ENGLISH LINGUISTICS FOR TOURISM AND COMMERCE

Exam will be a quizwindows operating system seb moodle doesn’t allow you to go back to
the question before  after you submit your question you go on but you can’t go back -
approximately 30 minutes  It depends on the difficulty of the questions  50% cla and 50%
exam  find everything inside the slides  in this course  most of all about the pragmatics
branch of linguistics  and then also semantics
Topics of the lesson*General language, Common language specialized language
*Pragmatic aspects of specialized languages
*A definition of Pragmatics
*A brief history of pragmatics
*The linguistic underdeterminacy and the role of pragmatics
The title of our course and some questions about it
ENGLISH LINGUISTICS FOR TOURISM AND COMMERCE
Questions: If we analyse the title of the course from the syntactic point of view we can see that it
is …what?... The syntactic analysis will tell you what this course is about.
AP (English)
NP (LINGUISTICS)
PP NP conjunction NP (for tourism and commerce)
The head of this (entire title) NP is the NOUN Linguistics.
The course is a course in linguistics!
Linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
Can we consider the language of tourism and commerce a specialized language?
Specialized languages are vectors of… what?
In relation to what are they regarded as specialized languages?
General language designates the whole of the language (Common language + specialized
languages)
Common language is the unmarked, unspecialized language. This means that it is used in
situations that can qualify the units of language as unmarked.
Specialized languages are vectors of knowledge.
A specialized language is relevant when we consider the language in use that is studied by the
linguistic branch called pragmatics.
For example, the use of English in situations and contexts that are specific to the field under
consideration, such as tourism and commerce.
The communicative situations containing specialized languages can be considered as marked
situations.
Therefore, we can say that specialized languages are different from the common languages
(unmarked situations) regarding the usage and the information that they convey.
An example of the existence of a linguistic barrier between common and specialized language is
the case in which a non-specialist would find some difficulties in fully understanding a specialized
language.
At the same time, we can acknowledge that the popularization of the scientific discourse, that
lowers the degree of specialization of a text, is understood by the general public.  whenever we
read an article about any kind of scientifical/ technical discourse usually we can understand it
because those popularised articles they try to lower the specialization of the text
In both cases it is the language that make a difference, because it is the language that conveys
concepts and facts that make a difference.
Moreover, we can understand that specialized words or groups of words are often part of texts
that deal with specialized discourse.
These groups of words are strictly specialized terms and they represent a specific terminology
However, there is another type of specialized vocabulary …
If we consider a s
pecialized language as a natural language that is a vector of specialized knowledge, then we
should consider that there are two types of specialized vocabulary. The first one is a
common platform and consists of terms with a wider usage. The second type of specialized
vocabulary is composed of strictly specialized terms in each field. This
second type represents a specific and technological terminology. From
another perspective, each specialized language is a simple version or variety of the general
language.
According to this perspective specialized languages are sub-assemblies of the general language,
and they are fundamentally pragmatic.
This means that general language and specialized languages have certain elements in common:
The specialized languages are intersecting with the common languages.
For example the term host (as a verb) in e-commerce acquires a specialized meaning but it is a
term that pertains to the common language
General meaning of host as a verb: to provide the space and other things necessary for a special
event. EXAMPLE Which country is hosting the next Olympic Games?
Specialized meaning of host as a verb with reference to ecommerce: to provide the computer
hardware and software that allows a website to exist on the internet. EXAMPLE I've written my
website, now I just need to find a company to host it.
Another example of general meaning and specialized meaning
SHOPPING CART, or in British English shopping trolley is a small vehicle that you push around a
store, putting the things that you want to buy in it
SHOPPING CART (on Internet, with reference to e-commerce) or in British English BASKET is a
place on a website that keeps a record of the items that you have chosen to buy from the website,
before you actually buy them: Your shopping cart is currently empty.
-Note that both UK English and US English use common language words with a specialized
meaning in the discourse of e-commerce.
The relation between common language and specialized language is a relation of mobility. Terms
seem to migrate both from the common language to the specialized language and vice versa.
This mobility often entails a change in terms of meaning.  When a specialized term goes to the
common language it often acquires a slightly different meaning, less precise, or a broader
meaning.  when instead we have the opposite situation, we can notice that meaning is more
precise, and it is narrower
This view acknowledges the importance of the pragmatic aspect of specialized languages.
Specialized languages can then be considered complex semiotic systems, which are
semiautonomous, and are used in specific context and for specific needs to communicate
specialized information.
Finally, the communication supported by specialized languages can take place within a small circle
of specialists or it can be addressed to non-specialized audience (this phenomenon is known as
popularization, where the text does not cease to be a specialized text, because its degree of
specialization is simply smaller)
PRAGMATICSDefinition and a brief history
There are 2 main schools of thought in contemporary pragmatics. They are the Anglo-American
school of thought and the European one.
The Anglo-American view of pragmatics comes from the philosophy of language and it defines
pragmatics as the systematic study of meaning dependent on language use. This is a component
view of pragmatics, according to which pragmatics is a branch of linguistics just like the other core
component of linguistics: phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics.  Pragmatics could be
considered a component of linguistics
The central topics of pragmatics include implicature, deixis, speech acts and presupposition. In this
course we will not take presupposition in consideration because it is an area of research that has
been recently criticized and it is still under debate. We will instead look at some topics related to
semantics and multimodality because they are highly informative for the purposes of the analysis
of texts that pertain to specialized languages such as tourism and commerce.
The European perspective on pragmatics is a functional approach and we will study multimodality
as a functional perspective on discourse. Other branches that are part of the European approach
are sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. However, we will not talk about them.
*Semantics and pragmatics are two disciplines of linguistics which are concerned with the study of
meaning.
*There are some linguistic phenomena that are uncontroversial semantic, for example entailment;
some are uncontroversial pragmatic such as implicature.
*Pragmatics and semantics are therefore complementary in the study of meaning.
*The distinctions between semantics and pragmatics have also been explained through
dichotomies such as: truth conditional versus non truth conditional meaning; conventional versus
non-conventional meaning; context independence versus context dependence.
A history of PRAGMATICS(not part of the exam)
Pragmatics has its origins in the philosophy of language. Charles Morris and Charles Pierce for
example presented the division of semiotics (the general science of signs) into syntax, semantics
and pragmatics. According to them, syntax is the study of the formal relation of one sign with
another, semantics is the study of the relation between signs and what they denote, and
pragmatics deals with the relation of signs with their users (speakers for example) and
interpreters.
In the 1950ies and 1960ies formal semantics was developed from the philosophy of ideal
language. At the same time, within the tradition of ordinary language philosophy, and under the
leadership of J.L. Austin, H.P. Grice, J. Searle, and later L. Wittgenstein, developed the theory of
speech acts (the first who talked about speech acts was Austin but the best known work about
speech acts is the one done by J. Searle) and the theory of implicature.
In the 1970ies important research brought order into the content of pragmatics. In 1983 Stephen
Levinson systematized the field of research of pragmatics which became a fully recognized
linguistic discipline. (Brief history of pragmatics)
According to Vershueren (1999) pragmatics constitutes a general functional perspective on
linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in the form of behaviour. By contrast the
narrower Anglo-American component view of pragmatics delimits the scope of the discipline to
the systematic study of meaning dependent on language use and focuses on implicature, speech
acts and deixis.
Linguistic underdeterminacyIt is not difficult to observe that there is a gap between the
meaning of a sentence and the message conveyed by uttering that sentence in context.
In other words, the linguistic meaning of a sentence underdetermines the proposition that
speakers express when they utter that sentence a proposition is what is expressed by a
sentence when it is used to make a statement
Examples of linguistic underdeterminacy are
You and you, but not you stand up!
The pronoun you, which is a deictic expression, can be interpreted appropriately only by the
physical aspects of the speech event in which the actual sentence is uttered.
We can understand the deictic expressions and their meaning only if they are accompanied by a
physical behaviour such as a selecting gesture or eye contact (only with gesture or eye contact).
This mean that a physical context which is extralinguistic is needed to interpret the utterance . 
otherwise the utterance is totally underdetermined.
Example 2 Covid-19 has brought international travel to a standstill. It will recover and may even
become a better experience.
In this case, the assignment of reference for the anaphoric pronoun it depends on our background
assumption about what would most likely recover and become a better experience. This extra-
linguistic information is responsible for choosing between two possible interpretations: it referring
to either Covid19 or referring to international travel.  it is referring to international travel
NBanaphora and an anaphoric pronoun is a representation of an NP that comes before in the
linguistic text and to which the anaphora refers to. It could also be named discourse deixis.
The example John is looking for his glasses is a case of lexical ambiguity where the word
glasses could mean either spectacles or drinking glasses.  we need to know more  but this
extra knowledge is not linguistic but it is more from the general context
The example They are cooking apples is a case of syntactic ambiguity where cooking could be
either a verb or an adjective the determinacy of language is clear through these examples  we
can have lexical ambiguities, the need of the physical context to understand, or anaphoric
sentence (in the case of covid-19)  so we can background knowledge is actually a context that
can solve the gap between the meaning of a sentence and the actual sentence of the speaker
We can conclude that certain linguistic phenomena can be handled only by recurring to
extralinguistic, pragmatic factors such as context, real-world knowledge and inference.
Pragmatics can solve or fill the gap created by linguistic underdeterminacy.
(In this lesson we explained why pragmatics is useful in the study of specialized languages.
Then we considered a definition of pragmatics, we briefly looked into the history of pragmatics
and we exemplified the concept of linguistic underdeterminacy and we acknowledged that
pragmatics can fill the gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s message.)
-Topics of the lessonBasic notions in semantics and pragmatics, Sentence, Utterance,
Proposition, Propositional content, Context, Truth value and truth condition, Some exercises with
reference to the content of this, lesson.
The difference between sentence and utterance reflects the difference between semantics and
pragmatics.
A definition of SENTENCE is the following: A sentence is a well-formed string of words that follows
the grammatical rules of a language.
A sentence is a unit of the language system and it is an abstract construct (entity) defined by a
theory of grammar.
Linguists distinguish grammatical sentences from non-grammatical sentences.  grammatical
sentences are those sentences that follow the grammatical rules of that language  while non-
grammatical sentences are sentences are sentences that are not following the grammatical rules
For example: ‘Wolfgat’ won the World Restaurant Award in 1999
McDonald won the international restaurant award two years ago
These are both grammatical sentences  they are both well-formed strings of words
A non-grammatical sentence is international restaurant award the McDonald two years ago won.
 this is a non-grammatical sentence because the phrases are put in the wrong positions
Sentence meaning is assigned to a sentence in the abstract, that is a sentence independent of its
realization in any concrete form.
The study of sentence meaning belongs to semantics.  semantics is not considered in the
context  what semantics is doing is just looking at the sentence in abstract without considering
the context, without considering the intention speaker
An utterance is the use of a piece of language. It could be a word, a sentence, a phrase, a
sequence of sentences uttered by a specific speaker on a specific occasion.
We can see that the utterance is actually considering the speaker who is the person who is
uttering this string of words  and in what situation/which context was that utterance made  so
it is very different from the notion of sentence 
Examples of utterances are
1. Hello
2. A cappuccino, please
3. ‘Wolfgat’ won the World Restaurant Award in 1999
4. Some common synonyms of ascribe are assign, attribute, credit, and impute. While all these
words mean ‘to lay something to the account of a person or thing,’ ascribe suggests an inferring or
conjecturing of cause, quality, authorship.
Utterance number 3 namely ‘Wolfgat’ won the World Restaurant Award in 1999 is an instantiation
of the sentence ‘Wolfgat’ won the World Restaurant Award in 1999. It is a pairing of that
sentence with a specific context. A context is a specific situation in which the sentence is uttered.
 making an utterance An
instantiation it’s a concrete realization in a specific context on the part of a specific speaker and
delivered on a specific time.
Utterance meaning, is also known as speaker-meaning, and it is what a speaker intends to convey
by making an utterance. what she or he really wants to say/to convey  The study of utterance
meaning belongs to pragmaticsintention and context are important but also an utterance could
be a word, or a phrase or a sentence or sentence or a string/sequence of sentences
What is the difference between sentence and utterance? You can post your answer (Moodle,
section week 2, forum). Next week I will discuss your answers in lesson 1 week 3
The notion of propositionthis notion is extremely important higher level of abstraction 
than the sentence 
A proposition is what is expressed by a sentence when that sentence is used to make a statement.
Making a statement means to say something about a state of affairs in the world. A statement can
be true or false.
In other words a sentence uttered to make a statement conveys a proposition.
Pay attention! What is the proposition underlying the following sentences?
A. Americans admired Mr. Roger
B. Mr. Roger was admired by Americans
Different types of sentences may share the same propositional content. The propositional
content is that part of meaning that can be reduced to a proposition (a statement). This happens
even when some other aspects of meaning may be dissimilar.
Example: the interrogative sentence Did Americans admire Mr. Roger? Has the same propositional
content of Americans admired Mr.Roger which is an active declarative sentence.  And it has the
same propositional content of the passive declarative Mr. Roger was admired by Americans. 
the sentence forms are different  declarative, interrogative, passive but the proposition
content is the same
The same proposition can be expressed by different sentences. The examples:
Americans admired Mr. Roger
Mr. Roger was admired by Americans
Are expressing the same statement. In other words they express the same proposition that is
Many Americans admired Mr. Roger. This is the answer to the question What is the proposition
underlying the following sentences?
Propositions may be true or false. They are statements and statements can be true or false.
Propositions may be believed, they may be asserted, they may be denied.  in order to do that I
can use different forms of sentences  but the preposition is always the same  And in the case
of translations they may be held constant. For examples
-It is raining in English and piove in Italian express the same proposition  the best translation
they try to hold the same proposition constant in the two languages the form of the sentence is
different in English from the form in Italian  but the preposition/statement they are making is
the same forms can change  but what you need to keep constant in a translation is the
preposition of content
It also happens that the same sentence may be used to convey different propositions according to
who speaker is. For example My uncle went bankrupt last year
If Mary is the speaker she is referring to her uncle Marty. And if John is the speaker he is talking
about his uncle James. We can see that the same sentence can refer to two different people
(according to the speaker), therefore the statements (the propositions) are about two different
states of affairs in the world.
The relationship between sentence, utterance and proposition can be represented in terms of
levels of abstraction:
The proposition is more abstract than the sentence and the sentence is more abstract that the
utterance.
Therefore the proposition can be expressed by different sentences, and the sentence can be
instantiated by different utterances.  the most abstract of the three is the proposition 
because it can be actualized through various sentences  the second level of abstraction is that of
a sentence  because there can various instantiations of the same utterance  therefore the
proposition is the highest level of abstraction  and the utterance is the least level which
means that an utterance is actually a concrete realization
Now is the right moment to put the principles about proposition, sentence, utterance into
practice. You can post (Moodle, section week 2, forum) the answers to the exercise that you find
in the next slide. Next week I will discuss your answers in lesson 1 week 3
Exercise. What is the propositional content of the following sentences
 The shopkeeper had reduced the prices
 The prices had been reduced by the shopkeeper
 It was the shopkeeper who had reduced the prices
 It was the prices that the shopkeeper had reduced
 Had the shopkeeper reduced the prices?
 If only had the shopkeeper reduced the prices!
 The shopkeeper reduced the prices
CONTEXT Context is the setting in which a linguistic unit is systematically used
Context is composed by three different source The first source is the physical context. The
physical context is the physical setting of the utterance.
Example: he is not the chief executive; he is. He is the managing director.
The correct interpretation of this utterance depends/and its possible on its physical context, that is
the location/setting where the utterance is said.
The second type of context is the linguistic context which refers to the surrounding utterances in
the same conversation or written text.
ExampleJohn: Who gave the porter a tip?
Mary: Our boss
The interpretation of Mary’s utterance depends on the surrounding linguistic context of the
conversationunderstand the meaning only if you make reference to the question you can
understand that our boss is the one who gave the tip
The third type of context is the general knowledge context
A pragmatically well-formed utterance such as Last year I went to Paris. The Eifel tower was
really impressive and very close to the subway station because it matches our knowledge about
Paris and the Eifel Tower
A pragmatically anomalous utterance would beLast year I went to New York. The Eifel tower
was really impressive and very close to the subway stationit means that it doesn’t matches our
general knowledge  we are witnessing an utterance that is anomalous from the pragmatic point
of view  because it doesn’t match the general knowledge context
*Common knowledge could be called common ground. In the case of The Eifel tower it is common
knowledge that is shared by many people in the world.
*Common knowledge that only two people share about their past experiences can be defined a
personal common ground
You can post your answer to this exercise (Moodle section week 2, forum). Next week I will
discuss your answers in lesson 1 week 3 What is context and why is it so important for
pragmatics?  Context is the setting in which a linguistic unit is systematically used, and it is so
important for pragmatics because it let us understand whether an utterance is well-formed or
anomalous.
*Truth value and truth condition
The notion of truth value is linked to the definition of proposition. The notion of truth condition
is linked to the definition of sentence.
A proposition may be true or false. And to determine if the proposition is true we need to take
into consideration the occasion of the utterance delivery.
For example the proposition expressed by The file is on the desk in the office Is true in the
situation in which the file is on the desk in the office. The proposition is a false statement in a
different situation: that is when the file is not on the desk in the office  So in a particular use a
sentence can be true or false.  it could a question of the conditions
We should consider that a sentence outside particular uses does not have a truth value. In those
cases the sentence has truth conditions  *What are truth conditions? 
They are the conditions that the external world meets when the sentence is true
Under what conditions the English sentence may be used to make a true statement?  Well, the
proposition expressed by the sentence tells us the condition that must hold for the external world
 for the sentence to be true
*Examples of the contribution of the notion of truth condition to sentence-meaning
*Only John voted for himself
*Only John voted for John
What we need to determine is if these two sentences are sharing the same truth values the
same proposition  In the situation where John is NOT the only person who voted we need to
consider whether the two sentences share the same truth conditions.
For the sentence Only John voted for himself, John could have received all the votes including the
one for himself. Because, in this case, all the other voters voted for him and not for themselves.
However, the sentence Only John voted for John needs a different condition to be true, namely
that John received only one vote. Because, in this case, everybody else did not vote for John.
They don’t share the same truth conditions  the two sentences
There are other aspects of meaning that cannot be explained in terms of truth conditions.
ExamplesWe want peace and they want war
We want peace but they want war
These two sentences share the same truth conditions.
Even if they share the same truth conditions there is a difference also in this case 2
The difference is in the use of BUT which introduces a contrast between the two clauses in terms
of information. The meaning of BUT is not taken into consideration by the concept of truth
condition. The meaning expressed by BUT is an implicature.
*In the next lesson we will explore the concept of implicature in English.
*Topics of the lessonThe notion of implicature and the Gricean pragmatic theory, The notion of
linguistic meaning of utterances, The cooperative principle, The maxims of conversation, The
relationship between the speaker and the maxims, violating and opting out
The Gricean pragmatic theory and the notion of implicatureThe notion of implicature was
originated by H. Paul Grice, an Oxford philosopher.
Some of his ideas were partially addressed much earlier by ancient rhetoricians. However, his
central ideas are completely original. Paul Grice introduced his central ideas about implicature in
the lectures that he delivered in the United States of America, at Harvard University in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in the year 1967. These lectures, or part of them, were collected and later
published in 1989.
Paul Grice, in his Harvard lectures, presented an overview of his ideas about the relation between
meaning and communication. These are considered the first steps towards a systematic pragmatic
theory of language use.
This theory is now known as the Gricean pragmatic theory. Since the beginning, the Gricean theory
has revolutionized the branch of linguistics called pragmatics and the philosophy of language.
We will now discuss what is called the classical Gricean theory of conversational implicature. 
Paul Grice, in his general account of meaning and communication outlined two theories. A theory
of linguistic meaning of utterances and a theory of conversational implicature.
In his theory of linguistic meaning of utterances he highlighted the conceptual relation between
the meaning in the external world and the linguistic meaning in terms of the speaker’s intentions.
Grice’s theory of linguistic meaning of utterances defines that the essence of linguistic meaning is
that it is communication that is intended by the speaker to be recognized by the audience as
intended (as it was intended by the speaker). [in more complex terms ….The speaker intends:
the audience to think a specific meaning, the audience to recognize that the speaker intends that
meaning, the audience’s recognition of the speaker’s intention as the reason why the audience
thinks that meaning.]
In simpler words, the speaker-meaning is a question of expressing on the part of the speaker and
recognizing on the part of the audience the speaker’s intention. It seems that a theory of
communication relies on the communicational effects…
*To summarize this complex notion of speaker’s intention we can say that according to Grice,
communication requires the following collaboration: the sender judges what needs to be written
or said to enable the addressee to recognize what he wants to convey. The addressee’s task is to
try to guess what the sender intends to convey.
We can also look at the sender’s intention through different communicative contexts.
For example in face to face exchanges (such as a regular conversation), the speaker can monitor
the listener’s reaction and judge if the sending intention has been guessed correctly. Then the
speaker can further elaborate on what he said to cancel misunderstandings and guide the
addressee to what he intended.
These possibilities of interaction and readjustment of communication are slightly reduced in the
context of internet chat exchanges and even more in conversations over the phone.
The cooperative principleGrice suggested that there is a principle that determines the way in
which language is used with efficiency and efficacy. And this principle is fundamental for achieving
a rational interaction in communication.
Grice called this principle the cooperative principle.
Grice subdivided this principle into four categories of principles.
The four categories are: Quality, quantity, manner, and relation.
Grice suggests that there is a general agreement of cooperation between participants in
conversation.
This means that each participant in the conversation can expect the other to conform to certain
conventions in speaking.
These conventions have to do with informativeness (quantity), truthfulness (quality), clearness
(manner), and relevance of conversational contributions.
Paul Grice claims that the names of the four categories are taken from the philosopher Immanuel
Kant.
We will now look at the definitions of the cooperative principle and its maxims, subdivided in
categories. Together they make the building blocks of Grice’s theory of conversational
implicature.
The cooperative principle and its component maxims ensure that in a conversational exchange the
right amount of information is provided by the speakers and that the interaction is conducted in a
truthful, relevant, and clear manner.
The original version of the cooperative principle is
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.
The Maxims of conversation (original version)
1. The first category is QUALITY: Try to make your contribution one that is true. 
The Maxims in this category are
1. Do not say what you believe is false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
2. The second category is QUANTITY. 
The Maxims in this category are
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
3. The third category is MANNER: Be perspicuous. 
The Maxims in this category are
1. Avoid obscurity.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be orderly.
4. The fourth category is RELATION. The Maxims is Be relevant.
All in all there are 9 Maxims (2 for quality, 2 for quantity, 4 for manner, 1 for relation) and they are
subdivided in 4 categories: quality, quantity, manner, relation.
There is also a simplified version of the Gricean cooperative principle and its Maxims.
The cooperative principle (simplified version): Be cooperative.
The maxims of conversation (simplified Version)
Quality: be truthful 1. Don’t say what is false 2. Don’t say what lacks of evidence
Quantity (simplified version)1. Don’t say less than is required 2. Don’t say more than is required
Manner (simplified version): Be perspicuous1. Avoid obscurity 2. Avoid ambiguity 3. Be brief
4. Be orderly.
Relation: Be relevant.
If you wonder what the meaning of perspicuous could be here is a definition from the Merriam-
Webster Dictionary: Perspicuous is based on Latin perspicere, meaning "to see through," so that
which is perspicuous is clear and understandable.
The Cambridge dictionary provides examples. This theory provides a simpler and more
perspicuous explanation than its rival. (clear and easy to understand).
His understanding of evolution was perspicuous (thinking, writing, or speaking clearly).
Relationship between the speaker and the maxims What can speakers do in relation to the
Maxims? (we will be asked about the cooperative principles and the maxims and not only to
understand what they mean in gracean terms and what the maxims are  you will also need to
recognize some examples of the relations between the speaker and the maxims)
What can speakers do in relation to the Maxims?  Speakers can
- Observe the maxims.  that’s what people most of the time do whenever they engage in a
conversation, in an exchange or when they write a letter for example.
- Violate the maxims. For example the first submaxim of quality can be breached by telling a
deliberate lie.  and people lie all the time for different reasons
- Opting out. The speaker can opt out of a maxim. For example by not saying anything or by
hedging (when you are not really sure about what you are saying or you want to say something
that is actually not particularly to the point)
- Flout or exploit the maxims.
Glossary: To flout (verb) generally means openly disregard (a rule, law, or convention) Example
"the advertising code is being flouted".
•A typical example of the violation of the submaxim of quality that says Try to make your
contribution one that is true is when someone tells a lie and he or she does so deliberately.
Violation takes place when speakers intentionally does not apply a maxim in their conversation to
cause misunderstanding on their participants’ part or to achieve some other purposes. 
The following is an example of violation  Boss: Did you work on that project all day long?
Employee who has been chatting online all day long: Yes, I’ve been working on it till now! 
In this exchange, the employee is not truthful and violates the first maxim of quality. He lies to
avoid unpleasant consequences such as being fired or to be forced to work for the rest of the day.
Example Sarah: Did you enjoy the party last night?
Anna: There was plenty of oriental food on the table, lots of flowers all over the place, people
hanging around chatting with each other…
Sara asked a very simple question, however what she receives from Anna is a protracted
description of what was going on in the party. 
*In addition, the example can also be a case of a multiple violation. A multiple violation occurs
when the speaker violates more than one maxim simultaneously. In this example, Anna is not only
ambiguous (violating the maxim of manner) but also verbose (violating the maxim of quantity) at
the same time.
Example (The Setting: A (husband) is the one who earns money, and he is probably cheap. He
sees B (wife) wearing an unusual dress. Then asks: A : How much did that new dress cost, darling?
B: (see the tag-100 pounds, but says…) I know, let’s go out tonight. Now, where would you like to
go? In this case the wife answered her husband's question by violating the maxim of relation,
in order to distract him and change the topic.  I know this is very expensive.. let’s go out tonight
to use it I can show off
Violating Quality , Quantity and Relevance at the same time (Setting: Outside Susan's House.
Susan is washing the trailer when Tom approaches.) 
Tom: Susan, have you talked to Lynette?
Susan : Um, no. Have you tried her cell?"
Tom : Yeah, she isn't picking up. Do you know where she is?
Susan : Uh, no, I'm sorry.
Tom : Susan, I think you do.
Susan : I really don't, Tom. Is everything okay?
In the exchange between Tom and Susan, Susan violates the maxim of quality because she tells
Tom that she does not know where Lynette is. She also violates the quantity Maxim by giving too
short, uninformative information (When Tom asked Susan where Lynette was, Susan was
uninformative).
She also violated maxim of relevance by changing the topic of the conversation multiple times:
She tried to change the topic of the conversation by asking Tom whether he had tried Lynette’s
cell phone. Finally she avoided talking about it when she asked “Is everything okay?”
OPTING OUT
•Opting out the manner maxim by using hedges. 
EXAMPLES-*I am not sure if this is clear, but… (I’m not gonna follow the maxim of manner
because the maxim of manner say to be perspicuous) -*I don’t know if this makes sense, but…
•Opting out the relation maxim by using hedges. 
EXAMPLES-By the way…(I’m saying something that is not to the point, I’m saying something
that has nothing to do with the topic that we are discussing in the conversation) -I do not want to
change the subject, but…. (the speaker is actually announcing that he is changing the subject I
don’t want to change the subject but I’m gonna do ithe/she is going to say something that is not
to the point it’s not a contribution to the purpose of the conversation) -Maybe this is not
relevant, but 
The speaker can opt out of a maxim. For example by not saying anything.
Another possibility is using hedges in conversation. 
•Opting out the quality maxim- As far as I know. (you are saying something but you are not
actually sure you don’t have the evidence about what you are going to say) -I maybe wrong,
but…  if we speak like that we are not making a statement based and supported by evidence
•Opting out the quantity maxim-As you probably already know… -I probably do not need to say
this, but…  case in which I’m repeating something that everybody knows so I’m basically being
more informative than it is necessary there is no necessity to add that information  you are
more informative than it is required by the conversation
These are very important cases  because they are actually proof of the existence of the maxims
 because people are constantly making reference to the maxims 
*We will continue the conversation about the relation between speaker and the Maxims next
week when we will also take into consideration the conversational implicature for example when
the speaker flouts or exploit a maxim or when the speaker obeys the maxims.

Topics of the lesson1. Two conversations that need your analysis in terms of Gricean Maxim and
the relation between the speaker and the maxims. 2. Guidelines to Violations… 3. Exercise on
opting out.. 3. Observing the Maxims and implicature 4. Flouting the Maxims and implicature 5.
Exercise on observing and flouting
Conversation 1 Hide the truth(John covers his real age to his sister’s friend whom he met at the
party by telling her that they have the same age)A : I am twenty years old, and how old are you?
B : Exactly the same.  Maxim of quality, quantity and relevance.
Conversation 2 Save face (Bess covers herself for being a shoplifter in front of people)
Ann : What is in your bag? I think our bracelet is in it. Bess : I – I do not know what you are talking
about. I do not have any bracelet. That alarm must be wrong. Maxim of quality, quantity and
relevance 
3 Convincing the hearer(Anthony, a part time clerk, asks his friend to take his shift, but his
friend refuses by creating a good reason) Anthony : Can you take my shift tonight? Burt : I wish I
could, but I have to take my daughter to the dentist. Maxim of quality
4 Feeling jealous(Betty lies to Jane that she doesn’t know Jim, the new manager. Betty actually
likes him.)Jane: I know you talked to Jim, this morning. He is awesome. What do you think about
him? Betty: I don’t know what you are talking about.Maxim of relevance, Maxim of quantity and
Maxim of Manner.
The criteria of violation of maxims
Quantity • If the speaker is uninformative • If the speaker talks too short • If the speaker talks
too much • Excessive repetition
Quality • If the speaker lies or says something that is believed to be false • If the speaker does
irony or makes ironic and sarcastic statement • If the speaker denies something • If the speaker
distorts information
Relevance • If the speaker makes the conversation unmatched with the topic • If the speaker
changes conversation topic abruptly • If the speaker avoids talking about something • If the
speaker hides something or hides a fact
Manner • If the speaker’s contribution is ambiguous • If the speaker’s voice is not loud enough
• If the speaker uses language that listeners do not understand •If the speaker exaggerates thing
*Which Maxim does the speaker intend to opt out from by using the following hedges? 
1. People say… maxim of quality
2. This is a little bit confused , but… maxim of manner
3. I know this is irrelevant, but… maxim of relation
Two types of implicatures
Grice suggested that when the cooperative principle and the maxims are observed or obeyed by
the speaker and the addressee in a conversational exchange a conversational implicature arises.
 there are implicatures even when you are actually observing a maxim
A recent definition of conversational implicature is ‘a component of speaker’s meaning that
constitutes an aspect of what is meant in a speaker’s utterance without being part of what is
said.’
The conversational implicature can also be defined as a set of inferences which convey an extra
message or more than one. These messages are meant by the speaker but they are not part of
what is said in the utterance.  not found in the words said by the speaker but inferred  a sort
of metamessage
This happens when the speaker observes the maxims, as I said before. However, the arising of
implicature also happens when the speaker ostentatiously flouts one or more maxims.
Observing the maximsAn illustration of implicatures which arise when observing the
maxims
Consider the following utteranceTim-Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. 
This assertion conversationally implies that the speaker believes that Tim Berners-Lee invented
the World Wide Web in 1989 and has adequate evidence that Tim Berners-Lee did (invented) it. 
This is the implicature that arises when the speaker adheres to the Maxim of Quality. In other
words, the speaker is obeying the Maxim of quality.  the fact that there are adequate evidence
and that the speaker believes this to be true.
Given the second submaxim of Quality, when a speaker makes an assertion he or she implies that
she or he believes it. Therefore the conversational implicature ‘the speaker believes that Tim
Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and has adequate evidence’ is appropriate.
The maxim of quality also explains why an assertion could be considered pragmatically
anomalous. For example the utterance Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989
but I do not believe it  is a violation of the epistemic commitment of what the speaker asserts.
Indeed, the first submaxim of quality is: do not say what you believe is false.
GLOSSARY: Epistemic commitment is an obligation to uphold the factual truth of a given
proposition, and to provide reasons for one's belief in that proposition.
GLOSSARY: Epistemic means 'of, or relating to, knowledge'
When analysing the quality maxim and its implicatures, we should keep in mind that we talk about
the REAL WORLD, meaning the socially dominant model of the human situation and its
environment. Therefore propositions held to be true in that world would be facts. The facts which
a person or group consider to be applicable to a real situation or event are their BELIEFS.
The maxim of quantity says that you should make your contribution as informative as required but
not more informative (than required). In both the following examples speaker B chooses to give
the information requested without elaborating on it. Therefore B is observing the maxim of
quantity. 
A: How long have you lived in the UK?
B: I’ve lived here for five years.
The implicature arising from the maxim of quantity is that B has lived in the UK for no longer than
5 years (but A could also think that B has lived in the UK for no less than 5 years)
B: John has six credit cards The implicature is that John has at most but no more than 6 credit
cards (in other words exactly 6)
Grice argued that his maxims were not simply used in conversation, but are merely a special case
of rational behaviour. He provided analogues for his maxims found in other behaviours (Grice
1989: 28).  Quantity: If A is helping B mend a car, A should contribute no more or less than
required. If B needs 4 screws at some point, A should hand over 4 screws – not 2 or 6.  this is
just to tell us that Grice applied these maxims to extralinguistic situations
-John: What time is it?
-Mary: The museum has not open yet.
The conversational implicature arising from the conversation between John and Mary is the result
of Mary observing the maxim of relation, that is being relevant. Mary is cooperatively answering
John’s question, she does not know what time it is, but she provides a piece of information
(namely that the museum is not open yet) that is partial thinking that it could help John.
John went to McDonald and bought two hamburgersThe conversational implicature that John
first went to a McDonald and then (once he got there) bought the hamburgers is derived from
the maxim of manner: be orderly By the submaxim ‘be orderly’, the speaker is expected to
arrange his recounting or explanation of the events in an orderly manner, that is in the order they
took place. Moreover, the addressee is expected to draw inferences according to that order.
We should note that the conjunction and means and then but it could also be used to mean in
order to. In that case the implicature would be John went to McDonald in order to buy two
hamburgers.  and has also other meanings despite of its semantic meaning and then
There is also the case in which the conjunction and can be used to mean at the same time We
sold our car and we bought a motorcycleThe implicature could be that the transaction took
place at the same time.
The other cases of implicature still hold. The utterance We sold our car and we bought a
motorcycle could implicate and=and then, or and=in order to.  this is a third possibility in terms
of implicatures
*Flouting the maximsAn illustration of implicatures which arise when the speaker is
deliberately flouting the maxims.
Speakers can overtly flout or exploit a maxim Glossary: To flout means openly disregard (a rule,
law, or convention).
What types of meaning can a speaker convey by flouting one of the maxim?
*The maxims of conversation as proposed by Grice may be overtly and blatantly breached.
When the speaker flouts a maxim, the addressee has two options: 1. the Cooperative principle
has been abandoned; 2. despite the speaker’s apparent failure of cooperation, the maxim has
been exploited in a way that makes the infringement recognizable, and therefore the speaker is
trying to convey an extra message.
*The deliberate flouting of a maxim may result in conveying a conversational implicature, that is
adding meaning to the literal meaning of an utterance
Example *A: I am out of petrol *B: There is a garage round the corner.
*In this conversational exchange, according to Grice, B would infringe the maxim ‘be relevant’ if he
was only stating the fact that there is a garage round the corner as the literal meaning of the
utterance suggests.
*The implicature is that the garage is in the area, it is open and sells petrol. Moreover, A’s remark
is not only a description of the fact that he is out of petrol but that he is requesting some help. 
so the answer is a suggestion on the part of B to go around the corner because there he can
purchase some petrol for the car.
Example of flouting the maxim of Quality with the purpose of conveying an extra message
*Time is a great doctorTime is NOT a doctor, therefore the statement is openly false, but the
speaker could mean people need time to heal their hurt feelings. Metaphors, irony and hyperbole
are flouting the quality maxims.
Example of flouting the maxim of Quantity with the purpose of conveying an extra message
*War is war This is a tautology and therefore it is not informative. So the maxim of quantity is
openly, overtly flouted. The implicature is that the inevitable consequences of being in a war is
that many terrible events occur.
Example of flouting the maxim of Manner with the purpose of conveying an extra message
*A: John smiled *B: John did only slightly move his lips! Here B is overtly flouting the maxim of
manner ‘be brief’ or avoid unnecessary prolixity. B’s implicature is that A should not use the term
smile to refer to John’s reaction because what John did is less than a smile.
In all cases where the speakers either observe or deliberately, overtly flout the Maxims, they are
nonetheless following the cooperative principle of making their contribution relevant, truthful,
clear, brief but NOT uninformative.
TASK 1 for the students: observing or flouting the maximsJoe and Irvine are the 2 characters in a
computer program called Tale-Spin. In the following passage, is the implicature arising from
observing the maxim or from flouting the maxim? 
One day Joe was hungry. He asked his friend Irving where some honey was. Irving told Joe that
there was a beehive in the oak tree. Joe threatened to hit Irving if he did not tell him where some
honey was. conversational implicature  is Irvine flouting or observing the maxim Irvine is
flouting the Maxim of Quality  because she made a sarcastic and ironic statement  she is
also flouting the Maxim of Relevance because she hides a fact
*TASK 2 for the students: Flouting the maxims Soon after the Berlin Wall was built, John
Kennedy announced in German that he was a Berliner. What he should have said is Ich bin
Berliner, but he said Ich bin ein Berliner, which is a kind of doughnut. Despite the mistake the
audience understood the implicature. What is the implicature in question? Which maxim was
flouted by the president of the USA? 
-the implicature in question is the fact that John Kennedy wasn’t certainly from Berlin but its
soul was with all the Berliners  or another implicature could be that he wanted to say that he
was a Berliner and with this sentence he wanted to represent every Berliner that was from
every part of the city and not just a specific Berliner that came from the eastern or the western
side of Berlin.
-The maxim that was flouted by the president of the USA is the maxim of quality because he
distorted an information  and also the maxim of manner because the speaker’s contribution is
ambiguous
*TASK 3 for the students: observing or flouting the maxims What is the conversational
implicature of Mary’s reply in the following conversation? Is she observing or flouting the maxims?
What Maxims are flouted? What Maxims are observed? 
John: India is the most populous country, isn’t it? Mary: I’m the Queen of Sheeba.
- the conversational implicature of Mary’s reply in the following conversation is that she doesn’t
know whether India is the most populous country or not (she can’t answer John’s question).
- she is flouting the maxims of relation, quality and manner
*Summary1. Exercises about violating the maxims. 2. How to recognize the Violations of the
maxims 3. Exercise on opting out from the maxims 3. Observing the Maxims and implicature 4.
Flouting the Maxims and implicature 5. Exercise on observing and flouting
Observing and flouting a maxim are two cases of cooperation  so the cooperative principle is
applied both in observing the maxim and in flouting the maxim but not in violating the maxim
Topics of the lesson*Particularized conversational implicatures, *Exercise,*Distinctive
properties of conversational implicature,*Exercise,*vocimplicature, *Exercise,*Differences
between conventional implicatures and conversational implicatures In the last lesson
we talked about conversational implicatures that are generated from assuming that the speaker is
observing the cooperative principle. We noticed that each maxim observed by the speaker, can
arise a specific implicature. We also noticed that speakers can flout a maxim in a very open way
and still be cooperative. Openly flouting a specific maxim generates a specific implicature in the
mind of the listener. This means that obeying a maxim and flouting a maxim are both excellent
strategies for accomplishing a cooperative communication. *Particularized conversational
implicatures (new topic of the lesson)  In this lesson we start by discussing the fact that
implicatures sometimes require specific contextual conditions.
The context we are referring to is the linguistic context.
Yan Huang provides an example
John: Where’s Peter? Mary: the light in his office is on.
Mary sees a connection between the light in Peter’s office and the fact that this could be an index,
a sign, that Peter is in his office The resulting contextual implicature is that Peter may be in his
office.  this is what we can define as implicatures that requires specific contextual condition.
Huang explains that without the linguistic context, that specific implicature will not arise. This
means that there is a distinction between particularized implicatures which are context
dependent and generalized implicatures. Generalized implicatures arise without the need of any
particular contextual conditions. The following is an example of generalized implicature. 
Example of generalized implicatureMost of Jim’s friends believe in marriageImplicature: Not
all of Jim’s friends believe in marriage. Huang adds that any utterance containing ‘most x are y’
has the same interpretation, that is: ‘not all x are y’.
I think that this could also be seen as a question of semantics more than pragmatics … However,
according to some linguists, this dichotomy is debatable.
*ExerciseIndicate if the conversational implicature arising from the reply is generalized or
particularized:
-How did yesterday’s meeting go?
-Some of the participants lost their connection
Implicature: Not all the participants lost their connection  Generalized implicature
Properties of conversational implicature (the most important topic of the lesson)
•The most important property of conversational implicatures is their cancellability.
•There are various cases that we need to take into consideration (of cancellability).
•Firstly, there are certain linguistic contexts that allow the disappearance of implicatures.
•Then there are non-linguistic contexts where implicatures disappear.
Conversational implicatures are cancelled if they are inconsistent with
-Semantic entailment (A definition of entailment is: something that is inferred (deduced or
implied))
-Real world knowledge (assumptions)
-Contexts and/or priority implicature
Example His brother is often complaining this utterance implicates that his brother is NOT
always complaining generalized implicature semantic entailment
Let’s examine the case of inconsistency with semantic entailment. (something that is inferred
(deduced or implied))
All the following cases do not conventionally implicate that his brother is not always complaining
His brother is often, in fact always, complaining
His brother is often, and maybe always, complaining
His brother is not only often, but always, complaining
His brother is often, if not always, complaining
His brother is often, or perhaps always, complaining All these are cases that implicate that they
do not conventionally implicate that his brother is not always complaining  we almost always
saying that his brother is always complaining
The examples in the previous slides semantically implicate (semantic entailment) that his brother
is always complaining. This happens because some specific phrases, such as:
in fact, indeed
and/or perhaps, maybe, possibly, even
not only often but
often if not
Are used before always so they are changing the meaning of often
Then the potential implicature his brother is NOT always complaining is CANCELLED by the
insertion of these specific phrases  these specific phrases have the power to cancel the potential
implicature of the use of the word often
The case of real world knowledge (or background assumptions) 
Let’s first consider a case of implicature
John and Mary bought an apartment closed to the University in Verona
-The implicature is that they bought it together and not one each
Now let’s look at an example of inconsistency with respect to the real world knowledge:
The Americans and the Russians tested an atomic bomb in 1962 
This utterance does not implicate that they did it TOGETHER here is the difference that in the
first sentence the say is generalized or conventional implicature because we have John and Mary
 we know that the first conventional meaning is that they together bought the apartment
2nd sentence  we have the same and but in this case the meaning is not togetherwe rely on
real world knowledge  in the 1st case our real world knowledge tells us that these two are a
couple and decide to buy an apartment where they can live  in the 2nd case definitely Americans
and Russians are not a couple and we now see what kind of information that comes from our real
world knowledge can instruct us in the interpretation of this sentence
The real world knowledge allows us to assume that it is impossible that, in 1962, USA and USSR
tested a nuclear bomb together, because in 1962 they were enemies. Therefore the original
implicature disappears.
The last case is the case in which the immediate linguistic context of utterance may cancel or
annul the implicature. 
Jane: This Iphone case is 15 euros and I have no money on me
Mary: Don’t worry I’ve got 15 euros.
Mary’s reply does not conversationally implicate that Mary has ONLY 15 euros. (according to the
linguistic context of this specific conversation she announces that she has the money that Jane
needs)The implicature would arise in a different context where for example Mary announced
that she had 15 euros with her.
The fact that implicatures are attached to the content of an utterance and not to the exact
wording of the sentence has consequences. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that the use
of synonyms does not change the implicature. This is another property of the implicature.
In the following example the replacement of ALMOST with its synonyms does not cancel the
implicature-The film almost won an Oscar -The film came close to win an Oscar they are
synonyms they have similar meaningsThe implicature is in both cases that the film did not win
an Oscar
The next property of implicatures is that they can be transparently derived from the cooperative
principle and its component maxims.
After that we have the property that implicatures are not coded in the text, meaning that they are
not part of what is said.  They are associated with the speaker.
Then we have the property that implicatures can be made explicit without creating redundancy.
For example: It was a warm day (conversationally implicating that it was not hot that day) can be
made explicit in It was warm that day, but not hot.
*Finally we have the last property: conversational implicatures tend to be motivated rather than
determined by chance. *Some linguists believe that implicatures are similar in many languages,
but there are always exceptions, for example Malagasy-speaker culture of Madagascar where the
maxim of quantity does not apply. *An example of similarity among languages is that if a
language has ‘all’ and ‘some’ the use of ‘some’ will carry the implicature ‘not all’.
An excerpt that could be interpreted as counterexample to the claim of universality for Grice’s first
submaxim of quantity is the following passage taken from a novel set on a Navajo (specific group
of native Americans and of course their culture differs from the general culture of English
speaking Americans) reservation.  In the following passage the speaker is the daughter of a man
that was murdered and she is talking to a Navajo Police officer.  “Last time you were with the
FBI man, - asking about the one who got killed, she said, respecting the Navajo taboo of not
speaking the name of the dead, did you find out who killed that man?”
* We could wonder why she refers to her father with the expression ‘the one who got killed’, and
we could think that this could be an example that the quantity maxim does not apply to the
Navajo culture.
*However, the Navajo taboo of not speaking the name of the dead is the reason why her
statement is not to be considered too informative nor too long. The passage is not a
counterexample to Grice’s cooperative principle, but it shows that maxims can be overridden by a
sociolinguistic rule.  In other words they need to be interpreted taking into consideration the
sociolinguistic rules of the culture.
What is conventional implicature? 
At this point of the course you learned a lot about the classical pragmatic theory of conversational
implicature. However, Grice also outlined a category of implicatures that he called conventional.
 A conventional implicature is an inference which arises only because of conventional features
attached to some lexical items and to some linguistic constructions.
Examples 
-John is poor but honest.
-Our sales have gone up but theirs have gone down.
There is a conventional implicature of contrast between the information of the first part of the
sentence and the second part.
-Even his wife did not think that John would win the elections. 
Even conventionally implicates unlikeness (or surprise) making reference to the degree of
likelihood.
-Sally can read German. Moreover, she can write poems in the language 
The use of moreover conventionally implicates that the statement that follows ‘moreover’ is
additional to the statement found in the previous sentence
-Mary is taking French lessons. So her mother has bought her a subscription to a French magazine .
The use of so conventionally implicates that the fact stated in the previous sentence explains why
Mary’s mother bought her a subscription to a French magazine
*Exercise What are the conventional implicatures of the following?
a) John has not finished his thesis yet
b) Even her sister danced in that new Lebanese restaurant yesterday
c) The VIPs have still not arrived
*Properties of CONVENTIONAL implicatures
CONVENTIONAL implicatures share some similarities and some differences with conversational
implicatures. The main similarity is that they both are associated to the speaker’s meaning and not
the propositional meaning or the sentence meaning. The difference is that conventional
implicatures are not derived from the cooperative principle. They are attached to the meaning of
some lexical items or linguistic constructions. *Another difference is that conventional
implicature are conventions and by contrast conversational implicatures can be derived from
background assumptions, pragmatic principles and contextual knowledge.
*Finally, we should consider that: conventional implicatures cannot be cancelled. By contrast
conversational implicatures are cancellable;
conversational implicature are attached to the content. By contrast conventional implicatures
depend on the specific lexical item used;
conventional implicatures are not universal. By contrast conversational implicatures tend to be
found in most of the languages (considering that they can be overridden by specific sociolinguistic
rules)
• Topics of the lessonRevision of the answers given by students (with a specific comment where
I found out that there are problems…) New exercises! A couple of them will also be useful for
the part of the course dedicated to the theory of speech acts…
Exercise What is the difference between sentence and utterance? Students’ Answer 
The difference is that the sentence is an abstract construction and its meaning doesn’t take in
consideration the context, the speaker, … While an utterance is the use of a piece of language
used by a specific speaker on a specific occasion. The meaning of the utterance is also known as
speaker-meaning and it refers to the speaker’s intentions, message.
STUDENTS’ Answer A sentence is a string of words following the grammatical rules of language,
while an utterance is a piece of language (word, phrase, ...) uttered by a specific speaker in a
specific context.
ExerciseWhat is the propositional content of the following sentences: The shopkeeper had
reduced the prices + The prices had been reduced by the shopkeeper + It was the shopkeeper who
had reduced the prices + It was the prices that the shopkeeper had reduced + Had the shopkeeper
reduced the prices? + If only had the shopkeeper reduced the prices!
STUDENTS’ AnswersThe sentences have the same propositional content, which is: the
shopkeeper had reduced the prices. Note that it is a declarative sentence and that it is not
passive! A proposition is a statement!
Another correct answer: All the sentences share the same propositional content, thus "The
shopkeeper had reduced the prices"
REMINDER A proposition is what is expressed by a sentence when that sentence is used to
make a statement. In other words a sentence uttered to make a statement conveys a proposition.
• Different types of sentences may share the same propositional content. The propositional
content is that part of meaning that can be reduced to a proposition (a statement). This happens
even when some other aspects of meaning may be dissimilar. (passive voice, interrogative)
Example: the interrogative sentence Did Americans admire Mr. Roger? Has the same propositional
content of Americans admired Mr. Roger which is an active declarative sentence. And it has the
same propositional content of the passive declarative Mr. Roger was admired by Americans.
• ExerciseWhat is context and why is it so important for pragmatics? 
What is context? Context is the specific setting in which a linguistic unit is systematically used. It
can be physical context (when the correct interpretation of the utterance depends on physical
aspects, such as eye contact or gestures), linguistic context (when the correct interpretation
depends on the surrounding linguistic context such as a question) and general knowledge context
(which can be common ground when it is knowledge shared by many people in the world or
personal common ground when is knowledge shared by only two people).
Why is context so important for pragmatics? Context is important for pragmatics because we
can have pragmatically well-formed utterances (when the utterance matches our knowledge) or
pragmatically anomalous utterance (when the utterance doesn’t match what we know and so it is
anomalous from a pragmatic point of view).
• ExerciseWhat Maxims are violated in the following conversations?
Conversation 1 Hide the truth (John covers his real age to his sister’s friend whom he met at the
party by telling her that they have the same age)
A : I am twenty years old, and how old are you?
B : Exactly the same.
Comment about ‘Hide the truth’: the Quality Maxim is violated: the speaker says something that
is false, he lies about his age
Students’ answers
• Conversation 1: violation of the maxim of quality because he doesn’t tell his real age
• Conversation “Hide the truth” : The maxim of quality is violated, because B says something that
is false and also the maxim of relevance is violated because B hides his age
Save face (Bess covers herself for being a shoplifter in front of people)
A: What is in your bag? I think our bracelet is in it
Bess : I – I do not know what you are talking about. I do not have any bracelet. That alarm must be
wrong
Student’s answer: “Save face” : The maxim of quality is violated, because Bess denies something.
STUDENT: Students’ answers Conversation 2: violation of the maxim of quality because she
covers herself and violation of the maxim of relevance I would say that she violated the quality
maxim multiple times . And relevance is involved too.
Save face Quality Maxim is violated multiple times: 1. Bess knows exactly what the cashier is
talking about but she is trying to say that the cashier is mistaken … Is Bess relevant? 2. Bess says
something that she knows it is false: she lies about the bracelet. 3. Bess says something that she
knows it is false: the alarm is right and she says it is wrong.  also quantity maxim  she talked a
lot
Convincing the hearer: the speaker lies (a part time clerk asks his friend Burt to take his shift, but
his friend refuses by creating a good reason)
A : Can you take my shift tonight?
Burt: I wish I could, but I have to take my daughter to the dentist.
Students’ answers: “Convincing the hearer”: The maxim of quality is violated, because Burt says
something that is believed to be false.
Conversation 3 – Convincing the hearer → the maxim of quantity and the maxim of quality are
violated I can say that quality is violated and according to one of the students Burt could have
given a shorter answer (quantity) …. Maybe … Sorry I can’t
Feel jealous about something (Betty lies to Jane that she doesn’t know Jim, the new manager.
Betty actually likes him.)
Jane: I know you talked to Jim, this morning. He is awesome. What do you think about him?
Betty : I don’t know what you are talking about. Answer given by one of the students
“Feeling jealous”: The maxim of quality is violated because Betty tells a lie and also the maxim of
relevance because she hides the fact that she actually likes him.
• Exercise • Which Maxim does the speaker intend to opt out from by using the following
hedges?
1. People say…
2. This is a little bit confused , but…
3. I know this is irrelevant, but…
Students’ answers: Which Maxim does the speaker intend to opt out from by using the following
hedges?  • People say… : maxim of quality
• This is a little bit confused , but… : maxim of manner
• I know this is irrelevant, but… : maxim of relation
TASK for the studentsJoe and Irvine are the two characters in a computer program called Tale-
Spin. In the following passage, is the implicature arising from observing the maxim or from flouting
the maxim? One day Joe was hungry. He asked his friend Irving where some honey was. Irving told
Joe that there was a beehive in the oak tree. Joe threatened to hit Irving if he did not tell him
where some honey was. 
STUDENT: Irvine's implicature is that Joe could take the honey directly from the beehive. The
implicature is arising from flouting the maxim of relevance (be relevant).
Either Joe could not figure it out …or his English is very bad
• The implicature is that Joe could take the honey directly from the tree.
TASK for the students: Flouting the maxims Soon after the Berlin Wall was built, John Kennedy
announced in German that he was a Berliner. What he should have said is Ich bin Berliner, but he
said Ich bin ein Berliner, which is a kind of doughnut. Despite the mistake the audience
understood the implicature. What is the implicature in question? Which maxim was flouted
by the president of the USA?
Students’ answers
- Quality – “I want you to know that, as the highest representative of the United States, our
Country is with you, I am one of you”
- Kennedy flouted the maxim of quality, the implicature is that he was surely not a Berliner but his
soul was near all Berliners
- The president of the USA flouted the maxims of quality. The implicature is: he would help the
citizens of Berlin and he identifies with them
- he flouts the maxim of quality because he is not a Berliner but an American. The Implicature is
that he is near to Berliners and he wants to help them
TASK for the students: What is the conversational implicature of Mary’s reply in the following
conversation? Is she observing or flouting the maxims? What Maxims are flouted? What Maxims
are observed? 
John: India is the most populous country, isn’t it?
Mary: I’m the Queen of Sheeba.
(populous = densely populated)
STUDENTS: Implicature: “If India is the most populous Country, then I am Queen of Sheeba” -
“What you said is not true so I had to reply with a made-up statement, too”; she’s flouting
QUALITY and RELEVANCE (unmatched topic) maxims
- She flouts the maxims of quality, quantity and relevance (does she talk too much?)
- John is violating the maxim of quality because he is telling something that is false.
Exercise: Indicate if the conversational implicature arising from the reply is generalized or
particularized:
A - How did yesterday’s meeting go?
B - Some of the participants lost their connection
Implicature: Not all of the participants lost their connection.
• Students’ answersThe conversational implicature is generalized
- How did yesterday’s meeting go? -Some of the participants lost their connection
Implicature: Not all the participants lost their connection GENERALIZED IMPLICATURE
• Exercise What are the conventional implicatures of the following utterances?
a) John has not finished his thesis yet
b) Even her sister danced in that new Lebanese restaurant yesterday
c) The VIPs have still not arrived
• STUDENTS’ ANSWERSa) John has not finished his thesis yet → yet implicates that John has not
finished the thesis, but he is going to finish it.
b) Even her sister danced in a Lebanese restaurant yesterday → Even indicates the degree of
likelihood: her sister is unlikely to dance in a Lebanese restaurant
c) The VIPs have still not arrived → The VIPs were supposed to arrive earlier, but they have not
arrived yet.
STUDENTS’ Answers  • a) Yet implicates that John is actually going to finish his thesis in the
future;
• b) Even implicates that it was a surprise seeing her dancing with other people because it isn’t
something that she usually does;
• c) Still implicates that the VIPs have not arrived but they are expected to
• New exercises Please post your answers on the forum… I will comment on your answer Next
week!
New exercises 
• What is the main difference between conventional implicature and conversational implicature?
• Are conversational implicatures cancellable? And what about conventional implicatures, are they
cancellable?
• Can the maxim of quality be overridden by sociocultural rules?
• Which part of meaning in the following sentences can be reduced to a proposition? In other
words, what is their propositional content?
A. Listz adored Chopin
B. Chopin was adored by Listz
C. Did Listz adore Chopin?
-What does it mean ‘making a statement’? Can a statement be either true or false? Knowing the
correct answer will help you later on when we will study ‘the speech act theory’!!!
-Is the following text an utterance? Some common synonyms of ascribe are assign, attribute,
credit, and impute. While all these words mean ‘to lay something to the account of a person or
thing,’ ascribe suggests an inferring or conjecturing of cause, quality, authorship
• summaryRevision of the answers given by students I noticed that some of you should pay
more attention to the definition of propositional content, the definition of statement, the
definition of proposition SO… New exercises! A couple of them will also be useful for the part of
the course dedicated to the theory of speech acts…
Topics of the lesson Relevance Beyond Grice
An introduction to The Relevance theory by Sperber and Wilson
Explicature: definition and examples
EXERCISESA brief description of The Neo-Gricean theories
Beyond the Gricean MaximsIntroduction to the relevance theorythis is something that goes
beyond the Gricean theory  it’s a new interpretation
Do we need all the Gricean maxims? It seems that there are some overlaps among them.  For
example
Maxim of Quality (try to be truthful)  avoid to say things that are false..
A false statement is a violation of the quality maxim but this quality failure could be irrelevant for
understanding what is going on in communication. maybe because the interlocutor is not aware
that I’m lying is the speaker intention of lying for some specific reason intention to cheat
Maxim of Quantity (give the appropriate amount of information) don’t say too much and don’t
say too little 
Relevance may incorporate the maxim of quantity because too little information could be not
enough to ensure the relevance of what has been said, and too much information could be judged
as too distracting to get the point.
Maxim of Manner (try to be clear) We could also regard utterances uttered in an unhelpful
manner, such as those which are unclear or ambiguous, or too cluttered and therefore obscure, as
at risk of not working because their relevance cannot be grasped by the hearer or reader.  it
looks like relevance plays a role next to each one of Gricean Maxims
An example of the fact that relevance is very important in the general interpretation of speech
and writing We know from the study of the Gricean Maxims that a speaker’s contribution to a
conversational exchange (or email exchange, or texts messages) should be relevant at the specific
point where it occurs. In a text, for example, the topic information in a sentence creates the
linguistic context for what follows (which is called ‘the comment’). Addressees will expect the
‘comment’ to be relevant to the topic and will use their knowledge of the world to interpret the
complete sentence.
From the examples it seems reasonable to wonder weather relevance might not include all the
other maxims. Starting from this idea new theories have been proposed. 
One of them is called ‘Relevance theory’. The founders are Sperber and Wilson and they propose
one system to cover all kinds of implicatures.  is a sort of reduction of the Gricean cooperative
principle and Theory of implicature
*History of Relevance Theory and its core principles 
Relevance Theory was originated by the French scholar Dan Sperber and the British scholar
Deirdre Susan Wilson. It is considered a reaction and a development of the classical Gricean
pragmatic theory.
The central idea is that the human cognitive system (the way we use our intelligence) works in
such a way as to tend to maximise relevance with respect to communication. (our natural
tendency is to maximise relevance  so we will always try to find some kind of relevance
whatever the speaker is telling us)The communicative principle of relevance is responsible for
the recovery of both explicit and implicit content of utterances.  so according to the founder of
Relevance Theory there is an explicit content and there is an implicit content and relevance
allows the listener or reader to understand both these different kind of contents in a sentences or
utterance  that’s why we can talk about what is implicit as an implicature or implicit in the sense
that some sentences have a consequence  something you can deduce and induce from what is
said  and then explicature
*We can understand that according to relevance theory relevance is not a maxim.  Sperber
and Wilson explore the mental process that goes into maximising (trying to find out immediately
what is relevant) the useful information we get from utterances and at the same time minimising
the interpretative effort. (the effort in interpreting an utterance ) that’s how they see relevance
 as a process on maximization of information and minimization of interpretation.
The only criticism levelled against relevance theory is that it fails to provide an explanation of how
to measure contextual effects and processing efforts in an objective way.  this theory that is
extremely important has some criticism  but it’s extremely interesting because they take into
consideration the cognitive aspect of relevance  it’ not just a rule, a strategy, a cooperative
communication  but it is actually a mental process  and according to them the only that is
actually there when we consider the cognitive mental processes that are going on in a
conversation  and in that way we can say according to them relevance is the way human beings
have used their cognitive system when they interpret language 
*The notion of ostensive communication comes from the relevance theory
In relevance theory inferential communication is called ostensive-inferential communication. This
is because inferential communication, according to Sperber and Wilson, involves both informative
intention and communicative intention. Other ways that they refer to this intention is ostensive
communication.
Ostensive communication is an intention to inform an audience of something (informative
intention) and an intention of informing the audience of the speaker’s informative intention
(communicative intention) informative intention and communicative intention are basically
just one process that is called Ostensive communication
*The notion of Explicature 
Relevance theory is not only about the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance and
the process of maximisation of useful information and minimisation of effort in the interpretation.
Their contribution to pragmatics covers an area not well explained by the Gricean theory: the
notion of Explicature. Grice tried to explain the notion of Explicature  but he didn’t really
succeed in that he was much more successful in explaining the cooperative principle, the theory
of implicature and the maxims (strategies we can use to create a successful communication)
And for this course I think it is a notion that is worth exploring because it is directly connected to
the Grice’s speaker meaning.
We know that according to the Gricean Maxim the speaker’s meaning is divided into what is said
and what is implicated.
What is said is the meaning of the sentence with the exclusion of any conventional implicature.
What is conversationally implicated is in contrast with what is said. It is an extra message.
But to work out what is said we need to solve reference (the anaphoric reference in John told Bill
that he wanted to date his sister), deixis (I do not want to talk to her, I want to talk to her),
disambiguation of expressions (Flying planes can be dangerous).
Explicature
According to Sperber and Wilson pragmatics contributes to what is said which their call the
explicit content or explicature.
‘An explicature is an inferential development of an incomplete logical form or representations
encoded in the utterance’
In other words, an explicature functions to provide more information and make more complete an
utterance that presents incomplete logical form.
Examples will clarify the definition!
According to Relevance Theory explicatures typically serve to complete and enrich logical forms or
conceptual representations in five areas: disambiguation, reference resolution, saturation, free
enrichment, and ad hoc concept construction. (these areas are extremely important!!)
Let’s see the examples.
1. Disambiguation: is the selection of one sense out of various potential senses provided by
the linguistic system.  Example: Bill and John pass the port in the evening.
Explicature: Port means harbor and not the wine.
In this sentence the reader relies on context to select the correct interpretation of the
lexical item ‘port’.
2. *Reference resolution: means assigning an appropriate contextual value to the relevant
anaphoric expression. Example: John walked into a music room. The piano was made in
the 19th century.
Explicature: There was a piano in the music room. There is an antecedent reference or
cross-bridge association between the music room and the piano.
3. *SATURATION: refers to Incomplete logical forms of sentences. Here the explicature, for
example in the case of saturation, solves the meaning of a sentence that has a
comparative form that is incomplete:
John works too hard (for what? It is incomplete)
That program is less promising (less promising than what? )
This notion is different (from what is it different?).  we need saturation to complete
these sentences
 4. FREE ENRICHMENT: 1. The enrichment focuses on a lexical item narrowing its meaning or
by specifying it. Example: there is nothing on TV tonight. We can solve the vagueness of
the expression there is nothing on TV tonight by specifying the word ‘nothing’. The noun
phrase ‘nothing worth watching’ makes the original utterance clear.
Example: everyone wore a new cardigan. In this sentence the meaning of ‘everyone’ can
be narrowed by making reference to the context (everyone at Mary’s party)
In these cases the explicature serves the purpose to focus on narrowing or specifying the
lexical meaning of specific words according to the context
*Free Enrichment (adjustment of meaning)
Example of truism: John has a brain. This is a truism because all humans have a brain.
But we can narrow the meaning of the word brain by saying John has a scientific brain.
Example of vagueness: It is snowing This sentence is so vague that it is not clear what
the speaker meant. The vagueness can be resolved by specifying the location: It is snowing
in Boston.
In both cases Explicature serves to recover the narrower, specific meaning.
5. AD HOC CONCEPT CONSTRUCTION: narrowing or broadening of a concept. Example:
John is depressed. In this sentence ‘depressed’ could mean that John feels a bit low, or
that he feels very low, or that he feels suicidal. It depends on the context.
The explicature is then the narrowing of the meaning of depressed according to the
context.
Ad hoc adjustment of meaning. Examples of a loose or broad or weakening sense of
words and ad hoc adjustment of meaning *The fridge is empty. *Holland is flat.
What is expressed here is a loose concept of the adjectives empty and flat, a weakening of
their meaning. The ad hoc adjustment is simply to understand that here the adjectives
meaning is weakened.
This is also applicable to metaphors such as John is a bulldozer. In the latter case there is a
weakening of the meaning of bulldozer. It is an ad hoc adjustment of meaning.
In all these cases Explicature serves to recover the weakened meaning.
*A Property of both explicatures and implicatures
Both implicatures and explicatures are ‘informed guesses’ and therefore they can be cancelled.
 A: What was the accommodation like? B: It was ok. A: not so good, hey?
For example B could have explained: - No, you got me wrong the accommodation was good.
This explanation would cancel the explicature based on the entailment ‘ok equates not so good’
that relies on the semantic scale excellent>good>ok.
*Exercises*Please see what you can make of the following exercises referred to this lesson and
post your answers on the forum in section WEEK 4 (Moodle)
Question 1 What are the principles of ‘relevance’ according to The Relevance Theory?
Question 2  In which main areas does pragmatics play an important role in (completing or)
enriching the incomplete logical form (or conceptual representations) of an utterance?
Exercise 3What are the explicatures of the following?
The customer has visited the Eifel Tour in France
The thieves have stolen everything
The computer was powerful enough
Jane has found a file
Nobody understood the plan for the future of tourism and travel
This project is less promising
Exercise 4How can we adjust by free enrichment the truism and/or vagueness in the following?
-The sea is water - It is raining
Exercise 5Ad Hoc adjustment. What are the possible ways of narrowing or strengthening the
meaning of the following?
First decide if the concept is broad or if it is weak, then try to say why or try to adjust the sentence
by narrowing or strengthening the meaning. 
-Italy is a boot
-Mary is angry
-The child ate the chocolate heart on the cake
-John: Would you like any beef, or pork perhaps? Mary: I am vegetarian
Topic of the lessonComment on your answers to the new exercises of week 4 lesson 1 and
lesson 2
NEXT LESSON NEW TOPIC: Multimodality
ANSWERS WEEK 4 LESSON 1 
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-What is the main difference between conventional implicature and conversational implicature?
1.Conventional implicatures come from conventional features that are linked to lexical items or
linguistic construction. The main difference is that conventional implicatures do not derive from
the cooperative principle.
2. Conventional implicatures are not derived from the cooperative principle. They are attached to
lexical items or linguistic constructions. A conversational implicature could be derived from
background assumptions, pragmatic principles and contextual knowledge.
3.A conventional implicature is an inference which arises only because of conventional features
attached to lexical items or linguistic constructions. A conversational implicature is a set of
inferences meant by the speaker but they’re not part of what is said in the utterance. This
happens for example when the speaker either observes or flouts one or more maxims.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-Are conversational implicatures cancellable?
Conversational implicature are cancellable if they are inconsistent with: Semantic entailment
(something that is inferred, deduced or implied), real world knowledge (assumptions) or specific
contexts.
-And what about conventional implicatures, are they cancellable?
Conventional implicatures cannot be cancelled.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-Can the maxim of quality be overridden by sociocultural rules?
1.Yes, if there is a sociocultural constraint about the necessity of being indirect about for example
sensitive topics.
Maxims can be overridden by a sociolinguistic rule (this means that they need to be interpreted
taking into consideration the sociolinguistic rules of the culture). So the answer is yes, the maxim
of quality can be overridden by sociocultural rules.
2.Yes, despite the universality of Grice's maxims, it is important to acknowledge that there are
certain contexts in which those maxims do not apply to some cultures. Therefore in those cases
the maxim of quality should be interpreted taking into consideration the sociolinguistic rules of
the culture.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-Which part of meaning in the following sentences can be reduced to a proposition?
-In other words, what is their propositional content?
A. Listz adored Chopin
B. Chopin was adored by Listz
C. Did Listz adore Chopin?
AnswerThe active declarative sentence “Listz adored Chopin” has the same propositional
content as all the other sentences.
Their propositional content is: Listz adored Chopin.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-What does it mean ‘making a statement’?
Making a statement means to say something about a state of affairs in the world;
-Can a statement be either true or false?
Yes of course it can be true or false.
A sentence uttered to make a statement conveys a proposition.
A proposition is the highest level of abstraction of the sentence.  we have to remember that a
preposition as we can see is a part of meaning that can be shared by questions, negative
sentences, passive voice sentence and active voice sentencesso that’s a content the
proposition  therefore it is more abstract  then the second level is the sentence  a sentence
is different from an utterance  so the third level of abstraction  the least abstract is the
utterance because it is a piece of language uttered on a specific occasion by a specific person  so
it is very concrete is an instantiation while the sentence can be constructed by a professor to
talk about pragmatics or semantics  so it is something that can be studied in abstraction not as
part of a context we can study the sentence without taking into consideration the context but
when we study the utterances we need to take into consideration the context of the delivery.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-Is the following text an utterance? Some common synonyms of ascribe are assign, attribute,
credit, and impute. While all these words mean ‘to lay something to the account of a person or
thing,’ ascribe suggests an inferring or conjecturing of cause, quality, authorship.
1.Yes, because an utterance is the use of a piece of language, that could be a word, a sentence, a
phrase, a sequence of sentences, as in this specific case.
2.Yes it is, because it is the use of a piece of language. An utterance can be a word, a sentence, a
phrase, a sequence of sentences uttered by a specific speaker on a specific occasion.
3.Yes, it is. Indeed an utterance is defined as the use of a piece of language. In this case, this
utterance is represented by a sequence of sentences that are uttered by a specific speaker (in this
case it could be a teacher) on a specific occasion (during a lesson, trying to provide some
synonyms in order to clarify the meaning of a word)
*ANSWERS WEEK 4 LESSON 2
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-What are the principles of ‘relevance’ according to The Relevance Theory?
1.Relevance is not a maxim according to the Relevance Theory because in a communication
exchange there is a mental process that maximises information from the utterance and at the
same time minimises the interpretation.
2.The principles are: the human cognitive system maximizes relevance with respect to
communication; relevance is therefore responsible for the recovery of both explicit and implicit
content of utterances. Readers and listeners get useful information from utterances and at the
same time they minimize the interpretative effort.
EXERCISES with answers from the students 
-In which main areas does pragmatics play an important role in (completing or) enriching the
incomplete logical form (or conceptual representations) of an utterance?
1. Pragmatics acts in five main areas, which are: disambiguation, reference resolution, saturation,
free enrichment and ad hoc concept construction.
2. According to the Relevance Theory pragmatics plays an important role to complete and enrich
logical forms or conceptual representations in five areas: disambiguation (selection of sense out of
various potential senses provided by linguistic system), saturation (it refers to incomplete logical
forms of sentences), free enrichment (it focuses on a lexical item narrowing its meaning or by
specifying it), reference solution (it assigns an appropriate contextual value to relevant anaphoric
expression), ad hoc concept construction (narrowing or broadening of a concept)
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-What are the explicatures of the following?
Explicature serves to complete and enrich an incomplete representation or logical form and create
a proposition
-The costumer has visited the Eifel tower. Explicature: the customer has been to Paris/France at
some point in his or her life. (maybe by disambiguation: the verb tense is saying that it
happened but not when exactly, the Eifel tower is probably referring to the one in Paris and not
the copy in Las Vegas)
-The thieves have stolen everything. Explicature: The thieves have stolen everything that is
valuable. (-> free enrichment by narrowing, because the word ‘everything’ needs to be specified
(Everything of what?)) -The
computer was powerful enough. Explicature: The computer was powerful enough for computing
all data in a short time (-> free enrichment, because the computer was powerful enough for
what?) -Jane
has found a file. Explicature: Jane has found a lost file (in the office) -> free enrichment (what
kind of file? Where?) we can add context and specify kind of file
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-What are the explicatures of the following?
-Nobody understood the plan for the future of ‘tourism and travel’. Explicature: Nobody, at the
convention, understood the plan for the future of ‘tourism and travel-> free enrichment, because
“nobody” is not specified and we can add a context(Nobody among us/ Nobody among the
members of the company/ nobody at the convention)
-This project is less promising. Explicature: This project is less promising than the previous one ->
the sentence can be explicitly completed by saturation, because it is an incomplete logical form :
this project is less promising than what? Whenever a comparative form is not complete the
explicature serves that purpose of completing it.
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-How can we adjust by free enrichment the truism and/or vagueness in the following?
The sea is water-> truism-> the sea is made of salted water and unnumbered microorganisms…
It is raining->vagueness-> it is raining (where?) in Rome.
Alternative context: It is raining in London
EXERCISES with answers from the students
-Ad Hoc adjustment. What are the possible ways of narrowing or strengthening the meaning of
the following?
-Italy is a boot Ad Hoc adjustment by narrowing/strengthening:
Italy has the shape of a boot
The shape of Italy is similar to a boot->boot is used in a broad, loose sense, because Italy has
approximately the shape of a boot
-Mary is angry Ad hoc adjustment could be done by narrowing:
Mary is very angry or ‘steaming angry’ according to the context,
Ad hoc adjustment could be done by strengthening (enrichment): Mary seems angry with her
sister (according to the context, or personal knowledge of the situation) angry is used in a broad
sense, because the question is How much angry is Mary?
EXERCISES with answers from the students
Ad Hoc adjustment. 
-The child ate the chocolate heart on the cake-> the word heart underwent a narrowing of
meaning (therefore excluding a real heart) because the child ate a piece of chocolate decoration in
the shape of a heart (strengthening by enrichment) , which is on the cake.
-John: Would you like any beef, or pork perhaps? Mary: I am vegetarian-> vegetarian is used in a
broad sense, because Mary has not specified what she prefers to eat
Ad hoc adjustment by specifying what she wants: John: Would you like any beef, or pork perhaps?
Mary: I would prefer a salad, if you please, I am vegetarian
Ad HOC adjustment is about narrowing the meaning of a word used in a broad sense as we have
seen in this exerciseStrengthening the meaning is usually done by enrichment.
Topics of the lessonExercise for the students
Multimodality: history and definition of its features
Multimodal-pragmatic Analysis of a portal dedicated to tourism: applying the Gricean
Maxims and the forms and functions of multimodality
Applying the Gricean Maxims to Multimodal compositions: a portal for tourism
After reading the slides or listening to the video lesson about Multimodality please answer the
following questions:
1) What are the 3 most important meaning functions of multimodality?
2) What are the main 7 semiotic forms of multimodality?
3) What is a semiotic form according to Jewitt and /or van Leeuwen?
4) What is the leading discourse that the ‘AIRB and B’ website relies on?
5) What discourses are related specifically to tourism in the various numbered images?
6) Give examples of the multimodal forms and functions used in the numbered images.
7) What Gricean Maxims are most prominent in the various numbered images? What Maxims are
observed? What maxims are not observed?
Multimodality refers to the study of the use of multiple semiotic forms in communication. The
purpose is to make meaning as a result of the co-deployment of more than one form and at the
same time fulfilling at least 3 out of 5 meaning functions.
Digital representation and communication intensify the processes of multimodality and the
reframing of meaning from one form to another. Together they offer a common platform for the
construction and rendering of meaning in multiple forms.
Gricean Maxims are useful to the analysis of business letters, business reports, blogs, wall posts or
comments and of course websites. We will analyse a portal where potential customers can explore
tourist destinations and possible accommodations and book their holidays. We will find
descriptions, evaluations, tourists’ comments, hosts profiles…and of course images, hyperlinks,
symbols. Before engaging in the multimodal-pragmatic analysis of a website we need to define
multimodality starting with Michael Halliday, a linguist whose concepts became the inspiration for
multimodal analysis.
There are five functions of meaning: reference, agency, structure, context, and interest (the
purpose of the composition). The first three – reference, agency, and structure – are addressed in
conventional descriptions of language based on phonological, grammatical and discourse systems.
In his functional grammar, Michael Halliday calls these three functions: ideational, interpersonal,
and textual metafunctions. Halliday’s conceptual framework works for all semiotic forms: written
text, images, space, objects, body (e.g. bodily movements), sounds (music included), speech.
Michael Halliday’s three functions:
1. the ideational metafunction, later renamed by Cope as reference function, is the function
of conveying information about reality; for example the use of a word but also the use of
an icon or a photo.
 2. the interpersonal metafunction, which was renamed agency function, is the function of
engaging the attention of the receiver, thus establishing a relation between the sender and
the receiver and its done in terms of observing and violating the maxims with the
purpose of creating a little bit of suspense;
3. and the textual function, later renamed structure function, which is the function of
structuring coherent compositions.
Halliday’s work has provided the guidelines for further research. His research was, later on, taken
over by Kress, Van Leeuwen, Hodge, O’Toole and Jewitt among others, and has been “extended to
most semiotic resources”, in other words, semiotic forms, allowing the analysis of printed texts,
online texts and contents, videos and images, websites and even 3D platforms. Gunter Kress and
Theo van Leeuwen published Reading images in 1996, and in 2006. A book that established the
importance of the study of multimodality at world level.
The concept of semiotic forms
Theo Van Leeuwen and Gunter Kress have investigated meaning as part of social semiotics. In the
book Introducing Social Semiotics, van Leeuwen analyses “the ways in which different aspects of
modern society combine to create meaning”, therefore his analysis applied to anything that can be
done or made and can carry social and cultural meanings. These are instantiated through semiotic
forms and he defines them as “actions and artefacts we use to communicate” and are intended as
signifiers.
Van Leeuwen explores both obvious and less obvious meaning forms, such as 1. The written form
of the language, 2. The spoken form of the language, 3. images (static and dynamic, but also
typography and colour), 4. Bodily resources (gesture, posture, appearance), 5. Space (layout,
organization of objects in a page or in the real space), 6. Objects (food, clothing, and everyday
objects/artifacts of cultural value or significance), 7. Sound (music, songs, voice timbre, volume,
and tone).
*Why is multimodality useful when we analyse the Gricean maxims in a website or a promotional
text? 
Multimodal studies analyse new media. Examples: computer animation, digital films,
photography, graphs, diagrams, illustrations, web portals and sites, social media, promotional
material. The basic idea is that compositions achieve meaning through the co-deployment of
multiple simultaneous semiotic forms.
When we write a text or create an advert that aims at attracting the attention of the reader or the
public we are technically exploiting the reference (ideational) function of meaning, the agency or
interpersonal function of meaning, and structure or textual function of meaning. And of course we
make reference to context (physical context, social, cultural assumptions, discourse, implicatures,
deixis), and we consider the intention of the sender (speaker’s meaning) and the acceptance on
the part of the addresses.
*According to Jewitt, the terms semiotic mode or semiotic form “refer to a set of socially and
culturally shaped resources for making meaning”, something that is “a recognized/usable system
of communication within a community”, and includes for example written text, speech, images,
bodily movements (gesture, gaze, posture), sounds, objects.
AIRBNB themes/discourse and its portal are supported by the multimodal and pragmatic
construction of the website.
The AIRBNB website relies on
1. Overall minimalist design
2. Core/leading discourse: sharing economy, (and values related to sharing economy )  like
renting a room in your house to some tourist  or a house or to a student  you share a little
part of what you own  it implicates also trust
Other discourses are of commercial, trading value: trust and transparency, 
Tourism related discourses: authenticity, experiences of new cultures or destinations, and local
itineraries, but also adventure and sustainable tourism, target segmentation (family, work travel),
holidays customization, hospitality…
The «minimalist» design (function: structure) (everything looks very minimalist), form image: a
clear typeface (clean, thin, round, easy to read), low saturated colours, icons function (all part of
the semiotic form that we can call image) : representation of place and tourists (forms: image,
body).Frames are used to cluster information (function: structure, form: space); Hyperlinks allow
for insights (form: text, function: action) the sites are very clear the frames
Hyperlinks make the reading relevant to the needs of the reader. The design and referential
functions are observing the Maxim of manner. The repetition of the same information through 2
forms, image and text, avoids the violation of quantity)
*DISCOURSE From the analysis of the discourse the AirBnB portal has a leading discourse:
sharing economy. Related discourses are: trust and transparency. Tourism related themes and
related discourses are: authenticity, experience (also adventure), target segmentation (family,
work travel), customization
Topics of the lesson
Speech act theory: J. L. AUSTIN and his observations
*Performatives he outlined what performatives are
*Explicit and implicit performatives
*Descriptive usage of performatives
*Austin’s felicity conditions
*Locution, illocution and perlocution
The philosopher of language who founded the modern study of speech acts is J. L. Austin. Austin
was the leader of The school of Ordinary language philosophy. His lectures were later published in
the book How to do things with words. Both Grice’s theory of implicature and the theory of
speech acts developed under this tradition. John Searle, a pupil of Austin, later on systematized
the theory. The central idea of speech act theory is that the uttering of a sentence is an action
within the framework of social institutions and conventions.
Where did all start? It started with philosophy…
According to the philosophy of logical positivism, the only interesting function of language is that
of making true or false statements. So, unless a sentence can be verified, or tested for its truth or
falsity, it was considered meaningless. For example a sentence such as 1) Screaming at your
employees is wrong is meaningless because it is not used to make a verifiable or falsifiable
proposition. Another example: 2) Johanne is more beautiful than Mary. Both sentences (1 and 2)
express subjective judgments.
Austin, on the background of this verificationist theory, developed his theory of speech acts. He
made two important observations. He noted that some ordinary language sentences are not
employed to make a statement, and therefore they cannot be said to be true or false. For
example: Good Morning!, Is she a vegetarian? Put the car in the garage, please.
Austin’s second observation was that there are ordinary language declarative sentences that resist
a truth conditional analysis. The point in uttering those sentences is not only to say something
but actively do things. Those sentences have both a descriptive and an effective aspect.
Austin called them performatives. Performatives are utterances that are used to do things or
perform acts.  because they perform something they perform actsthat’s why performatives
Examples of performative sentences
I name this ship the Princess
I now pronounce you husband and wife
I sentence you to ten months in prison
I command you to surrender
I apologize for being late
I promise to come to the meeting tomorrow
Austin notes that these sentences are not used to say anything true or false about the state of
affairs in the world. And, more importantly, their use is part of an action: The action of naming a
ship, of pronouncing a couple married, of sentencing a convicted criminal, of ordering, of
apologizing, of promising.  all these are basically performed actions
The performative sentences that Austin analysed were actually part of ritual behaviour supported
by institutional facts: they usually are performed during a ceremony as for example Christening a
ship or a Wedding ceremony. And others are part of an institutionalized procedure that has strong
consequences: sentencing a criminal, commanding a country to surrender. Others are part of
conventional behaviour such as: promising or apologizing.
In some of the performative sentences the performative verb, which is the verb naming the action,
is essential and cannot be omitted.
To prove this, Austin contrasted the performative sentences with statement such as:
The children are chasing squirrels in the park.
Garin won the first Tour the France in 1903.
In these statements the performative verb can be omitted. I do not need to say I (hereby) state
that the children are chasing squirrels in the park. [hereby is a reinforcement]
We can omit the performative verb promise when we promise something as in I will come to the
meeting tomorrow.
However, we cannot omit the performative in ceremonial declarations (naming/Christen).
Explicit and implicit performatives
-Explicit performatives, according to Austin, are performative utterances which contain a
performative verb that makes explicit what kind of act is being performed.
-Implicit performatives are performative utterances in which there is no explicit performative
verb.
Examples of explicit performatives are those found in the sentences already discussed:
I name this ship the Princess.
I now pronounce you husband and wife.
I sentence you to ten months in prison.
I command you to surrender.
I apologize for being late.
I promise to come to the meeting tomorrow.
Examples of implicit performatives are
I will come to the meeting tomorrow.
Surrender immediately.
How about going to London on Sunday?
Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police.
TASK for the students post your answers in section week 6 of MoodleOf the following
performatives which are explicit and which are implicit?
1. All applications must be submitted to the dean by May 31th.  implicit
2. You are hereby forbidden lo leave this room. explicit
3. How about going to the British Museum this afternoon? implicit
4. Keep all medicines out of reach of children. implicit
* Syntactic properties of explicit performatives Austin defined the properties of explicit
performatives in English
1. Explicit performatives contain a performative verb
2. The adverb hereby can reinforce the performative nature of the performative verb
3. Explicit performatives occur in sentences with 1st person singular subject of a verb in the simple
present tense, indicative mood, active voice (I hereby assert)
However there are various exceptions to this rule! In the next slide there are examples of
performatives that do not have the three properties outlined by Austin.!!!!!!
These examples very important for us  because they are taken from the typical language of
tourism and commerce
1. We suggest that you go to the embassy and apply for your visa in person.
2. You are hereby warned that legal action will be taken.
3. Passengers are hereby requested to wear a seat belt.
4. Notice is hereby given that the Annual General meeting of AGM will be held at the Hexagon,
Reading, Berkshire, on Wednesday, 27 July 2021, at 11 AM.
5. The Management hereby warns customers that mistakes in change cannot be rectified once the
customer has left the counter.
6. It is herewith disclosed that the value of the estate left by Marcus Bloom was 5,000,000 dollars.
Last but not least, sometimes performative verbs may be used as non-performatives when they
are used in a DESCRIPTIVE WAYwe need always to understand when the use of promise (and all
this type of verbs) is just descriptive or performative  in this case descriptive
-You are always promising that you do your homework but you never do it
-Those clouds are promising rain
-I baptized John’s baby last Sunday
-It is the manager who authorized him to use your desktop computer
Austin’s felicity conditionA performative, according to Austin, cannot be true or false. However,
Austin noticed that for a performative to be successful it must meet certain conditions. These are
called ‘felicity conditions’. For example: The felicity condition for the speech act of naming is that
the speaker has the authority to perform the act of naming. The felicity condition for the speech
act of ordering is that you can order or command someone only if you, as a speaker, have
authority over the addressee.
Felicity conditions are conditions under which words can be used properly to perform actions.
Violation of the conditions will render a performative infelicitous.
A case could be what Austin describes as MISFIRE: For example, says Austin, in England, a registrar
conducting a marriage ceremony in an unauthorized place will violate the condition that there
must be a conventional procedure to actually have a conventional effect. Or maybe the case of the
bride not saying the exact words that are conventional for the ceremony. Or even the case in
which the clergyman pronounces husband the wrong man…
EXERCISE for the studentsIn the following, which performative verbs are used non-
performatively? 
a. We thanked them for their hospitality
b. I am warning you not to spend too much on photocopying
c. John withdraws his application
d. All passengers on flight 36 to Paris are requested to proceed to gate 4
e. The managing director congratulated everyone in the room.
Speech acts are extremely useful in the case of tourism and commerce  all these sentences
that we have seen are actually very conventional  prototypical  actually characterize the
language for tourism and commerce linked to specific situations and therefore to specific
discourse of tourism and commerce
*Locution, illocution, perlocution
Locutionary speech act
Illocutionary speech acts
Perlocutionary speech acts
Here we have the foundations of the theory.
Austin further observations on performatives became a general theory of speech acts. This means
that he acknowledged that there is a general class of performatives that encompasses both
explicit and implicit performatives. And that implicit performatives actually included many other
types of sentences. All of them are subject to the felicity conditions.
Statements for examples can be infelicitous as in Joe won the elections, but I do not believe it.  if
they can be infelicitous, it means that they can be actually speech acts.
Statements can have loose or broad meaning as France is hexagonal therefore they cannot be
completely true. And then there are statements that actually pass the HEREBY test and so we
should count them as performatives even if they are asserting or stating something: I hereby state
that Joe is the President, I hereby tell you that the CEO is not going to step down, I hereby
hypothesize that there is life on Mars.  all these are actually performative because I can actually
use this enfatic adverb  is actually telling you that you are performing something an action
Austin concluded that all utterances perform specific acts via the specific communicative force of
an utterance.
He introduced a distinction among the acts the speaker simultaneously performs when saying
something:
-Locutionary act: the production of a meaningful expression. (via syntax and morphology and
phonology)
-Illocutionary act: the action intended to be performed by a speaker in uttering a linguistic
expression, by virtue of conventional force associated with it, either explicitly or implicitly.
-Perlocutionary act: the consequences or the effects on the audience through the uttering of an
illocutionary act.
In other words the Locutionary act is the basic act of speaking. It fulfills the phonetic,
morphology and syntax of the language he or she is using.
When the speaker says something he or she does it with some purpose in mind: this is the
illocutionary act (Most important one of the three). The illocutionary act refers to the type of
functions the speaker intends to fulfill, or the type of action the speaker intends to accomplish in
producing an utterance. It is an act accomplished in speaking.
Examples of illocutionary acts areaccusing, apologizing, blaming, congratulating, giving
permission, joking, naming, promising, ordering, refusing, swearing, threatening, and thanking…
These actions are defined as the illocutionary force or point of the utterance.
*According to John Searle the illocutionary force is conveyed by an illocutionary force indicating
device (IFID). The direct type of IFID is an explicit performative. That’s why it is important that
you know and you recognize explicit performativesFor example: I hereby order you to stand up.
*The term speech act in its narrow sense is often taken to refer specifically to illocutionary acts.
The same locutionary act (which is just a linguistic expression) can count as having different
illocutionary forces (the same linguistic expression can perform different speech acts) in different
contexts. For example, the utterance THE GUN IS LOADED can be used, depending on the
circumstances, to make a threat, issue a warning, or give an explanation.
Conversely, the same illocutionary force (speech act) can be performed (realized) by means of
different locutionary acts (which are linguistic expressions).
*For example the speech act of REQUESTING can be performed by the following utterances:
-I would like a day return ticket to Oxford (declarative sentence construction)
-Can I have a day return ticket to Oxford? (Interrogative sentence construction)
-A day return ticket to Oxford, please! (imperative sentence construction)
Perlocutionary act
A perlocutionary act concerns the effects of an utterance on the addressee. The perlocution is the
act by which the illocution produces a certain influence on the addressee. It is a consequence of
speaking, or a by-product, and it can be intentional or unintentional (the consequences of what
you say can be unintentional).
For example in a bank robbery the robber may say This gun is loaded. The perlocution would be
the effect of the act of speaking. In this case getting the cashier open the safe and deliver the
money.
The common expression “stand and deliver” has a VERY different older meaning related to
highway robbery (or "income redistribution"). The verb Stand means to come to a stop, and
deliver means to hand over your wallet or purse. The speech act uttered by a highwayman
typically was "stand and deliver – your money or your life!".
Most of the time, in Austin’s terms, it was a felicitous condition… The perlocutionary effect being
the handing over of the money to the criminal.
Exercise for the studentsPlease post your answers in the forum of week 6
What are the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts of the following?
a. Manager’s secretary to employee: Coffee?
b. Elder brother to younger brother: Give me my IPhone back! (solutions week 8)
*SUMMARY
*In this lesson we explored how J. L. AUSTIN came up with the theory of speech acts.
*We explored
*his observations on sentences that cannot be defined as true or false
*the definition of performatives both explicit and implicit
*The concept of felicity conditions
*Finally the concepts of locution, illocution, and perlocution
*There are exercise in this lesson that should allow you to test your understanding of the
illustrated concepts
Topics of the lesson
Felicity conditions according to John Searle
The four dimensions of speech acts
The five types: Searle’s typology of speech acts  John Searle complicated the concept of felicity
conditions but we can say that the good thing was that he used the felicity conditions according to
his own view to create the typologists  and his typologists are the most influential nowadays 
so this is the most important part  and of course also the four dimensions
Next week: exercise…
Felicity conditions according to John SearleJohn Searle view
John Searle is the most important scholar after Austin in shaping the principles of speech act
theory.
In 1969 he claimed that the felicity conditions are not only defining the appropriateness of the
speech act but that they constitute, together, the illocutionary force(or the speech act).
According to John Searle the felicity conditions are the constitutive rules of speech acts. They
are rules that create the activity itself. In this way performing a speech act means to obey certain
conventional rules that are constitutive of that type of act.
The great achievement was that Searle could create a classification of four basic categories simply
developing Austin’s felicity conditions.
The four basic categories are
I. Propositional content
II. Preparatory condition
III. Sincerity condition
IV. Essential condition
According to Searle the speech act of promising has the following felicity conditions
I. Propositional content: future act (on the part of the speaker he promises to do something in
the future)
II. Preparatory condition: the hearer wants the speaker to perform the future act, and the speaker
believes so. the speaker believes that the hearer wants him/her to perform this promise.
III. Sincerity condition: the Speaker intends to do the act in question. if you are sincere in your
promise you are actually genuinely intending to do the specific promise
IV. Essential condition: The utterance counts as undertaking to do the act (taking responsibility to
do it).
According to Searle the speech act of requesting has the following felicity conditions
I. Propositional content: future act of hearer.
II. Preparatory condition: a) Speaker believes the hearer can do the act, and b) it is not obvious
that the hearer would do the act.
III. Sincerity condition: speaker wants the hearer to do the act.
IV. Essential condition: the utterance counts as an attempt to get the hearer to do the act.
Searle’s propositional content condition is concerned with what the speech act is about.
For a promise the propositional content is to predicate some future act on the part of the speaker.
For a request the propositional content is to predicate some future act on the part of the hearer.
The preparatory conditions state the real-world prerequisites for the speech act.
For a promise they are that the addressee would prefer the promised action to be accomplished
and that the speakers knows the addressee’s preferred outcome.
For a request the preparatory conditions are that the speaker has reasons to believe that the
addressee has the ability to carry out the action requested and that he won’t do it unless asked to
do it.
The sincerity condition must be satisfied if the act is to be performed sincerely.
In a speech act of promise the speaker must intend to keep the promise.
In a speech act of request the speaker must want the addressee to do the requested action.
The essential condition defines the act that is performed. The speaker’s intention is that his or
her utterance counts as the identifiable act, and that the addressee recognizes it.
In a promise the speaker’s intention is to create an obligation to act.
In a request the speaker’s intention is an attempt to get the addressee to do what he or she is
requesting.
Finally, Searle’s felicity conditions for thanking
I. Propositional content (what the speech act is about): It is about a past act done by the hearer
II. Preparatory condition (the real-world prerequisites for the speech act): The speaker believes
that the act has helped the speaker
III. Sincerity condition (the conditions that must be satisfied if the act is to be performed
sincerely): Yes, the speaker feels grateful for the act
IV. Essential condition (The speaker’s intention is that his or her utterance counts as the
identifiable act, and that the addressee recognizes it): the utterance counts as an expression of
gratitude.
Searle’s typology of speech acts
This is the most interesting part of John Searle contribution to the theory of speech acts.
Searle’s typology practically makes it easier to understand the essence of speech acts by
classifying them.
But let’s start with Austin’s taxonomy. Austin grouped the numerous speech acts in types. Austin’s
typology was very much in need of a systematization.
Searle’s neo-Austinian typology of speech acts remains the most influential optimization of speech
acts.
Under John Searle’s taxonomy, speech acts are grouped into types along 4 dimensions.  The
dimensions are
1. Propositional content
2. Illocutionary point which is the speech act type
3. Direction of fit: relationship between words and world
4. Expressed psychological state
*The propositional content (meaning) is commonly known as the content of a proposition.
Content is distinct from the illocutionary point which refers to the distinctive ways in which the
content is involved in speech acts.
Proof of that can be found in the fact that they can be separately negated
*I tell you the ball wasn’t in; it was out. (negated content) The propositional content is denied.
*I’m not telling you the ball was in; I’m asking you whether it was. (negated illocutionary point:
this is not an assertion, it is a questionit is performing a question). Assertions and questions are
two different speech acts or illocutionary points.
The same propositional content is involved in different ways according to the illocutionary point
of a range of speech acts
*Statement (a report about new info): someone won two gold medals
*Question (about the identity of the winner): Who won two gold medals?
*(mother’s) praise: Who won two gold medals?
*(champion’s) boast: Who won two gold medals?
*(athlete’s coach) order: Be the one who wins two gold medals!
*Illocutionary point, direction of fit and expressed psychological state can be summarized in
Illocutionary point: in the case of Representative type of speech act (assertion or representative)
 that is the illocutionary point  it’s a speech act in this case we take into consideration the
assertions  and in this case 
Direction of fit: from the words-to-world it means that my assertion contains words that are
actually matching or describing what is in the world  there is a match between the words and
the world.
Expressed psychological state: belief (speaker)  the speaker believes that what is the state of
affairs he is describing is the truth  is a statement assertion
Ex.  the sun is a star are actually fitting what actually is going on in the world  and this is at
least my belief I actually sincerely think that this is the truth
Illocutionary point: Directive type of speech act
Direction of fit: world-to-words  which means that in order to have a fit we need the world to
change and match the words  if I give you an order  only if you accomplish the order then the
world has changed you made a change and in that way it fits now my order the words that I
expressed
Expressed psychological state: desire (of the addressee) every time I issue an order, command
a request you are actually expressing a desire  what you want to be accomplished.
Illocutionary point: Commissive type of speech act for example a promise  in this case it is the
speaker that needs to act in the world in order to match the words
Direction of fit: world-to-words
Expressed psychological state: Intention (of the speaker) for example promise my intention is
to actually fulfil the promise
Illocutionary point: Expressive type of speech act the case is for example thanking  because
I’m expressing my feeling
Direction of fit: none because I’m actually expressing something not about the world but that
comes from my feelings, from my internal world
Expressed psychological state: variable (according to the speaker) there is not a fixed
psychological state  it could be an apology, a thanking, a welcoming, a greeting that’s
obviously an expressive type of speech act  because I’m just expressing my feelings
Illocutionary point: Declaration type of speech actare institutionalized and conventionalized
speech acts and they are very easy to detectbecause you can understand if it is something /a
statement that comes from the institution if you do not have the authority you cannot perform
the actual action and the speech act  so declaring war, baptizing somebody, appointing
somebody  all of them are declaration type of speech acts.
Direction of fit: both (words-to-world and world-to words)
Expressed psychological state: none (speaker) because the speaker is just performing a specific
procedure  and is using the conventional words
Under Searle’s taxonomy speech acts are grouped into 5 types
1. type of speech acts: Representative (Assertives))
They commit the sender to the truth of the proposition. They carry a truth value; they express
the sender’s belief. Typical cases are
-stating;
-asserting;
-claiming;
-concluding;
-reporting.
Examples of Assertive types of speech acts are
• The developers are struggling because of the snow
• Chinese characters are borrowed to write Japanese and Korean
• Crick and Watson discovered the DNA structure.
These are statements of what is going on in the world  and these are all statements
something that is going on in the reality.
In performing Assertives types of speech acts the sender represents the world as he or she
believes it is. Therefore, the direction of fit which is the relationship between words and world:
The words fit the world of belief.  The psychological state expressed: the expression of the
sender’s belief.
2. type of speech acts: Directive
Directives are those type of speech acts that represent attempts on the part of the sender to get
the addressee to do something.
They express the sender’s desire to make the addressee do something. Typical cases include
-advice,
-commands,
-orders,
-and requests.
*Examples of directive speech acts are
• Turn the TV down
• Don’t use my electric car
• Could you please move that lid off, for me?
In using a directive the sender wishes to get the addressee to do something.
Therefore, the direction of fit which is the relationship between words and world is: The world will
match the words via the addressee. *The psychological state expressed: the sender’s desire to
get the addressee do something.
3. type of speech acts: Commissive
Commissives are those types of speech acts that commit the sender to some future action.
They express the sender’s intentions to do something.
Typical cases include
-offers,
-pledges,
-promises,
-refusals,
-and threats.
*Examples of commissive speech acts are
•I will never buy another computer game
•I will be back in five minutes
In the case of commissives the direction of fit which is the relationship between words and world
is: The world is adapted to words via the sender himself or herself.
The psychological state expressed: the sender’s intentions to do something.
4. type of speech acts: Expressive
Expressives are those types of speech acts that express a psychological state or attitude in the
sender.
Examples are expressions of joy, sorrow, and likes or dislikes.
Typical cases are
-apologizing,
-blaming,
-congratulating,
-praising,
-thanking.
There is no direction of fit for the type of speech act called expressive. These speech act type is an
expression of a state of mind and there is no action to be performed in the outside world.
The psychological state expressed: The sender makes known what he or she feels.
5. type of speech acts: Declaration
Declarations are those types of speech act that effect immediate changes in the current state of
affair. For their performance they rely on institutions. Typical cases are
-bidding in a game of cards
-Declaring war
-Excommunicating
-Firing from the employment
-Nominating a candidate
*Examples are
•I declare a state of national emergency
•The meeting is adjourned
In performing the declaration speech act the sender brings about changes in the world.
The sender effects (e.g. by declaring two people husband and wife) a correspondence between
words (the proposition) and the world.
*The direction of fit which is the relationship between words and world is double: words
correspond to the world and the world correspond to the words.

Topic of lesson 1 week 7

indirect speech acts
Direct speech acts: Correspondence between basic sentence forms and illocutionary force
Indirect speech acts.
Analysis of indirect speech acts as two speech acts: a precondition (secondary speech act) and a
the primary speech act (performed indirectly)
exercise
Indirect speech acts as conventions
Politeness culture and speech acts
FTAs and The 5 strategies + exercise
English has three basic sentence types
Declarative: You listen to the news
Interrogative: Do you listen to the news?
Imperative: Listen to the news!
The three major sentence types are associated with three basic illocutionary forces and can be
paraphrased with performatives:
Asserting/stating: I hereby state that you listen to the news
Asking/questioning: I hereby enquire whether you listen to the news
Ordering/ requesting: I hereby order to listen to the news
If there is a match between a sentence type and an illocutionary force, we have a direct speech
act. Explicit performatives also are direct speech acts because they have the illocutionary force
which is explicitly named by the performative verb.
If there is no direct match or direct relationship between the sentence type and an illocutionary
force the speech act is indirect.
When an explicit performative is used to make a request it function as a direct speech act.
The same happens when an imperative is used: Pass the salt / I request you to pass the salt.
When an interrogative is used to make a request we have an indirect speech act: Can you pass the
salt?  in this case I’m not using the basic matching, I’m using another form I’m using the
interrogative instead of the imperative  therefore it is obviously an indirect speech act.
*Warnings and threats
*I promise to fire you if you do not finish the job by this weekend this is a performative
This is a promise, because the performative is explicitly calling it a promise, but it is also a threat
or a warning.  So maybe it is safer to use John Searle’s classification: The sentence is then a
commissive in all cases, a promise, a threat, or a warning…
In social practices, especially at work, most of our speech acts are indirect speech acts. The speech
act of requesting is usually performed indirectly (by adding an extra speech act…)
Can you close the window? (precondition: Can you or can you not?)  actually contains two
speech acts  the indirect speech act which is the primary speech act that is basically an
order to close the window and that: can you?  which is another speech act that is actually
direct and it’s there just to reassuring that the precondition that allow the addressee to perform
the act are actually there  so the precondition is can you or can you not?  not in the sense of
the ability to do that  but in the sense of the circumstances are you too busy, too far away…
 this means that you don’t even need to answer the first question  because it is just a
precondition  you just need to perform the indirect speech act if the preconditions are there 
otherwise you can always explain why you cannot perform the indirect speech act.
Will you close the window? (precondition: Will you or will you not?) same thing
Would you mind closing the window? (precondition: Would you or would you not?)
I wonder if you would mind to close the window (precondition: do you mind or you don’t?)
I want you to close the window (it is my wish that…)
Task: Of the following utterances which are direct and which are indirect ? 
1. Announcement: Please proceed to the car deck and return the car keys
2. Notice: You are advised against swimming alone indirect
3. Zoom class: Would all students turn their microphones off now, please?  indirect
4. Have a nice weekend!
5. Why don’t we go to the new restaurant right after the end of the lockdown?
6. I respectfully request that you return your homework by next week Indirect
How is an indirect speech act analysed? 
We can assume the existence of a dual illocutionary force, as John Searle explains.
On this assumption indirect speech acts are 2 speech acts: one is direct and the second one is
indirect. The indirect speech act is the primary or most important of the two speech acts. The
secondary speech act of ‘Can you pass the salt?’ is a question ‘Can you?’ about the preconditions
or preparatory conditions that allow the addressee to perform the request. It means ‘are you in
the conditions to perform my request?’ It is a way to give the addressee a way out, so, maybe you
can answer ‘Sorry I am too busy right now’. The primary speech act is indirect and it is an
order/request of passing the salt.
Understanding the process of the two speech acts involved in the indirect speech act is also useful
in understanding when a speech is direct.
Moreover, Searle’s explains that a speaker’s performing and an addressee understanding a speech
act involves some inference or implicature.
We can understand as addressees if for example relevance is involved in the speech act.
Indirect speech acts are most of the time conventionalized. Therefore the speech act (the direct
one) that is precondition for the second (the indirect one) is usually a fixed expression:
You usually say Can you pass the salt? It is a conventionalized way to make a request. And you do
not say ‘Do you have the ability to pass the salt?
The 2 types of questions are performing an indirect speech act. They both inquire about the
satisfaction of the addressee-based preparatory condition for requiring the addressee to perform
the act of passing the salt.
The difference is only in the conventional way of performing the speech act. Normally the
addressee does not answer ‘No, I cannot’ or ‘yes, I can’, usually he or she performs the
order/request of passing the salt.
The use of please is for example typically used in conventional speech acts before the verb.
Please pass the salt.  Can you please pass the salt?
Some remarks about politeness. 
The use of indirect speech acts is associated with politeness.  Indirect speech acts are usually
considered to be more polite than the direct ones. 
Examples are: Would you call Lucy a taxi, if you please? Would you mind calling Lucy a taxi?
Pleeeease?
Many types of speech acts such as complaints or disagreements and requests are defined as face-
threatening acts in the sense that they threaten the self-esteem of the addressee and the public
image (one’s face).
Acts that can threaten positive face (the desire to be accepted and liked by others) include
expressions of disapproval, accusations, criticism, disagreements, and of course insults.
Speech acts that threaten negative face (individual right of freedom of action and the need not to
be imposed on by others) include advice, orders, requests, suggestions, and warnings.
Those that threated positive and negative face include complaints, interruptions, and threats.
*Even the speaker can threaten his own or her own face! 
For example by accepting compliments (this is considered a way of threatening your own self-
esteem), expressing thanks-gratitude, making a confession.
Other acts threaten the addressee's face wants for example when the addressee is being advised
or reminded. Even strong expression of emotion are considered face threatening in the English
speaking world…  all this analysis about politeness is not universal  this is just how the brits
and Americans politeness culture is working.
*FTA (face-threatening act, such as complaining) can be measured according to 3 variables!
-Social distance between the speaker and the addressee
-Relative powerof the addressee
-Ranking of imposition (which depends on the given culture) depends particularly on the British
culture to decide what kind of rank has a specific position in FTA
The strength can be calculated by adding the 3 variables. On this bases the amount of face
work, or politeness, can be worked out.
There are also strategies that can help one to avoid FTA. 
-Do the FTA (+4) and you do it off records  which means indirectly by dropping adverbal hints
 so you basically you are not even saying it  but you try to make the other person
understanding the implicature of what you are saying with something else instead of saying 
close the window!  you can say oh it’s so cold here!  and you are actually looking at the
person who is right next to the window and you hope that he/she gets the implicature that you
are not actually just stating something about your body temperature but you actually wants
something else he or she closes the window.
-Do the FTA on record (+ 1)in this case you can also do it without redressive action so you just
go and say close the window! without politeness  and you have gone direct speech act asking
to perform a command
-Do the FTA on record with redressive action (+ 2 or 3),  here you can choose if you want to go
with strategies number 2 with a face saving act..  for example you can try to use an indirect
speech act and you are actually trying to make it like something that is enhancing the positive face
of the person oh you are such a nice person! …emphasizing solidarity  then the 3d  using
negative politeness giving deference.
1. without redressive action, baldly!
2. with face a saving act using positive redress politeness, emphasizing solidarity.
3. using negative politeness, giving deference.
4. off record (indirectly by dropping a verbal hint)
5. do not do the FTA (by dropping a non-verbal hint)  so you just make a move and immediately
somebody should understand that something is going onlike the gesture of freezingclz windo
Mitigating the effects of FTA is paramount in any work environment, particularly so in the case of
customer service.
Example
J asks M to lend him her lecture notes
-on record (+ 1) 1. without redressive action, baldly! = Lend me your lecture notes
-on record with redressive action (+ 2 or 3), 2. with face a saving act using positive redress
politeness, emphasizing solidarity = How about letting me have a look at your lecture notes
(polite suggestion)
-on record with redressive action (+ 2 or 3), 3. using negative politeness, giving deference =
Could you please lend me your lecture notes? (polite request)
4. off record (indirectly by dropping a verbal hint) = I did not take any notes for the last lecture …
5. do not do the FTA (by dropping a non-verbal hint) = John silently looks at M’s lecture notes
Exercise. John and Mary are watching TV John accidentally blocks the TV screen . Analyse the
possible responses according to the 5 strategies model
1. Mary keeps shifting on the sofa what kind of strategy is that? 5  do not do the FTA (by
dropping a non-verbal hint)
2. Would you mind moving just a bit?  3 on record with redressive action using negative
politeness, giving deference
3. What an interesting program!  4  off record (indirectly by dropping a verbal hint)
4. Move out of the way1.  on record without redressive action, baldly!
5. How about moving over just a bit?  2.  on record with redressive action with face a saving
act using positive redress politeness, emphasizing solidarity
*Topics of the lesson*Goffman, Leech, Brown and Levinson
*The mitigation of face threats and the maintenance of face in everyday interactions
* Positive politeness, negative politeness, non-imposition politeness
* Face-enhancing
* Further Discussion about the realization patterns of request
* Modal verbs and non-imposition
* cross-cultural classification of speech acts
Types of politeness The American sociologist Ervin Goffman in 1974 as part of the systematic
research on politeness defined the notion of ‘face’ which is related to the everyday notion of face
in phrases such as, for example, ‘to save the face’ or ‘to loose the face’. It is about one’s public
face and self-esteem.
*Geoffrey Leech, a specialist in English language, in 1983, and the linguists Penelope Brown and
Stephen Levinson, in 1987, used Ervin Goffman’s notion of face to conceptualize politeness as a
strategy for the mitigation (is very important  especially at work in interaction important in a
work environment but also in a private environment) of face threats and the maintenance of face
in everyday interactions.
The first type of politeness that we can consider is called ‘discernment politeness’.
Discernment politeness corresponds to ‘politic behaviour’, a term coined by Richard Watts in 1989.
This type of politeness describes behaviour that is socially appropriate in a given social and
situational context. It is therefore merely face maintaining and it is not concerned with face
threatening mitigation.  this is more like what we do in our everyday social context and it’s
not a strategic type of politeness is simply something that you do because it’s conventional
without any specific strategy.
An example of discernment politeness or politic behaviour is the appropriate use of a specific form
of address such as Mary, sweetheart, Dr. Brown which are appropriate for the same person, Dr.
Mary Brown, according to the different speakers who are addressing her and, of course, according
to the different circumstances.  the social roles that she has are actually revealed in the specific
forms of address  like if she had children she could simply be called mom.
The other types of politeness strategies that need to be distinguished are face threatening
mitigating and face enhancing.
Brown and Levinson distinguish between negative politeness and positive politeness. Negative
politeness is concerned with the addressee’s wish to maintain freedom of action and to remain
free from imposition. Positive politeness is concerned with the addressee's wish to be appreciated
and liked by others.
These two types of politeness, positive and negative, are subdivided into a large number of
different strategies. However, the strategies based on negative politeness can be classified as
deference politeness and/or as non-imposition politeness (respectful of conventions and of the
addressee’s wish to maintain freedom of action and to remain free from imposition). Considering
strategies based on positive politeness such as emphasizing solidarity, could we consider them as
face-enhancing because they are concerned with the addressee's wish to be appreciated and liked
by others?
*Deference politeness and Non-imposition politeness So deference could be consisting of the
strategies that give the addressee a choice.
An example being the polite request ‘Could you, please, open the window? These strategies do
not, or pretend not to, intrude on the addressee’s wish to remain free from imposition (which is
still the definition of negative politeness).  could you is a question  it is a direct speech act
and it is actually giving the addressee to say noso it is actually giving a choice of course it’s
just conventionalyou are not actually giving a choice  but conventionally you are doing that
so in the sense of conventionality  it could be defined as deference in the sense that it is a
convention.
In our example outlined in the previous lesson the polite request Could you please lend me your
lecture notes? Is defined as an example of a face-saving act using negative politeness redress, such
as giving deference, and it is 1 out of 5 possible FTA’s weakening strategy outlined by Levinson and
Brown.
*If the negative politeness redress shows deference it is still a non-imposition politeness strategy,
in this case really face-saving. I would suggest to consider it as a conventionalized way of
addressing a request. Deference is a social convention and in contemporary British or American
society honorifics are used only in ceremonial occasions while conventions are very much present
in performing speech acts that weaken FTAs by using a conventional polite formulae such as Could
you?, Would you, please? That are face-saving acts in the sense that you would never ask with
an imperative you requestunless you are a soldier or you are a captain that needs to
discipline your soldiers in that case you need to be able to give direct command.  in this sense
we cannot say that they are face enhancing  because they are just conventions.
The second choice was defined as positive politeness redress. The example was again a face-saving
act but this time the strategy used was emphasizing solidarity by suggesting How about letting me
have a look at your lecture notes? Is this a case of face enhancing or still a case of face threatening
mitigating?.
Well, it (that specific indirect speech act) could be seen as both (face threatening mitigation and
face enhancing) if we consider that the speech act is actually asking the addressee if she is on
board with that suggestion. This means that she is given the choice to decide whether the
speaker’s suggestion is acceptable (non-imposition), and she is in the position of allowing
permission to the speaker to share the notes with the speaker. Is this a case of face-enhancing?
Implicitly being in the position of giving permission is a position of power which should enhance
her self-esteem. Showing solidarity is also a question of showing that you are part of a group
which means sharing values.  this should also enhance the self-esteem of the person.
The definitions of deference politeness and non-imposition politeness describe well defined sets
of communicative behaviour, but it is an empirical question whether such forms do exist in a
particular language (as in English). And in the case where they exist (such as English) it is still an
empirical question whether they have a prominent or a marginal position in the communicative
repertoire, discourse and vocabulary, of a speech community.  in a specific language you can
have all the speech acts that we have been talking about but maybe you are using them in a
different way from English so that specific language can give more importance or less importance
than what you can find in English  so it depends it’s very much a question of use  how do
you use them  in what situation what situation are they covering  so it’s quite complex
when we want to look at the various languages and how speech acts  what is actually their
function in that specific culture.
*Non-imposition politeness. 
Non-imposition politeness consists of the strategies that give the addressee a choice. These
strategies do not, or pretend not to, intrude on the addressee’s wish to remain free from
imposition.
Stewart in 2005 argues: ‘in certain circumstances British English tends toward negative politeness
… it seems at least that to be British a healthy degree of paranoia can help”.  this is just to say
that non-imposition politeness is paramount in British English and American Englishparticularly
in work environment  it’s something that you need to know if you want to be hired in that kind
of society  you need to demonstrate that you know these mitigating rules or strategies  even
more than face-enhancing strategies.  so that’s why we can say that British English is actually
heavily influenced by this non-imposition politeness so that’s why it is so important to learn
about speech acts and how we can use them appropriately.
Non-imposition politeness forms of Present Day English have been attested as ‘directives’ (speech
acts such as orders, requests, invitations, advices, and reminders) and classified by Wierzbicka in
2006
*‘Whiperatives’ are could you (do x), will you (do x), would you (do x).  these are always orders
but they are actually they are conventionally strategically compiled in a way that they are
indirect speech acts.
*‘Suggestory formulae’ are might like to, might consider, I would suggest, perhaps you could, I
wonder if you could. suggestions are actually incredibly important part of non-imposition
politeness  apart from how about doing that? (that we have seen) here we have other
forms  like  you might like to do that suggestion.  these kind of suggestory formula are
actually part of the positive politenessbut they are more easily considered non-imposition
politeness forms both the Whiperatives and the Suggestory formulae they are actually using the
modals  particularly in past-tense form.  they’re extremely important because they are
actually showing the rules the non-imposition politeness rules.
These strategies are NOT universal, they are very much culture specific!
*Modal verbs
*The use of modal verbs and directives (speech acts such as orders, requests, invitations, advices,
and reminders) prove a prevalence of non-imposition politeness in English.
*An example is the decline of the deontic ‘must’ in favour of ‘should’ and ‘need to’ (deontic
modality refers to obligation and permission) in English of the second half of the 20th century.
*We will investigate a little bit better epistemic and deontic modality in English later on in the
course.
*What about other cultures? 
Our bibliographical reference which is the book Pragmatics by Huang, gives many examples of
speech acts cross-cultural variation.
Reading his examples we can actually see a sort of classification.
The examples explain that
1. Many speech acts are culture specific
We can distinguish between 2 types of cultural specific speech acts:
1.1. Institutionalized speech acts.
1.2. Non institutionalized speech acts.
Among cultural specific non-institutionalized speech acts two further distinctions can be made
1.2.1. Absence of a Searle’s type of speech act in a culture. Examples are absence of the speech
act of promising (the case is the Ilongots, a tribal group in the Philippines) and absence of speech
act of thanking (the case being Yolngu, an Australian aboriginal language) two examples of two
languages that do not have these speech acts.
*1.2.2. Presence of a speech act unique to a specific culture. The case considered is the kinship-
based request, which is based on kinship obligations in Walmajari, an Australian aboriginal
language.
2. The second classification is that of speech acts that are carried out differently in different
languages. .
2.1 Expression of sympathy toward the victim of a trivial accident. In western cultures in this
situation an apology on the part of the one that caused the trivial accident is considered
conventional. The expression of sympathy is instead conventional in Akans, a West African
Culture. ,
2.2 Same situation but different use of speech acts (broaden use of the same speech act).
2.2.1 Situations: invitation to a dinner party or receiving a gift. In English in both situation thanks
are offered to the host/giver. In Japanese (instead of saying thank you to the host or the giver
)apologies are offered to the host/giver. Japanese makes a broaden use of apologies.
3. Same speech act used in different responses.
3.1 English: a compliment typically generate acceptance and thanking. In Japanese a compliment
typically generate a refusal and non acceptance which practically means an implicit negotiation.
The same implicit negotiation happens in Irish for offers and ritual of refusal ending with the
addressee reluctantly accepting the offer.
*Directness and indirectness in different cultures
Requests, apologies and complaints are realized across different languages with a different use of
FTAs (strategies).
Australian English speakers realization patterns of requests for example are the least direct. it
looks like among English speakers the Australians are the least direct in their performing of a
request even more indirect than the British, the American or New Zeland.
*TASKS for the students
1. the theory of politeness universal? If not give examples.  It is not universal  examples are
2. Order the following FTAs strategies of politeness starting with the most polite:
a. don’t perform the FTAs
b. On record, with negative politeness redress
c. Off record
d. On record without redress
e. On record with positive redress
3. Compare and contrast the realization patterns of request in English and in Italian. (Refer to the
5 FTAs weakening strategies illustrated in the previous lesson and further discussed in this lesson).
*Further exercises for speech acts.
*What are the differences between locution, illocution and perlocution?
* Give example of a promise, a compliment, request, complaint, apology.
Topic of the lesson DEIXIS 
Meaning of the term deixis and requirement for interpretation
Deictic reference
Linguistic expressions employed as deictics (and their Non-deictic use)
Basic categories of deictics
Other deictic uses
Activity for the students: An Exercise and a few Questions
Multimodal Speech acts: some examples
*Deixis
The term deixis is derived from the Greek and it means to show or to point out.
Deixis are some of the linguistic elements which require contextual information for their
interpretation. It means that in order to interpret deictic forms such as ‘here, there, you, this’ it is
necessary to know who the speaker is, and who the hearers are, and the time and place of the
discourse.
How do we interpret the following statement? 
1. I don’t want to go with her, I want to go with her.
The deictic references are resolved if accompanied by selecting gesture indicating the right person
and the wrong person in the situational context.  we need some pieces of information to
understand who is the first her and who is the second her so this are deictics in this case are
pronouns  and deictic references are resolved only if accompanied by selecting gesture (her and
her)  or it could be like pointing  or pointing with your eyes  to create a selective gesture
in order to be resolved the actual deictic reference otherwise we can’t interpret correctly the
utterance.
How do we interpret the following statement? 
2. John told Bill that he couldn’t date his sister. his and his are two deictics.
For this utterance we need to Resolve the discourse reference: he=Bill (personal pronoun),
his=John’s (possessive ADJ)
We can summarize that deictics are words and phrases that cannot be fully understood without
additional contextual information.
*For example English pronouns are words that require contextual information to convey any
meaning (in this case the physical context):
I don’t want to go with her, I want to go with her.
*We can summarize that deixis is the relationship between the structure of the language and the
context in which the language is used.
*For example English pronouns and possessives Adjectives are words that require contextual
information to convey any meaning (in this case the linguistic context):
John told Bill that he couldn’t date his sister.
*ANOTHER EXAMPLE. A message in a bottle found in the sea:
Meet me here, a month from now, with a magic wand about this size.
Without the deictic information the reader would not know who to meet, where or when to meet
the writer, or the correct size of the required magic wand.
Linguistic expressions employed as deictics include
*Demonstratives
*Adverbs of time (a month from now) and space (here)
*Motion verbs
*First and second person pronouns
*And others…
A CASE OF NON DEICTIC USE:
- When the pronoun you is used as impersonal, its use is non-deictic.
- Example: When you travel on a train without a valid ticket you will be liable to pay a fine.
You in this sentence refers to anyone, not to a specific person.
Third person pronouns are usually linked to the discourse, therefore they refer to the linguistic
context, and they are considered anaphoric or cataphoric.
- Example: Mary wishes she could visit the Louvre.
BUT they can also be used deictically with reference to the physical context:
- Example: She’s not the secretary, she is.  Accompanied by a deictic gesture which selects the
referred people who are in the situational context.
EXAMPLE: This town is famous for its small antique shops.
*The deictic THIS can be interpreted by knowing the location of the speaker.
*The possessive its is anaphoric (refers back to the word ‘town’) and cataphoric (refers forward to
the word ‘shops’).
*Discussion about the concept of deictic pronouns:
Deictic pronouns refer to entities that must be identified according to the physical context or the
linguistic context. For instance, in the sentence:
* I will give you an answer about deictic pronouns,
the deictic pronouns I and you refer to the speaker and the addressee, respectively, therefore
they refer to the physical context.
*Verbs of motion are deictics…
*Tense is deictic
*Examples:
a) Can I go to your office tomorrow at 12 PM?
b) Can I come to your office tomorrow at 12 PM?
Come and go are motion verbs.
Go marks a movement away from the deictic centre and come marks a movement toward the
deictic centre.
*Tense has to be explicated (explicature) in relation to the time of the utterance, which makes it a
deictic feature of language.
For example, the past tense TOLD, in contrast to TELL, is deictic: The past tense locates events in
relation to the time of utterance.
*Present tense, generally, indicates that the sender portrays a situation as it is in a time interval
that includes the time of utterance.
*Past tense means before the time of utterance
*Future tense means after the time of utterance
Markers are: Auxiliary verbs such as will, have, be. Irregular forms of verbs, for example,
thought or seen…. Inflectional suffixes ( -ed, -s, ing, -n) it’s quite interesting that we can consider
them deictics.
*Time adverbials have the function to help reveal the relation between time and tense:
*FOR EXAMPLE the time adverb ALREADY in:
when he phoned I had already sent the email.
Other adverbials are then, yesterday, at present, in 2 minutes, in an hour… all these are used as
deictics.
*Basic categories of deixis
TIME DEIXIS
Time, or temporal deixis concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to in an
utterance.
*This includes time adverbs, e.g. ‘Recently’, ‘now’, ‘then’, ‘soon’, etc. and also different tenses
*Example: tomorrow denotes the consecutive next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day
last year is a different day from the "tomorrow" of a day next week.
SPACE DEIXIS
The most common English examples are the adverbs “here” and “there” and the demonstratives
“this” and “that” , e.g.:
*I enjoy living in this city
*Here is where we will place the computer
*She was looking over there
Other cases:
*the briefcase is to the left of the desk  left of  space deixis
*I’m headed north
*Person deixis is concerned with the identification of the role of the participants in a speech
event.
*Personal pronouns express: number, gender, person.
Examples: I am here. It’s me. What about you?
She told me that, yesterday.
*The pronoun we is usually denoting inclusiveness. Sometimes it is used in contrast with they as a
denotation of exclusion as in: We are a large corporation and they are a startup company.
*Vocatives Noun Phrases can function as person deictics:
In the following sentence the name John is a vocative NP:
John, if we do not leave now we will be late for our next appointment.
In the following sentence the polite address SIR is a vocative NP:
Am I afraid, Sir, we are closing.
*Deixis: other categories
*Discourse deixis
*Social deixis
Social deixis
Social deixis concerns the social information that is encoded within various expressions, such as
relative social status and familiarity. Kinship terms and titles refer to different real people.
Mother-in-law, uncle… (kinship terms). His uncle and my uncle are two different people…
General, Doctor, manager… (social rank, professional)
Mister, Madam, sir … (Titles)
*Discourse deixis
Discourse deixis refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the entire
discourse that contains that utterance — including the utterance itself: e.g. This is a great story.
*Anaphoric reference
An anaphoric reference refers to something within a text that has been previously identified, e.g.
"Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly" the word "it" refers to the noun phrase "the plate".
The following deictics refer back to a part of a book or an article:
*In the last section last it’s not only a time deixis it could be the last section so I’m referring to
something in the textthe previous chapter which cannot be a time deixis but it is actually an
anaphoric reference  so it is actually part of the discourse deixis that is different from saying
the previous week-last week (time deixis)  ↓
*In the previous chapter
*As already mentioned already means previously therefore it’s again in this particular context
it’s definitely not a time deixis but it’s a discourse deixis.
Cataphoric reference
*A cataphoric reference refers to something within a text that has not yet been identified, e.g. in
"He was very cold. David promptly put on his coat" the identity of the pronoun "he" is unknown
until the individual is also referred to as "David".
*Here goes the main argument…..
*This is how it works. these are also cases  actually deictics that are introducing the referent.
*A. Do you see that baby girl over there? She is cute.
Anaphora (Anaphoric reference)= When a word or phrase picks up its meaning from some other
piece of language nearby, the relationship between the two.
Antecedent= A word which gets its meaning in this way (by creating this link to a previous
referent) – an anaphoric device, and the piece of language which gives the anaphoric device its
meaning.
SUMMARY
*Deixis: personal, time, and place deixis.
*Discourse deixis: Anaphora (anaphoric reference), cataphora (cataphoric reference) and other
kinds of deixis (like social deixis).
Exercise for the students. 
Find the expressions that are used DEICTICALLY in the following utterances:
*Hi, is Mary there?
*Press the button now.
*Jack moved to Moscow and spent there the rest of his life.
*What is deixis?
*What Linguistic expressions are employed as deictics?
*What kind of deixis is a vocative noun phrase?
SummaryDEIXIS
Meaning of the term deixis and requirement for interpretation
Deictic reference
Linguistic expressions employed as deictics (and their Non-deictic use)
Basic categories of deictics
Other deictic uses
Activity for the students: An Exercise and a few Questions
*Applying Searle’s taxonomy, direct/indirect speech acts, and multimodality
*The written form and spoken form of the language are not the only way of carrying out (speech)
acts.
*Examples : A street sign indicating that ‘right turns are prohibited’ performs a speech act of an
order.
A smile could be a speech act of greeting, a gesture could be an invitation…
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Multimodal metaphors
IMAGE: The metaphor ‘banking is a lot of complicated paperwork, desk work, accounting work, is
realized with an image of all objects that are involved in banking and internet banking.
Text: the personification of the bank (its advisors) as an empathic human being is realized by the
statement ‘we live in your world’.
The speech act is a commissive: The bank promises simpler banking service.

*Altoids are a brand of mints. The brand was created by the

London-based Smith & Company in the 1780s, and became part of the Callard & Bowser company
in the 19th century.
*Their advertising slogans are 'Boost your confidence with fresh breath when you enjoy ALTOIDS
Mints' and "The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong Mints", referring to the high concentration of
peppermint oil used in the original flavour tablet. The name "Altoids" is derived from the Latin
“alt” (to change) and the Greek “oids” (taking the form of); the mints were originally conceived as
a small medicinal tablet, originally in the shape of a lozenge (a diamond shape), intended to
relieve intestinal discomfort.
Image: The billboard has the style of the cover of an old book. The typography and the tin box
maintain the old style, colors, banner and drawing of original package. Salience of the product by
means of the image.
Multimodality supports the discourse of originality.
Written text: the slogan makes use of figurative language: Personification of the product, which
allows for a comparison with other products in human terms.
The speech act is a promise (commissive) to the customers that they can get the best product.

 Ironstone Vineyards is a premier destination winery

located in Murphys, California. Our wines reflect the diversity of offerings from the Sierra Foothills
Appellations of Northern California. Through emphasizing the practice of Sustainable Viticulture,
Ironstone Vineyards conserves water use, builds healthy soil, and maintains our surrounding
wildlife habitat. Ironstone Vineyards is noted for several leading US brands, including Leaping
Horse Vineyards, Christine Andrew, Stone Valley, and Drifting. As of 2004, Ironstone has been
listed as the 17th largest winery in the US.
Relation between adjectives and wine and jeans
Wine: Easy to approach… Soft notes… Comfortable …. reasonable prices.
Multimodal simile (A is like B) 
IMAGE: The source and the target of a simile are expressed through the visual mode.
TEXT: a simile (jeans, wines) is rendered through the visual and verbal mode: Just like our wine.
The evaluative adjectives soft, easy and comfortable are used to qualify both jeans and wines. Soft
for both jeans and wine is about texture. Comfortable is referred to the way jeans fit and for wine
it fits your budget (price). Easy suggests casual for everyday use, a quality of jeans and the wines
(easy to approach). The verb try on, is applicable to both wines and jeans. The brand Ironstone
Vineyards and the slogan Made for today are the conclusion of a discourse supported by the
comparison between the qualities of a pair of jeans anda pair of wines that both can be tried (on)
The speech acts: statements and a suggestion (directive)
Topics of the lessonweek 6 and week 7 Activities: a review
A Mock test (first part)
*Week 6 activities and solutions
Performatives are utterances that are used to perform acts. The performative verb names the
action while performing it. But we can perform an act without naming it. The implicit utterances
contain no verb that make explicit what kind of speech act is performed.
Ex. Of the following performatives which are explicit and which are implicit?
1. All applications must be submitted to the dean by May 31th – it is an implicit performative;
this is a request and there is no explicit performative verb.  because it is an act requesting to
submit al the applications by a certain date  it is implicit because the verb to be submitted is not
telling us that this is a request  therefore it is implicit.
2. You are hereby forbidden to leave this room – it is an explicit performative, and the use of
HEREBY permits to reinforce the performative nature of the verb itself; it is the act of forbidding.
3. How about going to the British Museum this afternoon – it is an implicit performative, because
there is no explicit performative verb. This is a suggestion and there is no explicit performative
verb.
4. Keep all medicines out of reach of children – this is another implicit performative. This is an
advise and the act is not named therefore it is implicit.
Ex. Performative verbs can be used descriptively and in that case they are used in a non-
performative way. In the following, which performative verbs are used non-performatively?
a. We thanked them for their hospitality – the verb “thanked” is used in a non-performative way;
it is a description of past actions  and it is not used in order to name the speech act of this
utterance.
b. I am warning you not to spend too much on photocopying - the verb warning is used in a
performative way; it is performing the act of warning and naming it.
c. John withdraws his application – the verb “withdraws” is used in a non-performative way; it is a
description of the action.
d. All passengers on flight 36 to Paris are requested to proceed to gate 4 – the verb requested is
used in a performative way it is performing the act and naming it. The speaker is actually
requesting something.
e. The managing director congratulated everyone in the room – the verb is used in a non-
performative way; It is describing the action and not performing the action.
*What are the differences between locution, illocution and perlocution? 
*A locution is referred to the production of meaningful expressions; the illocutionary act, instead,
make reference to the action intended to be performed by a speaker in uttering a linguistic
expression, explicitly or implicitly. The perlocutionary act shows the consequences or the effects
on the audience through the uttering of an illocutionary act.
What are the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts of the following? Manager’s
secretary to employee: Coffee? → in this case, the locutionary act is an interrogative sentence
made by the secretary uttering the word coffee and meaning ‘would you like a coffee?’. The
illocutionary force is a speech act of offer, she offered a coffee to the employee. The
perlocutionary act could be for example, “yes, please! or Oh thank you, Ms Marple”, which means
that he accepted the offer. But the offer could be declined too by saying ‘No, thank you’.
Alternative answer 
Manager’s secretary to employee: Coffee?
Locutionary: manager’s secretary is asking the employee if he/she would like a cup of coffee. it
is actually the words that are uttered coffee.
Illocutionary: manager’s secretary is offering a coffee to the employee.  the illocutionary act is a
speech act of offering it’s an offer.
Perlocutionary: the employee is expected to accept (or decline) the coffee.
b. Elder brother to younger brother: Give me my IPhone back → in this case, the locutionary act
is an imperative sentence made by the elder brother uttering ‘give me my Iphone back’ meaning
‘hand my phone’ or ‘return my phone’. The illocutionary act is an explicit order given by the elder
brother to return the phone. The perlocutionary act could be that the elder brother persuaded the
younger brother to give back the phone or the younger brother refused to give it back, or he run
away with it, in order to upset the owner.
Alternative answer
Elder brother to younger brother: Give me my iPhone back!
Locutionary: the elder brother is asking his younger brother to give him back his phone.
Illocutionary: the elder brother is ordering his younger brother to give him back his phone. 
speech act of an order.
Perlocutionary: the younger brother is expected to be persuaded to give the phone back to his
elder brother (or he will refuse to do it)
Task - Week 6, lesson 2.  Exercise: using John Searle’s typology, classify the following speech
act
- Recommending → directive
- Taking responsibility → commissive
- Appointing a minister → declaration
- Stating → assertive/representative
- Apologizing → expressive
* * Give example of a promise, a compliment, request, complaint, apology. 
Promise: I promise I will always be by your side!
Compliment: You look radiant today!  is always an expressive I’m not saying something that is
true or real  but I’m saying something it’s what I feel it is my internal reality.
Request: Could you lend me your car, please? (Politeness is strengthened through the modal verb
"could" and the word "please") would you mind lending me your car?
Complaint: Why do I always have to be the one who makes the first move? (Indirect: interrogative
to make a complaint) complaining is an expressive.  that’s a question  and question is a
directive  so here we are using a directive to actually perform an expressive  correctly it is an
indirect speech act.
Apology: I'm so sorry: I didn't mean to hurt you.
*Week 7 activities and solutions
Task: Of the following utterances which are direct and which are indirect?
1.Announcement: Please proceed to the car deck and return the car keys DIRECT (request)
2.Notice: You are advised against swimming alone INDIRECT
3.Zoom class: Would all students turn their microphones off now, please?  INDIRECTbecause
there is a question  it is actually performing an order an order usually is given through an
imperative and this is instead an interrogative sentence.
4.Have a nice weekend! INDIRECTis not an order  it is wishing somebody  so it is indirect
5.Why don’t we go to the new restaurant right after the end of the lockdown?  INDIRECT it is
a why don’t we question but the actual speech act is let’s go to the new restaurant  so the
actual speech act is a suggestion and it is preceded by a question why don’t we?
6.I respectfully request that you return your homework by next week DIRECT the fact that we
have a performative verb here /request makes this utterance a direct speech act.
Exercise. John and Mary are watching TV John accidentally blocks the TV screen. Analyse the
possible responses according to the 5 strategies model
1.Mary keeps shifting on the sofa (5 th strategy)
DO NOT DO THE FTA (BY DROPPING A NON-VERBAL HINT)
2.Would you mind moving just a bit? 
3rd strategy ON RECORD WITH REDRESSIVE ACTION USING NEGATIVE POLITENESS, GIVING
DEFERENCE
3.What an interesting program! 
4th strategy OFF RECORD (INDIRECTLY BY DROPPING A VERBAL HINT)
4.Move out of the way
1st strategy ON RECORD WITHOUT REDRESSIVE ACTION, BALDLY!
5.How about moving over just a bit? 
2nd strategy ON RECORD WITH REDRESSIVE ACTION WITH FACE SAVING ACT USING POSITIVE
REDRESS POLITENESS, EMPHASIZING SOLIDARITY
The theory of politeness universal? If not give examplesThe theory of politeness is not
universal. For example, when receiving an invitation to a dinner party, in English we offer thanks to
the host. In Japanese apologies are offered to the host.
Order the following FTAs strategies of politeness starting with the most polite:
a. don’t perform the FTAs 1
b. Off record 2
c. On record, with negative politeness redress 3
d. On record, with positive redress 4
e. On record without redress 5
*The theory of politeness universal? If not give examples No, the theory of politeness is not
universal. To prove this, it is possible to distinguish between two types of culture specific speech
acts: institutionalized and non-institutionalised speech acts. Among the latter we can see two
further distinctions: the absence of a Searle's type of speech act in some specific cultures (i.e. the
absence of "promising" and "thanking") and the presence of a unique speech act, such as the case
of the "kinship-based request".
*The theory of politeness universal? If not give examples *the same speech act (such as
complimenting someone) can generate different responses, according to the culture. In the
English world people generally react accepting the compliment and thanking; differently, in Japan
a compliment generates refusal.
Example of a comparison between Italian and English strategies 
* 1) On record, wIthout redressive action: Get up and help me with the houscleaning! -> Alzati e
aiutami con i lavori di casa!
2) On record, with redressive action, using positive politeness: How about getting up and helping
me with the housecleaning? -> Che ne dici di alzarti ed aiutarmi con i lavori di casa?
3) On record, with redressive action, using negative politness: Would you please get up and help
me with the houseclaening? -> Potresti alzarti ed aiutarmi con I lavori di casa, per favore?
4) Off record, dropping a verbal hint: I'm so tired... I've been cleaning the whole morning and there
is still so much to do!-> Sono così stanco... Ho pulito tutta mattina e c'è ancora moltissimo lavoro
da fare! 5)
Off record, dropping a non-verbal hint: Sarah's dad leaves the hoover near his daughter Il papa’
mette l’aspirapolvere vicino alla figlia e guarda la figlia.
Compare and contrast the realization patterns of request in English and in Italian. 
On record without redressive action: Give me your book! - Dammi il tuo libro!
On record with redressive action: How about letting me have a look at your book? - Cosa ne dici se
do un’occhiata al tuo libro?
On record with redressive action using negative politeness: Could you please give me your book?
- Puoi gentilemente darmi il tuo libro?
Off record: I forgot my book at home – Ho dimenticato il libro a casa;
Do not do tha FTA: Michael silently leafed through my book – Michael ha sfogliato il mio libro di
nascosto/in silenzio;
Note: Leaf through means to peruse a book.
*. Compare and contrast the realization patterns of request in English and in Italian. (Refer to the
5 FTAs weakening strategies illustrated in the previous lesson and further discussed in this lesson).
 Mark and Tony are walking in the city centre. Mark is hungry, but he forgot his wallet. 
1. Tony, buy me some food! -> Tony, comprami qualcosa da mangiare
2. How about buying me some food? -> Che ne dici di comprare qualcosa da mangiare?
3. Would you mind buying me some food? -> Ti dispiace comprarmi qualcosa da mangiare?
4. I’m so hungry! -> Sono affamatissimo!
5. Mark stops and stares at a pizzeria -> Mark si ferma a fissare una pizzeria.
As we can see, there are no big differences in terms of the 5 FTAs strategies between English
requests and Italian requests.
*Give example of a promise, a compliment, request, complaint, apology. 
Promise: This is the last cigarette
Compliment: Congratulations! Your project is successful
Request: Could you pass me the salt?
Complaint: The yogurt I bought yesterday was out of date
Apology: I’m sorry for hitting your car last night
*Task1. Give examples of 2 types of cultural specific speech acts
-Institutionalized speech acts -> excommunicating, nominating a candidate, declaring war
-Non institutionalized speech acts -> Examples are absence of the speech act of promising for the
Ilongots, a tribal group in the Philippines and absence of speech act of thanking in Yolngu, an
Australian aboriginal language, or the presence of a speech act unique in Walmajari, an Australian
aboriginal language.
*Task 2. Give examples of Directness and indirectness in different cultures.
Australian and English speakers realization patterns of requests for example are the least direct,
while in Spanish they are more direct.
*Topic of the lesson*Mock test part 1 + *Mock test part 2 *Next lesson: solutions
*Mock test part 1
Question 1 What is the difference between sentence and utterance?

QUESTION 2 What is the propositional content of the following sentences?

The shopkeeper had reduced the prices
The prices had been reduced by the shopkeeper
It was the shopkeeper who had reduced the prices
It was the prices that the shopkeeper had reduced
Had the shopkeeper reduced the prices?
If only had the shopkeeper reduced the prices!
*Question 3 *What types of context are there?

*Question 4 *What can speakers do in relation to the Maxims?

Question 5 A conversational exchange

Boss: Did you work on that project all day long?
Employee who has been chatting online all day long: Yes, I’ve been working on it till now!
The conversational exchange between the boss and the employee is an examples of:
1. Observing the maxim of quantity
2. Violating the maxim of quality
3. Opting out the maxim of manner
4. Flouting the maxim of relation
Question 6 A conversational exchange
Sarah: Did you enjoy the party last night?
Mary: There was plenty of oriental food on the table, lots of flowers all over the place, people
hanging around chatting with each other…
The conversational exchange between Sarah and Mary is an example of:
1. Flouting the maxim of quality
2. Violating the maxim of quantity
3. Opting out the maxim of manner
Question 7 Indicate if ‘I do not want to change the subject, but….’ is an example of
1. Violating the maxim of manner
2. Flouting the maxim of quality
3. Opting out the maxim of relation
*Question 8 *Which Maxim does the speaker intend to opt out from by using the following
hedges? 
1. People say…
2. This is a little bit confused, but…
3. By the way…
*Question 9 *What does the following definition refer to? 
Definition: a set of inferences which convey an extra message or more than one.

*Question 10 *Find the utterance that is considered pragmatically anomalous.

A) Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web
B) Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web but I do not believe it
C) Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989
*Question 11*Is the following an example of implicature or an explicature?
John: What time is it?
Mary: The museum has not open yet
Question 12The conversational implicature of the utterance ‘John went to McDonald and
bought two hamburgers’ is that John first went to a McDonald and once he got there bought the
hamburgers
Where is the implicature derived from
a) Maxim of relation
b) Maxim of quantity
c) Maxim of manner
d) Maxim of quality
Question 13The utterance ‘Time is a great doctor’ is an example of
1. Opting out the maxim of quantity
2. Flouting the maxim of quality
3. Violating the maxim of manner
Question 14Soon after the Berlin Wall was built, John Kennedy announced in German that he
was a Berliner. What he should have said is Ich bin Berliner, but he said Ich bin ein Berliner, which
is a kind of doughnut.
* Which maxim was flouted by the president of the USA?

Question 15 Which of the following properties are true with reference to implicature? 
1. Implicatures are not cancellable
2. Implicatures tend to be determined by chance
3. Implicatures can be derived directly from the Gricean maxims
Question 16 What kind of conventional implicatures is ‘Our sales have gone up but theirs have
gone down’ 
1. Unlikeness
2. Contrast
3. Explanation
4. Additional information
Question 17Complete the following definition
An inferential development of an incomplete logical form or representation (encoded in the
utterance) is called…….
Question 18 The utterance ‘John walked into a music room. The piano was made in the 19th
century’ is … 
A) an implicature
B) an explicature
C) An impliciture
Question 19The utterance ‘That program is less promising’ is … 
A) An explicature
B) An impliciture
C) An implicature
Question 20Choose what is true according to Relevance theory
A) relevance is not a maxim
B) the listener maximises the interpretative effort
C) the listener maximises useful information from utterances

*Mock test Part 2

Question 21 Fill the gap. Complete the following definitions with ONE word. 
A ………… could be derived from background assumptions, pragmatic principles and contextual
knowledge.
…….. come from conventional features that are linked to lexical items or linguistic construction.
Question 22Say if the following statements are TRUE or FALSE
1. Maxims cannot be overridden by a sociolinguistic rule.
2. Conventional implicatures cannot be cancelled.
Question 23Complete the sentence. 
The utterance Holland is flat is an example of
A) implicature
B) explicature
Question 24Is the following text an utterance? Some common synonyms of ascribe are assign,
attribute, credit, and impute. While all these words mean ‘to lay something to the account of a
person or thing,’ ascribe suggests an inferring or conjecturing of cause, quality, authorship.
A) YES
B) NO
Question 25According to multimodality there 5 functions of meaning. Select only the
multimodal functions from the following list
1. Deixis
2. Agency
3. Locution
4. Structure
Question 26 According to multimodality what ‘meaning function’ can convey information about
reality? (there could also be questions about forms of multimodality: space ecc.)
1. Context
2. Reference
3. Interest
Question 27What speech acts are the following? Answer with ONE word. 
1. Good Morning! ……….
2. Is she a vegetarian? ……….
3. Put the car in the garage, please.………..
Question 28Choose the implicit performative sentence 
1. I name this ship the Princess
2. I now pronounce you husband and wife
3. I will come to the meeting tomorrow
Question 29What sentence/s contain/s a performative verb? 
1. How about going to London on Sunday?
2. We suggest that you go to the embassy in person.
3. Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police.
Question 30The definition ‘the action intended to be performed by a speaker in uttering a
linguistic expression, by virtue of conventional force associated with it, either explicitly or
implicitly’ refers to
1. Locution
2. Illocution
3. Perlocution
Question 31Which of the following utterances is/are request/s?
1. I would like a day return ticket to Oxford
2. I wish I could go to Oxford tomorrow!
3. Can I have a day return ticket to Oxford?
Question 32Which of the following is direct/indirect speech act? Fill the gap with ONE WORD
(either direct or indirect) 
1. Pass the salt ……….
2. I request you to pass the salt ………..
3. Can you pass the salt? ………………..
Question 33The utterance “I am sorry for your loss” can be classified as
1. Assertive
2. Directive
3. Commissive
4. Expressive
5. Declaration
Question 34What kind of speech acts are generally considered more polite? 
1. Direct speech acts
2. Indirect speech acts
3. Implicit speech acts
4. Explicit speech acts
Question 35Are ‘compliments’ considered FTAs (face threatening acts)? 
1. Yes, for the speaker
2. No, they are not
Question 36Which one is considered the most FTA of the following? 
1. How about letting me have a look at your lecture notes?
2. John: Could you please lend me your lecture notes?
Question 37What kind of deixis is expressed in ‘His uncle and my uncle are two different
people’? 
1. Person deixis
2. Discourse deixis
3. Social deixis
Question 38In “Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly” … 
1. An anaphoric reference is expresses
2. A cataphoric reference is expresses
3. An exophoric reference is expressed
Question 39Complete each gap with ONE word. The imperative sentence ‘Listen to the news!’:
is expressing the speech act of………..
is classified by John Searle as …………
Question 40Select the best definition/s for ‘I hypothesize that there is life on Mars’ 
1. it is an expressive
2. It is a representative
3. It is not a performative
4. It is a performative