thinking philosophers. Issues about the use of natural languages were often thought to be beyond the scope of the proof-theoretic and model-theoretic tools developed by logicians. As Stalnaker put it in 1970,

The problems of pragmatics have been treated informally by philosophers in the ordinary language tradition, and by some linguists, but logicians and philosophers of a formalistic frame of mind have generally ignored pragmatic problems. (Stalnaker 1970/1999, 31.)

(For an important exception, see Reichenbach's Elements of Symbolic Logic (1947).)

The idea that techniques of formal semantics should be adapted to natural languages was forcefully defended by Donald Davidson, on general philosophical principles, and Richard Montague, who applied the techniques of possible worlds semantics to fragments of English in a body of work that was influential in both philosophy and linguistics.

These attempts make clear that, on the near side of what is said, semantics and pragmatics are quite enmeshed. The interpretation of indexicals and demonstratives seems squarely in the realm of pragmatics, since it is particular facts about particular utterances, such as the speaker, time, and location that determine the interpretation of ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘now’ and the like. But the relevance of these varying factors is determined by a non-varying rule of meaning, as Bar-Hillel (1954) had already observed.

1.4.2. Contemporary Pragmatic Theory

a. Relevance theory

According to relevance theory this is a mistake. Sperber and Wilson (1986) see things the second way. Following Grice's model, understanding what someone means by an utterance is a matter of inferring the speaker's communicative intention: the hearer uses all kinds of information available to get at what the speaker intended to convey. The semantic information obtained by decoding the sentence uttered is but one example of such information. But much more information has to be used to infer what the speaker meant — that includes both what she said and what she implicated — by her utterance. So central is intention-recognition to understanding language that the code model, with autonomous semantics at its core, should largely be abandoned in favor of the inferential model. One kind of pragmatic reasoning pervades language use, near-side and far-side, and the areas in which the code model is applicable are basically marginal

CHAPTER 2

2.1. Definition of Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning (Wikipedia). Pragmatic has four definitions, 1. The study of what the speaker means, 2. The study of context, 3. The study of utterance interpretation. 4. The study of expression according the social distances which limited particioent who is in the conversation (Yule 1996:3). Thomas (1995:2), Pragmatics consists of using social point of view link the pragmatic with the speaker meaning and using cognitive point of view link pragmatic with utterence interpretation.

Pragmatics is the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context of utterance. So, pragmatics is the study of meaning that which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.

2.2. The Concern of Pragmatic

2.2.1. The function of Speech act

Based on their essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle (1975a) proposes a taxonomy of illocutionary acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes:

• Representative or assertive. The speaker becomes committed to the truth of the propositional content; for example, asserting: “It's raining.”
• Directive. The speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is represented by the propositional content; for example, commanding: “Close the door!”
• Commissive. The speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content; for example, promising: “I'll finish the paper by tomorrow.”
• Expressive. The speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act: “I'm glad it's raining!”
• Declarative. The speaker performs an action just representing herself as performing that action: “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.”

2.2.2 Corporated Principle

In the mean time Grice, an Oxford philosopher, concentrated on studying the difference between what is said and what is meant. He realized that to understand an utterance one needs not only shared general knowledge of the world and linguistic knowledge but also knowledge of communicative principles which guide interlocutors and which are part of their communicative competence as well as shared contextual knowledge. These principles can be described as common expectations in a given communicative situation between rational human beings. They are not ethical principles, but express typical communication values. He called the sum of these principles The Cooperative Principle (CP) which consisted of 4 basic maxim.

• Quantity
• Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required, e.g.:

For example:

 “My Daughter has a boy friend”

 “My little girl has a boy friend”

In these sentences has represented meaning of”girl”.So, “My little girl” in that sentence gives too much contribution.

• Quality
• (Supermaxim): Try to make your contribution one that is true.
• (Submaxims):
• Do not say what you believe to be false.
• Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

For example:

Example 1

Lia       : Where is Unila?

Ayu      : Unila is located in Rajabasa.

Example 2

Putri    : Where is Unila?

                        Tika     : I think Unila is located in Rajabasa.

The answer in first conversation is a fact. But the answer in second conversation is an opinion and still in doubt. “I think, maybe, in my opinion” show divider that fulfill maxim quality.

• Relation
• Be relevant

For example:

Lita      : Would you like to drink?

Ani       :  Something hot, please

Example:

Fani     : Would you like to drink?

Dona    : Yes.I washed it yesterday

In these conversations above, the first conversation is relevant between the question and the answer. But, in the second example, it isn’t relevant.

• Manner
• (Supermaxim): Be perspicuous.
• (Submaxims):
• Avoid obscurity of expression.
• Avoid ambiguity.
• Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
• Be orderly.
• Frame whatever you say in the form most suitable for any reply that would be regarded as appropriate; or, facilitate in your form of expression the appropriate reply (added by Grice 1981/1989, 273).

For example:

Example 1

Ayu           : Which one do you want to watch? OVJ or Antara Cinta dan Dusta?

Ina                        : I think OVJ is better

Example 2

Mitha  : Which one do you want to watch? OVJ or Antara Cinta dan Dusta?

Mifta   : I think Antara Cinta dan Dusta is good, but I don’t like the actor, Ivan Sanders as Doctor Sultan. OVJ also good, but it’s bored.

Mitha       : So, what actually do you want to watch???????

In these conversations above, the answer in first conversation is better than in second conversation. The manner that is used in second conversation is redundant and doesn’t get the main point.

            2.2.3. IMPLICATURE

            Implicature is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield of linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied (that is, entailed) by the utterance.

            There is a distinction between two main types of implicature:

            Conventional implicature

example: I am crying although I am happy.

It is by convention expected that if somebody cries than s/he is unhappy and the word "although" signals this expectation.

·           Conversational implicature

Conversational implicature that arises from the addressee's assumption that the speaker is being cooperative by directly observing the conversational maxims.     

            For example:

                        Dwi      : Could you follow me go to my home?

                        Chai     : Actually, I want to go to bali tomorrow.

This conversation above is an implicatur utterance that has “no” meaning and it is an answer from the question. 

2.2.4 POLITENESS

Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees (1978 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson).

For example:

1. Excuse me Sir, would you mind to tell me where is the Hospital?
2. Guys, where is the hospital?

In this example above, the first example is said by speaker who has lower social status than the partner, such as the student and the teacher. Otherhand the second example is said to partner who has same status social.

A social interaction will be involved well if it fulfill with qualifictions, one of the qualifications is awareness of politeness.

2.2.5. DEXIS

Dexis is the way how to relate with speaker’s context. There are 3 kinds of dexis:

1.      Dexis of room

Dexis of room related to the location of the speaker and “mitra tutur” that involved in this interaction, For example:

Marry and John is involving in the conversation. Marry takes a cake and she says” This cake is delicious”. “This cake “is refers to Mary’s location. But, John will say it “That cake”. This case is caused by the different of location each person.

2.      Dexis of Personal

Dexis of Persona can be seen in form of pronominal. The forms pronominal consist of pronominal of first speaker, pronominal of second speaker, and pronominal of third speaker. For example:

In Indonesian, we know that form of plural and singular is still used in conversation. Like:

I, you, she, he, we, they. Sometimes, the speaker calls himself/herself by his name/her name.

3.      Dexis of Time

Dexis of time related with time when the speaker’s utterance. There are some differences in every language. There is a lexical utterance with specific word.

2.3. Pragmatic Problem

Pragmatic meaning must to pay intention so that we understand what speaker say. An individual with pragmatic problems may:

• say inappropriate or unrelated things during conversations
• tell stories in a disorganized way
• have little variety in language use

2.4. Pragmatics skills

Pragmatics involves three major communication skills:

• Using language for different purposes, such as
• greeting (e.g., hello, goodbye)
• informing (e.g., I'm going to get a cookie)
• demanding (e.g., Give me a cookie)
• promising (e.g., I'm going to get you a cookie)
• requesting (e.g., I would like a cookie, please)
• Changing language according to the needs of a listener or situation, such as
• talking differently to a baby than to an adult
• giving background information to an unfamiliar listener
• speaking differently in a classroom than on a playground
• Following rules for conversations and storytelling, such as
• taking turns in conversation
• introducing topics of conversation
• staying on topic
• rephrasing when misunderstood
• how to use verbal and nonverbal signals
• how close to stand to someone when speaking

The facts with which pragmatics deals are of various sorts, including:

• Facts about the objective facts of the utterance, including: who the speaker is, when the utterance occurred, and where;
• Facts about the speaker's intentions. On the near side, what language the speaker intends to be using, what meaning he intends to be using, whom he intends to refer to with various shared names, whether a pronoun is used demonstratively or anaphorically, and the like. On the far side, what he intends to achieve by saying what he does.
• Facts about beliefs of the speaker and those to whom he speaks, and the conversation they are engaged in; what beliefs do they share; what is the focus of the conversation, what are they talking about, etc.
• Facts about relevant social institutions, such as promising, marriage ceremonies, courtroom procedures, and the like, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what he does.
•  

CHAPTER 3

3.1. CONCLUSION

1.    Pragmatics is a study of meaning that which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.

2. There are four Concerns of Pragmatic, The function of Speech act, Corporate Principle, implicature, Politeness, and Dexis.

3. There are some pragmatic problems:

• say inappropriate or unrelated things during conversations
• tell stories in a disorganized way
• have little variety in language use

3.2. SUGGESTIONS

There is a lot of problem of pragmatic in social community. So, to avoid those problem :

a.       We have to be able to use language for different purposes and in many situations.

b.      We have to be able to change our language according to the needs of a listener or situation.

c.        We have to be able to follow rules for conversations and storytelling.