Pragmatics: Strategies for Communication (6 points)
(ARTS)
Leader: Dr Keith Allan
Offered:
Clayton Second semester 2004 (Day)
Clayton Second semester 2004 (Flexible)
Synopsis:
Objectives: Upon completion of this subject students should be able to come to appreciate that language understanding is a constructive process using not only knowledge of the language but also inferences based on context and common ground -- knowledge of the world, and knowledge of the conventions of language use; recognise that communication cannot function without conventions such as the cooperative principle in language interaction originally identified by Grice, and/or Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory; recognise the way in which politeness strategies (more precisely, face concerns) function as a significant component of language understanding; have some basis for dealing with the fact that different pragmatic conventions across cultures and subcultures can lead to unforeseen misunderstandings; understand the nature of practical inference, and how to calculate implicature; gain a firm grasp of the main principles, achievements, and limitations of speech act theories; justify categorising expressions as either literal or non-literal, direct or indirect, on-record or off-record.
Assessment: Three assignments: 90% + Class test: 10%
Contact Hours: 2 hours (1 x 2 hour seminar) per week
Prerequisites: A first-year sequence in Linguistics or Communications.
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