Notes on Pragmatics
GXNU Graduate Program in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics
Edited by Shaozhong Liu
Vol. 1
Issue No. 2005(2)
Address: College of Foreign Studies, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, 541004, China
Website: http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/cofs; Email: szliu@mailbox.gxnu.edu.cn
 From the Editor…………………………………………………………………………………...2
 Some issues in pragmatics
Chen Huai……………………………………………………………………………………………………..2
He Ning…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2
Jing Andian…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…..3
Lai Tao…………………………………………………………………………………………………….….4
Liao Jinchao……………………………………………………………………………………………….….4
Liu Bin…………………………………………………………………………………………………….…..5
Liu Taomei……………………………………………………………………………………………….……6
Liu Tingting…………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Meng Jieqin…………………………………………………………………….…………………………….8
Ou Lianfen……………………………………………………………………………………………………8
Song Yuge…………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
Sun Yan……………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
Tang Wensheng……………………………………………………………………………………………….10
Tang Xia……………………………………………………………………………………………………...11
Wang Kaiwen………………………………………………………………………………………………...11
Wang Liyuan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12
Wang Wenbo………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Wei Yunhui……………………………………………………………………………………………………13
Xu Hui………………………………………………………………………………………………………..13
Xu Zhaojuan………………………………………………………………………………………………….14
Zhou Yanqiong……………………………………………………………………………………………….15
Zhou Yuping………………………………………………………………………………………………….15
From the Editor
Issue 2, 2005, is based on the students’ understanding summaries of Chapter 2, of Jacob
Mey’s (2003) Pragmatics: An Introduction (pp.19-36). It tries to outline the scope of
pragmatics. Subtitles in Chapter 2 includes:
2.1 The pragmatic waste-basket………………………………………………………………19
2.2 Linguists without borders…………………………………………………………………21
2.3 Philosophers, ordinary people and ordinary language…………………………………….23
2.4 Of cats and ducks………………………………………………………………………….25
2.5 Linguistics and reality: Presupposition……………………………………………………27
2.6 A world of users……………………………………………………………………………29
Please enjoy.
Liu, SZ, at UNCG
Some issues in pragmatics
Chen Huai
(jesschenh@yahoo.com.cn; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:54:25 +0800 (CST))
To many philosophers and logicians, pragmatics is regarded as the ‘waste-basket’ of linguistics. When they
try to explain language by means of ‘science’, which they consider logically, they are intended to idealize the way
and the process of people talking. Pragmatics, as a result, is far from the notion of waste-basket. The truth is
that it is not the abstract form of a sentence itself weights most, but the use of language and the users. It cannot
be meaningful without taking into our daily life and daily language, like the fish cannot alive without water. So
the concrete context seems to be the foundation of pragmatics.
In order to find against those traditional thinking towards pragmatics, there are conflicts on the development
of modern pragmatics, as the British pragmatician Geoffrey Leech put it “a process of colonization”, which can
indicate the wave-by-wave expansion of linguistics. However, not everybody agree to the so-called nature of this
conflict. The word of Lyons may give us some hints:
“However abstract, or formal, modern linguistic theory might be, it has been developed to account for the
way people actually use language.”
(Lyons, cited from Mey, 2001:22)
Still, some philosophers maintain that language has to obey the laws of logic—— “if logic is the ‘handmaid
of philosophy’, then language certainly is the handmaid of logic.” Does everybody always consider the laws of
logic first, before they carry through their conversation? Is it the case that the laws of logic govern the flow of
our communication? (i.e., logic is prior to language). If so, I’m afraid that people may talk about nonsense,
since language is dynamic, concrete while logic turn out to be more abstract. Furthermore, their overlapping
seems too small. Logic does not prove to give us a satisfied answer to language use. We’d better turn back to
our ordinary life and ordinary language, in a word, to the real environment of language. A sentence may seem to
be confused in isolated way, and background information solves lots of problem. As we may notice that
sentences become vivid in certain context.
An important notion which Mey mentions in this chapter, is presupposition. It is believed as the aspects of
meaning that must be pre-supposed, understood, taken for granted for an utterance to make sense. Here, Mey
illustrates what presuppositions are considered in several sentences. For presupposition rests on the user context,
they are pragmatic, instead of semantic. Then, the study of language users should reemphasize in the pragmatic
research.
(To the top)
He Ning
(elvahening@eyou.com; 1 Apr 2005 15:20:18 +0800)
In chapter 2, Mey mainly tells us that how pragmatics developed from the “waste-basket of semantics” into
an independent and important domain of the linguistic research.
2
Firstly, Mey generally explained why pragmatics was called the “waste-basket of semantics”. At the
beginning, the semantics was called the “waste-basket of syntax”. In the late fifties and early sixties, linguists tried
to make linguistics a science. Thus they applied many mathematical methods to the linguistic study. Linguistics
was ideally considered as an algebra of language. In the mid-fifties, Chomsky developed his famous theory of
generative-transformational grammar. Although he knew the domain of his research is somewhat limited, he
concentrated his attention on grammar and pay no attention to the study of meaning. In this way, semantics came
to be called the “waste-basket of syntax”. In the early seventies, some linguists began to try to turn the study of
meaning into the foundation of the linguistic study instead of syntax. Semantics mainly concerns about the
conditions under which a sentence could be true or false. In the semantic research, linguists found that many
language phenomena could be explained by semantic theory, but these phenomena didn’t attract much attention at
that time. All their unsolved questions were thrown into a new basket, pragmatic basket. Some natural language
does make sense, but we can’t prove it to be true. These problems kept bothering the linguists, but were left to be
unnoticed. Later these unsolved questions became the main items of the pragmatic study. In this sense, pragmatics
became the waste basket of semantics.
Secondly, Mey introduced in detail the traditional methods and theories of linguistics and the questions
remained to be solved. “In the Chomskyan linguistic tradition, well-formedness plays the role of the
decision-maker in questions of linguistic ‘belonging’: a language consists of a set of well-formed sentences, and it
is these that ‘belong’ in the language; no others do.”(Chapter2 P25) In 1968, Lakoff published an article, entitled
“Presupposition and relative well-formedness”. Lakoff , for the first time, publicly rejects in writing the
formal-logic criterion of syntactic “well-formedness”. Chomsky considers this criterion as the ultimate standard to
judge a linguistic production. However, what we perceive as correct in the real communication often collides with
the correctness as prescribed by some grammarians. For example, according to English grammar we should us who
when we are dealing with a noun which is human (and naturally animate), whereas we use which for a
noun-human (possibly also non-animate) referent. (Chapter2 P25) But sometimes we don’t obey the rule in the
ordinary language. For example, we usually use who to refer to our motherland or our pet. If not, it would be
unacceptable.
The semantics and pragmatics may be somewhat alike in terms of the subject of the research. Both of them
deal with the meaning, but what the semantists only concern about is whether the sentence is true or false. Then
some problems arise. Some sentences don’t have true value, but it does make sense in the natural language in a
certain situation. Some sentences have the same ‘true conditions’(that’s to say they are logically equivalent), but
these sentences clearly don’t have the same meaning. Some semantists noticed these problems, but they just left
them unsolved. Only when we take the language user and the context into consideration, can we find the answers
to these questions. Later, these unsolved questions became the main issues of the pragmatic study.
What is of my special interest is the relationship between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Semantics was
once regarded as the waster-basket of syntax, while pragmatics was once called the waster-basket of semantics.
From syntax to pragmatics, the domain of the linguistic research is enlarged step by step and the study becomes
more and more practical. In fact, syntax is the foundation of syntax, and pragmatics is based on the research of
syntax and semantics. And linguistics gradually develops into a versatile subject covering almost every aspect of
knowledge concerning language. (To the top)
Jing Andian
(robertbai2003@163.com; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:47:01 +0800 (CST))
Chapter 2 is still basically about the research scope of pragmatics in the whole system of language. In this
chapter, the author defines the problem of research scope of pragmatics step by step by the means of contrasting
pragmatics with syntax and semantics in the respect of form, meaning and language use. Meanwhile, he discusses
the relationship of language with logic and context. From the discussion, it seems he is intended to inform us
pragmatics aims at studying how the language user to use and interpret it under the condition of social context.
Specifically, there are 4 problems addressed in this chapter. First, he continues to discuss the status of
pragmatics in the language in its early stage of development. When pragmatics shows its appearance, as a
scientific branch of linguistics, in the linguistic study, it is called the waste-basket of linguistics by the linguists
from other branches of linguistics from the view of its study scopes, since pragmatics takes the problems which
syntax and semantics are unable to deal with by their own theories as its study focuses, just like a waste picker.
From this point of view, we could predict that one day there might be something called ‘waste-basket of
pragmatics’ if pragmatics could not solve all the problems left by syntax and semantics. Fairly speaking, all the
branches of linguistics are just tentative approaches attempting to deal with the problems in language. Second, the
author discusses the borderlines of different branches of linguistics in the language study. He argues that there in
3
not real border between the different linguistic branches. In fact, all the branches are to some extent accessible to
each other. It could be easier to solve the problems in language if they work jointly. Third, he discusses the
relationship between language and logic. In his opinion, the language or its use has little, if not nothing, to do with
logic. He clarifies this point with the help of the example of ‘getting married’ and ‘having a child’. But it seems he
confuses us by his following discussion of presupposition. In my opinion, the presupposition is built up with the
help of implying and inferring, even though he adds CP to it, whereas implying and inferring belong to the
category of logic. Forth, he emphasizes again the importance of context in the process of interpreting the language
in actual use. From his discussion, we may conclude that context –‘the linguistic version of the human condition’ –
is the most important factor while interpreting the language use.
What is of especial interest to us is that pragmatics seems to be human-oriented or human-centered from his
discussion of extralinguistic factors and context. If this is the case, pragmatics is comprehensive linguistic study of
language. (To the top)
Lai Tao
(byyourside@sina.com; Sat, 23 Apr 2005 21:52:43 +0800)
This chapter is basically about what on earth pragmatics is and its impact on the traditional linguistics.
First, the author deals with the long-existing comment on pragmatics, i.e. pragmatics is often called
“waste-basket of linguistics”. Despite its negative connotation, this way of saying acquired a certain status,
especially in the early years of pragmatics. The reason? More and more unresolved questions by linguists were
dropped away. Something must be done to solve them. Then, “pragmatic basket” came into being, catching the
overflow of the “semantic basket”. Pragmaticians take little interest in the truth value of a sentence, but rests on the
cooperation between language users. However, pragmatics has to deal with the “crawling worms” in their basket.
Second, “colonization” was once used to describe the development of modern pragmatics by Geoffrey Leech,
which consists of two elements: (1) conflicts back home; (2) “internal conflict”. The author points out that it was
not the linguists but the philosophers whose reflections on the language had a significant and lasting impact on the
development of modern linguistics, especially pragmatics.
Third, “ordinary language philosophy” puts strong emphasis on the way people use their language, however,
logic and language do not travel too well together, and the amount of ground they cover between them is rather
small. (2.3: 23)
Fourth, pragmatics also brings great impact on the “well-formedness” imposed by Chomsky. What we
perceive as correct often collides with correctness as prescribed by some grammarians. Actually, “ extra linguistic
factors” often enter in judgments of “well-formedness”. Then, the author moves on to explain the factors, which
include context and language users. The importance of these two factors is also recognized by other people or
linguists, which proves the primary status of the factors.
Liao Jinchao
(samliao1@163.com; Wed, 23 Mar 2005 23:31:58 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about some issues in pragmatics and the author provides his opinions about these
issues too. These issues include:
First, the pragmatic wastebasket. In this section, the author tells the development of linguistics from Noam
Chomsky’s generative-transformational grammar to semantics and then to pragmatics;
Second, language and logics. In this section, we can find the author’s opinions about language and logics as
well as the different perspectives of philosophers and ordinary people on language;
Third, presuppositions. Sometimes, a sentence cannot be understood without pragmatic presupposition and
the author thinks that presuppositions are not semantic but pragmatic.
Fourth, users and contexts. Our understanding of utterances depends crucially on the worlds in which the
language users live by. Mey thinks “Pragmatics specifies …context as one in which the users are of paramount
interest. (Mey, Pragmatics: An Introduction 2001: p 30)
What is of special interest to us is that pragmatic focus more on context and language users than other
linguistic researches. Language is used by ordinary people. Language is not only an abstract system but a common
human communicative tools of ordinary people. The interest in the users of language is among the main factors
that have made pragmatics possible (Mey, 2001:p29).
1. The development of pragmatics
Geoffrey Leech regarded the development of modern pragmatics as a process of colonization. But in Mey’s
4
opinion, the opposition between pragmatics and its counterpart linguistic researches is only the opposition between
a practical and a theoretical approach to the study of language, between the theoretical and the applied linguists.
In the mid-fifties, Noam Chomsky developed his generative-transformational grammar in which he made
syntax into the main component of the grammar. And in his theory, sentences can be described perfectly well on
the syntactic level without ever having to mean anything (Mey, Pragmatics: An Introduction 2001: p.20)
As for semantics, it mainly concerns the conditions under which a sentence could be true or false.
When semantic developed to a certain stage, pragmatics comes to help explain what semantics cannot explain.
In a pragmatician’s eyes, the truth-value of a sentence is of little interest for people rarely utter something in order
to be proven true of false.
2. Logic and language
In many philosophers’ eyes “language is the handmaid of logic”(Mey, 2001:p23) and our everyday language
is a variant of the pure language of logic. In Chomskian theory, language can be formally explained by
mathematical rules.
But Mey thinks that logic is in essence an abstraction from language and should never be made its dominant
perspective.
3. Presuppositions
Presupposition is not only of semantic or logical essence but a pragmatic one too. Sometimes neither a purely
logical account nor an exclusively semantic account will be satisfactory in the explanation of a sentence. Mey
thinks, “Since presuppositions rest entirely on the user context, they are pragmatic rather than semantic.” (Mey,
2001:p29)
4. Users and contexts
The interest in the users of language is among the main factors that have made pragmatics possible. Our
understanding of utterances crucially depends on the worlds in which their speakers live. As for context,
pragmatics specifies context as one in which the users are of paramount interest. (To the top)
LIU Bin
(liubin54100101@sina.com; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 11:12:12 +0800)
In this chapter, the writer talks about several issues in pragmatics. In the first section, he tells readers that
though pragmatics is often called the “waste-basket of linguistics”, it is useless. In fact, we are in urgent need of
pragmatics because many questions cannot be solved without pragmatics. Linguistics was ideally conceived of
as”algebra” of language. However, when we try to apply formal methods to our daily life we realize that life is
more than a mathematical abstraction. There are a large number of phenomena which syntax and semantics are
unable to explain. For this reason, pragmatics is an indispensable part of linguistics.
The second section begins with Geoffrey Leech’s comparison between the development of modern
pragmatics and a process of colonization. Pragmatics came into being in the opposition between a theoretical and a
practical approach to the study of language, between the “theoretical” and the “applied” linguistics.
In the third section, the writer discusses the relationship between logic and language. Many people used to
consider that language is a matter of logic and a correct use of language presupposes the use of logic. Contrary to
this, Austin’s opinion is that people communicate by means of language, not necessarily defined as the ensemble of
correct sentences or logically valid propositions. So logic is in essence an abstraction from language and should
never be made into its dominant perspective.
The fourth section talks about some ideas of George Lakoff’ which are opposite to Chomskyan linguistic
traditions. In Chomsky’s opinion, a language consists of a set of well-formed sentences, and it is these that
“belong” in the language. However, what we perceive as correct often collides with correctness as prescribed by
some grammarians.
In the fifth section, the author briefly talks about “presupposition”. Many linguists used to believe that
meaning is something that should be dealt with outside of linguistics. The very term “extralinguistic” carried with
it the connotation of “unscientific”, and suggested that the linguist relying on outside information somehow was
cheating on method. However, the very idea of “extralinguistic” is suspect. The meaning of a sentence often
depends on the context where the sentence appears. Presupposition plays an important role in language users’
understanding of sentences’ meaning. When language users perceive a sentence they not only form an idea of the
sentence itself but also suppose that something else accompany it. Sometimes a Presupposition may be true but it
also happens that it might be contrary to the truth.
In the sixth section, the author discusses the importance of context and language users in linguistic research.
Now we have realized that language is not an abstract system and the renewed interest in the users of language has
made pragmatics popular. But we still need to ask such a question: how can we explain this interest, and where did
5
it come from? Since users and their language are at the core of all things pragmatic, the “world of users”is the very
condition for doing any pragmatics. The meaning of utterances often depends on the worlds where their speakers
live. If a listener of a sentence knows little about the society where the speaker lives, he may misunderstand the
meaning of it. Listeners of different culture might understand the same sentence differently. (To the top)
Liu Taomei
(ltaomei@126.com; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:14:02 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about what is pragmatics and what role it plays in the research of linguistics. There
are 5 things addressed in the reading:
The origin of the notion ‘waste-basket’ which linguistics often call pragmatics; the development of modern
pragmatics; the relationship between logic and language; some problems in syntax and some extralinguistic
factors ,such as presupposition and the users of a language.
First, Mey elaborates the origin of the notion ‘waste-basket’ which linguistics often call pragmatics.
According to Mey, ‘waste-basket’ does not mean uselessness, but implies that it can explain the problems that
other fields of linguistics cannot explain.
Secondly, Mey illustrates the development of modern pragmatics. Geoffery Leech once compared the
development of modern pragmatics to a process of colonization. One of the conflicts which drive the linguists to
explore is the opposition between a theoretical and a practical approach to the study of language. Another more
‘internal’ conflict is the opposition of the idea that all of linguistic science (inclusive phonology and semantics) fit
into the syntactic framework. Lakeoff proposed an alternative framework, ‘generative semantics’ in the late sixties.
And the publication of J.R. Searle’s work Speech Acts encourages Chomsky’s rebellious students to make the first
inroads into the pragmatic territory.
Thirdly, Mey discusses the relationship between logic and language. For many philosophers and ordinary
people, logic is prior to language. In contrast to this view, the linguists put strong emphasis on the way people use
their language. The most famous representative is John.L. Austin, the ‘father of speech act theory’. The title of his
book How to do things with words contains an implicit question, the answer to which is that people communicate
by means of language, not necessarily defined as the ensemble of correct sentences or logically valid propositions.
Many of the early discussions on the foundation of pragmatics have been on the possibility and desirability of
letting pragmatic conditions govern the correct use of logical propositions. Unfortunately, logic and language do
not travel too well together. Mey proves it by two examples and makes a conclusion that ‘ logic is in essence an
abstraction from language and should never be made into its dominant perspective, this holds in matters of both
syntax and semantics.’(Jacob L.Mey, 2001:24)
Fourthly, Mey talks about some problems in syntax that arise from the use of the logic-inspired rewrite rules
that were devised by Chomsky and his school. In the Chomskyan linguistic tradition, a language consists of set of
well formed sentences, and it is these that ‘belong’ in the language, no others do. However, what perceive as
correct often collides with correctness as prescribed by some grammarians. In 1968, George Lakeoff published an
article, entitled ‘Presupposition and relative well-formedness’. In the article, Lakeoff for the first time, publicly
and in writing, rejects the formal-logic criterion of syntactic ‘well-formedness’, imposed by Chomsky as the
ultimate standard by which to judge a linguistic production. Lakeoff remarks ‘extralinguistic factors very often
enter in judgments of ‘well-formedness’. It is precisely those ‘extralinguistic factors’ that open the door for
apparently ungrammatical behavior.
Fifthly, some extralinguistic factors ,such as presupposition and the users of a language , are discussed
individually in the last part of this chapter. Many linguists used to believe that meaning is something that should
be dealt with outside of linguistics. According to some linguists, the “survival’ property of a presupposition is built
into the very semantics of a particular lexical item, a word. For others, presuppositions are inextricably tied to a
particular lexical item. However, most cases are not such clear-cut instances of semantic or logic presupposition.
Most of the time, neither a purely logic account, based solely on the truth or falsity of sentences in isolation, nor
an exclusively semantic account, based on the value of individual lexical items, will be satisfactory; we must
appeal to a pragmatic explanation, based on the particular context of a particular mutterer. Since presupposition
rest entirely on the user context, they are pragmatic, rather than semantic. Moreover, since all interaction is
impossible without the presence of ‘interactants”, the ultimate ‘real-world’ presupposition is the pragmatic
‘actant’, the language user.
As to the question why linguists become interest in the users of language. There are several reasons for that.
Since users and their language are at the core of all things. Pragmatic, the ‘world of users’ is the very condition for
doing any pragmatics: a truly existential condition. All these phenomena(along with many others, sometimes
called ‘extralinguistic’ can be brought together under the umbrella of context, basically the linguistic version of the
6
‘human condition’. (To the top)
Liu Tingting
(hetao1126@sina.com; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:41:30 +0800)
This chapter is basically about some issues associated with pragmatics, including some concerns on
philosophy as well as on linguistics. In this way, the author intents to give us a further explanation for pragmatics
and the scientific quality in the study of pragmatics.
There are six things in the reading: the pragmatics waste-basket; linguists without borders; philosophers,
ordinary people and ordinary language; of cats and ducks; linguistics and reality: presupposition; a world of users.
First, the pragmatic waste-basket. Pragmatics is often called the “waste basket ”of linguistics, for it tend to
solve some linguistic problems that other blanches of linguistics cannot deal with. In the early stages of in study on
linguistic, linguistics was ideally conceived of as an “algebra” of language. However, we people try to apply the
mathematical methods to daily life, they realize that life is more than a mathematical abstraction and the language
used by ordinary people in daily life is quite flexible, which is not always obey some strict rule. For example, from
a syntactic point of view, some sentences are perfectly correct, however, are strictly meaningless. Since syntax has
nothing to do with meaning, such problems are left to the semantics, which deals with meaning. In this way,
semantics came to be called the “waste basket ”of syntax. As long as semantics remained an abstract science
whose man concern was the conditions under which sentence could be true or false, it was unable to explain
certain phenomena that transcended those conditions. For instance, how to explain that certain pars of a sentence
remain true, regardless of whether the entire sentence is true or false? Such considerations led pragmaticians to the
conviction that there wee more things happening between people than were dreamt of by the philosophers. As time
went by, the linguists dropped more and more of their unresolved questions into the new, pragmatic basket. The
pragmatic waste-basket is more like a can of worms: the problem that in the basket contains tend to spill over into
all the domains of linguistic thinking.
Second, linguists without borders. In this part, the author mentions some conflicts lie in the field of liguistic
study. The British pragmatician Geoffrey Leech has compared the development of modern pragmatics to a process
of colonization, by which some brave settlers tried to expand their horizons by venturing into hitherto uncharted
territory. In this colonization, there are many conflicts. Such as, the conflict between a theoretical and practical
approach to the study of language, between the “theoretical” and the “applied ” linguists. And another more
internal conflict originated in the “syntacicism”of the Chomskyan school of linguists, whereby all of linguistic
science was supposed to fit into the syntactic framework.
Third, philosophers, ordinary people and ordinary language. This part is basically about the relationship of
language and logic. Traditionally, philosophers busying themselves with problems of language have concentrated
on the relationships between logically defined expressions, and sentences in natural language. As to ordinary
people discussing problems of language, language is a matter of logic. For many philosophers and lay people alike,
logic is thus prior to language. In contrast to this view, ordinary language philosophy puts strong emphasis on the
way people use their language. In the book How To Do Thing With Words, John L. Austin mentions that people
communicate by means of language, not necessarily defined as the ensemble of correct sentences or logically valid
propositions. And many of the early discussions on the foundation of pragmatics have been on the possibility and
desirability of letting pragmatics conditions govern the correct use of logical proposition. But logic and language
do not travel too well together, and the amount of ground cover between them is rather small. The language is a
matter of logic to mean; a correct use of language presupposes the use of logic.
Forth, of cats and ducks. In this part, the author discusses the ambiguity that the syntax system meets with in
the language use of daily life. In the Chomskyan linguistic tradition, well-formedness plays the role of the
decision-maker in questions of linguistic “belonging”: a language consist of a set of well-formed sentences, and it
is these that “belong” in the language; no others do. However, Chomskyan system has come most often under
attack from the quarters of “OWLs”, and makes least sense if we for a moment consider what it is that people
really say, and how they judge well-formedness in relation to their own language’s correctness. In our daily life,
there are general cases, in which extralinguistic factors very often enter in judgments of well-formedness as Lakolf
remarks (G. Lakoff, 1971b: 330) It is precisely those extralinguistuc factors that open the door for apparently
ungrammatical behavior.
Fifth, linguistics and reality: presupposition. This part is basically concerned on the problem of
“real ”meaning of the sentence in daily life. To a pragmatician, the very idea of “exralinguistic” meaning, s if
belonging to another, forbidden “real” world, is suspect. In conversion, utterances often contain some underlying
elements, which remain constant. Such an element is often called a presupposition. And according to some
linguists the “survival” property of a presupposition is built into the very semantics of a particular lexical item, a
7
word. For others, presuppositions are inextricably tied to a particular lexical item. However, most cases are not
clear- cut instances of semantic or logical presupposition. Most of time in order to get the real meaning of the
sentences, we must appeal to a pragmatic explanation, based on the particular context of a particular utter. Thus,
we can make a conclusion that, since presupposition like the ones discussed rested entirely on the user context,
they are pragmatic, rather than semantic.
Sixth, a world of user. This part is concerned on that the understanding to some conversion greatly depends on
the different environments which the user of language, the speaker’s linguistic, social, cultural and general life
context. In another word, an utterance does not make any sense until we place it in its human context.
What is of especial interest to us in this chapter is that in the study of pragmatic, different ideas are raised by
linguists and the arguments on such ideas, promote the development pragmatic reach. In this way, many unclear
issues on pragmatics become explicit. After my reading of this chapter, I get a further understanding about
pragmatic, especially some important item in the pragmatic field.
(To the top)
Meng Jieqin
(mjqwb5172@21cn.com; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:59:57 +0800 (CST))
Chapter two is basically about some issues in pragmatics.
There are 6 things addressed in the reading:
First: it is about the pragmatic waste—basket. The notion of waste—basket goes back to Yehoshua
Bar-Hillel (1951—75). Syntax doesn’t focus on meaning. The meaning is left to semanticists. So semantics is
called the waste—basket of syntax. The main concern of semantics was the conditions under which a sentence
could be true or false. But there are more and more unsolved questions (conditions), which are dropped into
pragmatic basket. The pragmatic waste—basket tend to spill the problem into all the domains of linguistic
thinking.
Second: it is about the conflicts between a theoretical and practical approach to the study of language. John
Lyons thinks there is no real conflict in linguistics, except in the mind of people. Chomskyan School of linguistics
thinks the origin of conflict in the syntacticism. Lakoff and Searle believe that. In fact, it was not the linguists who
were the first to discover and explore pragmatics, but the philosophers.
Third: it is about the relationship between language and logic. Philosophers think that logic is prior to
language; but for the pragmatist, language and logic don’t correspond well to each other.
Four: it is about syntactic well—formedness. Chomskyan School believes that well—formedness plays the
role of the decision—maker in questions of linguistic ‘belonging’. While anti--Chomsky School thinks so too.
Extralinguistic factors often enter in judgments of well—formedness, which is proved from a general case of cats,
ducks and penguins.
Five: it is about presupposition. It is conclude that presuppositions rest on the user context; they are pragmatic
rather than semantic.
Six: it is about context. No matter traditional linguist or pragmatist they believe that our understanding of
utterance depends on human context. And for pragmatics, all language phenomena are under umbrella of context.
Ou Lianfen
(willie9830@sina.com; Fri, 6 May 2005 10:28:17 +0800)
The chapter discusses some issues in pragmatics such as pragmatics waste-basket, presupposition and
language users.
Firstly, Mey elaborates the origin of the notion of the “waste-basket”. Pragmatics is often called the
“waste-basket” of linguistics. The notion goes back the Israeli logician-philosopher and linguist Yehoshua
Bar-Hillel, who also called semantics the waste-basket of syntax.. Chomsky came up with a suggestion for
trash-disposal :he explain the fact that certain sentences didn’t make sense , even though they were perfectly
good constructions, by saying that when combining words into sentences, you had to take certain
precaution.
Secondly, Mey discusses the relationship between linguistics and reality. He introduces the property of the
presupposition by explaining some cases. The British pragmatician Geoffey Leech has compared the development
of modern pragmatics to a press of colonization. The eminent British linguist Sir John Lyons argues that there was
no real conflict between the abstract and practical. Language is a matter of logic, which is prior to language. In
contrast to this view, the school usually referred to as ordinary language philosophy puts strong emphasis on the
way people use their language.
8
In the Chomskyan linguistic tradition, well-formedness plays the role of the decision-maker in questions of
linguistic belonging: a language consists of a set of well-formed sentences, and it is these that belong in the
language. Of persons who engage in interaction, the ultimate real-world presupposition is the pragmatic actant,
the language user. Since users and their language are at the core of all things pragmatic, the word of users is the
very condition for doing any pragmatics.
Thirdly, Mey points out the importance of putting the users in the context to make pragmatics possible. Since
users and their language are at the core of all things pragmatics, the world of users is the very condition for doing
any pragmatics: a truly existential condition. Our understanding of utterances depends on the worlds in which their
speakers live, both in general with regard to the conditions of their lives. These worlds of users can only be
discovered by looking at the way language is used in those worlds. (To the top)
Song Yuge
(songyg2005@163.com; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:57:20 +0800 (CST))
Pragmatics, once regarded as the “waste-basket” of semantics, makes its way in linguistics and now is a new
branch of linguistics. However, pragmatics contains too much, sometimes even invades the fields of other science.
So Mey listed some issues that are noticeable in our study in this chapter.
Firstly, Mey pointed out that some pragmaticians often colonize in the field of syntax or semantics, and at the
same time, there are conflicts inside pragmatics, that is, the opposition between a theoretical and a practical
approach to the study of language. But, the field of pragmatics is also occupied partly by various tribe of
philosophers.
Then Mey went on with the topic that what the philosophers did in pragmatics field. Some philosophers think
that language is a matter of logic, and our daily language is a bastardized and illegitimate variant of the pure
language of logic. Of course, this idea is criticized by Mey. He pointed out that pragmatics should emphasize the
way people use their ordinary language, and he thought highly of John L. Austin, the “father of speech act theory”,
who had an enormous influence on the development of pragmatics.
Thirdly, Mey said frankly what we perceive as correct often collides with correctness as prescribed by some
grammaticians, about which he gave us some examples. Also he pointed out the way to solve the above problem,
that is, “those extralinguistic factors open the door for apparently ungrammatical behavior. He meant explicitly that
pragmatics can explain the conflict between what people really say and the rules of the grammaticians.
Next, Mey talked about presupposition and defined it(an underlying element which remains constant----).
Some linguists said presupposition is semantic, but Mey argued that in most cases, presupposition is more than just
a matter of implying and inferring abstract conditions on speaking, it is an active choice made in the face-to-face
confrontation. At last, Mey drew a conclusion: -----since presupposition discussed here rest entirely on the users
context, they are pragmatic, other than semantic.
Finally, though pragmatics is fully accepted as a new part of linguistics, Mey still asked a question: where did
pragmatics come from? And then he himself answered the question. Users and their language are at the core of all
things pragmatic, the “world of users” is the very condition for doing pragmatics. “world of users” cannot be
predicted from the language viewed as a logical system, but can only be discovered by looking at the way
language is used in these worlds. Mey emphasized the importance of the context in pragmatics.
In this chapter, Mey continued to explain what is pragmatics and told us the border of pragmatics study
according to some difficulties we met with in studying linguistics.
Sun Yan
(yanyansun@126.com; Thu, 28 Apr 2005 13:21:17 +0800 (CST))
Chapter 2, Pragmatics: An Introduction, Mey, Jacob L. pp. 19-35, begins with the pragmatic waste-basket,
following by such issues as philosophers in the field of pragmatics, their devotion to pragmatics, the relation
between well-formedness and the extra-linguistic factors, presupposition and users’ role in pragmatics.
First, the question of why pragmatics is a wastebasket is considered. This notions goes back to the 1970s,
when semantics was called the ‘waste-basket of syntax’. It was so because when Noam Chomsky developed his
theory of generative-transformational grammar in the mid-fifties, syntax was made a main component of grammar
and was completely divorced from the meaning of the language. So when people saw a sentence that was
meaningless, but which was also syntactically correct, they left it to semantics. Yet, as linguists stepped further
into the domain of semantics, they found a lot that couldn’t be explained by semantics. The unresolved was
discarded into another waste-basket, which later become the main concern of pragmatics. Pragmaticians are not
interested in the truth value of a sentence, taken in its abstract form. Instead they rest their study on the
9
cooperation between language users. Soon pragmatic problems seem to spread into all the domains of linguistic
thinking.
If one thinks pragmatics is studied by linguists only, he will be taking things for granted. The second issue
addressed in this chapter is that linguists are without borders. When early pragmaticians ventured into what later
became known as pragmatic territory, they found an indigenous breed of philosophers of language quietly
cultivating the territory for some time. These philosophers’ reflections on language had a significant and lasting
impact on the development of modern linguistics, especially, pragmatics.
The next issue will be what these philosophers have been doing. They concentrated their study on the
relationship between logically defined expressions and sentences in natural language. They and many ordinary
people considered logic prior to language. Another school, representing by Austin, put strong emphasis on the
way people use their language. One of the heated discussions has been on the possibility and desirability of
letting pragmatic conditions govern the correct use of logical propositions, when disguised as ‘ordinary language’
utterances. Unfortunately, when expressing language in the form of logical propositions, people find they don’t
mean the same. Mey concludes the relation between ordinary language and logic with the citation from Strawson:
“ordinary language has no exact logic”. ( Note that there is logic in language, but not necessarily in ordinary
language.)
The fourth issue under discussion is the relation between well-formedness and the extra-linguistic factors.
Constructio ad sensum (construction according to the sense) is taken as an example to reject the formal-logic
criterion of syntactic ‘well-formedness’, imposed by Chomsky, as the ultimate standard by which to judge a
linguistic production. The example of referring to ‘duck’ as ‘it’ and ‘penguin’ as ‘he’ is a case in point to
introduce Lakoff’s remarks that extra-linguistic factors often open the door for apparently ungrammatical behavior.
The fifth section examines the notion of presupposition, which is defined as something that a speaker or
writer assumes that the receiver of the message already knows. Mey further argues that semantically different
utterances may have the same presupposition. Therefore, presupposition may rest on the user context.
The last thing is the role that the world of users plays in pragmatics. Users’ activities constitutes what
linguists called ‘ human condition’ and to pragmatists, context.
What interests us most is the notion of logical proposition as is mentioned in 2.3. If, according to to the rule
of logic, the formula p&q is logically equivalent to the formula q&p. How come p&q is better than q&p? (As the
sentence Getting married and having a child is better than having a child and getting married indicates.) To
understand the logic in this sentence, we probably should turn to logic in linguistics for further interpretation.
Tang Wensheng
(wwsstang@sina.com; Thu, 12 May 2005 23:31:24 +0800)
This chapter is basically about some issues in pragmatics.
There are 4 things addressed in the reading:
First, the development of pragmatics:
Pragmatics is often called the ‘waste-basket’ of linguistics. How did this come about? The notion of
waste-basket goes back to the Israeli logician-philosopher and linguist Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, who called semantics
the ‘waste-basket of syntax’ in 1971, when Chomsky made syntax into the main component of the grammar,
completely divorced from the semantics, the meaning of the language.
As long as semantics remained an abstract science whose main concern was the conditions under which a
sentence could be true or false, it was unable to explain certain phenomena that transcended those conditions. This
led pragmaticians to the conviction that there were more things happening between people than were dreamt of by
the philosophers. The semantics basket being filled to the brim, another waste-basket had to be created to catch the
overflow. As time went by, the linguists dropped more and more of their unreserved questions into this new,
pragmatic basket.
Pragmatics now has come to the center stage of linguistics. For pragmaticians the truth value of a sentence,
taken in its abstract form, is of little interest. Pragmatics rests on the cooperation between language users.
Leech has compared the development of modern pragmatics to a process of colonization. Of course, there
were conflicts on the home front. One is the opposition between a theoretical and a practical approach to the study
of language. Another conflict is in the syntacticism and generative semantics.
Second, logic and language:
Traditionally, philosophers busying themselves with problems of language have concentrated on the
relationships between logically defined expressions and sentences in natural languages. What is the relationship of
language and logic?
Many of the early discussions on the foundation of pragmatics have been on the possibility and desirability of
10
letting pragmatic conditions govern the correct use of logical propositions. Unfortunately, logic and language do
not travel too well together. For many philosophers and lay people alike, logic is prior to language. In contrast to
this view, ordinary language philosophy put strong emphasis on the way people use their language. For example,
1) Getting married and having a child is better than having a child and getting married.
2) Having a child and getting married is better than getting married and having a child.
Although these two sentences have the same truth condition or is logically equivalent, the two sentences
clearly do not have the same meaning, in everyday life as in everyday language use.
Third, linguistics and reality:
Many linguists used to believe that meaning is something that should be dealt with outside of linguistics.
Since linguistic meaning only could be studied through speakers’ utterances in situations, we shouldn’t be worried
about ‘real’ independent meaning (Bloomfield,1950). To a pragmatician, the very idea of ‘extralinguistic’ meaning,
as if belonging to another, forbidden ‘real’ world, is suspect.
According to some linguists, the ‘survival’ property of a presupposition is built into the very semantics of a
particular lexical item, a word. However, most cases are not such clear-cut instances of semantics or logical
preposition. We must appeal to pragmatic explanation, based on the particular context of a particular utterer. That
is to say, presuppositions rest entirely on the user context.
Finally, a world of user:
The interest in the users of language is among the main factors that have made pragmatics possible. Users and
their language are at the core of all things pragmatic.
Notice that the intended use in a particular instance often depends more on the specific context and tone of
voice than it does on the grammatical form or vocabulary of what is said. The context is the total social setting in
which the speech event takes place. The simple declarative sentence, "I'm hungry," for example, could be used to
report on a physiological condition, or to express a feeling, or implicitly to request that someone feed me. In fact,
uses of two or more varieties may be mixed together in a single utterance; "Stop that," for example, usually
involves both expressive and directive functions jointly. In many cases, however, it is possible to identify a single
use of language that is probably intended to be the primary function of a particular linguistic unit.
British philosopher Austin developed a similar, though much more detailed and sophisticated, nomenclature
for the variety of actions we commonly perform in employing ordinary language. While the specifics may vary,
some portion of the point remains the same: since we do in fact employ language for many distinct purposes, we
can minimize confusion by keeping in mind what we're up to on any particular occasion.
What is of special interest to us is that pragmatics rests on the operation between language users. The full
meaning of an utterance may not even be accessible to the users at the time of speaking or hearing, as long as they
do not know what motivates the other’s use of language. (To the top)
Tang Xia
(lenatx01981@yahoo.com.cn; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:56:59 +0800 (CST))
At the beginning of the chapter two, Mey compared pragmatics to the waste-basket of linguistics, by which
embodied its all-inclusivity. It concerns all the domains of linguistic thinking and imposes its unruly order on our
explanation.
In language research, there are linguists without borders. It’s possible that the conflict between the
“theoretical” and “applied” linguistics.
Another is the internal conflict. Before linguists, there is an
indigenous breed of philosophers of language who were the first to discover and explore the territory of
pragmatics.
The philosophical “truth conditions” sometimes are in trouble in language use. With the same “truth
conditions ”, the two sentences may clearly do not have the same meaning.
And, grammar also cannot explain all the problems in language use. There are always many extralinguistic
factors, such as the context. In some conditions, according to their presuppositions, the sentence is contradicted to
each other, but in fact, it can exist logically. Then pragmatics can make it sense by giving it a proper context. And
because of the different world of users, things always have different meaning.
Mey defined further what is pragmatics and its importance in language research, by talking about the
existence of the linguists without border, the “truth condition ”and grammar being in trouble in language use and
the world of users in this chapter.
(To the top)
Wang Kaiwen
(loadstar97kw@sina.com; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 13:30:54 +0800)
11
This chapter is further talking about what is pragmatics and what kinds of linguistic phenomena to which it
can apply. As we know, research on linguistics can date back to as long as two thousands years ago, and
researchers have established many basic branches of linguistics in which syntax and semantics are mainly involved.
But as time goes and proceeding of linguistic research, there are more and more problems came into being which
cannot be resolved just in linguistic domain, pragmatics, then, formulated.
There are three things addressed in the chapter two:
First, how is pragmatics come into being and what is its ability to explain linguistic phenomena. There are a great
many of sentences cannot completely explained by syntaxists or by semanticist. For example, supposed, person A
said to person B in classroom:“ Would like to go to the cinema tonight?” and B replied: “I have to do my
homework..” What meaning his answer attend to express? Go or not to go? We cannot make a decision about this
only turn to syntactic or semantic methods, because the meaning of the answer is based on context. And from
pragmatic aspect, we can imply that B wouldn’t like or cannot to go, for homework and play cannot go together at
same time, and the answer is an indirect speech act (from pragmatic view) to not offend the speaker and to save the
speaker’s face.
Second, presupposition is a crucial part in pragmatics and has great explanatory function when deal with
utterances. This is an advantage of pragmatics compared with syntax and semantics. For example, there is a
cannot-be-answered question in ordinary occasions: “ Have you stopped to beat your wife?” Why? Because
whether your answer is yes or no you would undoubtedly stepped into a trap and in embarrassment, that is to say,
you confess you had taken violence to your wife. Presupposition of the question is that you have beaten your wife.
If it did not exist, the question is not exists too. But it is really an embarrassed question in quarrels.
Third, context is a focus of pragmatics. What is context? Context concludes not only words or utterances
which occurs before/ after the sentence, but the total social setting in which the speech event takes place,
especially the interlocutors’ mental, social and physical situations. For a example, someone asked Edison after his
innumerous failures to construct a dry cell battery, “if you discouraged by the fact that he have no results?” “No
results? I now know of 936 things that don’t work.” Apparently, in questioner’ opinion, Edison is a loser for he
have had no results, but, Edison don’t think so, he regard failures as another kind of success or bridge to success.
Differences between them, here, is their different attitudes towards success in scientific research. this physical
world also involved body of context and plays significant role in explanations of utterances.
What is most interesting to me in this chapter is the notion of presupposition, for it shows that linguistic
cannot isolated from reality and there are many ex-existed conditions which guarantee a utterance’ values in reality.
While paradoxes utilize it in some cases, the paradoxes are worthless in real lives. But presupposition are still help
us reason, imply and decide meanings which speakers really want to say, thus, communication can go smoothly.
Wang Liyuan
(catherine200661@sina.com; Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:52:57 +0800)
This chapter is basically about some issues in pragmatics, and further explains what is pragmatics and what
kind of academic characteristics pragmatics have.
There are 5 things addressed in this reading.
First, the author explains why pragmatics is called “waste-basket”. Because semantics remains to concern
which a sentence could be true or false, it was unable to explain certain phenomena that transcended those
conditions.
Second, Leech has compared the development of modern pragmatics to a process of colonization. The author
thought the territory of pragmatics is made by philosophers. In author’s opinion, there are no borders in linguistics.
Third, philosophers think: “Logic is prior to language”. The author takes some linguistic phenomena for
example, such as truth value of sentences. Then the author thought ordinary language has its ordinary logic.
Pragmatics puts language into a certain context and makes the language related with its users.
Four, it talks about the presupposition. There must be presuppositions in a conversation, or the conversation
will not go on. Semantic presuppositions relate the presuppositions with sentences, but pragmatic presuppositions
relate the interlocutors with presuppositions. Presupposition is a part of context.
Five, it talks about the world of users. It further explains the process the pragmatics development. (To the top)
Wang Wenbo
(bobomaoheboboyu@tom.com; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 07:16:23 +0800 (CST))
12
This chapter discusses several issues in pragmatics.
First, just as semantics is the ‘waste-basket of syntax’, pragmatics is the waste-basket of semantics. For a long
time semantics remained a science whose main concern was the conditions under which a sentence could be true
or false, it was unable to explain certain phenomena that transcended(or sometimes even voided) those conditions.
Many ambiguous sentences led pragmaticians to the conviction.
Second, pragmatics can solve the problems of left by logics. Many of the early discussions on the foundation
of pragmatics have been on the possibility of letting pragmatic conditions govern the correct use of logical
propositions. We can identify our everyday language conjunction ‘and’ with the logical conjunction ‘&’, and they
are not the same meaning.
Third, in grammar, some linguistic phenomena exist extralinguistic factors. The grammarians usually can’t
use grammar rules to correct them. So usually the meaning only could be studied through speakers’ utterances in
situations, which usually contain an underlying element the ‘proposition’. We shouldn’t be worried about ‘real’,
independent meaning. Besides, presupposing is more than just a matter of implying and inferring abstract
conditions on speaking.
Fourth, pragmatics is the users of language. If specifies this context as one in which the users are of
paramount interest, inasmuch as they represent the driving force behind the linguistic enterprise, both in its
theoretical (grammar-oriented) and its practical(usage-bound) aspect.
(To the top)
Wei Yunhui
(whitman@163.com; Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:00:26 +0800 (CST))
This chapter just goes on with the fields involved in pragmatics, in the beginning, Mey names pragmatics a
“waste-basket” of semantics, just the same as what the Israeli logician-philosopher and linguist Yehoshua
Bar-Hillel(1915-75) called semantics of syntax. It is true that, as the world changes, so does the language, more
and more unresolved language questions by semantics are dropped into this new, pragmatics basket, which, Mey
points out, is not only a receptacle for discardables, but more like a can of worms. Actually the next sections of this
chapter show the fact that pragmatics is on its way:
Firstly, the British pragmatician Geoffrey Leech has compared the development of modern pragmatics to a
process of colonization, along with which go some conflicts. They may exist between outside or inside of
pragmatics, and just because of these conflicts, pragmatics goes forwards rapidly. Here what is of especial interest
to us is that it was not the linguists who were the first to discover and explore the terra incognita of pragmatics, but
the philosophers.
Then in the next section Mey goes on with the topic on the role the philosophers play in the development of
pragmatics. Some philosophers concentrate on the logic of language and think that a correct use of language
presupposes the use of logic, and our everyday language is a bastardized and illegitimate variant of the pure
language of logic. In contrast to this view, the school of ‘ordinary language philosophy’ like John L. Austin, puts
strong emphasis on the way people use their language, and Mey more agrees to this view.
In the following section, Mey points out that some contradictions still occur between what we perceive as
correct and correctness as prescribed by some grammarians. He uses some concrete examples to demonstrate this
and indicates that extralinguistic factors very often enter in judgement of well-formedness and it is precisely these
‘extralinguistic factors ’ that open the door for apparently ungrammatical behavior.
And then comes the discussion of presupposition, which, some linguists think, depends on semantics or logic.
While Mey indicates that this must appeal to a pragmatic explanation, based on the particular context of a
particular utterer. He concludes that , since presuppositions rest entirely on the user context, they are pragmatic,
rather than semantic.
And finally since it is the fact that pragmatics now is a fully accepted part of linguistics, Mey lead us to the
question: how can we explain pragmatics? where did it come from? It is users and their language that are at the
core of all things pragmatic, and the ‘world of users’ is the very condition for doing any pragmatics. Also Mey
points out ‘context’, an important fact in pragmatics. (To the top)
Xu Hui
(echowaiting@sina.com; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:38:42 +0800)
Chapter Two goes into more detail about the pragmatic look and discusses some more issues in pragmatics.
There are three things addressed in this reading report.
First, the author talks about the change of the role of pragmatics. Pragmatics is often called the “waste-basket” of
13
linguistics where linguists drop unsolved and heterogeneous problems. Nevertheless, many scholars have already
cultivated the territory of pragmatics, especially the philosophers, whose reflections on language had a lasting impact
on the development of pragmatics.
Second, the author refers to the logical analysis on language. In contrast to the view that logic is prior to
language, the school of “ordinary language philosophy” puts strong emphasis on the way people use their language,
because truth conditions of sentences cannot explain all the problems in language. John L. Austin is a famous scholar
of this school.
The third part is of special interest to us. Before George Lakoff publicly rejects the formal-logic criterion of
syntactic “well-formedness” imposed by Chomsky, well-formedness decides linguistic “belonging”. However, for
pragmatics extralinguistic factors often judge well-formedness. Presupposition is a case of such factors. According to
the author, presuppositions in real interactions rest entirely on the user context, they are pragmatic rather than
semantic. Therefore, language users and their language are the focus of pragmatic study. An utterance can make sense
only when we put it in its human context. And in this users context, we should also pay attention to such notions as
“register”, “the modal aspects of the utterance’’ and so on. (To the top)
Logic or illogic?
Xu Zhaojuan
(ajuan2003@163.com; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:41:17 +0800 (CST))
This reading / chapter is basically about some issues in pragmatics. The author talked about many things in
this chapter, including the pragmatic waste-basket, linguistis without borders, philosophers, ordinary people and
ordinary language, of cats and ducks, linguistics and reality: presupposition, a world of users and so on..
What is of especial interest to us is that pragmatics is often called the ‘the waste-basket’ of linguistics. The
notion of waster-basket goes back to the Israeli logician-philosopher and linguist Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, who called
semantics the ‘waste-basket of syntax’. To see what he meant by this, we have to consider the ambitions of
linguistics as a science in the late fifties and early sixties, with its emphasis on formal reasoning and abstract
symbolism. Linguistics was ideally conceived of as‘algebra’ of language; the expression was first used by
Hjelmslev in 1943, but has been borrowed by many.
The phenomena of real life cannot be exhaustively accounted for by the idealizations that are typical of
mathematical methods and which, strictly speaking, do not exist. For example, in mathematics even such a simple
thing as a line is not a line in reality, but only a well-defined concept, to which the line I draw on the ground or on
paper is but a poor approximation.
In the mid-fifties, when Noam Chomsky developed his famous theory of ‘generative transformational
grammar’, he was aware that much of what he said the grammar could do was valid only for a limited subset of the
language, with all the fringes cut off. In his earliest attempts, Chomsky made syntax into the main component of
the grammar, completely divorced from the semantics, the meaning of the language, and postulated that sentences
could be described perfectly well on the syntactic level without ever having to ‘mean’ anything- just like algebraic
formulas, which, taken by themselves, don’t mean anything until we assign values to the variables, but still can be
quite easily tested for correctness.
From this point, many sentence is perfectly correct, however, it is strictly ‘meaning-less’. Since syntax has
nothing to do with meaning, and should be left to the people dealing with meaning, the semanticists. The semantics
basket being filled to the brim, another waste-basket had to be created to catch to overflow. As time went by, the
linguists dropped more and more of their unresolved questions into this view, pragmatics basket, which became a
not-too-tidy collection of rather heterogeneous problems, many of which kept bothering the linguists, in particular
those defending a pragmatic approach.
The linguistic philosophers, also want to know the sentence in order is true or false. People rarely utter
something in order to be proven true or false. We want to know why people say something; weather what they say
is true or false is only interesting in special surroundings, such as the philosophical debate or the courtroom.
Unfortunately, logic and language do not travel too well together, and the amount of ground they cover between
them is rather small. Let’s look at this well-known case:
(1) Getting married and having a child is better than having a child and getting married.
Supposing we can identify our everyday language conjunction and with the logical conjunction ‘&’, we would be
looking at a logical proposition of the form p (‘getting married’) & q (‘having a child’), expressed in everyday
language by means of a sentence like the above. Such an utterance should then, by the laws of logic, be equivalent
to the proposition q (‘having a child’) & p (getting married). Hence, the above utterance would be logically
equivalent to the one below:
(2) Having a child and getting married is better than getting married and having a child.
14
So, there is no difference in semantics content between p and q, or between ‘getting married and having a child’
and ‘having a child and getting married’.
We have to provide a pragmatic account, along the following lines. The ‘and then’ reading of both ands in the
first sentence can be shown to be systematically ‘read in’ to conjoined reports of events by a pragmatic principle
governing the reporting of events by pragmatics principle governing the reporting of events. The sentence can only
be assigned the right truth conditions, or alternatively be given the correct semantic representation, if the pragmatic
significance of and in this sentential context (namely the ‘and then’ interpretation) is taken in account before doing
the semantics. This amounts to a concise argument that semantics is not autonomous with respect to pragmatics,
and that pragmatics provided part of the necessary input to a semantic theory. But if pragmatics is, on occasions,
logically prior to semantics, a general linguistic theory simply must incorporate pragmatics as a component or
level in the overall integrated theory.
(3) If you give me a bite of your ice-cream, you can have a bite of mine
(4) He turned on the switch and the motor started
We read this in a way that is as ‘strong’ as the world allows.
Given p and q, try interpreting it as:
(i)
‘p and then q’; if successful try
(ii)
‘p and therefore q’; if successful try also
(iii)
‘p, and p is the cause q’
So the philosopher’s idea as the language should be obey the reality the order. ‘And’ not means the ‘&’, so
language is not the logic, extra linguistic factors very often enter in judgments of well-formedness’. (To the top)
Zhou Yanqiong
(higherjojo@tom.com; Fri, 6 May 2005 12:44:02 +0800 (CST))
In this chapter Mey first introduced how the notion-- the pragmatic “waste-basket” came into being. Mey
introduced the history of the notion “waste-basket”. The Israeli logician- philosopher and linguist Yehoshua
Bar-Hillel first called semantics the ‘waste-basket of syntax’, as people thought more about what went into the
semantic waste-basket and why, linguistic dropped more and more of the unresolved questions into another
basket—pragmatic basket.yet Mey thought pragmatics was far from a receptacle, what pragmatics contains
concerns all the domains of linguistic thinking.Then Mey demonstrated what is pragmatics from the following
several aspects.
(1)Mey talked about the development of modern pragmatics from the point of colonization.just like
colonization there must be conflict between something, because the conflict linguists came to know the pragmatic
territory which was not first discovered and explored by linguists but by the philosophers.
(2) Both philosophers and ordinary people think logic is prior to language, Mey gave two examples which are
contradict with what philosophers and ordinary people thought. And the examples of “cat” and “duck” which are
contradict with the grammer while from the point of extralinguistic factors both of them can be thought corret.
(3)For some linguists ,presuppositions are inextricably tied to a particular lexical item, as to the presuppositons
Mey gave an examples to illustrate in most cases we must appeal to a pragmatic explanation.
(4) At last, Mey explained when we want to understand a language we must take consideration of the world of
its users.
Zhou Yuping
(bingxueping123@163.com; Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:14:44 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically on some issues in pragmatics.
The first one is that pragmatics is often called the “waste-basket” of linguistics a few decades ago. The
famous linguist，Noam Chomsky divided a neat and clear line between syntax and semantics, and let some
problems grammar can’t dissolve ascribe to semantics, when he developed his famous theory of
“generative—transformational grammar”. Several decades later, linguistic trash affected the attention of the
philosophy. Its trash disposal brought about the new born of pragmatics. Later during the process of venturing
into hitherto uncharted territory of linguistics, the British pragmatician Geoffrey Leech proposed the hypothesis of
colonization. But not everyone agreed with him, especially in the realm of the “theoretical” and the “applied”. The
eminent British linguist Sir.John. Lyons strongly argued that there was no ‘real’ conflict between the ‘abstract’ and
the ‘practical’. But in fact, why did a number of people apparently think there was? To gain a satisfactory reply,
Chomsky’s rebellious students, such Robert and Lakoff, turned their sights into the sphere what later became
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known as pragmatic territory. But to their grat surprise, these Lord Marchers of the Language Realm found the
invaded region already populated, and even partly cultivated, by various tribes of philosophers.
The second is philosophers and pragmatics. Traditionally, philosophers busying themselves with problems of
language have concentrated on the relationships between logically defined expressions and sentences in natural
languages. They hardly had the same idea as ordinary people that language is a matter of logic, and it was
inveterate and hard-to-change that logic is prior to language. Until John L. Austin published the “father of speech
act theory” and “How to do things with words”(1962), people gradually put strong interest on the way people use
their language. The writer cited three examples to test the relationship between logic and the use of language.
Logic is in essence an abstraction from language and should never be made into its dominant perspective, this
holds in matters of both syntax and semantics.
The third emphasis is on some problems in syntax that arise from the use of the logic-inspired rewrite rules
that were devised by Chomsky and his school. In 1968, George Lakoff published an article entitled ‘Presupposition
and relative well—formedness’. In this article, for the first time, Lakoff rejects the formal—logic criterion of
syntactic ‘well—formedness’. Through certain examples, the writer proposed ‘extralinguistic factors’ during
communication. Many linguists used to believed that the very term ‘extralinguistic’ carried with it the connotation
of ‘unscientific’, since linguistic meaning could be studied through speakers’ utterances in situations not just
utterances themselves. The same sentence can analysis completely different meanings if their situation is different,
e.g. the presupposition is different the meaning of sentences is different.
The last of the chapter concentrated on the users of language. Compared to the earlier focus on language as an
abstract system, users of language are the main factors that have made pragmatics possible. These ‘worlds of users’
cannot be predicted from the language just as a logical system or other theories of linguistics. Bilmes has
perspicuously remarked: “the meaning of an utterance is determined in large part by how it responds and how it is
responded to, by its place in an interactional sequence”.
The most interesting one for me is the second topic, logic and linguistic. Logic is prior to language , or
language decided logic, it is still a contradictory topic in academic circles. The topic is of great value to human, it
can implement into other extensive fields and help to explain many problems befuddled people so far. Theory
combined with practice can be invaluable, otherwise it has no sense. (To the top)
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