Jakobson's Six Functions of Language

Roman Jakobson, expanding on the work of Karl Bühler, described six "constitutive factors" of a speech event, each of which represents the privileging of a corresponding function, and only one of which is the referential (which corresponds to the context of the speech event). The six constitutive factors and their corresponding functions are diagrammed below:

The Six Constitutive Factors of a Speech Event Context Message Addresser--------------Addressee Contact Code

The Six Functions of Language Referential Poetic Emotive------------Conative Phatic Metalingual

· The Referential Function corresponds to the factor of Context and describes a situation, object or mental state. The descriptive statements of the referential function can consist of both definite descriptions and deictic words, e.g. "The autumn leaves have all fallen now."

· The Expressive (alternatively called "emotive" or "affective") Function relates to the Addresser and is best exemplified by interjections and other sound changes that do not alter the denotative meaning of an utterance but do add information about the Addresser's (speaker's) internal state, e.g. "Wow, what a view!"

· The Conative Function engages the Addressee directly and is best illustrated by vocatives and imperatives, e.g. "Tom! Come inside and eat!"

· The Poetic Function focuses on "the message for its own sake" and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans [6].

· The Phatic Function is language for the sake of interaction and is therefore associated with the Contact factor. The Phatic Function can be observed in greetings and casual discussions of the weather, particularly with strangers.

· The Metalingual (alternatively called "metalinguistic" or "reflexive") Function is the use of language (what Jakobson calls "Code") to discuss or describe itself.

Related Fields

There is considerable overlap between pragmatics and sociolinguistics, since both share an interest in linguistic meaning as determined by usage in a speech community. However, sociolinguists tend to be more interested in variations in language within such communities.

Pragmatics helps anthropologists relate elements of language to broader social phenomena; it thus pervades the field of linguistic anthropology. Because pragmatics describes generally the forces in play for a given utterance, it includes the study of power, gender, race, identity, and their interactions with individual speech acts. For example, the study of code switching directly relates to pragmatics, since a switch in code effects a shift in pragmatic force [6].

According to Charles W. Morris, pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and their users, while semantics tends to focus on the actual objects or ideas to which a word refers, and syntax (or "syntactics") examines relationships among signs or symbols. Semantics is the literal meaning of an idea whereas pragmatics is the implied meaning of the given idea.

Speech Act Theory, pioneered by J. L. Austin and further developed by J. Searle, centers around the idea of the performative, a type of utterance that performs the very action it describes. Speech Act Theory's examination of illocutionary acts has many of the same goals as pragmatics, as outlined above.

Criticisms of Pragmatics

Some of the criticisms directed at pragmatics include these:

- It does not have a clear-cut focus.

- Its principles are vague and fuzzy.

- It is redundant – semantics already covers the territory adequately.

In defending pragmatics we can say that:

ü The study of speech acts has illuminated social language interactions.

ü It covers things that semantics (hitherto) has overlooked.

ü It can help inform strategies for teaching language.

ü It has given new insights into understanding literature.

ü The theory of the cooperative principle and politeness principle have provided insights into person-to-person interactions.

“Main logical interconnections”

Entailment

In pragmatics (linguistics), entailment is the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B).

For example, the sentence (A) The president was assassinated. entails (B) The president is dead.

Entailment differs from implicature, where the truth of one (A) suggests the truth of the other (B), but does not require it.

For example, the sentence (A) Mary had a baby and (B) got married implicates that (A) she had a baby before (B) the wedding, but this is cancellable by adding -- not necessarily in that order. Entailments are not cancellable.

Entailment also differs from presupposition in that in presupposition, the truth of what one is presupposing is taken for granted.

Task: make 5 examples of your own to illustrate entailments.

Implicature

In pragmatics (linguistics), implicature is the relationship between two statements where the truth of one suggests the truth of the other, but—distinguishing implicature from entailment—does not require it. For example, the sentence "Mary had a baby and got married" strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true if Mary had her baby after she got married. Further, if we add the qualification "— not necessarily in that order" to the original sentence, then the implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the original sentence is not altered.

This can be contrasted with cases of entailment. For example, the statement "The president was assassinated" not only suggests that "The president is dead" is true, but requires that it be true. The first sentence could not be true if the second were not true; if the president were not dead, then whatever it is that happened to him would not have counted as a (successful) assassination. Similarly, unlike implicatures, entailments cannot be cancelled; there is no qualification that one could add to "The president was assassinated" which would cause it to cease entailing "The president is dead" while also preserving the meaning of the first sentence.