175-421 Pragmatics and Meaning

Usually 37.5 points of second/third-year linguistics and applied linguistics.

This subject examines the way speakers of human languages use contextual information to interpret meaning in context. Students will encounter the two great life-forms of linguistic meaning: semantics and pragmatics. The subject will explore the interplay between situational enrichment of meaning (pragmatics) and the way this is often incorporated into the meaning of linguistic signs in a more systemic and permanent way (prototype semantics, diachronic semantics). On completion of the subject students should be familiar with a range of topics including Gricean maxims and implicature; deixis; semantic change; techniques for distinguishing the conventional meaning of linguistic signs from pragmatic and inferential aspects of conveyed meaning; depragmaticisation; and lexicalisation and grammaticalisation.