Semantic Pragmatic Discourse Analysis

Semantic, Pragmatic,
Discourse
Page 1
Semantic
• Semantic is the study of the meaning of words,

phrases and sentences.
• In semantic analysis, there is always an attempt
to focus on what the words conventionally mean,
rather than on what an individual speaks.
• semantics deals with the conventional
meaning conveyed by the use of words, phrases
and sentences of a language.
Page 2
Conceptual and Associative Meaning
• Conceptual: literally/ basic concept

• Associative: connotative, prespective
Page 3
Semantic Features
‘oddness’ of the sentence:
• The hamburger ate the boy.

• The table listens to the radio.
• The horse is reading the newspaper.
Page 4
Semantic Feature
• ‘+animate,−animate’; ‘+human,−human’,
‘+female, −female’
• What do you think about the following words?
table, horse, boy, man, girl, woman,
Page 5
Semantic Roles
The boy kicked the ball.
• The boy as ‘the entity that performs the

action’, technically known as the agent,
• the ball as ‘the entity that is involved in or
affected by the action’,which is called the
theme.
Page 6
• What about instrument and
experiencer?
• What about location, source and goal?
Page 7
Lexical Relations
• Synonymy
• Antonymy, Gradable antonym
(comparison)
• Hyponymy (When the meaning of one
form is included in the meaning of another)
• Prototypes
• Homophones and homonyms
Page 8
Pragmatic
• The study of what speakers mean, or

‘speaker meaning’, is called pragmatics.
• It requires interpretation.
Page 9
Examples
• Toddler, Sale! (invisible meaning)

• Bank, River bank (context)
• Hampir habis (deixis)
• Reference
• Inference
• Anaphora
• Presupposition
• Speech act
• Direct and Indirect Speech
Page 10
Discourse Analysis
Page 11
Structural and functional
definitions of discourse
• Structural or textual definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular unit of language (above
the sentence).
• Functional definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular focus of language use.
Page 12
Recent approach to DA
• Discourse is characterised as:

 produced/consumed/monitored by social
actors (producers/receivers of social
practices);
shaped by social structures;
with social implications;
socially valued and regulated (production,
reception and circulation).
Page 13
• If in traditional studies discourses were analysed

in relation to social processes that form them,
then recently researchers started talking about
bidirectional and complex relations between
discourses and social practices:
Discourses of food Social Practice

“Healthy Food” Healthy lifestyle
Page 14
What Makes Discourse
Different?
• Similarities (to monologues)
– Anaphora
– Discourse structure & coherence
• Key Differences
– Turns and utterances
– Grounding
– Conversational implicature
Page 15
Different?
• Property #1: Turns and utterances
– Speaker A … then Speaker B … etc.
– Timing and turn-switching
• Levinson (1983) suggests that less than 5% of
American English dialogue is overlapped
• Task-oriented dialogue … even LESS overlap!
– Natural conversation requires knowing
• WHO should speak next … and …
• WHEN they should speak
Page 16
Different?
– Conversational Analysis (CA)
• Sacks et al. (1974) argued that turn-taking
behavior is governed by a set of rules
– At each TRP (transition-relevance place) …
A. If current speaker selects Speaker A as the next
speaker, then Speaker A must speak next
B. If no speaker selected, any other may take turn
C. If no one else takes the turn, the current speaker
may take the next turn
Page 17
Different?
– Implications of Sacks’ rules
• Adjacency pairs
– Question-answer … Request-grant … etc.
• Interpreting silence
– Refusal to respond? A “dispreferred” response?
• TRPs generally at utterance boundaries
– Utterance boundary detection critically important
– Current boundary algorithms based on: Cue words,
N-gram word or POS sequences, and prosody
Page 18
Different?
• Property #2: Grounding
– Dialogue is a collective act requiring “common
ground” (Stalnaker, 1978)
• Listener must acknowledge (ground) the speaker’s
utterances
• Achieved through “backchanneling”
• Listener indicates problems by issuing a “request
for repair”
Page 19
Different?
• Property #3: Implicature
– Interpretation of an utterance relies on more
than just the literal meanings
– Grice (1975, 1978)
• Theory of Conversational Implicature
• Proposed that what enables listeners to draw
inferences are guided by a set of maxims
(heuristics for interpretations)
Page 20
Different?
• Property #3: Implicature
– Grice’s Maxims (1975, 1978)
• Maxim of Quantity
– Be exactly as informative as is required
• Maxim of Quality
– Try to make your contribution one that is true
• Maxim of Relevance
– Be relevant
• Maxim of Manner
– Be perspicuous (Avoid obscurity & ambiguity)
Page 21
• Discourse is characterised as:

 produced/consumed/monitored by social
actors (producers/receivers of social
practices);
shaped by social structures;
with social implications;
socially valued and regulated (production,
reception and circulation).
Page 22

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Semantic, Pragmatic,

• Semantic is the study of the meaning of words,

• Conceptual: literally/ basic concept

‘oddness’ of the sentence:

• The hamburger ate the boy.

• What do you think about the following words?

table, horse, boy, man, girl, woman,

The boy kicked the ball.

• The boy as ‘the entity that performs the

• What about location, source and goal?

• The study of what speakers mean, or

• Toddler, Sale! (invisible meaning)

• Discourse is characterised as:

• If in traditional studies discourses were analysed

Discourses of food Social Practice

• Discourse is characterised as:

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