課程概述 |
Pragmatics is the study of language in context, a study we rely on in order to elucidate how utterances have meanings in situations and is the study that explains why the use of a language is distinct from, but complementary to, the language itself seen as a formal system. In linguistics and philosophy, this has typically involved topics such as deixis and indexical reference, presupposition, implicature, and speech acts. In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this has involved studying figurative language comprehension in healthy adults and in neurologically impaired patients. In anthropology and sociology, this has involved microanalysis of the interactional basis of communicative activity. One way to define pragmatics is to examine what people who claim to be studying pragmatics actually do. This course will present pragmatics within an overall program for studying language as a communication system, and is related to undertakings in all of the disciplines that contribute to cognitive science. We deal mainly with the extent to which language interpretation and production depends on language users’ reflexive assumptions and inferences about each other. |
課程目標 |
It is hoped that the students may have, via systematic pragmatics, a greater understanding of how humans communicate and how human mind works, with special attention given to the understanding of the factors influencing a hearer’s interpretation of what has been said and what was meant by it. That is, we would look at the way people actually use language in relation to user context, and provide a reasonable account of why people say a particular thing on a particular occasion; what people are trying to do with their language; and how people cooperate in conversation. |