1.2.2 Presupposition
Presupposition is a kind of pragmatic inference and important field of pragmatic research. A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. For example, in the sentence: “Do you want to do it again?” The presupposition of this sentence is that you have done it already, at least once. We generally divide the presupposition into two aspects, the semantic presupposition and the pragmatic presupposition. For example, the sentences: “The King of France is bald.” In the view of semantic and logic, we can get the presupposition that is there is a king in France. This is the semantic presupposition without considering whether it is true of false. However, when we analyze them from the pragmatic aspect, presupposition are those of context-sensitive, and the speaker’s (sometimes also includes speaking targets’) belief, attitude and intention on the premise relations. For instance, “please close the door!” This sentence must base on the following situation: (1) the door is open. (2) the speaker want the door closed. (3) the addressee has the ability to close the door. (4) the speaker can make the addressee to close the door for him. If any one of these situation is not true, this sentence would not be difficult to establish. Obviously, the pragmatic presupposition depends on the context. Therefore, we should both pay attention to the semantic presupposition and the pragmatic presupposition. To some extent, the pragmatic presupposition is more important than semantic presupposition. It is great significance for the introduction of the pragmatic presupposition[1].
1.2.3 Relevance Theory
The relevance theory was put forward by Sperber and Wilson in their works, Relevance: Communication and Cognition. It begins with some watershed assumptions that are typical of pragmatic theories. Namely, it agrees that all utterances are encountered in some context, frequently make use of sentences, and that all utterances convey a number of implicatures. In addition, they posit the notion of manifestoes, which is when something is grasped either consciously or unconsciously by a person.
Sperber and Wilson further note that it will be manifest to people who are engaged in inferential communication that each other have the notion of relevance in their minds. This will cause each person engaged in the interaction to arrive at the presumption of relevance, which is the notion that (a) implicit messages are relevant enough to be worth bothering to process, and (b) the speaker will be as economical as they possibly can be in communicating it [2].
1.2.4 Speech Act
In attempting to express them, people do not only produce utterance containing grammatical structures and words, they perform action via those utterance. An action that a speaker performs when making an utterance are called speech act. Speech act theory is an important theory in the pragmatic study of language. It was originated with the British philosopher John Austin in the late 50’s of the 20th century. J.L. Austin found that not all the declarative sentences are restricted by the value of logic meaning. Some sentences are not for informing or describing thing, but for doing thing. According to Austin, the speech act theory includes three aspects, locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
Locutionary act are simply the speech acts that have taken place, or the acts of saying something. Illocutionary acts are the real actions that are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, existing in demanding, making promises, welcoming, warning and so on. Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the demand or the promise, is welcomed or warned.
1.2.5 Cooperative Principle
American philosopher Paul Grice concluded that natural language had its own logic. His idea is that in making conversation, the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate. This general principle is called the Cooperative Principle (CP). To be more specific, there are four maxims under this general principle:
(a) the maxim of quantity
A contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much.
(b) the maxim of quality
Speakers should be truthful. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements for which they lack adequate evidence.
(c) the maxim of manner
Speakers’ contribution should be orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.
(d) the maxim of relevance
Speakers’ contribution should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange [3].
Of course, Grice does not prescribe the use of such maxims. Nor does he suggest that we use them artificially to construct conversations. But they are useful for analyzing and interpreting conversation, and may reveal purposes of either speakers or listeners we were not previously aware of.
1.2.6 Politeness Principle
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