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Pragmatics: speakers, hearers and meanings

Vak
2023-2024

Admission requirements

Basic understanding of syntax and semantics, or willingness to acquire these through self-guided study. Please contact the instructor before the course if you are intersted in this. This course can be used to meet the Extra Requirement of the ResMA in Linguistics; please contact the instructor for more information. ResMA students interested in taking Experimental Pragmatics in Semester 2 (Topics D) are advised to take this course first.

Description

We explore how the use of a linguistic expression in context can communicate meaning beyond its narrow semantic content. Various explanations have been proposed both for the reasons why utterances may communicate something more or something different from the sum of the meanings of their constituent parts, and the processes by which this is achieved. After introducing some basic distinctions, we focus on developments in (post-)Gricean pragmatics, especially, notions and types of implicature (conventional, generalized conversational, particularized conversational; scalar), impliciture, and explicature. We then tackle theories of speech acts and explore indirect speech acts and proposed explanations. Finally, we briefly introduce im/politeness theor(ies), which seek to provide unified frameworks addressing the issues raised by situated language use in different cultures. Theoretical concepts are explained and applied to real-world examples through bi-weekly take-home assignments.

Course objectives

Students will develop an understanding of different levels of meaning (compositional, truth-conditional, implicated) and the processes by which these are generated according to different theoretical frameworks.
They develop the ability to compare the suitability of these frameworks to explain different linguistic phenomena.
They practise applying these frameworks to real-life examples and become able to distinguish between these levels in new datasets.
They also acquire practical analytical skills in analyzing conversation and conversations in different cultures.

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

  • Tutorials

Assessment method

4 take-home assignments 40%
Final exam 40%
In class exercises 10%
Participation 10%
Total 100%

Weighing

As shown above

Resit

Resit is only possible for the final exam. Extra credit options are available for students who wish to improve their grade on the take-home assignments, if necessary. Extra credit options are agreed individually with the instructor during the semester and cannot be requested after the course is completed.

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

Recommended textbooks (not required):
Clark, Billy (2022) Pragmatics: The Basics. London: Routledge. (introductory)
Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman. (introductory)
Birner, Betty (2013) Introduction to Pragmatics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (advanced)
Weekly readings will be made available Brightspace.[brightspace]

Registration

Enrolment through My Studymap is mandatory

Contact

For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar

For questions related to the content of the course, please contact the lecturer, you can find their contact information by clicking on their name in the sidebar.

For questions regarding enrollment please contact the Education Administration Office Reuvensplaats E-mail address Education Administration Office Reuvensplaats: osz-oa-reuvensplaats@hum.leidenuniv.nl

For questions regarding your studyprogress contact the Coordinator of Studies

Remarks

Not applicable.