Lecture8-utterance meaning.ppt

utterance meaning

1. 1
Chapter 8
Utterance meaning
•Context and Cotext
•Utterance
•Speech acts
•Entailment and presuppositioin
•Implicature

2. 2
Introduction
•In the preceding chapters, we have discussed the
meaning of the sentence as distinct from that of the
utterance which characterized by a context within which it
is embedded.An attempt has also been made to describe
sentence meaning from the point of formal semantics, i.e.
in terms of proposition. Now we shall move on to consider
utterance meaning, and the aspects

3. 3
Context and Cotext
•One cannot understand any phenomenon apart from the
setting in which it is found, its context.
•In Linguistics, the term “context” may be said to consist of
two components: the linguistic context (cotext) and the
situational or extralinguistic context.
•COTEXT refers to the text surrounding a message. This
includes the textual elements that occur before and/or
after a word, a phrase or even a longer utterance or a
text. The cotext often helps in understanding the
particular meaning of the word, phrase, etc.
•E.g. The word ‘loud’ in ‘loud music’ is usually understood
as meaning ‘noisy’ whereas in ‘a tie with a loud pattern’, it
is understood as ‘unpleasantly colourful’.

4. 4
Context and Cotext
•One cannot understand any phenomenon apart from the
setting in which it is found, its context.
•In Linguistics, the term “context” may be said to consist of
two components: the linguistic context (cotext) and the
situational or extralinguistic context.
•COTEXT refers to the text surrounding a message. This
includes the textual elements that occur before and/or
after a word, a phrase or even a longer utterance or a
text. The cotext often helps in understanding the
particular meaning of the word, phrase, etc.
•E.g. The word ‘loud’ in ‘loud music’ is usually understood
as meaning ‘noisy’ whereas in ‘a tie with a loud pattern’, it
is understood as ‘unpleasantly colourful’.

5. 5
Context and Cotext
•Situational CONTEXT concerns the physical context in
which a message is conveyed. It is the broader social
situation in which a linguistic item is used.
•E.g. In ordinary usage, ‘spinster’ refers to an older
unmarried woman, in a legal context it refers to any
unmarried woman.
•CONTEXT, therefore, includes not only the COTEXT but
also the relevant features of the situation in which a
sentence is uttered.
•Context can determine utterance meanings in 3 ways:
What sentence is uttered
What proposition has been actually expressed
What kind of illocutionary force has been assigned to the
proposition

6. 6
Utterances
•The term ‘utterance’ can be used in two difference senses.
•In the process sense, utterances are now known as
speech acts
•In the product sense, utterances are referred to as
inscriptions, the verbal records of utterances.
e.g. I would like to thank all of you for your help
•In the process sense, uttering this sentence is considered
as the act of thanking
•In the product sense, the utterance “I would like to thank
you all for your help” is the verbal record of the act of
uttering this sentence.

7. 7
Meaning of Utterance
Utterances
Performative Constative

8. 8
Performative Utterances
•A performativeutteranceis one that actually describes the
act that it performs, i.e. it performs some act and
simultaneously describes that act.
e.g. “I promise to pay you tomorrow” is performative
because in saying it the speaker actually does what the
utterancedescribes, i.e. He promises to repay the hearer
the next day. That is the utterance both describes and is a
promise.
•A typical performative utterance usually contains the first
person pronoun “I”, followed by a certain type of verb in the
present tense. (e.g. I promise ..., I congratulate..., I admit
...). These are all verbs describeing speech acts. We
classify them as “performative verbs”.
e.g.: apologize, authorize, condemn, pronoun, declare,
name, object, name, plead...

9. 9
Performative Utterances
Explicit
Primary
(non-explicit)
•make explicit the kind of act
that is being performed
•contain a V denoting the act
performed
e.g.: I thank you for loving
me.
•make implicit the kind of act
that is being performed
e.g.: We owed our lives to
the skills of the pilots.

10. 10
Constative utterances
•A constative utteranceis one which makes an
assertion, i.e it is often the utterance of a declarative
sentence, but is not performative.
e.g. “I am trying to get this box open with a
screwdriver” is a constative utterance because it
makes an assertion about a particular state of
affairs, but is not performative, i.e. the utterance
does not simultaneously describe and perform the
same act.

11. 11
Performative vs. Constative
Performative
utterance
Constative
utterance
Definition Action-performing
utterance
Statement-making
utterance
Truth
value
neither true nor falseeither true or false
Functionmake part of the
world conform to
what is said
represent a state of
affair or experience
ExampleI sentence you to
death.
He is the most
famous businessman
in the world.

12. 12
Speech Acts
•A speech act is an act that a speaker performs when
making an utterance.
•A speech act, then, is best described as “in saying
something, we DO something”, such as when a minister
say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife”.
•In speech act theory, utterances have two kinds of
meaning:
a.Propositional meaning (also known as locutionary
meaning). This is the basic literal meaning of the
utterance which is conveyed by the particular words and
structures which the utterance contains
b.Illocutionary meaning (also known as illocutionary force).
This is the effect the utterance has on the listener.
e.g. I am thirsty

13. 13
Speech Acts
•According to J.L Austin, a distinction is made in the theory
of speech acts between three different types of act involved in
or caused by the utterance of a sentence.
Speech act
Locutionary
Act
Illocutionary
Act
Perlocutionary
Act

14. 14
Locutionary act
•A locutionary act is the saying of something which is
meaningful and can be understood. To perform a
locutionary act is to produce an utterance with a particular
form and a more or less determinate meaning according
to the rules of a given language.
•Austin further analyses the locutionary act into three sub-
types:
•Phonic act: the act of producing an utterance in the
phonic medium of sound
•Phatic act: the act constructing a particular sentence in
particular language
•Rhetic act: the act contextualizing a sentence.
e.g. Your hands are dirty

15. 15
Illocutionary act
•An illocutionary act is any speech act that amounts to
stating, questioning, commanding, promising and so on. It
is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted
with a locutionary act, the act of saying something, the
locution.In short, an illocutionary act is using a sentence
to perform a function.
e.g. Your hands are dirty
•The illocutionary act (or simply the illocution) carried out
by a speaker making an utterance is the act viewed in
terms of the utterance’s significance within a conventional
system of social interaction. Illocutions are acts defined
by social conventions, acts such as accusing, admitting,
apologizing, giving permission, greeting, leavetaking,
naming, offering, praising, promising, protesting ...

16. 16
Illocutionary force
•The illocutionary force is roughly the speaker’s intention
behind the production of an illocutionary act, including its
communicative point, attitudes involved, and
presuppositions. In other words, the Illocutionary force is
some kind of intended message that a speaker assigns to
the sentence he utters.
e.g. We thank you for all your support
I promise not to be late again
•Some utterances’ illocutionary force is less obvious.
e.g. It’s cold in here
Do you think you carry this bag for me?

17. 17
Perlocutionary act
•The perlocutionary act (or just simply the perlocution)
carried out by a speaker making an utterance is the act of
causing a certain effect on the hearer and others. In other
words, a perlocutionary act is the results or effects that are
produced by means of saying something.
e.g. Would you mind closing the window?
•If communication is
successful, the illocution
and the perlocution are
alike or nearly alike.

18. 18
Types of speech acts (Austin’s)
1.Verdictives: typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury,
umpire, arbitrator such as acquit, grade, estimate, dignose.
2.Exercitives: which are the exercising of powers, rights, or
influence such as appoint, order, advise, and warn.
3.Commisives: which commit the speaker to do something,
but also include delcarations or announcements of
intention such as promise, guarantee, bet, oppose.
4.Behabitives: a miscellaneous groups concerned with
attitudes and social behaviour such as apologies, criticize,
bless, challenge.
5.Expositives: which clarify how utterances fit into ongoing
discourse,or how they are being used: argue, postulate,
affirm, concede.

19. 19
Types of speech acts (Searl’s)
1.Commissive: a speech act that commits the speaker to
doing something in the future, such as a promise, or a
threat.
If you don’t stop fighting, I’ll call the police.
I’ll take you to the movies tomorrow.
2.Directive: a speech act that has the function of getting
the listener to do something, such as a suggestion, a
request, or a command.
Please, sit down
Why don’t you close the window
3.Declarative: a speech act which changes the state of
affairs in the world
I now pronounce you man and wife

20. 20
Types of speech acts (Searl’s)
4.Expressive: a speech act in which the speaker
expresses feelings and attitudes about something, such
as an apology, a complaint, to thank someone, to
congratulate someone.
The meal was delicious
5.Representative: a speech act which describes states or
events in the word, such as an assertion, a claim, a
report.
This is a German car
•In addition to the above types, we can add the so-called
6.Phaticact: a speech act whose function is to establish
rapport between people:
Nice to meet you

21. 21
Felicity conditions
•In speech act theory, felicity conditions are the conditions which
must be fullfilled for a speech act to be satisfactorily performed or
realized. In other words, in order for an utterance to achieve its
illocutionary force, certain conditions must be met. These
conditions relate to the conversational and situational context and
the roles, abilities and beliefs of the speaker and listener.
•For example, the felicity conditions necessary for promises are:
a. A sentence is used which states a future act of the speaker
b. The speaker has the ability to do the act.
c. The hearer prefers the speaker to do the act rather than not to do
it.
d. The speaker would not otherwise usually do the act.
e. The speaker intends to do the act.

22. 22
4 types of felicity conditions
•Preparatory Conditions-those existing prior to the
utterance.
e.g.: for a directive statement to have the force of an
order, the person uttering it must have authority over the
other person and that person must recognize that
authority
•Sincerity Conditions-relate to speaker’s state of mind
e.g.: for a commissive statement to be taken as a
promise the speaker must intend to do X

23. 23
•Essential Condition-utterance recognizable as instance
of particular illocutionary act
e.g.: for a directive to have the force of a request the
hearer must recognize that the speaker is attempting to
get the hearer to do X.
•Propositional Content Conditions-state of affairs
predicated in utterance
e.g.: an expressive that performs the act of congratulating
must predicate a past act of the hearer; an expressive
that performs the act of apologizing must predicate a past
act of the speaker

24. 24
Statements, questions and directives
•When a speaker utters a sentence, he expresses not only
a proposition but also a particular attitude toward it.
•In uttering a statement, a speaker expresses an epistemic
commitment, i.e. the speaker commits to the fact that he
knows or believe it to be true.
•A directive involves a different kind of commitment on the
part of the speaker: deontic commitment, which means
the speaker imposes somekind of obligation.
•In asking a question, a speaker is not committed to the
truth or factuality of the proposition expressed by the
question but is challinging the truth of a proposition in a
yes-no question, or eliciting the variable “x” in a x-
question.

25. 25
Entailment (revisited)
•Entailment is a relationship that applies between two
propositions, where the truth of one implies the truth of the
other because of the meanings of the words involved. In
other words, a sentence (S1) entails another sentence (S2) if
and only if whenever S1 is true in a situation, S2 is also true
in that situation.
•Entailment happens when one set of objects is included in
another. It may be seen as a kind of hyponymic relation.
•Entailment can also involves the use of determiners. This is
simply the relation of inclusion
e.g. Every student is odd
Most students are odd

26. 26
Subtypes of entailment
Entailment
Assertion Presupposition

27. 27
Assertion
•A declarative sentence typically asserts that a
state of affair exists. In other words, assertion is
the characteristic of all declarative sentences,
However, not all of them have presupposition.
e.g. Mary kicked the dog
We took our final yesterday

28. 28
Presupposition
•Presupposition is the assumption the speaker makes
about what the hearer is likely to accept without
challenge. In other words, presupposition is what a
speaker or writer assumes that the receiver of the
message already knows.
e.g. When did you stop beating your donkey
presupposes:
•You stopped beating your donkey
•You did beat your donkey
•You beat something
•You have a donkey

29. 29
Presupposition
•A sentence S1 presupposes another sentence S2 just in
case:
•S1 entails S2
•The negation of S1 also entails S2
•The questioning of S1 also entails S2
In other words, if S1 entails S2, then asserting, denying,
questioning S2 uncontroversially implies that S2 is true.
e.g. I heard her confessing her love to him.
I didn’t hear her confessing her love to him.
Did you hear her confessing her love to him?
She was confessing her love to him

30. 30
Assertionvs.presupposition
Presupposition Assertion
S1 presupposes S2 →
negation of S1 entails S2
(S1) She hates herself for
loving you.
She doesn’t hate herself
for loving you.
(S2) She loves you.
S1 entails S2 → negation of
S1 does not entail S2
(S1) She hates herself for
loving you.
She doesn’t hate herself for
loving you.
(S2) She hates herself.

31. 31
Exercise
Determine the presuppositions in the following
utterances
1. What did you do with the stolen money?
2. When did you give up smoking?
3. Why did you marry the woman you did not love?
4. I did not smoke today, sir.
5. I regret choosing Semantics 1 as my elective
6. John’s sister missed the lecture on Advertisement
yesterday.
7. Smith was not worried about his wife’s hot temper

32. 32
Implicature
•“Implicature” account for what a speaker can imply, suggest,
or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says.
Implicature is one of the ways in which one proposition can
be conveyed by (a speaker uttering) another (under
appropriate circumstances).
e.g.: Some of the students are intelligent.
Not all the students are intelligent.
Utterance meaning + Implicatures = Intended meaning
•Implicature can be either conversational implicatureor
conventional implicature

33. 33
Conversational implicatures
•There is a general idea that people involved in a
conversation will cooperate with each other. In most
cases, the assumption of cooperation is so pervasive
that it can be stated as a cooperative principleof
conversation and elaborated in four sub-principles called
maxims.
•Conversational implicatures are the implicatures that
derive from the cooperative principle of conversation and
a number of maxims expected to be followed by
participants in a speech event.
e.g. A. I hope you brought the bread and the cheese
B. Ah, I brought the bread

34. 34
The cooperative principle
•Make your conversational contribution such as is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged. (Yule, 1996, p.37)
•In other words, the listener presumes that the speaker
is being cooperative and is speaking truthfully,
informatively, relevantly, perspicuously, and
appropriately

35. 35
Conversational maxims
1.The maxims of Quantity
a.Make your contribution as informative as is required (for
the current purposes of the exchange).
b.Do not make your contribution more informative than is
required.
2.The maxims of Quality
Super-maxim: Try to make your contribution one that is
true
a.Do not say what you believe to be false
b.Do not say that for which you lack evidence

36. 36
Conversational maxims
3.The maxim of Relation: Be relevant
4. The maxims of manner
Super-maxim: Be perspicuous
a.Avoid obscurity of expression
b.Avoid ambiguity
c.Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
d.Be orderly

37. 37
Conversational maxims
•We can use the conversational maxims to generate
implicatures by:
a.Adhering to the maxim
e.g. I’ve run out of petrol
There’s a garage just round the corner
b.Violating a maxim
e.g. Where does John live
Somewhere in the South of England
c.Flouting maxims: Violating a maxim is enforced (usually by
clashing maxims). Flouting is deliberate
e.g. John is John (flouts Quantity)
She produced a series of sounds that roughly
corresponded to the score of home Sweet Home (Manner)

38. 38
Conventional Implicature
•In contrast to conversational implicatures, conventional
implicatures are not based on the cooperative principle or
the maxims. They don’t haveto occur in conversation and
they don’t depend on special contexts for their
interpretation. Conventional implicatures are associated
with specific words and result in additional conveyed
meanings when those words are used.
e.g. Even John came to the party
He even helped tidy up afterwards