Course : Introduction to Linguistics II (Εαρ. 2024-'25) - Sections Α-Καρ & Π-Ω

In this class, we shifted our focus to speech acts with which speakers perform actions through the use of language; e.g. "Can you open the window?". In line with speech act theory, we established a distinction between direct and indirect speech acts, and noted that for a speech act to be felicitous, that is, successful, the speech act needs to be performed properly (see the example on the invalid baptisms). Finally, a hearer may fail to recognize a speech and this is likely to provoke a communication breakdown (see the example from the film "The Imitation Game"). We did all exercises on speech acts from the second handout in Pragmatics. 

The analysis of speech acts extends to politeness, approached through the lens of pragmatics. To this end, we introduced the notion of "face" and suggested that some speech acts may engender a threat on the hearer's face. In order to save face and thus ensure social harmony, speakers make linguistic choices that attend to the hearer's positive and negative face. These are known as "positive" and  "negative politeness strategies", intended, respectively, to appeal to the common ground between speaker and hearer and to respect the hearer's freedom from imposition and. Finally, we addressed cross-cultural variation vis-à-vis face management. We did in class all exercises from Handout 2 in Pragmatics.

For more detail, please study the lecture slides as well as the relevant pages from Yule.