Intercultural Communication
Unit 1 / Week 10
Pragmatics
• Pragmatics is concerned with the notion
of implicature, i.e. implied meaning as
opposed to the mere lexical meaning
expressed (Grice, 1968)
Pragmatics: Example 1
Two women discussing their children:
A: How is Tom going at school?
B: Ah, well ... you know what they say: boys will be
boys.
A: Yeah, but girls are no easier ... you know what
Jess did the other day? ...
(Adapted from Wierzbicka 1991, p. 391)
Pragmatics: Example 2
On being disturbed by the next-door
neighbour's lawnmower early on Sunday
morning:
A: Great way to wake up!
B: (grumpily) Sure is.
Pragmatics: Example 3
"My friends were poor, but honest.“
• 'but' carries the implicature that what follows runs
counter to expectations.
• The 'expectation' is that "poor people are dishonest".
Culture-specific Pragmatic Features
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mental sets
schemata
scripts
speech events
sociocultural norms
linguistic etiquette
pragmatic accent
Inter-cultural Pragmatic Failure
• "Pragmatic errors are the result of an
interactant imposing the social rules of one
culture on his communicative behaviour in a
situation where the social rules of another
culture would be more appropriate" (Riley
1989: 234).
Cross Cultural
Pragmatics
Example: Telephone conversations in
Greek and German (Pavlidou 2000)
(Telephone rings)
Soula
{in Greek} [Ne?]
$Yes?$
Elena
{in Greek} [Ne?]
$Yes?$
{the rest of the conversation is in German}
Bärbel
Ja, hier is Barbara. Kann ich bitte den Wolfgang sprechen?
$Yes, this is Barbara speaking. Can I talk to Wolfgang please?$
Soula
{short hesitation, because of uncertainty as to which Barbara it is - we usually use the
diminutive 'Bärbel' for this relative - and then a bit annoyed that she passes over Elena
and me}
Ja, Bärbel, aber du kannst erst mal Elena und mir Guten Tag [sagen.]
$Yes, Bärbel, but you can say hello to Elena and me first.$
Elena
[{hangs up}]
Bärbel
Ja, natürlich. Ich habe erst mal gar nix verstanden [. . .]
$Yes, of course. I did not understand a thing in the beginning [. . .]$
{although Bärbel does not speak Greek, she had hoped to at least understand the
name, which she expected to hear in the very first answering turn.}
Regions of the UK
Bibliography
Grice, H.P. (1968). “Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence Meaning, and
Word Meaning,” Foundations of Language, 4. pp. 225-242.
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula (2008) “Interactional Work in Greek
and German Telephone Conversations” in H. Spencer-Oatey
ed., Culturally Speaking, London: Continuum. pp.118-135.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics
of Human Interaction. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.