1. PRAGMATICS 3

2. CH 7: POLITENESS AND INTERACTION
Linguistic interaction is also social interaction. External factors (prior to interaction) influence our behaviour. and so do Internal factors (may change during interaction).

3. POLITENESS
A term often used when we talk about politeness is face. Face is awareness of other person’s self image. We show either distance/respect or friendliness/solidarity.
FACE WANTS = A person’s expectations that their public self image will be respected.
Face threatening act = something that represents a threat to another individual’s public self image. (Avoid orders).
Face saving act = avoidance of a potential threat to a person’s self image. (Use questions).

4. NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FACE
Negative face = our right to independence of action and our need not to be imposed upon by others.
Positive face = our need to be accepted and liked by others and our need to feel that our social group shares common goals; our need to be connected.

5. Negative politeness = geared towards preserving the negative face of other people; shows awareness of other’s need for independence. Positive politeness = preserving the positive face; emphasizing that both speaker and hearer want the same thing.

6. How to make people see your needs: Say nothing but let action speak
How to make people see your needs: Say nothing but let action speak. Talk to yourself (= off record). Ask someone (= on record) Let’s look at an example:

7. You want to borrow someone’s stapler. How do you go about it?
Say nothing but act. Look around for one, handle your papers.
Say something, either off record (ie. talking to yourself) or on record (ie. addressing someone)
Lend me your stapler. =Bald on record
Lend me your stapler, please.

8. Words that soften demands like please are called mitigating devices
Words that soften demands like please are called mitigating devices. If these are not present , we talk of bald on record.
See Yule p. 66, How to borrow something from someone.

9. Positive politeness strategies; appeal to solidarity:
It would be really nice of you if I could borrow your…
Negative politeness strategies; awareness of other’s right not to be imposed upon: I know you probably need it yourself, but could I possibly use…

10. Strategies:
Solidarity strategy: emphasizes closeness to addressee. Involves personal information, first names, nicknames etc . We, let’s, dialect, nicknames.
Deference strategy: emphasizes the non-personal. Formal politeness.

11. ACTS AND PRE-ACTS
Sometimes we need to prepare the addressee for what is to come, so we have pre-requests, pre-invitations, pre-announcements.
- Are you busy?
- Are you doing anything on Saturday?
Want to hear something interesting?
Will you be using your car this weekend?

12. CHAPTER 8: CONVERSATION AND PREFERENCE STRUCTURE
Conversational analysis (CA) How do we manage to conduct a conversation? Floor: the current right to speak in a conversation. Turn: the person who is speaking has the turn. Turn-taking : the shift between speakers. Transition Relevance Place (TRP): a possible point where a change of speakers occur.

13. Overlap should be avoided, but also too long pauses (= attributable silence). TRPs occur at the end of a unit. You can avoid letting other speakers in by having no open pauses at the end of a syntactic unit, or indicate a longer structure: - There are several comments I’d like to make on this…

14. CONVERSATIONAL STYLE
High involvement style vs High considerateness style. These may not be identified as different conversational styles but as different personal traits.
In conversations we find adjacency pairs, such as
greetings:
Hi!

15. Questions and answers:
- Harry be back in time for dinner?
- I don’t think so.
Invitation and acceptance:
- Would you like to join us for a coffee?
- Sure! Love to!
Apology and acceptance:
- I’m sorry I was late!
- That’s OK.

16. Request for favour and granting:
- Can I borrow your key for a moment?
Sure, no problem.
CONVERSATIONAL STYLE
High involvement style vs High considerateness style. These may not be identified as different conversational styles but as different personal traits.

17. PREFERENCE STRUCTURES
In adjacency pairs there is one preferred answer, the preference structure.
This is the most frequent response. Agree and accept are preferred to disagree, refuse and decline.
This is one reason why pre-sequences are so common.

18. CH. 9 DISCOURSE AND CULTURE
In discourse analysis you talk about three different functions;
Interpersonal function: deals with personal interaction.
Textual function: deals with what makes a text well-formed.
Ideational function: deals with thought and experience.

19. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
The study of language with reference to the social and psychological factors that influence communication. What makes a text well-formed? The links that create cohesion. Discourse analysis deals a lot with text-specific features – story telling, debate, news reporting.

20. The pragmatic element focuses on what is unsaid or unwritten, but communicated. It is interested in background knowledge, beliefs and expectations. What did the speaker/writer have in mind?

21. COHERENCE
Coherent language (whether written or spoken) makes sense to the listener and provides the clues as to how the text is to interpreted.
Background knowledge includes:
SCHEMATA: knowledge patterns of situations, also contains FRAMES (=fixed patterns of how we assume things to be). Eg. What do we expect to find in a library, in a supermarket.

22. SCRIPT – knowledge pattern of sequences of events, eg
SCRIPT – knowledge pattern of sequences of events, eg. what happens when we go to the movies, when we get on a bus, when we go to the public baths.

23. CULTURAL SCHEMATA
= schemata based on knowledge of a particular culture. CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS; differences in expectations based on cultural schemata. CONTRASTIVE PRAGMATICS; the study of different cultural ways of talking. INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS; learner pragmatics Pragmatic accent .