语言学教程第8章

第八章：

Relevance theory有点小问题

1)the speech act theory (言语行为理论) p186

It originated with the British philosopher John Austin in the late 1950’s. It is a philosophical explanation of the nature of linguistic communication. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking.

2)performatives (施为句) p186

Austin classifies sentences in two categories: Performatives and Constatives. Performatives do not describe things. They cannot be said to be true or false. Uttering them is, or is a part of, doing an action.

e.g. I name this ship Queen Elizabeth.

I apologize.

3)constatives （叙事句）p187

Constatives are descriptive statements, capable of being analyzed in terms of truth-values, utterances which roughly serves to state a fact, report that something is the case, or describe what something is.

E.g. I pour some liquid into the tube.(This is a sentence said by a

chemistry teacher in a demonstration of an experiment. It is a description of what the speaker is doing at the time of speaking. The speaker cannot pour any liquid into a tube by simply uttering these worlds. He must accompany his words with the actual pouring.

Otherwise one can accuse him of making a false statement.)

4)locutionary act （发话行为）p188

utterance meaning (the movement of muscles)

The act of producing speech sounds, words or sentences.

(According to Austin, there are three senses in which saying something may be understood as doing something, one of them is ) locutionary act, which is the act of producing speech sounds, words or sentences or the act of saying something in the full sense of “say”.

5)illocutionary act （行事行为）p189

speaker’s meaning (intention)

(the other sense is illocutionary act which means) the act of making known the speaker’s purpose or the intended meaning: asking or answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning, pronouncing sentence, making a request or an appointment or a criticism, making identification or giving a description, and many others.

6)perlocutionary act （取效行为）p189

contextual meaning (results)

(the third sense is) perlocutionary act which means the consequential effect of a locution upon the hearer. By saying something the speaker may change the opinion of the hearer, misleading him, surprising him, or inducing him to do something (the act preformed by or as a result

of saying, the effects on the hearer.).

7)the cooperative principle （合作原则）p191

This is the principle suggested by Grice about the regularity in conversation. According to Grice, in daily conversations, people are cooperative. They often recognize a common purpose or a set of purposes or at least a mutually agreed direction for the conversation to develop. That is, they follow a cooperative principle or CP for short.

The cooperative principle has four categories of maxims: maxims of quality, maxims of quantity, maxims of relation, and maxims of manner.

8)maxim of quantity （数量准则）

Be economical

make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange) but do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

9)maxim of quality （质量准则）

Be truthful

do not say what you believe to be false and do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

10)maxim of relation （关系准则）

Be relevant (what you say)

11)maxim of manner （方式准则）