LFU:online

Institut für Anglistik Institut für Anglistik

Mag. Dr. Sandra Handl Mag. Dr. Sandra Handl

609747

Systemic and/or Applied English Linguistics: Principles of pragmatics

PS 2

5

wöch.

semestral

Englisch

This seminar aims to provide an introduction to the field of linguistic pragmatics. At the end of the seminar students shall be familiar with the most central notions and concepts as well as with different means of analysis in this area and thus able to carry out their own research.

Pragmatics is the linguistic discipline which deals with the meaning of utterances in context. After a discussion of context and its constituents we will address the following questions: Which language functions can be differentiated? What does it mean to ‘do things with words’ (as maintained by speech act theory)? Which general principles and maxims govern our linguistic behaviour (e.g. Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech’s Politeness Principle, Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, etc.)? Why do speakers use and how do hearers manage to understand indirectness and other forms of non-literal language (such as banter, irony, metaphor)? Which structural elements do our conversations consist of (e.g. adjacency pairs, discourse markers) and how do they contribute to a smooth conversational flow? And is it really true that women and men differ regarding their conversational behaviour?

Discussion, application and critical evaluation of different approaches to the description of meaning in context

Regular attendance, active participation (discussions, mini-workshops), oral presentation, written paper

Thomas, Jenny (1995), Meaning in interaction. An introduction to pragmatics, Harlow: Pearson Education, ch. 1.

Anmeldevoraussetzung/en: Bachelorstudium: keine Entspricht im Diplomstudium (343): PS 2: Linguistics and Culture Entspricht im Lehramtsstudium (344): PS 2 Linguistics and Culture
Beginn: 07. März 2013