#pragmatics

[pclysemia]

The classical dictum also attributed to Heraclitus: "...you never step twice into the same river..." is also essentially pragmatic, presumably pointing out to the ever-changing context -- time, the river, the self.

Mind, Code and Context: Essays in Pragmatics, by Talmy Givón (1989)

#talmy givón #mind code and context: essays in pragmatics #linguistics #language #pragmatics #self #reality #transcendence

[silly-cherries]

FAERIE LINGUISTICS GUYS

FAERIE LINGUISTICS!!!!! (Hello writer moots 😳)

So a backbone of pragmatics (the linguistic field of studying language meaning in context) is 4 rules, called Grice's Maxims.

1. Quality: provide information that's true or that you believe to be true.

2. Quantity: Provide enough, but not too much, information.

3. Relation: be relevant.

4. Manner: be orderly, be clear. No ambiguity or obscurity.

Humans are able to violate any of the maxims, but we assume they don't in order to clearly and effectively communicate. And usually people don't violate them on purpose. So usually human trickery is lies. Faeries on the other hand, CANT LIE. they can't violate the maxim of quality. That means if they want to conceal information they rely entirely on violation of quantity, manner, and relation, which is how faeries can lie without saying anything false. People assume these maxims when they aren't true!!

Makes me wonder about faerie pragmatics... Do faeries assume these maxims? If they don't, it makes sense why faeries can trick humans so easily but not other fae.

Also why do we always assume in our writing that fae speak human language lmao

#writeblr #faerie #fae folk #linguistics #pragmatics #world building #uhh how else do i tag

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 80: Word Magic

The magical kind of spell and the written kind of spell are historically linked. This reflects how saying a word can change the state of the world, both in terms of fictional magic spells that set things on fire or make them invisible, and in terms of the real-world linguistic concept of performative utterances, which let us agree to contracts, place bets, establish names, and otherwise alter the fabric of our relationships. 

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about word magic! We talk about how the word magic systems are set up differently in three recent fantasy books we like: Babel by R.F. Kuang, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. We also talk about linguistic performatives: why saying “I do” in a movie doesn’t make you married, aka Felicity Conditions, aka an excellent drag name; performativity as applied to gender (yup, Judith Butler got it from linguistics); the “hereby” test; and how technology changes what counts as a performative.  

Read the transcript here.

Announcements:  People often ask us to recommend interesting books about linguistics that don't assume prior knowledge of linguistics, so we've come up with a list of 12 books that we personally recommend, including both nonfiction and fiction books with linguistically interesting elements! Get this list of our top 12 linguistics books by signing up for our free email list. Email subscribers get an email once a month when there's a new episode of Lingthusiasm, and this month existing subscribers will see a link to our linguistics books list! If you find this any time in the future, you'll get the books list in the confirmation email after you sign up.  In this month’s bonus episode, we get excited about the results of the 2022 Lingthusiasm Survey. We talk about synesthesia fomo, whether people respond differently to kiki/bouba depending on whether they're aware of them as a meme, complicating the "where is a frown?" map, the plural of emoji, and more! Plus, we mentioned swearing in this episode? Yeah, we’ve got bonus episodes about that too.  Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds! Our patrons let us keep making the main episodes free for everyone and we really appreciate every level of support.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Sign up to our newsletter and get our list of 12 linguistically interesting books!

Etymonline entry for ‘spell’

Etymonline entry for ‘glamour’

‘Babel’ by R. F. Kuang on Goodreads

‘Carry On - The Simon Snow series’ by Rainbow Rowell on Goodreads

‘A Deadly Education - The Scholomance Series’ by Naomi Novik on Goodreads

Lingthusiasm episode ‘Cool things about scales and implicature’

Wikipedia entry for ‘performative utterances’

Superlinguo post on ‘I do’ and performatives in weddings

Government of Canada post on ‘hereby’

All Things Linguistics post on performatives

Judith Butler Wikipedia entry

‘Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity’ by Judith Butler on Goodreads

‘Universality and specificity in infant-directed speech: Pitch modifications as a function of infant age and sex in a tonal and non-tonal language’ by C. Kitamura et al

Tambiah 1968 on word magic

Lingthusiasm bonus episodes on swearing:

‘Real swear words vs pseudo swears’

‘The grammar of swearing’

‘What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫& Liveshow’

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

#linguistics #lingthusiasm #language #episodes #podcast #episode 80 #pragmatics #words #magic #simon snow #rainbow rowell #r.f. kuang #fantasy books #the scholomance #naomi novik #books #spells #performatives #felicity conditions #gender #gesture #SoundCloud

[thatstudyblrontea]

October 4, 2022

First day of lessons for this academic year – it's been a tiring day, but I'm really glad to be back! This semester will mostly be focused on Russian, save for one hour of English Linguistics a week, focusing on Pragmatics. I'm also particularly happy with how my notes are turning out – I'm using an old 2020 planner flipped upside down, as the paper is too good to just throw away.

#studyblr #study blog #studyspo #studying #studying inspiration #study inspiration #study inspo #study motivation #uni student #uniblr #uni life #university #undergrad student #pragmatics #linguistics student #linguistics #russian literature #russian langblr #lecture notes #note aesthetic #aesthetic notes #notes aesthetic #study notes

[that-gay-jedi]

So like there are some interesting critiques on the concept of trauma as we know it and since idk if we ever actually hear the word "trauma" in any Star Wars material and since we implicitly know Galactic Basic is not reeeeeally English but is just represented by English because the writers gotta write in an Earth language, it would be interesting if they flat out did not have a word for trauma and people obviously do have some understanding that being violated or spending time in certain states of distress can have a lasting and debilitating impact on a person but they would have completely different ways of talking about it that went down a whole different branch of linguistic evolution than we did.

#star wars #languages #galaxy far far away #linguistics #pragmatics #trauma #worldbuilding

[trashpandafeminism]

Hate speech and free speech – two concepts that often come into conflict. But where do we draw the line between protecting people's right to express their opinions and protecting others from harm? In a recent video interview, John Ramsey and I explored this topic in-depth, discussing the limits of free speech and whether hate speech should be protected by the First Amendment. Our conversation raises important questions about the ethics of speech. Check out the video and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

#hate speech #free speech #first amendment #ethics #debate #conversation #interview #important questions #speech act theory #pragmatics #linguistics #philosophy

[ravenlinguistics]

30 January 2023

Here we are in week 3 of the semester! Between teaching and studying, I am slightly more exhausted than I should be.

As for teaching: I am feeling way better about this semester than last. The course I am teaching has a straightforward approach and feels very linear. No topic hopping here!

As for studying: With only two weeks done, we are barely into the depth of the topics. The first phonology assignment basically served as a review of IPA but with special attention to the active and passive articulators. Pragmatics lectures have been a review of Semantics, so nothing new on that front either. Python Programming has been somewhat new, as Python's syntax is interesting. List comprehension is fascinating.

#studyblr #gradblr #linguistics #phonology #pragmatics #python

[drlinguo]

thx @kz

#academia #academia memes #public lectures #Irish literature #wands #performative acts #pragmatics

[eastern-lights]

Eastern Lights’ Guide to Bachelor’s Programme English Studies Courses

Introduction to the Study of English - where newbies learn that no, being fairly good at English in middle school has not prepared them for any of this, and they’ve just been tricked into studying linguistics in a foreign language

Introduction to the Study of Literature - where you learn zip about literature but hey, there’s gonna be cool stories told by the cryptid professor who’d literally be rather doing anything else than teaching your stupid ass

Phonetics and Phonology - you will be the weird kid making weird noises with your mouth in the library the night before exams, most likely looking like this:

Morphology - where your first assignment will be to write a think piece on “what is a word” and you’ll get negative marks if you submit a bold and well-argumented essay on why linguists should get rid of the concept of ‘words’ entirely. Not that I’d know, of course.

Morphosyntax - what you get when you mix morphology and BDSM

Syntax - rumour has it that the surest way to make out linguistics majors in a crowd is to whisper this word and listen for cries of terror

Lexicology and Lexicography - thanks to this course, you now know that this... 

... is in fact called a “zeugma”. At least one person will mutter “zeugma balls” under their breath

Introduction to Stylistics - no, the hot teacher is not single, and he will not let you forget it

British Literature - at this point, the student body is already divided into Linguists, Translators and Literature People and everyone but the Literature People is straight up not having a good time

American Literature - no, this hot teacher is not single either, and she’s way out of your league anyway

Translation Seminars 1 - 4 -  everyone but the Translators is straight up not having a good time

Translation Seminar 5 - the most desirable course in the department, made up of people who simp for the teacher, those who wanna hear him cratively translate curse words and that one person who just genuinely wants to learn to make subtitles

Pragmatics - everyone, Linguists included, is straight up not having a good time

#linguistics #english language #uni problems #phonetics #stylistics #syntax #pragmatics #translation #morphology #lexicology #taking AmLit and Stylistics in the same semester is a straight up bisexual nightmare

[pclysemia]

Neither language nor mind abides by the requirement of closure, except perhaps temporarily, for limited tasks. Both mind and language are necessarily open systems that constantly expand, add meta-levels, learn and modify themselves. Equally, both language and mind are notoriously promiscuous in violating Russell's constraint on self-inclusion and reflexivity. Consciousness is indeed forever adjusting its frame, shifting meta-levels; it keeps re-framing and reflexively framing itself. This propensity of consciousness is neither an aberration nor an accident. Rather, it is a necessary, adaptively motivated capacity; it stands at the very core of our perceptual and cognitive processing mechanisms. It is a precondition for the mind's ability to select, evaluate, file, contextualize and respond appropriately to mountains of information.

Mind, Code and Context: Essays in Pragmatics, by Talmy Givón (1989)

#talmy givón #mind code and context: essays in pragmatics #linguistics #pragmatics #fragments #consciousness #self #reality

[tananansad]

my semantics group decided to use speech acts as a classification and analysis theory for malay memes and oh my god what the fuck is a speech act in the first place

#pragmatics #doho #semantics #bruh??? why does it feel so non-formalized lol #rant tag

[lingthusiasm]

Lauren: The thing that all of the examples in this episode have in common is that the implicature comes up because we can put these things on a scale, but that’s not the only way that implicature works.

Gretchen: You can also imply things that don’t really seem to be scalar. There was an example of a tweet that went up a little while ago where somebody posted a photo of a house that was for sale. There was a big sign on top of the “For Sale” sign that said, “Not Haunted.”

Lauren: Okay, so, I have a lot of questions that I possibly wouldn’t have had if there was just a normal “For Sale” sign.

Gretchen: Right, exactly. The “Not Haunted” sign is doing this implicature of “Wait, but I am supposed to expect this house might be haunted?” But it’s not doing so on a particular scale. Like, it’s haunted or not haunted, which is not really a scale. It’s just a “Wait. Suddenly this information is relevant?”

Lauren: This feels like an example of that meme of “My ‘House Not Haunted’ sign has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my ‘House Not Haunted’ sign.” Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode 'Cool things about scales and implicature'

Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about semantics and pragmatics

#langauge #linguists #lingthusiasm #episode 62 #podcasts #quotes #scales #implicature #scalar implicature #pragmatics #semantics

[thatstudyblrontea]

pov: you're a Linguistics student and Paul Grice is literally at every corner of your academic journey, giving you enthusiastic thumbs-up

#Pragmatics? He's there #General Psychology? He's there too #Theory and History of Translation? Don't worry he's got you #English Linguistics? You bet he's gonna be there too #Paul Grice #cooperative principle #pragmatics #linguistics #translation studies #psychology #psychology student #linguistics student #uniblr #uni student #undergrad student

[notational]

#really #postits #pragmatics https://www.instagram.com/p/CiNnXKYLfqO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#really #postits #pragmatics

[officialspec]

can i say something. for years i thought the joke of the song short skirt/long jacket by cake was that he wanted a woman who was hung like a horse. like i thought when he says jacket it was a last-second fakeout because he very obviously meant to say cock. and the rest of the things in the song were just her personality and interests. which were secondary to her awesome penis

#is anyone else doing this. or am i stupid #i didnt question it at all i thought that was just the obviously intended meaning of the song #and i was like damn this is pretty progressive for the 90s i wonder why no one talks about this song when theyre talking abt #popular songs about trans women at the time. i guess some of the stuff mentioned could potentially rub people the wrong way- #OH. SO IT WAS JUST ABOUT A WOMAN WHOIS PRAGMATIC AND BUSINESS CASUAL WITH IT. I SEE #EDIT THE LINE 'a voice that is dark like tinted glass' LIKE....U GET WHAT I MEAN