Syntax is about words connection; the connection of grammatical structure of sentence, the form of sentence.. Syntax studies the connection among signs without considering the meaning of
Trang 11
Pragmatics: How People Use Language Zainurrahman (Under guidance of Prof E Aminudin Azis, M.A., PhD.)
STKIP KIE RAHA TERNATE-INDONESIA zainurrahmankalero@gmail.com | http://zainurrahmans.wordpress.com
ZPJ: Free Access Journal of the Philosophy of Language and Education (2010)
Language in use is about how
language is used by the speaker and perceived
by the hearer Talking about language in use is
talking about Pragmatics Pragmatics is one of
the items in the trichotomy of general science
of signs (read: Semiotics) The trichotomy, by
Charles Sanders Peirce is
syntactic-semantics-and pragmatics
Syntax is about words connection; the
connection of grammatical structure of
sentence, the form of sentence Syntax studies
the connection among signs without
considering the meaning of signs, the specific
signification, and the function of relation
among signs
Example:
John ate donut
The sentence above is meaningful in a
perfect grammatical structure Syntactically,
although the sentence is restructured become:
Donut ate john
The sentence is syntactically correct
The connections of signs are true However, is
it possible that donut can eat John?
Semantically, the second sentence is
illogic Semantics is about the meaning of the
signs connection John and ate is correctly
connected, donut as the object is required
because verb ate is transitive verb John
function as the actor who performs ate and
donut as the patient that is the verb ate
performed on The connections among entities
in the sentences are logic
When the sentence is restructured become Donut ate John, the connections become illogical The meaning of Donut is food, and it is impossible that a kind of food eats human Here, it can be seen that the difference between syntax and semantics is that if syntax is about the structure without meaning, semantics studies the structure and the meaningfulness of signs connection Therefore, syntactically the restructured sentence is meaningless or unacceptable
Nevertheless, sometimes we may find that kind of sentence (Donut ate John) It may have meaning like: Donut is actually a name of monster The sentence may be used in certain context for certain purpose Here, pragmatics plays its role
Pragmatics concerns signs as well, but
it is more about how those signs are used and interpreted How do people produce, offer, and interpreted language The sentence given may
be used as a joke, insult, and so on
Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by the hearer (or reader) Therefore, pragmatics is the study of the speaker meaning, in certain context What meant with context is whom they are talking to, where, when, and under what Pragmatics also studies how more gets communicated than is said Pragmatically, we cannot understand the sentence “Donut ate John” literally, but we should look deeper, what the speaker’s meaning is Pragmatics is
Trang 22
also the study of the expression of relative distance, or the relationship of interactants
People expressions are different each other, or people express their meaning for one differently to other For the example, you can say “Open the door!” to your friend, your younger brother or sister, but you cannot say it
to your lecturer that way To do that expression, you may use more polite utterance
“May the door is opened?” or “It is very hot here” or other way What makes you do this is the difference of relative distance
It is clear that pragmatics is about how people use language in certain context for certain purpose In pragmatics, we will find some tools to be used to analyze the speaker meaning, or the meaning of utterance in context