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【Abstract】This article is concentrated on one important factor in pragmatics-distance. It classifies distance into several categories and tries to analyze them through some pragmatic phenomena from the angle of distance.
【Key words】pragmatic distance physical distance psychological distance cognitive distance social distance
【中图分类号】G623.31 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1001-4128(2010)03-0211-03
1 Introduction
Till now different opinions about a definite comprehensive definition for pragmatics have not reached agreement. However, still there is something unanimous in lots of definitions for pragmatics, that is, pragmatics is the study of language in communication. Examples are as follows. “Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.”(Crystal, 1987)“Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said.”(Yule, 1996)“Pragmatics is a theory which seeks to characterize how speakers use the sentences of a language to effect successful communication.”(Kempson, 1975 ) When communication is mentioned, one important factor can not be ignored. That is distance. No two participants in any communication are identical, so differences between individuals exist in communications. These differences in communications can be regarded as distances between participants in pragmatics. Here, distance should be interpreted in a broad sense, which can be used to refer to physical distance, psychological distance, cognitive distance, social distance-any difference between a speaker (or writer) and a listener (or reader). In the following paragraphs, these distances will be discussed respectively.
2 Classification of pragmatic distance
2.1 Physical distance
Among all of these distances, physical distance is the most concrete one, which significantly results in the emergence of deixis. The history of language development shows that any language experienced a progress from oral communication to written system. There is no exception with deixis. The original and canonical situation of utterance involves one-one, or one-many signaling in the phonic medium along the vocal-auditory channel, with all the participants present in the same actual situation able to see one another and to perceive the associated non-verbal paralinguistic features of their utterances, and assuming the role of sender and receiver in turn. Strictly and scientifically speaking, in such a situation the speaker and the listener can not be in the same physical point at the same time when communicating. Physical distance exists between them. Meanwhile, during the communication, the speaker is always speaking ego-centrieally-referring to things with himself/herself as the point of reference. This typical situation of utterance determines to a great degree the language structure, therefore, deixis (pointing via language) which is tied to the speaker’s context comes into being, with the most basic distinction between deictic expressions being“near speaker”versus “away from speaker”. In English, the“near speaker” or proximal terms are “this”,“here”,“now”and so on. The “away from speaker” or distal terms are “that”,“there”,“then” and so on. (In some languages, e. g. in Japanese, distal terms can also be used to distinguish between“near addressee” and “away from both speaker and addressee”.
2.2 Psychological distance
Deixis is based on physical distance, but far beyond the domain of physical distance. The simplicity of the forms of deixis disguises the complexity of their use. In daily language practice, some unusual phenomena of deixis require to be explained from another perspective-psychological distance. Examples from the use of spatial deixis can be applied to explain this point well. Among spatial deixis,“come”,“here”, “this” have the deictical meaning of “near or toward speaker” while “go”, “there”,“that” have the deictical meaning of “far away from speaker”. However, in language use, something or somebody “near speaker” is sometimes described by the speaker using words of “there”, “that” or “go” while something or somebody “far away from speaker” is described by“here”,“this”, or“come”. The famous example given by Yule is“I don’t like that. ”(“That” refers to a perfume being sniffed by the speaker. ) Although the perfume is just sniffed by the speaker and the physical distance between the speaker and the smell of the perfume is not very long, here the speaker uses the word “that” to express his/her dislike of the smell-a psychological distance is reflected by the choice of deixis. So Yule concluded that “it may be that the truly pragmatic basis of spatial deixis is actually psychological distance”.
Some uses of temporal deixis can also be explained by psychological distance. One of English tenses-historical present uses verbs in present tense to describe what happened in the past, because this kind of expression will shorten the psychological distance between what had happened and the listener (or reader), therefore, will produce the effect of being personally on the scene. Contrasted with historical present, subjunctive mood uses verbs in past tense to describe events that can not or have not happened, which reflects the psychological distance from current reality or facts in the speaker’s mind.
This idea-psychological distance-can be applied to explain some phenomena in person deixis, too. For example, a modest scholar uses “we” instead of “I” in his/her speech, which will shorten the psychological distance between him/her and the audience.
e. g. We have been observing the phenomenon for years, but at this stage we are still unable to be very specific about its nature or its cause.
Another example. A mother will use “our baby” instead of “you” in her sentence, because “our baby”sounds cordial and will be able to diminish the psychological distance between her and her baby.
e.g. Who has frightened our baby?
Psychological distance considered, large quantity of phenomena of language use can be explained from the angle of pragmatics.
2.3 Cognitive distance
Cognitive distance in pragmatics, I think, can explain something about context-one of basic pragmatic concepts. Based on Lyons’ viewpoints of context, Downes, W. concluded three categories of contextual information: background knowledge, mutual knowledge and context of utterance.
context
(1)background knowledge
a. knowledge of the language
b. meta-conversational rules, norms, conventions
c. participants’ biographies
d. meta social rules, norms, conventions
e. the encyclopedia (common sense)
(2)mutual knowledge-each participant’s knowledge that the other knows that inferred on somebasis
(3)context of utterance
a. previous utterance in same conversation
b. immediate setting of speech
c. previous conversation of participants
All of these contextual information can only be acquired by cognitive process. Because of individual differences, cognitive distance about context will arise, therefore, different people will have different “cognitive environment”(Theory of Relevance). Due to the existence of cognitive distance between a speaker and a listener, sometimes a listener can not understand a speaker’s meaning correctly. Only a speaker’s and a listener’s cognitive environment manifest mutually can the communication be successful. The process of communication is just a process of development of mutual cognitive environment and a process of gradual reduction of cognitive distance between a speaker and a listener. During communications, the newly presented information interacts with one’s existing assumptions in his/her cognitive environment in one of three ways: by strengthening an existing assumption, by contradicting and eliminating an existing assumption, or by combining with an existing assumption to yield a contextual implication. In this interaction, one participant’s cognitive environment will gradually change to be able to manifest the others’.
2.4 Social distance
Here, social distance should be considered in a broad sense. It includes not only the distance of social status, but also the distance of educational degree, distance of cultural background and so on. In a word, social distance should embrace all of individual differences involving social factors.
The existence of social distance results in lots of pragmatic phenomena, such as indirect speech, conversational implicature, the Politeness Principle and so on. For example, because of the distance of social status, if a teacher wants his/her students to look a word up in a dictionary, he/she can raise his/her requirement directly “Please look this word up in your dictionary.” Meanwhile, if a student wants his/her teacher to help him/her to look a word up in a dictionary, he/she has to say in a round-about way “Would you mind looking the word up in the dictionary for me?” or even more politely. The distance of cultural background will also cause the indirect speech. For example, if a person from the western country, who is travelling in China for the first time, wants to visit the Imperial Palace but not knowing the exact name, he has to express himself in an indirect way: a famous palace where many ancient Chinese emperors lived… Due to the social distance, sometimes the speaker must apply some strategies to reduce the distance, one of which is the Politeness Principle, which to some extent will create conversational implicature.
e. g. Parents: Someone’s eaten the icing off the cake.
Child: It wasn’t ME.
Parents use“someone”instead of the child’s name, because they don’t want to threaten the child’s face.
Reflected in culture, social distance has produced cross-culturalpragmatics,whose sub-branches-pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (esp. socio-pragmatics ) study pragmatic problems arising in cross-cultural communications in which the second language is used.
3 Conclusion
Pragmatic distance is one of the fundamental concepts in pragmatics, adequate understanding of which will contribute to a better acquisition of some parts of pragmatics. This article classifies pragmatic distance into several categories and explains them through the analysis of some pragmatic phenomena. By this classification, a better approach of understanding the concept-pragmatic distance-is provided.
Bibliography
1 Fillmore,C. Lectures on Deixis. Center for the Study of Language and Information. Leland Standford Junior University, 1997.59-75
2 Green, G. Pragmatics and National Language Understanding. Erlbaum Associates Publishers, New Jersey, 1989.17-35
3 Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford University Press, 1996
4 何兆熊. 新编语用学概要. 上海外语教育出版社, 2000
【Key words】pragmatic distance physical distance psychological distance cognitive distance social distance
【中图分类号】G623.31 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1001-4128(2010)03-0211-03
1 Introduction
Till now different opinions about a definite comprehensive definition for pragmatics have not reached agreement. However, still there is something unanimous in lots of definitions for pragmatics, that is, pragmatics is the study of language in communication. Examples are as follows. “Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.”(Crystal, 1987)“Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said.”(Yule, 1996)“Pragmatics is a theory which seeks to characterize how speakers use the sentences of a language to effect successful communication.”(Kempson, 1975 ) When communication is mentioned, one important factor can not be ignored. That is distance. No two participants in any communication are identical, so differences between individuals exist in communications. These differences in communications can be regarded as distances between participants in pragmatics. Here, distance should be interpreted in a broad sense, which can be used to refer to physical distance, psychological distance, cognitive distance, social distance-any difference between a speaker (or writer) and a listener (or reader). In the following paragraphs, these distances will be discussed respectively.
2 Classification of pragmatic distance
2.1 Physical distance
Among all of these distances, physical distance is the most concrete one, which significantly results in the emergence of deixis. The history of language development shows that any language experienced a progress from oral communication to written system. There is no exception with deixis. The original and canonical situation of utterance involves one-one, or one-many signaling in the phonic medium along the vocal-auditory channel, with all the participants present in the same actual situation able to see one another and to perceive the associated non-verbal paralinguistic features of their utterances, and assuming the role of sender and receiver in turn. Strictly and scientifically speaking, in such a situation the speaker and the listener can not be in the same physical point at the same time when communicating. Physical distance exists between them. Meanwhile, during the communication, the speaker is always speaking ego-centrieally-referring to things with himself/herself as the point of reference. This typical situation of utterance determines to a great degree the language structure, therefore, deixis (pointing via language) which is tied to the speaker’s context comes into being, with the most basic distinction between deictic expressions being“near speaker”versus “away from speaker”. In English, the“near speaker” or proximal terms are “this”,“here”,“now”and so on. The “away from speaker” or distal terms are “that”,“there”,“then” and so on. (In some languages, e. g. in Japanese, distal terms can also be used to distinguish between“near addressee” and “away from both speaker and addressee”.
2.2 Psychological distance
Deixis is based on physical distance, but far beyond the domain of physical distance. The simplicity of the forms of deixis disguises the complexity of their use. In daily language practice, some unusual phenomena of deixis require to be explained from another perspective-psychological distance. Examples from the use of spatial deixis can be applied to explain this point well. Among spatial deixis,“come”,“here”, “this” have the deictical meaning of “near or toward speaker” while “go”, “there”,“that” have the deictical meaning of “far away from speaker”. However, in language use, something or somebody “near speaker” is sometimes described by the speaker using words of “there”, “that” or “go” while something or somebody “far away from speaker” is described by“here”,“this”, or“come”. The famous example given by Yule is“I don’t like that. ”(“That” refers to a perfume being sniffed by the speaker. ) Although the perfume is just sniffed by the speaker and the physical distance between the speaker and the smell of the perfume is not very long, here the speaker uses the word “that” to express his/her dislike of the smell-a psychological distance is reflected by the choice of deixis. So Yule concluded that “it may be that the truly pragmatic basis of spatial deixis is actually psychological distance”.
Some uses of temporal deixis can also be explained by psychological distance. One of English tenses-historical present uses verbs in present tense to describe what happened in the past, because this kind of expression will shorten the psychological distance between what had happened and the listener (or reader), therefore, will produce the effect of being personally on the scene. Contrasted with historical present, subjunctive mood uses verbs in past tense to describe events that can not or have not happened, which reflects the psychological distance from current reality or facts in the speaker’s mind.
This idea-psychological distance-can be applied to explain some phenomena in person deixis, too. For example, a modest scholar uses “we” instead of “I” in his/her speech, which will shorten the psychological distance between him/her and the audience.
e. g. We have been observing the phenomenon for years, but at this stage we are still unable to be very specific about its nature or its cause.
Another example. A mother will use “our baby” instead of “you” in her sentence, because “our baby”sounds cordial and will be able to diminish the psychological distance between her and her baby.
e.g. Who has frightened our baby?
Psychological distance considered, large quantity of phenomena of language use can be explained from the angle of pragmatics.
2.3 Cognitive distance
Cognitive distance in pragmatics, I think, can explain something about context-one of basic pragmatic concepts. Based on Lyons’ viewpoints of context, Downes, W. concluded three categories of contextual information: background knowledge, mutual knowledge and context of utterance.
context
(1)background knowledge
a. knowledge of the language
b. meta-conversational rules, norms, conventions
c. participants’ biographies
d. meta social rules, norms, conventions
e. the encyclopedia (common sense)
(2)mutual knowledge-each participant’s knowledge that the other knows that inferred on somebasis
(3)context of utterance
a. previous utterance in same conversation
b. immediate setting of speech
c. previous conversation of participants
All of these contextual information can only be acquired by cognitive process. Because of individual differences, cognitive distance about context will arise, therefore, different people will have different “cognitive environment”(Theory of Relevance). Due to the existence of cognitive distance between a speaker and a listener, sometimes a listener can not understand a speaker’s meaning correctly. Only a speaker’s and a listener’s cognitive environment manifest mutually can the communication be successful. The process of communication is just a process of development of mutual cognitive environment and a process of gradual reduction of cognitive distance between a speaker and a listener. During communications, the newly presented information interacts with one’s existing assumptions in his/her cognitive environment in one of three ways: by strengthening an existing assumption, by contradicting and eliminating an existing assumption, or by combining with an existing assumption to yield a contextual implication. In this interaction, one participant’s cognitive environment will gradually change to be able to manifest the others’.
2.4 Social distance
Here, social distance should be considered in a broad sense. It includes not only the distance of social status, but also the distance of educational degree, distance of cultural background and so on. In a word, social distance should embrace all of individual differences involving social factors.
The existence of social distance results in lots of pragmatic phenomena, such as indirect speech, conversational implicature, the Politeness Principle and so on. For example, because of the distance of social status, if a teacher wants his/her students to look a word up in a dictionary, he/she can raise his/her requirement directly “Please look this word up in your dictionary.” Meanwhile, if a student wants his/her teacher to help him/her to look a word up in a dictionary, he/she has to say in a round-about way “Would you mind looking the word up in the dictionary for me?” or even more politely. The distance of cultural background will also cause the indirect speech. For example, if a person from the western country, who is travelling in China for the first time, wants to visit the Imperial Palace but not knowing the exact name, he has to express himself in an indirect way: a famous palace where many ancient Chinese emperors lived… Due to the social distance, sometimes the speaker must apply some strategies to reduce the distance, one of which is the Politeness Principle, which to some extent will create conversational implicature.
e. g. Parents: Someone’s eaten the icing off the cake.
Child: It wasn’t ME.
Parents use“someone”instead of the child’s name, because they don’t want to threaten the child’s face.
Reflected in culture, social distance has produced cross-culturalpragmatics,whose sub-branches-pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (esp. socio-pragmatics ) study pragmatic problems arising in cross-cultural communications in which the second language is used.
3 Conclusion
Pragmatic distance is one of the fundamental concepts in pragmatics, adequate understanding of which will contribute to a better acquisition of some parts of pragmatics. This article classifies pragmatic distance into several categories and explains them through the analysis of some pragmatic phenomena. By this classification, a better approach of understanding the concept-pragmatic distance-is provided.
Bibliography
1 Fillmore,C. Lectures on Deixis. Center for the Study of Language and Information. Leland Standford Junior University, 1997.59-75
2 Green, G. Pragmatics and National Language Understanding. Erlbaum Associates Publishers, New Jersey, 1989.17-35
3 Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford University Press, 1996
4 何兆熊. 新编语用学概要. 上海外语教育出版社, 2000