QUICK RESOURCE SHEET #50

Pragmatics

PREVIOUS TOPICS LISTED AT BOTTOM OF PAGE

A subfield of linguistics developed in the late 1970s, pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a communicative act or speech act in a concrete speech situation which is usually a conversation (hence *conversation analysis). It distinguishes two intents or meanings in each utterance or communicative act of verbal communication. One is the informative intent or the sentence meaning, and the other the communicative intent or speaker meaning (Leech, 1983; Sperber and Wilson, 1986). The ability to comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred to as pragmatic competence (Kasper, 1997) which often includes one's knowledge about the social distance, social status between the speakers involved, the cultural knowledge such as politeness, and the linguistic knowledge explicit and implicit.

---from http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu/definition.html

http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics.htm

“Teaching Pragmatics is a collection of 30 lessons that can help English learners use socially appropriate language in a variety of informal and formal situations.”

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/semprag.html

“The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is easier to apply than to explain. 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. In my view, 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.”

http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfbxb/class/1900/prag/intro.htm

“Pragmatics is the study of language use in particular situations. This talk about “use” might seem like old hat, after our study of semantics. After all, the rules for “using” a sentence like “It's raining” are pretty simple: you say it when it's raining, and you don't say it when it's not. In other words, you say the sentence in those contexts where it's true, and you don't say it in contexts where it's false. If language use boils down to a matter of truth and falsehood, then it looks like “the study of language use in particular contexts” is just good old semantics. So who need pragmatics?”

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~apling/526/pedagogy/sammi.html

“There are many ways to teach pragmatics. The pedagogical point designed here focuses on using the idea of discourse analysis as an approach to explain pragmatics. The discourse analysis functions as input and reminder to first draw learners’ attention to the information, and anticipate raising learners’ awareness of language function after students turning the input into intake. This activity is intended to make learners notice this aspect of language function and become aware of it through the practice of discourse analysis. There are several aspects selected to be presented in the activity: speaker intent, turn taking, back channel, non-verbal cues, frame shift, and norm of interpretations. These aspects are chosen for specific reasons according to the authentic input situation this activity is based on.”

Previous editions of the QUICK RESOURCE SHEET

#1 – Creating quizzes (and more) online                                                         

#2 – Vocabulary builders

#3 – Online discussion groups for English teachers                                    

#4 – Grammar headaches – and how to cure them

#5 – Resources for new teachers                                                     

#6 – International Education Week

#7 – Mentoring programs                                                                    

#8 – Education publications online

#9 – Applied Linguistics                                                                   

#10 – English for Young Learners

#11 – World AIDS Day                                                                      

#12 – Online writing guides

#13 – E-mail exchanges                                                                      

#14 – Free online English courses

#15 – Effective e-mail communication                                             

#16 – Libraries online

#17 – American Studies                                                                     

#18 – Teaching methodologies

#19 – Internet tutorials                                                                       

#20 – Using the newspaper – Part I

#21 – Making books                                                                           

#22 - Using the newspaper – Part II

#23 – Human rights in language teaching

#24 – Blogging

#25 – Poetry and language teaching

#26 – The communicative approach

#27 -  Idioms

#28 – Earth Day

#29 – Alternative assessment

#30 – Peer assessment

#31 – Self-assessment

#32 – Portfolio assessment – Part I

#33 -  Portfolio assessment - Part II (Online Portfolios)

#34 – Intercultural communication

#35 – Teaching Adults

#36 – Learning disorders / Special needs

#37 – Using computers in reading instruction

#38 – Use of authentic materials

#39 – English for Medical Purposes

#40 – Sources for authentic materials

#41 – Education and technology

#42 – Academic writing

#43 – Teaching and stress

#44 – Back to school

#45 – Motivating students

#46 – Action research

#47 – Internet terminology

#48 – Fluency

#49 – Curriculum design