IT IS A SUBTLE DIFFERENCE BUT SEMANTICS DEALS WITH THOSE ASPECTS OF MEANING THAT DO NOT

VARY FROM CONTEXT TO CONTEXT AND PRAGMATICS WITH ASPECTS OF INDIVIDUAL USAGE

AND CONTEXT DEPENDANT MEANING.SEMANTICS IS THE STUDY OF CONVENTIONAL, LINGUISTIC

MEANING, AND PRAGMATICS IS HOW THIS HEARES COMBINE THIS WITH OTHER TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE

AND MAKE INFERENCES IN ORDER TO INTERPRET THE SPEAKER’S MEANING.

DEIXIS

DEICTIC ELEMENTS REFER TO THE REALITY OUTSIDE THE TEXT. THEY ARE UNSTABLE AS THEY DEPEND ON CONTEXT. ACCORDINT TO SAEED DEIXIS “COMMITS A SPEAKER TO SET UP A FRAME OF REFERENCE AROUND HERSELF”

SPATIAL- in English can be adverbs, here, there...and can be used to locate a speaker the hearer or any other element. Other spatial deixis in English are the demonstratives: that, this those...which point to certain elements marking distance.

EXTENSIONS OF SPATIAL DEIXIS – In many languages, spatial deixis terms such as demonstratives are also used to refer to time. That year.

TIME - today, tomorrow...

PERSONAL- conveys the persons or type of entity (animate or not) He, she, it..

SOCIAL - for example the Spanish usted or the French vous.

MEANING AND CONTEXTA SPEAKER CHOOSING HOW TO MAKE REFERENCE TO AN ENTITY

CALCULATES WHAT HIS HEARERS KNOW.

SAEED ESTABLISHES THREE SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE THAT A SPEAKER HAS TO ESTIMATE:

KNOWLEDGE COMPUTABLE FROM THE PHYSICAL CONTEXT. THIS INCLUDES THE KIND OF KNOWLEDGE OBTAIN FROM FILLING IN DEICTIC EXPRESSIONS.

KNOWLEDGE THAT IS AVAILABLE FROM WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID. THIS IS OFTEN CALLED DISCOURSE AND ITS UNDERSTOOD AS SOME KIND OF CONTEXT.

KNOWLEDGE AVAILABLE FROM BACKGROUND OR COMMON KNOWLEDGE.

INFORMATION STRUCTURE: SPEAKERS MAKE GUESSES ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE ACCESIBLE TO THE HEARERS, THEY ASSUME THAT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE IS ALREADY KNOWN AND THEY UNFOLD/STRUCTURE THE INFORMATION ACCORDINGLY. SPEAKERS ORGANIZE OR PACKAGE THEIR UTTERANCES DEPENDING ON HOW THEY ACCOUNT FOR THESE ESTIMATES OF KNOWLEDGE. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOW THINGS AND NEW THINGS IS EVEN GRAMMATICALIZED IN ENGLISH:I HAVE THE CAR. I HAVE A CARREFERENCE AND CONTEXT: SPEAKERS CALCULATE HOW MUCH INFORMATION THEIR HEARERS NEED, TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL REFERENCE AS REFERENCE RELIES ON CONTEXT.FOCUS AND TOPIC: THERE ARE SEVERAL WAY OF MARKING INFORMATION STRUCTURE:INTONATION: IN ENGLISH THE INTONATION SYSTEM ALLOWS TO DIVIDE SENTENCES IN TO A PROMINET PART OR FOCUS AND THE REST OF THE SENTENCE.SYNTATIC DEVICES LIKE CLEFT OR PSEUDO CLEFT SENTENCES: IT WAS MARIO WHO CALLEDANAPHORA: USING RELATED LEXEMES AND REPETITION.

INFERENCE LISTENERS PARTICIPATE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING. THEY USE INFERENCES TO FILL OOUT THE TEXT TO BUILD UP AN INTERPRETATION OF SPEAKER MEANING. CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE AND CONVERSATIONAL INFERENCE ARE WAYS OF INFERRING MEANING FROM CONTEXT. AN EXPAMPLE IS ANAPHORA. WE RELATE A NOUN OR A NOMINAL OR PRONOUN TO A PREVIOUS INFORMATION THE ANTECEDENT. LISTENERS USE INFERENCE TO MAKE WHAT THEY ARE TOLD COHERENT

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE HOW HEARERS MANAGE TO WORK OUT THE COMPLETE MESSAGE WHEN SPEAKERS MEAN MORE THAN THEY SAY. IT IS A MESSAGE NOT FOUND IN THE PLAIN SENSE OF A SENTENCE. IT IS A TACIT AGREEMENT BETWEEN SPEAKERS AND LISTENERS IN CONVERSATION THAT GRICE CALLED THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

MAXIM OF QUALITY Try to make your contribution one that is true.

MAXIM OF QUANTITY Make your contribution as informative as required for the current purposes of the exchange and do not make your contribution more informative that required.

MAXIM OF RELEVANCE Make your contribution relevant

MAXIM OF MANNER Be perspicuous, avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief and orderly

Sperber and Wilson 1995 developed a moe radical version fo Grice’s maxims. This approach unifies the Gricean cooperative principle an its maxims into a single principle or relevance that motivates the herarer’s inferential strategy. “EVERY ACT OF OSTENSIVE COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATES THE PRESUMPTION OF ITS OPTIMAL RELEVANCE” the assumption that an utterance is consistent with the Principle of Relevance is based on the hearer’s recognition that it is an act of ostensive communication. That is, an act of deliberate, overt communication in which the speaker does not only intend to convey a particular message but is also actively helping the hearer to recognize this.

An utterance is an act of verbal behaviour, a speech act.In speech act analysis we study the effect of utterances on the behaviour of speaker or hearer using a threefold distinction:- locutionary act: the bare fact that a communicative act takes place. The act of speaking.- illocutionary act: the act that is performed as a result of the speaker making an utterance such as requesting, inquiring, promising, welcoming. Occasionally, the speaker explicitly refers to the illocutionary act being performed by using a performative verb. The British philosopher Austin was the first to point out that many utterances do not communicate information but are equivalent to actions. When someone says "I apologize", "I name this ship Titanic" ... the utterance conveys a new reality: to say is to perform.

There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts. J. Searle 1976 sets up five basic types:· representatives: the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to the truth of a proposition, e.g.: affirm, believe, deny ...· directives: the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something, e.g.: challenge, command, request ...· commissives: the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to a certain course of action, e.g.: guarantee, pledge, promise · expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude, e.g.: apologize, deplore, congratulate...· declarations: the speaker alters an object or situation by making the utterance, e.g.: I resign, You're sacked ...

- perlocutionary act: the particular effect the speaker's utterance has on the listener, e.g.: amusement, surprise, warning.