Pragmatics & Communication
Pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning -- how speakers use language to accomplish social goals beyond the literal content of their words. A learner who masters phonology, grammar, and vocabulary but lacks pragmatic competence will produce sentences that are technically correct but socially inappropriate, confusing, or even offensive. This skill covers communicative competence as a learnable meta-skill.
Agent affinity: baker (sociolinguistic contexts, code-switching), bruner-l (scaffolding communicative practice, narrative)
Concept IDs: lang-listening-comprehension, lang-conversation-strategies, lang-intelligible-speech, lang-formality-register
Communicative Competence
Hymes (1972) introduced the concept of communicative competence as a response to Chomsky's purely grammatical competence. Knowing a language means not only knowing what is grammatically possible but also what is:
- Feasible -- can it be processed and produced in real time?
- Appropriate -- does it fit the social context?
- Actually done -- do speakers actually say this, or is it grammatically possible but never used?
Canale & Swain (1980) expanded communicative competence into four components:
| Component | What It Covers | Example |
|---|
| Grammatical | Phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon | Producing well-formed sentences |
| Sociolinguistic | Register, politeness, cultural norms | Choosing "Could you pass the salt?" over "Give me the salt" at a dinner party |
| Discourse | Coherence, cohesion, text organization | Structuring a narrative with beginning, middle, end; using "however" to signal contrast |
| Strategic | Communication strategies for breakdowns | Circumlocution when you lack a word: "the thing you use to open bottles" for "corkscrew" |
Speech Act Theory
Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) established that utterances are not merely descriptions of the world but actions performed through language.
Three Levels of a Speech Act
- Locutionary act. The literal meaning of the words. "It's cold in here."
- Illocutionary act. The intended action. A request to close the window.
- Perlocutionary act. The actual effect on the hearer. The hearer closes the window (or does not).
Speech Act Categories
| Category | Function | Examples |
|---|
| Representatives | State facts or beliefs | "The earth is round." "I think it will rain." |
| Directives | Get the hearer to do something | "Close the door." "Could you help me?" |
| Commissives | Commit the speaker to future action | "I promise to call." "I'll be there." |
| Expressives | Express psychological states | "Thank you." "I'm sorry." "Congratulations." |
| Declarations | Change the world through utterance | "I now pronounce you..." "You're fired." |
Indirect Speech Acts
Most speech acts in everyday conversation are indirect -- the literal form does not match the intended function:
- "Can you pass the salt?" -- Grammatically a question about ability. Pragmatically a request.
- "It's getting late, isn't it?" -- Grammatically a tag question about time. Pragmatically a suggestion to leave.
- "That's an interesting idea." -- Literally a compliment. In some academic contexts, a polite dismissal.
Learners who interpret indirect speech acts literally misunderstand communicative intent. Teaching indirect speech acts requires explicit instruction because they are culturally specific -- the same form may be a request in one culture and a genuine question in another.
Grice's Cooperative Principle
Grice (1975) proposed that conversation operates on a Cooperative Principle: speakers and hearers assume that contributions will be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear.
The Four Maxims
| Maxim | Principle | Violation Example |
|---|
| Quantity | Say enough, but not too much | Over-explaining obvious things; answering "How are you?" with a 10-minute medical history |
| Quality | Say what you believe to be true; have evidence | Sarcasm ("Oh, wonderful weather" during a storm) violates quality to create implicature |
| Relation (Relevance) | Be relevant to the topic | Changing the subject to avoid a question -- the listener infers the topic is uncomfortable |
| Manner | Be clear, orderly, unambiguous | Deliberately obscure phrasing to exclude eavesdroppers |
Conversational Implicature
When a maxim is flouted (deliberately and obviously violated), the hearer infers an implicature -- a meaning beyond the literal words:
Example:
A: "How was the concert?"
B: "Well, the venue was nice."
B violates Quantity (not answering the actual question) and Relevance (commenting on the venue rather than the music). A infers: the music was not good.
Cross-cultural communication breakdowns often occur because implicature conventions differ across cultures. What is a clear hint in one culture may be undetectable in another.
Politeness Theory
Brown & Levinson (1987) proposed that all humans have face -- the public self-image they want to maintain:
- Positive face: The desire to be liked, approved of, and included.
- Negative face: The desire to be unimpeded, free from imposition.
Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)
Many speech acts inherently threaten face:
| FTA | Threatens | Example |
|---|
| Requests | Hearer's negative face (imposes) | "Lend me your car" |
| Criticism | Hearer's positive face (disapproves) | "This essay needs work" |
| Apologies | Speaker's positive face (admits fault) | "I'm sorry I was late" |
| Offers | Hearer's negative face (implies obligation) | "Let me carry that for you" |
Politeness Strategies
Languages provide systematic strategies for mitigating FTAs:
- Bald on-record. No mitigation: "Close the door." Used in emergencies, between intimates, or when power difference is large.
- Positive politeness. Attend to the hearer's desire for approval: "That was a great presentation -- I have one small suggestion."
- Negative politeness. Minimize imposition: "I'm sorry to bother you, but would you mind possibly..." (English indirect requests stack mitigation devices).
- Off-record. Hint rather than state: "It's cold in here" (implying: close the window).
- Don't do the FTA. Say nothing. Sometimes silence is the politest option.
Cross-Cultural Politeness
Politeness norms vary dramatically:
- Japanese uses grammaticalized politeness levels (keigo): plain, polite (-masu/-desu), humble (kenjogo), and honorific (sonkeigo). Choosing the wrong level is a serious social error.
- Korean has seven speech levels determined by the social relationship between speaker and hearer.
- German distinguishes T/V pronouns (du/Sie) with complex social rules for when to switch.
- Arabic uses elaborate greeting sequences that serve a phatic (relationship-maintaining) function.
Discourse and Conversation
Turn-Taking
Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) described the turn-taking system that governs conversation:
- Speakers take turns. Overlap is brief and regulated.
- Turn-transition is signaled by syntactic completion, falling intonation, and/or gaze.
- Current speaker may select next speaker, or next speaker may self-select at a transition-relevance place.
- Silence after a question is interpreted as meaningful (reluctance, disagreement).
Turn-taking conventions vary cross-culturally: some cultures permit more overlap (Italian, Brazilian Portuguese), while others require longer pauses between turns (Finnish, Japanese). Mismatches create the impression of interruption or disengagement.
Repair Strategies
Repair is the mechanism for handling communication breakdowns:
- Self-repair. "I went to the -- no, I mean the library, not the store."
- Other-initiated repair. "Sorry, where did you say?" prompts the original speaker to clarify.
- Comprehension checks. "Does that make sense?" "You follow?"
- Confirmation checks. "You said Tuesday, right?"
- Clarification requests. "What do you mean by 'the project'?"
Repair strategies are essential for L2 learners because breakdowns are frequent. Learners who lack repair vocabulary ("Sorry, could you repeat that?" "What does X mean?") tend to disengage rather than negotiate meaning.
Communication Strategies
When linguistic resources are insufficient, speakers deploy compensatory strategies:
| Strategy | Description | Example |
|---|
| Circumlocution | Describe the concept | "The thing you use to cut paper" (scissors) |
| Approximation | Use a close word | "Fish" for "salmon" |
| Word coinage | Create a new word | "Vegetable cutter" for "peeler" |
| Code-switching | Switch to L1 or another known language | "I need the -- como se dice -- stapler" |
| Appeal for assistance | Ask the interlocutor for help | "How do you say this in English?" |
| Mime and gesture | Non-verbal communication | Pointing, mimicking the action |
| Topic avoidance | Steer away from areas of difficulty | Changing the subject to avoid complex vocabulary |
| Message abandonment | Give up on the message | Starting a sentence and trailing off |
The first five strategies are achievement strategies (the learner tries to communicate the intended message). The last two are avoidance strategies (the learner gives up). Teaching achievement strategies explicitly improves communicative fluency even without expanding linguistic knowledge.
Cross-References
- baker agent: Code-switching as a pragmatic strategy in multilingual communities. Sociolinguistic contexts for register choice.
- bruner-l agent: Scaffolding communicative practice through structured interaction formats. Narrative as a fundamental mode of thought and communication.
- krashen agent: The affective filter hypothesis -- anxiety about pragmatic appropriateness can block acquisition.
- crystal agent: Pragmatic variation across dialects and language varieties.
- grammar-syntax skill: Grammar provides the structural options; pragmatics governs which options are chosen in context.
- vocabulary-acquisition skill: Register-appropriate vocabulary selection is a pragmatic competence.
- phonetics-phonology skill: Intonation and stress carry pragmatic meaning (sarcasm, emphasis, questioning).
References
- Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford University Press.
- Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press.
- Grice, H. P. (1975). "Logic and conversation." In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. Academic Press.
- Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University Press.
- Hymes, D. (1972). "On communicative competence." In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics. Penguin.
- Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980). "Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing." Applied Linguistics, 1, 1-47.
- Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). "A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation." Language, 50(4), 696-735.
