Semantics and Pragmatics
"Using examples, discuss the ways in which the distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics can be said to be a distinction between knowledge of language and knowledge of the world"
(Topic 2)
an essay - Pragmatics
by Peter Gelleri
Budapest 1994
ELTE BTK
Wolf, Alain
An Introduction to Pragmatics
AN-366/39
17 Dec 1994
In scrutinizing the relationship between Semantincs and Pragmatics, and before actually taking a closer look at whether the distinction between these two relatively new branches of the huge tree called linguistics can be built around the distinction between knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world, it seems plausible to try and define the meaning of the terms upon which our proposition to be discussed rests. For one might argue that knowledge of the world is also indispensable to Semantics, because words and sentences have properties which are typical of signs, i.e. they name or point at certain pieces of reality. The word "table", for instance, has nothing to do with its meaning and different phonetic representations of "table" do not invoke different kind of "tables" in the hearer's mind. Similarly, English "table" and Hungarian "asztal" are two completely different words and have different syntactic features, yet they refer to the same piece of furniture. To be able to understand the sentence:
(1) I think net-surfing is a waste of time.
one must be familiar with computer and communications technology, i.e. have the necessary knowledge of the world. Obviously, it would be a futile attempt to explain the meaning of (1) to someone who does not even know what electricity is. Does this really invalidate our basic proposition? How come we can still say that the distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics can be regarded as the distinction between knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world?
Let us consider the following examples:
(2) Some teachers are executioners.
(3) Some teachers fail many of their students.
From a purely semantic point of view, the above proposition, ie. Semantics also requires knowledge of the world, seem to hold, but how can we account for the fact that (2) may have the meaning expressed in (3), although at a semantic level they cannot be equated with each other. Given that Semantics is concerned with general meaning and does not intend to particularise, i.e. it does not give definitions such as "A means B but may also mean C and D and E and ...", it is Pragmatics that involves other phenomena to, as it were, compute out particularised meaning which may differ, or may as well be just the opposite, of the meaning upon which semantics focuses (cf. Grice's natural and non-natural meaning [meaning nn]). In this sense, Pragmatics can be viewed as being an extension of Semantics (cf. Sperber and Wilson p.34-38). Obviously, for one to be capable of interpreting (2) as identical to (3), one should have more knowledge of the world (eg. be familiar with what executioners do and how this relates to failing students, etc.) than only know what the word "executioner" denotes. None of the existing thesauruses will give us the definition "one who fails many of one's students" for the word "executioner". Since general meaning (or to use the Gricean terminus technicus, natural meaning) is more tightly linked with words and sentences, therefore we may say that the distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics can be said to be a distinction between knowledge of language and knowledge of the world.
In trying to support further evidence for this proposition, let us take the following example:
(4) Thank you very much.
Every English speaker knows that (4) is used to express gratitude or to accept an offer. In some cases, however, (4) may have other implications. When said with a certain intonation, (4) can express just the opposite of what is traditionally (semantically) attached to it. In the next exchange "Thank you" is obviously not an expression of gratitude but it means "I did not expect you to be so rude or impolite":
(5)
Teacher: Your pragmatics essay is poor and I'm afraid I'll
have to fail you this term. [pause] And personally,
I think you'll never be able to pass.
Student: Oh, thank you, sir!
But (4) can also have the meaning "we're finished", serving as a polite sign to indicate the end of a conversation or a request to leave as in (6):
(6)
Host: Well, thank you very much indeed for coming.
Guest: [remains seated] That's OK.
Host: Er....well, thank you, Mr Tanganika.
Guest: [still seated] Oh, not at all!
Apparently, there is some kind of misunderstanding in (6), although both the host and Mr Tanganika have an extensive knowledge of the language. Whatever the problem with (6), a mere semantic analysis does not seem to suffice to provide an explanation. Trying to dig out particular meaning (implicatures), we shall have to go beyond the limits of Semantics and utilise the means of Pragmatics, taking into account other components such as the situation, context, culture etc. In other words, besides knowledge of the language, we need turn to our knowledge of the world to avoid misinterpretation. This is especially true of our next example:
(7)
[Suppose that police officers are never bribed in country A but they frequently are in country B. The following exchange takes place in A. The tourist is from B. English is spoken in both countries.]
Police: I'm afraid I'll have to fine you, sir.
Tourist: Look, I'm just a tourist and haven't got much
money and did not even know...
Police: Well...you know, police officers can hardly make
ends meet here.
In spite of the fact that the two participants in (7) share the same knowledge of the language, still the tourist is likely to fail to interpret the policeman's response as a a request for bribe, for their knowledge of the world differs. (They come from two different countries) Since the police officer does not want to use the word "bribe" or express it overtly, he builds all his hopes and expectations to be understood on a sort of knowledge semantically not reflected in language (ie. what we called as knowledge of the world). It is no wonder that a semantic analysis of (7) cannot reveal the implicature which, on the other hand, may be captured through an examination of the pragmatic content.
Yet another piece of evidence in support of our basic proposition is presented in the following examples, (8), (9), and (10), (9) and (10) being alternative reports on what has been said in (8) by the minister.
(8)
Reporter: Are you really going to resign?
Minister: I have no comment on that.
(9) The minister could not say anything about his possible
resignation.
(10) The minister did not want to say anything about his
possible resignation.
The question is how we can interpret appropriately what the minister says in (8). If we do not take other factors into consideration, ie. we rely on nothing but our knowledge of the language, (9) seems an appropriate report, interpreting the minister's sentence as "I have nothing to say about that". Nevertheless, within the range of Semantics we cannot really account for (10), so we need go beyond the boundaries of Semantics and include knowledge other than that of the language. Most important of all, we need know that people do not always mean exactly what they say and this is especially true of politicians. In addition, we are expected to be aware of the fact that nobody likes to talk about their resignation in advance. Whether the minister in (8) was in a hurry desperately trying to get out of the pushing crowd of reporters or he was sitting in a comfortable armchair may also help with the interpretation, and so on.
To conclude, we may posit that Semantics and Pragmatics require knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world, respectively. This does not mean, however, that Pragmatics and Semantics are completely separable from each other. What is more, Pragmatics could not manage without Semantics. The relationship between the two branches of linguistics is similar to the complex one which connects language and the world, the discussion of which would exceed the limits of the present essay and lead to the dangerous realm of philosophy.
Bibliographical Notes
Levinson Pragmatics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Seminar Handouts presented by Alain Wolf (AN-366/39)
(Topic 2)
an essay - Pragmatics
by Peter Gelleri
Budapest 1994
ELTE BTK
Wolf, Alain
An Introduction to Pragmatics
AN-366/39
17 Dec 1994
In scrutinizing the relationship between Semantincs and Pragmatics, and before actually taking a closer look at whether the distinction between these two relatively new branches of the huge tree called linguistics can be built around the distinction between knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world, it seems plausible to try and define the meaning of the terms upon which our proposition to be discussed rests. For one might argue that knowledge of the world is also indispensable to Semantics, because words and sentences have properties which are typical of signs, i.e. they name or point at certain pieces of reality. The word "table", for instance, has nothing to do with its meaning and different phonetic representations of "table" do not invoke different kind of "tables" in the hearer's mind. Similarly, English "table" and Hungarian "asztal" are two completely different words and have different syntactic features, yet they refer to the same piece of furniture. To be able to understand the sentence:
(1) I think net-surfing is a waste of time.
one must be familiar with computer and communications technology, i.e. have the necessary knowledge of the world. Obviously, it would be a futile attempt to explain the meaning of (1) to someone who does not even know what electricity is. Does this really invalidate our basic proposition? How come we can still say that the distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics can be regarded as the distinction between knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world?
Let us consider the following examples:
(2) Some teachers are executioners.
(3) Some teachers fail many of their students.
From a purely semantic point of view, the above proposition, ie. Semantics also requires knowledge of the world, seem to hold, but how can we account for the fact that (2) may have the meaning expressed in (3), although at a semantic level they cannot be equated with each other. Given that Semantics is concerned with general meaning and does not intend to particularise, i.e. it does not give definitions such as "A means B but may also mean C and D and E and ...", it is Pragmatics that involves other phenomena to, as it were, compute out particularised meaning which may differ, or may as well be just the opposite, of the meaning upon which semantics focuses (cf. Grice's natural and non-natural meaning [meaning nn]). In this sense, Pragmatics can be viewed as being an extension of Semantics (cf. Sperber and Wilson p.34-38). Obviously, for one to be capable of interpreting (2) as identical to (3), one should have more knowledge of the world (eg. be familiar with what executioners do and how this relates to failing students, etc.) than only know what the word "executioner" denotes. None of the existing thesauruses will give us the definition "one who fails many of one's students" for the word "executioner". Since general meaning (or to use the Gricean terminus technicus, natural meaning) is more tightly linked with words and sentences, therefore we may say that the distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics can be said to be a distinction between knowledge of language and knowledge of the world.
In trying to support further evidence for this proposition, let us take the following example:
(4) Thank you very much.
Every English speaker knows that (4) is used to express gratitude or to accept an offer. In some cases, however, (4) may have other implications. When said with a certain intonation, (4) can express just the opposite of what is traditionally (semantically) attached to it. In the next exchange "Thank you" is obviously not an expression of gratitude but it means "I did not expect you to be so rude or impolite":
(5)
Teacher: Your pragmatics essay is poor and I'm afraid I'll
have to fail you this term. [pause] And personally,
I think you'll never be able to pass.
Student: Oh, thank you, sir!
But (4) can also have the meaning "we're finished", serving as a polite sign to indicate the end of a conversation or a request to leave as in (6):
(6)
Host: Well, thank you very much indeed for coming.
Guest: [remains seated] That's OK.
Host: Er....well, thank you, Mr Tanganika.
Guest: [still seated] Oh, not at all!
Apparently, there is some kind of misunderstanding in (6), although both the host and Mr Tanganika have an extensive knowledge of the language. Whatever the problem with (6), a mere semantic analysis does not seem to suffice to provide an explanation. Trying to dig out particular meaning (implicatures), we shall have to go beyond the limits of Semantics and utilise the means of Pragmatics, taking into account other components such as the situation, context, culture etc. In other words, besides knowledge of the language, we need turn to our knowledge of the world to avoid misinterpretation. This is especially true of our next example:
(7)
[Suppose that police officers are never bribed in country A but they frequently are in country B. The following exchange takes place in A. The tourist is from B. English is spoken in both countries.]
Police: I'm afraid I'll have to fine you, sir.
Tourist: Look, I'm just a tourist and haven't got much
money and did not even know...
Police: Well...you know, police officers can hardly make
ends meet here.
In spite of the fact that the two participants in (7) share the same knowledge of the language, still the tourist is likely to fail to interpret the policeman's response as a a request for bribe, for their knowledge of the world differs. (They come from two different countries) Since the police officer does not want to use the word "bribe" or express it overtly, he builds all his hopes and expectations to be understood on a sort of knowledge semantically not reflected in language (ie. what we called as knowledge of the world). It is no wonder that a semantic analysis of (7) cannot reveal the implicature which, on the other hand, may be captured through an examination of the pragmatic content.
Yet another piece of evidence in support of our basic proposition is presented in the following examples, (8), (9), and (10), (9) and (10) being alternative reports on what has been said in (8) by the minister.
(8)
Reporter: Are you really going to resign?
Minister: I have no comment on that.
(9) The minister could not say anything about his possible
resignation.
(10) The minister did not want to say anything about his
possible resignation.
The question is how we can interpret appropriately what the minister says in (8). If we do not take other factors into consideration, ie. we rely on nothing but our knowledge of the language, (9) seems an appropriate report, interpreting the minister's sentence as "I have nothing to say about that". Nevertheless, within the range of Semantics we cannot really account for (10), so we need go beyond the boundaries of Semantics and include knowledge other than that of the language. Most important of all, we need know that people do not always mean exactly what they say and this is especially true of politicians. In addition, we are expected to be aware of the fact that nobody likes to talk about their resignation in advance. Whether the minister in (8) was in a hurry desperately trying to get out of the pushing crowd of reporters or he was sitting in a comfortable armchair may also help with the interpretation, and so on.
To conclude, we may posit that Semantics and Pragmatics require knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world, respectively. This does not mean, however, that Pragmatics and Semantics are completely separable from each other. What is more, Pragmatics could not manage without Semantics. The relationship between the two branches of linguistics is similar to the complex one which connects language and the world, the discussion of which would exceed the limits of the present essay and lead to the dangerous realm of philosophy.
Bibliographical Notes
Levinson Pragmatics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Seminar Handouts presented by Alain Wolf (AN-366/39)