Como se fazer um artigo científico.

SEMINÁRIOS DE PRAGMÁTICA
BRASIL, NOV.-DEC. 2012 Jacob L. Mey

SEMINÁRIO I
• ‘What is Pragmatics?’ O que é a pragmática?
• 1. Situating pragmatics • 2. Speech Acts & Pragmatic acts • 3. Reference & referentiality

1. SITUATING PRAGMATICS
• Pragmatics: language in action: ‘doing things with words’ (Austin) • Pragmatics is not about sentences (syntax) • Nor about (word) meaning (semantics)

Naming & existence
• “I don’t think things really exist until we can name them”. (Callan Wink 2012) • True or false? • Read the entire handout and decide! • (Source: ‘Breatharians’. The New Yorker, October 22, 2012, pp. 63-69)

Words and worlds
• • • • • “wording the world” (Mey 1985) ‘word’: a metonymic expression for ‘language’ words in action, action in words the human agent, the language user ‘languaging’ to replace ‘wording’? (Haj Ross)

2. SPEECH ACTS & PRAGMATIC ACTS
• • • • earlier views of the function of language: depicts a (true or false) state of affairs. But: not all ‘sentences’ are statements (Austin) questions, exclamations, commands, wishes, concessions etc.

The ‘grammatical’ view
• indicative mood for reality, imperative for orders, optative for wishes, etc. • Can’t distinguish a statement from a question(both are in indicative; Austin 1962:12)

A pragmatist view?
• Early ‘pragmatism’ (William James) • For a pragmatist, “the true is what works” (quoted Austin 1962: 145) • Austin: not just what works, but what works in force of ‘speech work’ (i.e., “speech acts”)

Ordinary Language Philosophy
• look at language as it is used, not as it is described • ‘the news’ does more than describe events • telling a story is different from relating facts • ‘politically correct’ opinions, current social tendencies, religious beliefs, etc:, • expressed in ‘ordinary language’ as it is used

Saying vs. doing
• statements: say things (Austin: ‘constatives) • utterances: do things (Austin: ‘performatives’) • “[we do] not just use language to say