SOME FUNNY EXAMPLES OF PRAGMATICS

POLITENESS

We can think of politeness in general terms as having to do with ideas like being tactiful, modest and nice to other people. In the study of linguistic politeness, the most relevant concept is "face". Your face, in pragmatics, is your public self-image. This is the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone  else to recognize.
Politness can be defined as showing awareness and cosideration of another person´s face.

ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS

J.L. Austin says that an Illocutionary is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a Locutinary act, the act of saying something, and also contrasted with a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something.

Searle (1975) set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts:

• assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition.
• directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. requests, commands and advice
• commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g. promises and oaths
• expressives = speech acts that express on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and thanks
• declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife.

SPEECH ACT

We use the term speech act to describe  actions such "requesting", "comanding", "questioning" or "informing". 
We can define speech act as the action performed by a speaker with a utterance. If you say "I´ll be there at six", you´re not just speaking,  you seem to be performing the speech act of "promising".
 
J.L. Austin analyses speech acts on three levels:

• Locutionary act:      Wen we say something.  1.- Phonic act: To emit a sound.

                                                                                      2.- Phatic act: To emit words.     
                                                                                      
                                                                                      3.- Retic act: Use of sounds and words with                                                                                        meaning.

• Ilocutionary act: the semantic 'illocutionary force' of the utterance, thus its real, intended meanin.
• Perlocutionary act: its actual effect, such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something, whether intended or not (Austin 1962).

 

J.L Austin.

PRESUPPOSITION

What a speaker (or writter) assumes is true or know by a listener (or reader).

 In a more general way, we design our linguistic messages on the basis of larg-scale assumptions about what our listeners already know.

For example:

• If someone tells you your brother is waiting outside, there is an obvious presuppotion that you have a brother.
  

ANAPHORA

Anafora can be defined as subsequent reference to an already introduced entity. Mostly we use Anaphora in texts to maintain reference. The connection between an antecedent and an anaphoric expressions is created by use of a pronoun (it), or a phrase with the antecedent noun (the puppy).

Example: 

• We saw a funny home video about a boy  washing a puppy in the small bath. Wen he let go, it jumped out...

INFERENCE

Reference is a key process, is additional information used by the listener to create a connection between what is said and what must be meant.
For example, if we say "That Picasso is in the musseum", we mean that there is a Picasso´s picture inside that museum.