Course Title: Introduction to Pragmatics
Course Description:
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of Pragmatics, exploring how meaning is constructed in context beyond the literal interpretation of words. Students will examine the relationship between language, speaker intention, and the social and situational context of communication.
Key topics include:
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Deixis: Understanding how linguistic expressions depend on context, including person, place, and time references.
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Presupposition: Exploring background assumptions that speakers convey without explicitly stating them.
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Implicature: Investigating how speakers imply meanings that go beyond literal sentences.
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Speech Acts: Analyzing how utterances perform actions such as requesting, promising, or apologizing.
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Politeness and Conversational Maxims: Examining social norms and Gricean principles guiding effective communication.
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Context and Pragmatic Inference: Understanding how listeners interpret meaning based on situational and cultural cues.
Through a combination of theoretical discussion, textual analysis, and practical exercises, students will develop the skills to analyze real-life communicative situations and understand how language functions in context. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically evaluate meaning, intention, and interpretation in spoken and written discourse.
Learning Outcomes:
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Explain core concepts of Pragmatics and their role in communication.
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Identify and analyze deixis, presupposition, implicature, and speech acts in discourse.
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Apply pragmatic theories to real-life linguistic data.
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Develop critical thinking about the interaction between language, context, and social norms.
- Teacher: Saida Gohmos