BA QX31 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL),
BA QX41 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) (Including Foundation Year),
BA QX51 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) (Including Placement Year),
BA QXH1 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) (Including Year Abroad),
BA QQ13 English Language and Linguistics,
BA QQ15 English Language and Linguistics (Including Placement Year),
BA QQ16 English Language and Linguistics (Including Foundation Year),
BA QQ3D English Language and Linguistics (Including Year Abroad),
BA QQ23 English Language and Literature,
BA QQ24 English Language and Literature (Including Foundation Year),
BA QQ32 English Language and Literature (Including Year Abroad),
BA QQ35 English Language and Literature (Including Placement Year),
BA Q100 Linguistics,
BA Q101 Linguistics (Including Year Abroad),
BA Q102 Linguistics (Including Foundation Year),
BA Q103 Linguistics (Including Placement Year),
BA RQ93 Modern Languages and English Language,
BA RQ99 Modern Languages and English Language (5 Years Including Foundation Year),
BA RQ91 Modern Languages and Linguistics,
BA RQ98 Modern Languages and Linguistics (5 Years Including Foundation Year)
What is 'meaning' as it relates to words and sentences? How is the meaning of a sentence affected by the context it is produced in? These are the fundamental issues to be addressed in Semantics and Pragmatics. We examine the relationship between what is said and what is meant. The first part of the course will examine basic issues in Semantics. The second part of the course will examine the distinction between a speaker's words and what a speaker means by those words – the domain of pragmatics. It will consider the foundational concerns of pragmatics: deixis, implicature and speech act theory.
Aims:
* to introduce students to the fundamental concepts and theoretical foundations of the study of word, sentence and utterance meaning,
* to familiarise students with the basic analytic resources to study word meaning, sentence meaning, and utterance interpretation,
* to provide students with practical experience of applying the tools and techniques in the analysis of linguistic phenomena,
* to provide students with the theoretical and conceptual tools to allow them to approach familiarise students with a range of issues and debates in contemporary semantic and pragmatic theory and enable them to apply their knowledge in the investigation of other areas of linguistic study.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the module, students will:
1. Have an understanding of the theoretical foundations of Semantics and Pragmatics.
2. Be familiar with the study of meaning (Semantics and Pragmatics) through investigating aspects of sentence and utterance interpretation.
3. Be able to bring to bear a range of conceptual and analytical tools on Semantic and Pragmatic data.
4. Be able to sustain reasoned argumentation through exemplification of Semantic and Pragmatic concepts.
Two hours per week seminar
Seminar materials will be uploaded to the ORB
Syllabus:
Week 1 - Basics
Basic term and concepts: we introduce key concepts and terminology (semantics vs pragmatics, sentence vs utterance, lexical vs structural semantics, etc.) and consider the kind of phenomena that semantic theory is concerned with; sense and reference.
Useful reading: any of the introductory sources mentioned above.
Week 2 - Lexical Semantics
Basic ideas of lexical semantics: relations between words (hyponymy, synonymy, distinguishing polysemy from homonymy); theoretical approaches to word meaning (componential analysis, prototype theory).
Useful reading: Murphy, M. Lynne. Lexical Meaning (2010). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp Chs 2, 3, 5,6.
Week 3 - Lexical Semantics (2)
Predicates and arguments, basic ideas of verb meaning, thematic roles (semantic cases), lexical semantics of other categories (prepositions, adjectives).
Useful reading: Murphy, M. Lynne.. Lexical Meaning. CUP, Cambridge, 2010.
Week 4 - Structural Semantics
Basic ideas of compositional semantics – how the meaning of a phrase can be derived from the meaning of the words in it; structural ambiguity; `truth conditional semantics', challenges to the idea of compositionality.
Useful reading:
Griffiths, P. (2011) An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Reimer, N. (2010) Introducing Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 5 - Structural Semantics (2)
Further issues in Structural Semantics: scope (including scope of quantifiers), anaphora, idioms and figurative language.
Useful reading:
Griffiths, P. (2011) An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Reimer, N. (2010) Introducing Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 6 - Forms of Reference: deixis and anaphora
We examine one of the most pervasive forms of reference, deixis, and a form of deixis, anaphora. Deixis is the most obvious way in which the relationship between language and context is reflected in the structure of language. We examine how space has been conceptualised across the languages of the world.
Useful reading:
Green, G.M (2008) Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding, 2nd ed. NY: Routledge.
Fillmore, C. (1997) Lectures on Deixis. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Levinson, S.C. (2003) Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: CUP.
Week 7 - Meaning what we say and saying what we mean
A consideration of the central role of intention in language use and an introduction to the rules of utterance interpretation in the form of the conversational maxims proposed by H.P. Grice.
Useful reading:
Levinson, Ch. 3 is authoritative on this. All introductions to Pragmatics will have a section on conversational maxims. You might also try:
Green, G.M (2008) Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding, 2nd ed. NY: Routledge. (ch. 5).
Week 8 - Implicature in Conversation
An introduction to the different types of conversational implicature: an account of how it is possible to mean more than what is actually 'said'.
Useful reading:
Gazdar, G. (1979) Pragmatics. NY: Academic Press.
Grice, H.P. (1975) Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J.L. Morgan (eds.) Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3: Speech Acts. New York: AP. Also collected in Davis, S. (ed) (1991) Pragmatics: A Reader. Oxford: OUP.
Grice, H.P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Levinson, S. (2000) Presumptive meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Week 9 - Speech Acts and Illocutionary Force
Language as action, or how to do things with words. Promising, apologising and inviting are all examples of speech acts - one of the central phenomena that any general pragmatic theory must account for. The theory is outlined and some of its major problems discussed.
Useful reading:
Again, Levinson, Ch. 5 is good. Try also:
Schiffrin, D. (1994) Approaches to Discourse Oxford: Basil Blackwell (ch. 6)
and, for an account of how speech acts are used in discourse analysis, see:
Labov, W. and Fanshel, D. (1977) Therapeutic Discourse. New York: Academic Press. For an account showing the analytic power of empirical methods:
Schegloff, E.A. (1997) To Searle on Conversation: A Note in Return. In (On) Searle on Conversation, ed. Searle, John R., Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren (John Benjamins).
Week 10 - Current developments in Pragmatics
We examine how work in Pragmatics is increasingly illuminating work in other fields, both linguistic and non-linguistic. This last class will provide a survey of current work.
Useful reading:
Enfield,. N. and Levinson, S.C. (2006) Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction. New York: Berg.