语用学小论文

Pragmatics—Study of “Invisible” Meaning

Usually, we take meanings of language as meanings of words. Actually, if we want to successfully understand what the speakers or writers really mean, we have to consider several other elements. In this way, we can find out some kinds of “invisible”meanings and understand each other properly.

According to the theory of indirect speech acts, people may choose to express their ideas in an indirect way. But this kind of expression and understand largely depends on some certain commonsense. If the commonsense is not sufficient or the context is not clear enough, misunderstanding may occur.

Politeness is a principle which is often considered in communication processes. For example, “can you pass me the salt?” sounds much better than “I request that you pass me the salt.”But why people select several different ways to say one simple thing but not say it directly? Leech lists six maxims of politeness. Tact maxim means to offer others more and take less from them; Generosity maxim means to offer oneself less and give out more; Approbation maxim means to criticize others less and praise them more; Modest maxim means to criticize oneself more and praise less; Agreement maxim means to decrease the contradictions and increase the common points; Sympathy maxim means to decrease rejections and increase sympathy. So commonly speaking, the more indirectly you speak, the more polite you are.

Context is another element which has to be considered in communication processes. In different contexts, people tend to understand each other in different ways. At the same time, speakers also tend to express themselves with different

sentence patterns or different tones. For example:

A: Do you want some coffee?

B: Coffee will keep me awake.

If the context is that B is going to sleep, his/her answer is “no”; if B is going to start his/her work, the answer is “yes”.

If someone fails to consider the context properly, he/she may misunderstand the speaker or make some funny mistakes. For instance, a foreign visitor is standing by the street with heavy luggage, seems lost, he comes to a passer-by:

Visitor: Excuse me; do you know where the Ambassador Hotel is?

Passer-by: Oh, sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)

Here, the passer-by does not understand the visitor’s indirect meaning is that he is lost and he wants to go to the Ambassador Hotel.

In a word, a successful communication is not only interpretations of words, phrases or sentences. What’s more important is to find out the “invisible” meanings.

References:

Gao Wencheng . The Essentials of Linguistics and Learning Guide. Qinghua University Press, 2007

Xiong Xueliang. New Interpretations of Linguistics. Fu Dan University Press, 2004