After-class Exercises
for Chapter 6 Pragmatics
I. Directions: Read each of the following statements carefully. Decide which one of the four choices best completes the statement and put the letter A, B, C, or D in the brackets.
1. Once the notion of __________ was taken into consideration, semantics spilled into pragmatics.
A. meaning B. context
C. form D. content
2. The branch of linguistics that studies how context influences the way speakers interpret sentences is called __________.
A. semantics B. pragmatics
C. sociolinguistics D. psycholinguistics
3. Speech act theory was first proposed by __________ in the late 50s of the 20th century.
1
A. John Austin B. John Searle
C. Noam Chomsky D. John Firth
4. A(n) __________ act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something.
A. locutionary B. illocutionary
C. perlocutionary D. prelocutionary
5. According to Austin’s theory of speech act, __________ act is using a sentence to convey one’s intention.
A. locutionary B. illocutionary
C. perlocutionary D. speech act
6. According to Searle, there are __________ general types of illocutionary acts.
A. two B. three
C. four D. five
7. “I swear I never seen the man before” is the illocutionary point of the __________.
2
A. representatives B. declarations
C. directives D. commisives
8. According to Searle, those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action are called ___________.
A. commisives B. directives
C. expressives D. declaratives.
9. The illocutionary point of __________ is to express the psychological state specified in the utterance.
A. directives B. expressives
C. commissives D. representatives
10. Most of the violations of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle give rise to __________.
A. utterance meaning B. speech act theory
C. conversational implicatures D. all of the above
11. The utterance “We’re already working 25 hours a day, eight days a
3
week.” obviously violates the maxim of __________.
A. quality
B. quantity
C. relation D. manner
12. A: Do you know where Mr. Brown is?
B: Somewhere in the southern suburbs of the city.
Speaker B violates the maxim of __________.
A. quality B. relation
C. manner D. quantity
13. What cooperative maxim is violated in the following dialogue?
A: Can you answer the telephone?
B: I’m in the bath.
A. Relation B. Quality
C. Quantity D. Manner
4
14. Y’s utterance in the following conversation exchange violates the maxim of __________.
X: Who was that you were with last night? Y: Did you know that you were wearing old socks? A. quality B. quantity
C. relation D. manner
15. The significance of Grice’s CP lies in the fact that it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey __________ is literally said.
A. more than B. less than
C. the same as D. none of the above
lI. Directions: Judge whether each of the following statements is true or false. Put a T for true or F for false in the brackets in front of each statement. If you think a statement is false, you are required to give the correct version.
1. Of the views concerning the study of semantics, the contextual view, which places the study of meaning in the context in which language is used, is often considered as the initial effort to study meaning in a pragmatic sense.
5
2. If we think of a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes an utterance.
3. All utterances take the form of sentences.
4. The utterance meaning of the sentence varies with the context in which it is uttered.
5. Performatives are sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state, and are not verifiable.
6. A locutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention.
7. All illocutionary acts that belong to the same category share the same purpose or the same illocutionary point.
8. A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something.
9. Linguists are most interested in the illocutionary act because this kind of speech act is easier to study than locutionary act and perlocutionary act.
10. Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts is based on the classification of performative verbs.
11. According to Searle’s classification of illocutionay acts, inviting,
6
suggesting, advising, promising and apologizing all fall into the category of directives.
12. Inviting, suggesting, advising, and ordering are instance of commissives.
13. The Cooperative principle was proposed by John Searle.
14. Only when a maxim under Cooperative Principle is blatantly violated and the hearer knows that it is being violated do conversational implicatures arise.
15. The significance of Grice’s Cooperative Principle lies in that it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey more than is literally said.
III. Directions: Define the following terms.
context (P113-114)
illocutionary act (P117)
conversational implicature (P122)
cooperative principle (P121)
politeness principle (PPT4.2.1)
IV. Answer the following questions.
7
1. How does pragmatics differ from semantics, and utterance meaning from sentence meaning? (P112-115)
2. What are the five illocutionary speech acts Searle specifies? (P118-120)
3. What are the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle? Please give examples to show how the flouting of these maxims gives rise to conversational implicatures (Give at least two examples, each flouting a different maxim). (P121-122)
Keys to After-class Exercises
I.
1-5 B B A C B 6-10 D A A B C 11-15 A D A C A
II.
错误的为3 6 9 10 11 12 13，其余正确。
III、IV略
8
