PRAGMATICS AND NATURAL CONVENTIONAL SIGNS

PRAGMATICS

AND NATURAL CONVENTIONAL SIGNS

to fulfill the task of  Semantics Lecture

 The Lecture:

Mr. Dede Sudrajat M.Pd

By :

Class  : VI C

Nur Alfi Laela

UNIVERSITAS MAJALENGKA

PROGRAM STUDI BAHASA INGGRIS

Alamat : Jl. K.H abdul Halim No. 103 Majalengka Telp./Fax .

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CHAPTER 2

Language in Use

In this chapter we look more at the specific of communication, beginning with observations about non- linguistics signs and how we get meaning from them. We introduce a distinction between a sentence, a language construction, and an utterance, a particular act of speaking or writing. An utterance is typically part of a larger discourse. In spoken discourse meanings are partly communicated by the emphases and melodies that are called prosody. Vocal and gestural signs can also be the means of transmitting meanings.

2.1.  Pragmatics

Pragmatics is another branch of linguistics that is concerned with meaning. Pragmatics and semantics can be viewed as different parts, or different aspects, of the same general study. Both are concerned with people’s ability to use language system in producing meaningful utterances and processing (comprehending) utterances produced by other, the chief focus of pragmatics is a person ability to derive meaning from specific kinds of speech situations to recognize what the speaker is referring to, to relate new information to what has gone before, to interpret what is said from background knowledge about the speaker and the topic of discourse, and to infer or ‘fill in’ information that the speaker takes for granted and doesn’t bother to say.

General Pragmatics

Pragmatics can generally be divided into:

a) Pragmalinguistics

b) Sosiopragmatics

Pragmalingustics is a review of the general conditions of communicative language use. Then this can be applied to the study objectives pragmatics more directed to consider the goals of linguistic specific resources provided by a particular language to convey ilocusion-specific ilocusion (ilocusion is a way of doing things in the act of saying something).

Sociopragmatics is the study of local conditions or a more locally specific about the use of language. In a more specific local community is clearly seen that the principle of co-operative or partnership principle and the principle of courtesy takes place varies in different cultures or different language communities, in social situations differ among social classes different, and so forth. In other words sociopragmatics is boundaries.

Obviously the boundary between semantic and pragmatics is vague, and at the present time various scholars are apt to disagree about where the boundary is. Some of the contents of this chapter may be considered more ‘pragmatics’ than ‘semantics’ by some people.

2.2 . Natural and Conventional Signs

            A language is a system of symbols through which people communicate. The symbols may be spoken, written, or signed with the hands.

            People who use the language to communicate with one another constitute a society, a language community–the English language community, for  instance. Within that the communities there are differences in the way different people use the language, chiefly of a geographical or social nature. When people who have the same native language can understand one another but still notice consistent differences in each other’s speech, we say they speak different dialects of that language.

It is easy to illustrate dialects differences : vocabulary differences like petrol versus gasoline, lift versus elevator, alternative ways of framing certain question: Have you a pencil? Versus Do you have a pencil? Versus have you got a pencil ?, for instance. It is extremely difficult to say how many differences there are between dialects or to recognize where ane dialects ends and another begin.

Language is only one of the common activities of a society. The totally of the common activities, institution and beliefs make up the culture of that society. Cultural grouping are not necessarily coterminous with language communities.

In the modern world it is quite the opposite : cultural features are almost always more widespread than anyone language. Native speakers of English belong to the so called Western Culture, which has developed from the Hebrews, Greek and Romans of the ancient world. If it is hard to specify just what constitutes a ‘dialect’, it is equally difficult to specify what is included in one ‘culture’. Our culture includes, for example eating with a fork, and hundreds of other major and minor customs and belief. The point is that communication take place against a large common background.

A language is a complex system of symbols, or signs, that are shared by members of a community. It will be useful to consider other signs that we know and how we react to them.

A footprint is a natural sign. It is the natural result of a foot treading on a soft surface, and it can communicate a message-that the owner of the foot was recently there – to anyone observes it. We are all familiar with other natural signs. We see smoke and know that there is a fire, or fire has just gone out. A black cloud informs us of the possibility of train. Treetops moving tell us that the wind is blowing. Our own bodies provide such signs as earaches and hunger pangs. In other people we notice and interpret shivering, perspiration, or a head nodding with drowsiness. All short of sights sound and smell can be natural signs: they communicate to someone who observes and can interpret but their messages are unintentional, the by – products of various events.

In modern life we are likely to be less concerned with natural signs than with conventional signs, the auditory and visual devices that people have created to send routine message to one another. Day after day we hear such signals because someone intends for us to hear them: horns, whistles, sirens. Buzzer and bells. The pop of a gun start competitive runners, swimmers, and jockeys on their respective races. In various sports a whistles or buzzer marks the beginning and end of each period of play. Visual signs are just as prevalent and as varied. We have conventional ways of indicating a slippery road, a bicycle path, the location of a telephone, of men’s a woman’s lavatories, where there is access for the handicapped, where smoking is prohibited, and so much more. Humans produce not only single symbols but systems of symbols.

Different bugle calls, different bells tones, different number of toots on a whistles or flashes of light can form a repertory of messages. The traffic light found at numerous city street intersections is a good example of a simple system. None of these communications uses language, though of course devising, installing and learning them could not be accomplished by people who had no language.

Unlike natural signs, conventional signs have human senders as well as human receivers; each one has an intention and interpretation. The message may be personal as when a friend rings your telephone or quite impersonal and general, like the warning siren on a speeding ambulance. We can even use devices like smoke detectors and burglar alarms to send messages to ourselves at a letter time, in circumstances that we really do not want to occur.

Observing any such signs and getting information from it seems like a simple matter and can take place in an instans, and yet the process of getting information consist of three steps:

1.      Perception

2.      Identification

3.      Interpretation

1.   Perception

The sign and the observer share a context of place and time in which the sign attract the observer’s attention. Robinson Crusoe, to use our first example, walked where the footprint was, looked in the right direction, when there was sufficient light for visibility, and before the print had been obliterate by train, wind, tide, or the movement of other creatures.

2.   Identification

Every perception is a unique experience. To say that we ‘recognize’ a phenomenon means that we match it with previous experiences stored in our memory. Almost certainly, if you observe a sign and derive some meaning from it, you must have seen a similar sign before. We identify any new thing either as a phenomenon previously observes or more often, as something that is ‘identical’ with phenomena we already know, a new token of a familiar type. The human mind cannot deal with an infinite number of separate things; we classify intensity as a new instance of the class of footprints or bushes or sirens or churches. And to identify what something is requires us to recognize what it is not, to discriminate between signs.

3.   Interpretation

Meaning is often personal. The meaning of any sign depends on the space-time context is which we observe it. Crasoe’s reaction to the footprint was due to the circumstances of his life, the fact that until this moment it had been impossible for him to see any human footprint other than his own. This is clearly an unusual case, but all the time we interpret differently in different context.

Conventional sign can have different meanings in different context or different circumstances. The whistles of a policemen directing traffic, the whistles of a hotel doorman summoning a taxi. And the whistles of the referee in a soccer game may all sound exactly the same; their different meanings are due to do the different intentions and are interpreted differently.