ETAP 636 Fall, 2014 PRAGMATICS (3 credits)

Receive credits at UCLA or University at Albany!

FIRST CLASS MEETING on September 9th in HU115

Instructor: Dr. Istvan Kecskes, Professor of Linguistics and Education

Office: ED 311

Office Hours: T: 2-4; W: 1-2, or by appointment

Phone: 442-5030

Teaching Assistant: Isabel Martinez-Cuenca

Websites:

Personal:

Communication site:

This is a special course whose requirements can be fulfilled in two ways. Students who decide to take the class should choose one of the two paths described. There is a common block that is mandatory for all enrolled students.

COMMON BLOCK: CLASSROOM: HU115

Participate in the regular classes (Tuesdays, 4:15-7:05) on the following dates: 09/09; 09/16; 09/23; 09/30; 10/07; 10/14; 10/21; 10/28; 11/04; 11/11; 11/18

The goal of these classes is as follows:

- discuss the main tenets of pragmatics with special attention on intercultural pragmatics

- prepare you for the conference (those who go to UCLA)

- prepare you to execute the research project (those who stay in Albany)

- help you select the topic of your paper.

Class Policies

-- Academic honesty is expected in all phases of your work. All sources that you use for papers or projects, both print and online, should be carefully cited. All work should be original work created for this course.

-- Class attendance is crucial. Discussions and classroom activities require your presence. More than two absences will affect your grade for the course.

-- Exams can be taken only in the scheduled time.

-- The instructor will meet students during his office hours (see above). If you cannot make any of them, please ask for an appointment.

-- As a matter of courtesy, please do not be late for class. It is impolite and disturbs work in the classroom. Class begins at 4:20 which gives 5 minutes extra-time for students to be on time. After that please do not disturb those who are at work. I expect you to call or email if you cannot come to class or if you are going to be late (for some serious reason).

-- Please do not eat and drink in class. Class-time is for work.

-- No cell phones in class, please!

Statement for students who have disabilities

Reasonable accommodations will be provided for students with documented physical, sensory, systemic, cognitive, learning and psychiatric disabilities. If you believe you have a disability requiring accommodation in this class, please notify the Director of Disabled Student Services (Campus Center 137, 442-5490).

BOOK:

Kecskes, I. 2013. Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Group-presentations

Students in class will be split into 2-member teams. Each team is expected to present one of the articles listed beyond in a 30, max. 40 minute presentation-time. Presenters are also responsible to prepare questions for the audience which will generate discussion on the given topic. Criteria for grading:

- demonstrated understanding of the main points of the article,

- clear presentation of ideas,

- structure of presentation (how easy for audience to follow),

- adequate answers to audience questions.

SCHEDULE:

Sept. 9. Introduction to pragmatics. Basic terms. Multilingual, socio-cognitive and discourse-segment perspective. Interculturality. What makes Intercultural Pragmatics different? Implicature.

Sept. 16.Current pragmatic theories.The linguistic-philosophical line and the sociocultural-interactional line, Issues with current theories.

Presentation 1: Deirdre Wilson. 1998. Linguistic structure and Inferential communication. In Caron, Bernard (Ed.) (1998) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Linguists. ISBN 0 08 043 438X. Pergamon, Oxford: Elsevier Sciences]

Sept. 23. The socio-cognitive approach. What is different in SCA?

Presentation 2: Randy J. LaPolla. Why languages differ: Variation in the conventionalization of constraints on inference

Sept. 30. Pragmatic competence. Development. Reflection in language use.

Presentation 3: Lüdi, Georges. 2006. “Multilingual repertoires and the consequences for linguistic theory.” In Beyond Misunderstanding, Bührig Kristin and Ten Thije Jan D. (eds), 11-42. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Oct. 7. Encyclopaedic knowledge, cultural models and interculturality. Crossing, merging and blending cultures. Cultural models.

Presentation 4: Nishizaka, Aug. 1995. “The interactive constitution of interculturality: How to be a Japanese with words.” Human Studies 18: 301-326.

Oct. 14. Formulaic language use. Why do native speakers like using formulaic expressions and nonnative speakers do not?

Presentation 5: Matthew L. Newman, James W. Pennebaker, Diane S. Berry and

Jane M. Richards. Lying Words: Predicting Deception from Linguistic Styles

Oct. 21. Context. Prior context and actual situational context. The dynamic model of meaning.

Presentation 6: Bach, Kent. Forthcoming. Context dependence (such as it is). In The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Language, M. Garcia-Carpintero and M. Kölbel, eds.

Oct. 28. Common ground. Approaches to common ground.

Presentation 7:Margaret Gilbert & Maura Priest. Forthcoming. Conversation and collective belief.

Nov. 4.Salience. Differences between the Graded Salience Hypothesis and SCA.

Presentation 8:Rachel Giora. 1999. On the priority of salient meanings: Studies of literal and figurative language. Journal of Pragmatics 31 (1999) 919-929

Nov. 11.Politeness and impoliteness. What is polite and what is impolite in intercultural interaction?

Presentation 9:Marta Dynel. 2013. Being cooperatively (im)polite: Grice’s model in the context of (im)politeness theories.

Nov. 18.Methods of analysis. Summary.

PATH ONE: CONFERENCE

Enrolled students participate at the 2nd International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association at the University of California, Los Angeles on October 17-19, 2014. Students can apply for financial support from the TESOL Program ($500 per student). Scholarships will be awarded to those who participate in the conference.You are responsible for your own travel arrangements, accommodation and expenses.If you need scholarship, please email to

Conference website:

2nd International Pragmatics Conference of the American Pragmatics Association at UCLA, October 17-19, 2014

The goal of the conference is to promote both theoretical and applied research in pragmatics, and bring together scholars who are interested in different subfields of pragmatics (philosophical, linguistic, cognitive, social, intercultural, interlanguage (L2 pragmatics), dialogue, pragmatic variation, politeness and impoliteness, discursive pragmatics, etc.). Three main topics of the conference are as follows:

▪ Pragmatics theories: neo-Gricean approaches, relevance theory, theory of mind, meaning, role of context, grammaticalization, semantics-pragmatics interface, prosody-semantics interface, syntax-pragmatics interface, explicature, implicature, speech act theory, presuppositions, im/politeness, experimental pragmatics, pragma-dialogue, etc.

▪ Intercultural, cross-cultural and societal aspects of pragmatics: research involving more than one language and culture or varieties of one language, lingua franca, pragmatics and society, technologically mediated communication, bilinguals’ and heritage speakers’ language use, intercultural misunderstandings, effect of dual language and multilingual systems on the development and use of pragmatic skills, language of aggression and conflict, etc.

▪ Applications: usage and corpus-based approaches, interlanguage pragmatics, teachability and learnability of pragmatic skills, pragmatic variations within one language and across languages, developmental pragmatics, dialogue and pragmatics, etc.

Confirmed plenary speakers:

Kent Bach (San Francisco State University)

Agnes He (Stony Brook University)

Gregory Ward (Northwestern University)

Deirdre Wilson (University of London)

Requirements for PATH ONE:

1) Active participation in classroom discussions and participation at the conference (see belwo)

2) Presentation in the Common Block (30%)

3) Final paper (70%)

Participate in the scientific activities at the conference (10/17-19)

- be present at each of the four plenary lectures,

- participate inone of the three parallel sessions that will be held on the topics described above,

Write a term paper based on a selected topic that is connected with one of the parallel sessions or plenary lectures.

Focus for conference participants: review of or discussion on the selected issue from your OWN perspective using conference materials, lectures (and your own research).

PATH TWO

This path is for those students who will NOT travel to Los Angeles but stay in Albany.

Requirements for PATH TWO:

1) Active participation in classroom discussions.

2) Presentation in the Common Block (30%)

3) Final project/paper (70%)

Working on a research project:

“Understanding implicatures in a second language”

In human communication we usually do not say what we mean and do not mean what we say which results in a difference between “what is said” and “what is actually communicated”. This phenomenon means special difficulties for ESL/EFL learners because they do not have the necessary common ground, mutual knowledge and norms that implicatures build on in L1. The project should investigate the nature of these special difficulties, the strategies L2 learners try to avoid misunderstandings and the ways teaching can support the proper interpretation of implicatures.

Write a term paper based on the individual project you will work on.

Focus for research project participants: presentation and discussion of the findings of your project.

Reading List for the Albany project: IMPLICATURES in L2

Roumyana Slabakova. 2010. Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition. Lingua Volume 120, Issue 10, October 2010, Pages 2444–2462

Lawrence F. Bouton. 2002. Conversational implicature in a second language: Learned slowly when not deliberately taught. Journal of Pragmatics. Volume 22, Issue 2, August 1994, Pages 157–167

Taguchi, N. 2005. “Comprehending implied meanings in English as a foreign language” Modern Language Journal. 89,iv: 543-562.

Jill C. Murray. 2011. Do Bears Fly? Revisiting Conversational Implicature in Instructional Pragmatics. TESL-EJ. September 2011–Volume 15, Number 2.

Erin Beltran Mitchelson. 2011. mplicature comprehension in L2. MA thesis. The University of Georgia. (internet).

Deadline for paper submission for BOTH PATH: 13:00, December 14, 2014

Papers should be submitted electronically as an attachment to the following address:

The final examination paper is a professional paper following the guidelines of either APA or MLA style. The paper cannot be shorter than 12 double-spaced pages (plus references and tables if needed), and cannot be longer than 30 double-spaced pages (plus references and tables if needed).

Credits (3) received in this course can be used to fulfill one of the following requirements in the TESOL program:Linguistics; Language in use; or Elective

If you are interested in taking the class and have questions, please contact Prof. Kecskes at