Semantics and Pragmatics Course Review - Literature Linguistics Study

 

1.             What are the differences between semantics and pragmatics?

The difference between semantics and pragmatics is that semantics is the study of meaning meanwhile pragmatics is the study of context. The semantics studies the meaning of words and their meaning within sentences, but pragmatics studies the same words and meanings but with emphasis on their context. Additionally, semantics is concerned only with the exact, literal meaning of the words and their interrelations, pragmatic usage focuses on the inferred meaning that the speakers and listeners perceive.

 

2.             Give examples of referring expressions!

The example of referring expression is when I say “Nunung please touch me” in which in this sentence I have a particular person in mind that is nunung that becomes referring expression. Besides, when I say ‘The man besides the table” it also referring expression that here I have a particular person in mind that is that man who is besides the table.

 

3.             What is presupposition and give examples of analysis!

Presupposition is a claim that assumed to be true but left unstated. It is important because it makes communication more vision than it could be if we had the stated that we think it’s possibly. Besides, presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.

 

The example of presupposition “The king of France has red hair” and then the presupposition is “there exists a king of France”. Additionally, we can presuppose by mapping from English into logic. For example “The King of France has red hair, so it could be presuppose into logic to be “There is a king of France and the king has red hair”. From that sentence, we can’t say that is true or false, because it is something that you believe is true without having any proof because your actions are based on some false presuppositions.

 

 

4.             Explain politeness strategies and give examples!

In order to talk to people we have to have a sense on how to navigate this conversation. Besides, face has two parts, which are positive and negative. Positive face is where we want to be esteemed, admired, looked up to, and respected by the people around us. Meanwhile negative face is when we want to be free from imposition. We want autonomy to make free choices. All in all, we need those two faces to be in place for us to feel balance.

 

According to the video, the example of positive politeness is when we want to ask for letters of recommendation, the expressions we can use such as, you’re an expert, you are familiar with my work and you’d be the perfect person to give me the letter of recommendation. In contrast, the negative politeness after asking the letters of recommendation to someone, we may say just feel free to say no, the deadline may not work for you, and I’m sure that you are busy.

 

 

5.             What do you know about discourse analysis?

Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis of language 'beyond the sentence'. Discourse analysis is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real life situations. Moreover, discourse is anything that gives meaning to the text. In discourse analysis, text as the object can be decided into two kinds, which are spoken and written.