The Systems of Pragmatic Analysis - Assignment Example

Pragmatic Analysis Name Institution The purposes of this assignment: Diagnostic: To identify any difficulties people are having with the systems of pragmatic analysis elements of context, implicature, speech act theory and politeness theory.. Exploratory: To provide a chance for you to think about how these might be applied to an authentic spoken text. Critical thinking and judgement: To provide an opportunity to take a critical approach to the tools and their application. TASK description: Read through the provided transcript of a teacher parent meeting. This has been transcribed using conversation analysis conventions. The transcription consists of a role-play performed by an actual teacher who is familiar with such interactions in her real-life professional role, and the researcher (JM) in the role of the parent. It is based on a scenario used for testing the language proficiency (including pragmatic competence) of overseas trained teachers. It is real research data not yet published and hence is not for citation or reproduction outside this unit. In a sensitive interaction like this it is important to avoid misunderstandings and linguistic pragmatics is useful in allowing students to get a clear idea on how this is done. There are some short answer questions which test your ability to apply the knowledge you have gained so far, one longer, evaluative question. PART 1 – short answers. (No references to published works needed here) Question Grading information is shown in italics. Response ( please type your response in the table) Possible mark Mark achieved 1. Shared background knowledge: What is the difference between cultural background knowledge and interpersonal background knowledge? Comment on what background knowledge is and is not shared at the beginning of the interaction. How do you know? Must clearly show the difference between the 2. (no marks for this, but one mark deducted from the total for this question if it isn’t there.) Must give an example of each one that is correct. ( I mark) Must explain how this is derived from the text. ( I mark) Cultural background knowledge is information that plays a very imperative role in language. Language is hugely influenced by culture and for that reason learning a foreign language is more than just mastering the words, grammar, pronunciations or the idioms. This translates to learning the manner in which the language reflects the ideas, behaviour and customs of the society. In summary, it involves having general knowledge that most people have regarding areas of life. Interpersonal background knowledge on the other hand is the specific knowledge that a hearer has about a speaker. At the beginning of the interaction the parent informs the teacher that Michael, her son is usually good at his studies. This is interpersonal background knowledge because this is information that both the teacher and parent have. However, there is no provision of cultural background knowledge. This is because no information regarding each other areas of life is mentioned at the start of the conversation. 2 What does the pronoun choice (personal deixis) tell us a change in the level of co-operation between the teacher and parent? Must identify the line number and explain why it signals a change. In line 41, the parent uses the pronoun ‘I’ to show that she does not agree with what the teacher is saying. Her level of co-operation has changed because she has started denying that side of his son that the teacher is portraying. 3. List Leech’s politeness maxims. Find an example of one of them used by the teacher and one used by the parent. Correctly list the politeness maxims (no marks for this, but one mark deducted from the total for this question if it isn’t there.) Give 2 correct examples (I mark each) Leech’s politeness maxims include the tact maxim, the modesty maxim, the generosity maxim, the approbation maxim, the sympathy maxim and the agreement maxim. The teacher uses the approbation maxim from line 93 to line 99. The teacher says “(0.3) well (.) I'm not sure that it's what we're doing that's the problem. I know that the rest of the class really enjoys what we're studying at the moment. mm I think um, I think it's a general attitude problem that Michael has.” This sentence shows the teacher minimizing praise to Michael and maximizing praise to the rest of the class. 2 4. What FTA (Brown and Levinson) is performed by the teacher and what politeness strategy or strategies does she use to mitigate it? Identify the FTA and the strategy using B&L’s taxonomy. Must get both of these right to get the mark. From line 43 to line 55 where the teacher says “well, he's often - I would say that often at home students can be very different to the way they are at school so we have a lot of kids whose parents you know, don’t don't know what we're talking about when we [mm] [report problems but it's possible that it's something within the school environment that he's responding to and also y’know this is getting to be a more stressful time [for Michael. [mmm It it's his preliminary HSC so it's possible that that's triggering some of this behaviour as well.” she uses a positive face threatening act. This is seen when she disagrees with Michael’s parent observation about him. The teacher however uses the bald on record strategy where she goes straight to the point and explains to Michael’s parent why she might be wrong on her observations. 1 5. Find an example of an utterance said by the parent which could be face threatening to the teacher. Does it threaten positive or negative face? Give line number. Must be correctly identified as positive or negative Must get both of these right to get the mark. The parent uses a negative face threatening act on the conversation from line 56 to 61. This is when the teacher continues to explain some of the troubling behaviour that they have observed from Michael but instead of acknowledging Michael’s mistakes, the parent starts giving excuses why he is acting that way. 1 6. Find an example of a positive politeness strategy used by the teacher. Correctly identify the line number – I mark In line 59, the teacher says “that's [possible um.”. This shows that they agree with what the parent is saying. This is a positive politeness strategy because the teacher is trying to take the parent’s wants into consideration. In this case, the teacher is really considerate of the parent’s emotional wants of wanting to believe that other people are responsible for the son’s mistakes rather than accepting that he might be at fault. 1 7. What is an indirect speech act? Find an example where the parent uses an interrogative form as an indirect speech act. (give the line number) What is the intended illocutionary force? Define an indirect speech act (no marks for this, but one mark deducted from the total for this question if it isn’t there.) Find the line number ( 1 mark) Identify the illocutionary force (1 mark) A speech act is considered indirect if there exists no direct relationship between a form and a structure. In line 191, the parent used an interrogative form as an indirect act when she asked “okay, so what will we do? “. The intended illocutionary force is one of commitment. The parents uses this interrogative form to show that she is open to the idea as well as committed to helping her son. 2 8. Find an example where a Gricean maxim is breached by the parent. Which maxim is it and what implicature is created? No marks for finding it but it must be the right one, then one mark for the maxim and one for the implicature. The parent breaches the Gricean sub maxim of quality which states that one is not supposed to say that which they lack adequate evidence. This is seen when Michael’s parents tries to blame his classmates for his shortcomings in class. The parent breaches this maxim because she makes accusation and yet she is never in class to convincingly conclude that the classmates are the ones influencing Michael badly. 2 Commentary 600-800 words Consider the areas we have looks at so far in the unit: Deixis, mutually assumed knowledge, Speech act theory, Gricean implicature and [1] Leech and [2] Brown and Levinson’s politeness theories. Which of these has been most revealing in analysing what was happening in this interaction? What, if any, shortcomings or difficulties have you noticed in trying to apply these analytical tools? Provide references using APA style. (These are not included in the word limit. 3-5 recommended) Of all the areas learnt in the unit, leech and Brown and Levinson’s politeness theories, deixis, speech act theory and Gricean implicature have been the most revealing in analysing the interaction between the teacher and the parent. For instance, using Leech, Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory has been instrumental in helping understand the level of co-corporation between the teacher and the parent. It was also important because it aided in comprehending the social order between the teacher and the parent. On the other hand, speech act theory in this case was used as an indirect speech act. The parent used it to show her commitment as well as eventual co-operation to the teacher. The co-operation might have lacked when the parent started questioning the teacher’s observation but when she used the indirect speech act as an interrogative form, it indicated her willingness to co-operate. The deixis were also fundamentally revealing as a pragmatic analysis tool. The parent is seen to have used a personal deixis to portray her unwillingness to co-operate. The deixis plays a crucial role in this analysis because it helps us understand the stand of the parent as the conversation continues. The other analytical tool that was very imperative in pragmatically analysing this conversation is the Gricean maxims and their implicature. They were very revealing in the sense that they contributed immensely in comprehending the interaction between the teacher and the parent. I was able to better apprehend that two individuals in a conversation must speak co-operatively as well as mutually accept one another so that they can understand each other. The principle of co-operation is shows how effective communication can be in conversations. I also learnt that breaching a Gricean maxim can lead to misunderstanding and this can easily be avoided if the parties taking part in a conversation realize their implication. For instance, in the conversation analysed, the parent breached a sub maxim of quality and this proved ineffective in providing a solution to the problem they faced. However, in the quest to apply the above pragmatic analytical tools, there are some shortcomings that come along with it. One limitation provided when analysing a conversation using speech act theories is that recognition of speech function depends on a number of things. For instance, recognizing which speech act not only depends on one previous act in the conversational context, it also involves an account of the order of performance of the prior acts. It is also sometimes difficult to understand the complex relationship sometimes present between speech acts found in naturally occurring conversations. It is also safe to say that the term ‘speech act’ is employed to show a both wide as well as varied range of phenomena. This is so much that it is hard to tell what a definitive ‘speech act’ really is. Another limitation is that there is a disadvantage and obstacles to be observed if one analyses a conversation without actually being there. It is likely that analysts can attempt to make the data fit the theory. Although it does not mean that doing so discredits the theories, it just means that the position of such analysts is weakened when it lacks a reference to actual evidence one taken from a real conversation between people. The next limitation is that, in pragmatic analysis, the role played by the hearer of an utterance is sometimes ignored. It is therefore important to analyse a hearer viewpoint from a single and subjective point of view. The last limitation is that many speech analysts are often based on the fulfilment of convinced conditions that must be met before a dialogue is deemed a correct performance. Some of these conditions often refer to the beliefs or internal states and sometimes the sincerity of such utterances are not dependable. References Coulmas, F. (1986). Direct and indirect speech. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Levinson, S. C. (2000). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, S. (2000) Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature, MIT Press Read More