Pragmatics is not about language as such, viewed in isolation, but about words as they are being ... more Pragmatics is not about language as such, viewed in isolation, but about words as they are being used. And words are never things, pure objects; words have their history and lives: their story is the story of their users. Pragmatic thinking focuses not just on what 'is' there (the 'essentialist' method of linguistics), but on how what 'is' there, 'got' there, and what it 'does' there, in a 'functionalist' approach, characteristic of pragmatics. Such a functional approach relies heavily on the processes that are material in creating the conditions for words to be used in a particular way: both those processes we normally call 'historical' (the history of what has been) and those that are characteristic for what happens in our own times: the pragmatic life of words. I will illustrate these reflections by focusing on a series of well-known linguistic phenomena, first of all the historical 'emptying' of content known as ...
One area where cultures clash is education. Over the years, we have been witness to such movement... more One area where cultures clash is education. Over the years, we have been witness to such movements as ‘English Only’ in the US (originating in California and Florida, but now operating in a number of other states as well), or the acrimonious European disputes over how much of ‘foreign’ culture can be allowed into the school’s environment (head scarves on the playgrounds, religious symbols like crosses worn around the neck, prayer in the classrooms, and not least use of other languages than the ‘official’ one in teaching and socializing). Pragmatics, by placing the emphasis on the users of language in culture, defuses the potentially explosive elements in such clashes by stressing the need to respect the individual’s options in face of the collective cultural pressure. This is especially important in an area such as education, where schools have historically been used to propagate the ‘domestic’ culture over other cultures, the latter being considered as foreign imports. In a pragmat...
Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 2016
What do we mean when we talk about pragmatics as seen through a societal prism? Is not Pragmatics... more What do we mean when we talk about pragmatics as seen through a societal prism? Is not Pragmatics by definition soci(et)al? In this chapter, I will explain my views on pragmatics, and highlight its societal character, interpreted as a commitment to and from the users’ side. I will especially look into the oppressive aspects of our language, and suggest ways and means to prevent such oppression, in an ‘emancipatory pragmatics’, as it would be appropriate to call it.
I. Two Kinds of Models T begin with, I would like to assert that computational linguistics (hence... more I. Two Kinds of Models T begin with, I would like to assert that computational linguistics (henceforth CL), despite its qualifying adjective, has to do with human behavior and, in particular, with that subset of human behavioral patterns that we study in linguistics. In other words, one of the tasks of c L as a science is to explain human behavior insofar as it avails itself of the possibilities inherent in man's faculty of speech. In this sense, CL and linguistics proper both pursue the same aim. However, there are differences, as we will see shortly; for the moment, let us just establish that CU can be considered as a subfield of linguistics and leave the delineation of the boundaries for later. An important notion in behavioral sciences is that of a model as a set of hypotheses and empirical assumptions leading to certain testable conclusions called predictions (cf., e.g., Braithwaite 1968, ~aumjan 1966). I would like to call this kind of model the descriptive one. "Descriptive" here is not taken in the sense that Chomsky distinguishes descriptive adequacy from explanatory adequacy; indeed, the function of the descriptive model is to explain, as will become clear below. However, there is another respect in which the descriptive model reminds one of some of the characteristics attributed to Chomskyan models: it need not be (and should not be) considered a "faithful" reproduction of reality in the sense that to each part of the model there corresponds, by some kind of isomorphic mapping, a particular chunk of "real" life. In other words, this descriptive kind of model does not attempt to imitate the behavior of its descriptum. The other kind of model I propose to call the simulative one. As the name indicates, we are dealing with a conscious effort to picture, point by point, the activities that we want to describe. Of course, the simulative model, in order to be scientifically interesting, must attempt to explain; a machina loquax, to use Ceccato's expression (1967), is no good if there is a deus in machina. Although the idea of building homunculi, robots, and whatever else they are called is not exactly a new one, the advent of the computer made it possible to conduct these experiments on a hitherto unknown scale, both with regard to dimensions and to exactitude. In fact, one of the popular views of the computer is exactly that: a man-like machine. Interestingly, the fears connected with this
The question what role should be assigned to pragmatics in morphology belongs to one of the least... more The question what role should be assigned to pragmatics in morphology belongs to one of the least explored and most poorly understood areas in linguistics. There are mainly two kinds of problems that deserve our attention here: -first, those having to do with the language system: What is available, in the morphological component of a grammar, if we want to explore phenomena of pragmatic interest? _ second, problems having to do with language use: How do different uses of morphological items affect language users? Clearly, the two problems cannot be separated.
Godt Peer Gynt er halve verket (Phonetic and Phonological Questions from the Fourth Act of Ibsen's "Peer Gynt"); A Field Manual for Readers of "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages" by Bronislaw Malinowski. ROLIG-papir, n 31
Title: Godt Peer Gynt er halve verket (Phonetic and Phonological Questions from the Fourth Act of... more Title: Godt Peer Gynt er halve verket (Phonetic and Phonological Questions from the Fourth Act of Ibsen's "Peer Gynt"); A Field Manual for Readers of "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages" by Bronislaw Malinowski. ROLIG-papir, n 31. ... Godt Peer Gynt er halve ...
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