语用学论文
语用学期末论文
2014-2015学年第一学期语用学与英语教学课程考核（研究报告）题目：An analysis of Pragmatic Failure with Cross-cultural Communications学号（准考证号）：1230100054姓名：焦凯丽专业：英语(教法方向)年级：2012级学院：外国语学院完成日期：2015年 1 月10日IntroductionThe Cross-cultural Pragmatics is a relatively young linguistic branch compared with the Traditional Linguistics and Structural Modern Linguistics. It attaches great importance to the research of cross-cultural characteristics. And the cross-cultural pragmatic failure is a common phenomenon in cross-cultural communication process. This paper focus on the analyzing of different kinds of pragmatic failures in our cross-cultural communication, at the same time, giving reflections and feedbacks on our English learning and Language teaching. Being in the rapid developed century of our human society, we should heighten the awareness of appropriating use of pragmatic language in our cross-cultural communication.Part I Theoretical basisBefore Noam Chomsky, Traditional Linguistics and Structural Modern Linguistics regarded language as a system of completely self-sufficient blocking structure, which put an emphasis on the vision field of language researches on the description of linguistic entity and put the language teaching on a cultural vacuum to conduct a rigid practice. But this failed to attach the expected research on the Social culture which affects the language how it affects the construction, comprehension and expression. As a result, linguistic theories couldn't resolve realistic problems of language. And often communicators who have learned some basic knowledge such as phonetic, lexicon and grammar still couldn't carry out proper and effective communication. The birth of sociolinguistics breaks through the research restriction of traditional linguistics and pragmatics and structural. It deepens people’s realization to linguistic social nature and construct a high qualified platform for the study of the Intercultural Communication. However, all kinds of failure still occur in the intercultural communication which influences the quality of international communication because communications cannot master enough foreign knowledge or acknowledge the culture feature of foreign nation. So the research of pragmatic failure in the cross-cultural communication has become a problem of important theoretic meaning and realistic value in the contemporary linguistic study.Cross-cultural Pragmatics is a relatively young linguistic branch, growing out of pragmatics and comparative linguistics, and introducing cultural factors into the research scope of pragmatics. It attracted great importance to the research of cross-cultural characteristics. Cross-cultural pragmatics is the study of the use of second language in cross-cultural speech communication when the pragmatic problem occurs. The conception pragmatic of pragmatic failure was formally proposed by the famous British scientist Jenny Thomas in her thesis "Cross一Cultural Pragmatic Failure" in 1983 which established a theoretical framework for the analysis of pragmatic failure and cultural transfer. She defines pragmatic failure as "inability to understand what is meant by what is said." Thus, Cross-cultural pragmatic failurecan refer to the misunderstanding and even conflict arising in the communication process because of the hearer's failure to catch discourse implication of the speaker accurately and because of his following improper output of utterances, which may be proper in his culture. The pioneer study of pragmatic failure in China goes to He Ziran and his fraternity. In 1984, they launched investigation into pragmatic differences between English and Chinese in reference to Thomas theory, and made known their results of investigation together with explanations about pragmatic failure. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure is a common phenomenon in cross-cultural communication process, in this process, the speaker disobeys the communication standard and social customs, ignores hearer's identity or status, harms the special cultural value of target language, causes the breaking off or failure of communication, makes communicating obstacles, then communication cannot achieve the expected results. Though there is no grammatical error, the wrong way of speaking or the improper performance makes the communication lose the expected effect.Part II Case studiesThere are many kinds of pragmatic failure in our cross-culture communication. First is about the phonetic pragmatic failure. A teacher who teach Chinese in England recalled that, ”My student, John is a typical English gentleman. When we walk down stairs, he always said that '请小心裸体（楼梯），下流，一起下流（下楼）吧。
浅谈语用学下高职高专英语教学论文
浅谈语用学下高职高专英语教学论文1语用学的基本理论1.1语境的定义与解释语境（context）这个概念最早由波兰人类学家马林诺夫斯基（Malinowsiki）在上世纪20年代提出，他指出“话语和环境是紧密结合在一起的，没有语境，词汇就没有意义。
”我国语言学家何兆熊先生（1997）认为，对语境的解释大体分为两类：“一类是把语境解释为从具体的情景抽象出来的，对语言活动的参与者所产生的影响的一些因素，这些因素系统地决定了话语的形式、话语的合适性或话语的意义，另一类把语境解释为语言活动参与者所共有的背景知识，这种背景知识使听话者得以解释说话人通过某一话语所表达的意义”（何兆熊、蒋艳梅，1997）。
语境对于语义的成功传达起到至关重要的作用，比如在汉语口语中经常用“吃了吗？”来打招呼，但如果在用英语交流时提问“：Haveyoueaten?”那就不是打招呼的意思，一般会被误解为请听话人吃饭的含义。
因此，要想恰当准确地进行交流，对中西方文化的理解，对特定语境的理解尤为重要。
我们要在教学中不断传达给学生这一语用学理论，使学生了解不同文化背景，帮助学生积累这些跨文化交际中的文化差异，学会分析语境的不同，恰当地选择语言进行交流。
1.2会话合作原则另一个重要的理论是由牛津大学著名哲学家格莱斯（H.P.Grice）提出的合作原则（cooperativeprinciple），他认为，“我们的交谈通常不是由一连串无不相关的话语组成的，否则就不会合情理。
至少在某种程度上，他们常常是合作举动；参与者都在某种程度上承认其中有一个或一组共同目标，至少有一个彼此都接受的方向（”GriceH.P.,1975）。
为进一步说明这一原则，格莱斯引入了四大准则：数量准则（QuantityMaxim）：使所说的话正好满足当前交谈所需要的信息；所说的话不能多于需要的信息。
质量准则（QualityMaxim）：所说的话要力求真实。
不要说自知虚假的话，不要说缺乏足够证据的话。
语用学论文
Comparative Analysis on deictic expressionsin Chinese and EnglishIntroductionThis paper has discussed the deixis in English and Chinese. The deixis in English is divided in to five categories: person deixis, time deixis, p lace deixis, discourse deixis and social deixis. We just analysis person deixis and time deixis .It has also illustrated through the typical examples the concrete usage of the deixis in the deictic context. Deixis is one of the most important tasks in the pragmatic research. It is because the linguistic phenomenon "deixis" exists in linguistic language that it has good reason s to show the close relations between language and the environment in which language is used.Deixis is a technical term(from Greek verb ‘deknum’, meaning “show, point , indicate .”) which means “pointing” via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this ‘pointing ’ is called a deictic expression. It is used to indicate the function or property that certain words, such as personal and demonstrative pronouns, place and time adverbs and others have in language.Levinson contends that deixis generally works in an egocentric way. That is, unless otherwise stated:The central person is the speaker, the central time is the time at which the speaker produces the utterance, the central place is the speaker’s location at utterance time or CT, the discourse centre is the point which the speaker is currently at in the speaker’s social status and rank, to which the status or rank of addressees or referents is relative. (Levinson, 1983:64)Comparative analysis on deictic expressions in Chinese and English.Person deixisPerson deixis indicates the role of participants in communication. It is expressed through the use of personal pronouns or ‘pronominals’as linguists call such as I and you , the speaker (I) and the addressee (you ).Pronominals or personal pronouns may fall into three groups, namely,the first person, the second person and the third person.As for the first person, person deixis encodes a distinction between the singular and plural. For example, in Chinese northern dialect, “wo men” is usually singular in meaning with reference to speaker(s) only while “zan men” is often plural in meaning with reference to both speakers and addressees. However, in modern English, there is only one word for “we”.If we are carefully enough, we shall notice that in some languages, the category of plural notion is not applied to the first person in the same way as it is to the person. Some languages even make a distinction between‘we–inclusive –of-addressee and ‘we-exclusive-of-addressee.’Such distinction may not be common in English, but dose exist in the contraction of ‘‘let’s’ and some other circumstances when reference to context is necessary. For example:1) Let us try again.2) Let’s go to the cinema.“Let us” in 1) is “we-exclusive-of-addressee” and is singular in meaning. While “let’s” in 2) is “we–inclusive –of-addressee”. It refers to both the speaker and addressee and is plural in meaning.As for the second person, Chinese has two different sets of pronouns , an informal one for use when talking to friends and a more formal one or honorific one used for showing respect to the addressees who are older or more important than the speaker, to show the distinction between the singular and plural. For example, there is a distinction between “ni” ,“ni men” and “nin”. The last is used when we are talking to people who are older or more important than us.In English, however, there is no such a distinction; “you” is used for both the singular and plural and is the only form that people use to refer to an addressee or addressees. In both spoken and written English , the second person pronoun “you” can be used to refer to anyone as in the following examples:You will never be successful until you do your best.As a matter of fact, only the first person and the second person are actually participating in the drama.The third person is defined negatively as neither the first nor the second, and dose not correlate with any positive participant role. Normally the third person pronoun is indicating neither the speaker/speakers nor addressee/addressees.The speaker and the addressee are necessarily present in the speech situation, whereas other persons and things to which reference is mademay be absent from the situation, they may be left unidentified. Time deixisTime deixis is a group of words that indicate time. Different language has different lexical means of expressing the concept of time. Time deictic expressions include time adverbs such as “this”, “last”, “next”, “week”, “month”, “year”, “now”, “then”, ”ago”, “later”“yesterday”，“today”, “tomorrow” and tense system.Pragmatic study of time deixis concerns the specification and understanding of temporal points relative to the time at which communication takes place. Like person deixis, time deixis also takes into account a point of origin or the base point.Due to the search for the point of view regarding time (or time origin) in understanding time deictic information, pragmatists have made a distinction between coding time (CT: the time when a message is formed) and receiving time (RT: the time when a message is received).Though making a list of time deixis in one language is relatively simple, the use of time deixis, however, is not always so straightforward.The topic of time deixis has been complicated by the interaction between its calendric and non-calendric.“Now” The time deixis “now” indicates two different time spans . One is the time at which the speaker is producing the utterances while the other is “the time which spans from CT (including CT) to a certain period after the CT. For example:I am working on a new project now.I’ll see you today“Then” contrasts with “now’ and indeed can be understood as “not now” so mean both past and future time. For example:I will have finished my university life thenAnother very important time deictic is the tense system. In fact, almost every sentence makes a reference to an event time. Often this event time can only be determined in relation to the time of the utterance. For example:1) China will hold the Olympics games in Beijing.2) China held the Olympics games in Beijing.3) China held the Olympics games in Beijing in 2008.Languages in the world differ in pre-emptive deictic terms for the days. For example, English has only a three-number set of pre-emptiveterms (“yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow”); Mandarin Chinese has five (“qian tian”, “zuo tian”, “jin tian”, “ming tian”, “hou tian”) and so on.SummaryDeixis presents and shows the property of all pragmatic language use -----that of relying on the speaker ----hearer setting up a common context to which a very wide range of language uses can be interpreted.In this paper, we have briefly compared the differences of person deixis and time deixis in Chinese and English. At the same time, we also have briefly examined of pragmatic functions of some deictic items such as I, here, now, etc. We figure out the importance of the common and the difference in different language. We assume the addressee’s knowledge of the speaker’s identity (in the case of place deixis) in order to identity and understand the deictic information conveyed by these lexical items in communication.In the whole process, we have gradually come to realize that the literal meanings and the referents of deictic items are different in different countries and languages and may vary under different contexts. So it’s very important for us to analysis the deixis in varied perspectives providing different countries’ culture backgrounds.。
语用学在英语教学运用论文
浅析语用学在英语教学中的运用【摘要】语用学是语言学研究重要分支，通过二语习得中的文化迁移现象可以看出，语用学的运用对于外语教学有着特有的效果。
本文将从语用学的研究对象着手，并将语用学的研究成果应用在外语教学实践中，提出克服二语习得中的文化负迁移现象的方法和措施。
【关键词】语用学文化负迁移二语习得语用学是随着语言学不断发展而产生的一个重要分支，什么是语用学？语用学的研究对象是什么？它对外语学习有什么重要的指导意义呢？要回答第三个问题，我们必须先回答前两个问题。
让我们从以下虚拟的例子入手:“好你吗?”具有汉语语感的人对这一句子的直接反应是:不符合汉语语法,符合汉语语法的句子应该是:“你好吗?”这是语言学中句法学的传统研究对象。
再看一个虚拟的例子:“强壮的桌子迈着虚弱的步伐温柔地向前狂奔。
”这句子读起来挺顺的,我们的感觉是语法没问题,但它究竟表达什么意思呢? 既然“强壮”,怎么会“虚弱”呢? 既然“温柔”,怎么还会“狂奔”呢? 简直是一派胡言乱语嘛。
一个句子的语言文字本身的固有意义是语言学中形式语义学的传统研究对象。
再下来是一个语言学界经常引用的例子:“it is cold in here . ”“这里头冷”,听起来语法没问题,其字面意义也一清二楚,即“某一地点气温比较低”。
但是,“是谁在什么时间、什么地点、在什么情况下、对什么人、为了什么目的使用了这句句子”。
(何兆熊,1989 :13) 就不是传统的句法学和语义学所能解决的问题,因为“说话人很可能是为了请听话人做点什么,比如关上门窗,打开暖气,借件衣服御寒等。
”(同上,1989 :14) 换句话说,这里要研究的不是句子本身的意义, 而是研究“语言在使用中的意义” ,“语言在语境中的意义”,归根结底是“说话人的意义”,也可简称为“话语意义”。
(何自然,1997 :122) 这就是语用学(pragmatics) 的研究对象。
以上只是对语言学中三个重要分支句法学、语义学、语用学的研究对象进行了粗略划分。
语用学论文
语用学论文浅析语用中的指示语以及对外汉语教学中语用学的指示语【摘要】指示是指利用语言进行指点或标示。
语言中存在这一语言现象充分说明了语言和使用语言之间的语境之间的密切关系。
指示语作为语用学研究的一个重要课题，一直受到语言学家们的重视。
本文将着重从语用学中的指示语角度来分析在对外汉语教学中的造成学生学习汉语语用失误的原因。
【关键词】语用学;指示语;对外汉语;教学一、语用学基本概念顾名思义，语用学(pragmatics)就是关于语言使用的实用学。
简言之，语用学就是研究话语在使用中的语境意义，或话语在特定语境条件下的交际意义，包括意义的产生与理解，也包括交际中语言形式或策略的恰当选择与使用。
(冉永平，2006.)二、语用学中的指示语何自然先生认为:“我们把表示语言指示信息的词语称为指示语，归入语用学的范畴，因为指示语是一些不能单用语义学的真假条件衡量的词语，它们的意义只有结合语境才可能得到正确的解释”。
指示(dexis)这一术语来自希腊语，它的意思是利用语言进行指点或标示。
指示语可以分为五类，分别是人称指示语、时间指示语、地点指示语、话语指示语和社交指示语。
三、对外汉语教学中语用学之指示语历来的对外汉语教学，内容基本上只包括语音、词汇、语法等语言项目。
但通过实际教学，我们发现，外国人在掌握以上汉语基本语言项目后仍然出现话语不当的现象。
这就要求我们在研究汉语语音、词汇、语法的同时，还要研究汉语的语用。
而语用学之指示语应该是我们研究的一个重要内容。
1、对外汉语教学中指示语的影响外国人学习汉语在语用方面的失误不是因违反语法规则或用词不当而引起的，而是在指示语上没有很好理解汉语的不同才导致出现语法正确但语用错误的现象。
这些指示语不同的使用就体现了在使用汉语语言形式或词语时因思维方式和习惯的不同或观察事物的角度、范围有差异。
根据指示语的性质，指示语的使用有两个必不可少的阶段:先要确定以言语行为1中的哪一要素为参照点，下面从人称指示、时间指示、地点指示三个方面举例加以说明。
英语语用学学科论文
连云港师范高等专科学校英语语用学学科论文班级：12英教专科一班姓名：余王丹学号：1221013125摘要：本文主要从语用学的角度对语言交际中的礼貌现象进行了研讨，以旨更全面地展示语用礼貌观。
本文共分四部分：一、礼原则的由来；二、礼貌原则的解析；三、礼貌策略；四、礼貌原则的应用。
加深对礼貌原则的理解可以有助于提升自身的语用能力。
关键词：语用学礼貌原则教学应用一、礼貌原则的由来(一)礼貌的界定在众多关于礼貌的各种文献中，围绕“礼貌”一词进行的研究主要有五个方面，具体如下：(1)礼貌是人们在交际中的一种现实目的(Politeness as areal-world goa1)。
人们在说话过程中运用礼貌原则的目的就是取悦他人。
(2)礼貌是一种敬重(Politeness as the deference)。
(3)礼貌是一种语体(Politeness as the register)。
语体是指“与社交语境有关的系统化变体”(Lyons，1977)。
或者指在一定场合下人们说话或写作时的语言变化(Holliday，1978)。
(4)礼貌是一种话语表层现象(Politeness as an utterancelevel phenomenon)。
该观点认为，礼貌是一种表层语法编码，该观点主要是离开语言运用的实际环境去研究礼貌问题。
(5)礼貌是一种语用现象(Politeness as a pragmatic phi—nominee)。
该观点在语用学界已经成为人们的一种共识。
总之．在语用学领域，人们关心的不是说话人是否真正对他人友善，而是他说了什么，以及他的话语对听话人产生了什么影响。
把礼貌看成敬重、语体，是一种社会语言学现象，不属于语用学的范围，而把礼貌看成一种话语表层现象，就是脱离了语境去谈礼貌，这是一种超理想化的理论，因为语言形式是和语境、说话人和听话人之间的关系紧密联系的。
（二）礼貌原则提出的必要性在英语语用学习领域中，提及言语行为理论(Speech Act Theory)．人们会很自然地联想到美国语言哲学家格赖斯(H．P．Grieve)的会话含义学说(Convocational Implicate)，即为了保证会话的顺利进行，谈话双方必须共同遵守一些基本原则，尤其是用来解释会话结构的“合作原则”(Cooperative Principle)。
语文教学实践中语用学(3篇)
第1篇摘要：语用学作为现代语言学的一个重要分支，关注语言在实际使用中的意义和功能。
在语文教学中，将语用学理论应用于实践，有助于提高学生的语言运用能力，培养他们的语文素养。
本文将从语用学的角度出发，探讨语文教学中的实践应用，以期为语文教育工作者提供一定的参考。
一、引言语用学，又称语用论，是研究语言在实际使用中的意义和功能的学科。
语用学强调语言与语境、语言与交际者、语言与目的之间的关系，关注语言在具体语境中的实际运用。
在语文教学中，将语用学理论应用于实践，有助于提高学生的语言运用能力，培养他们的语文素养。
本文将从以下几个方面探讨语文教学实践中语用学的应用。
二、语用学在语文教学实践中的应用1. 语境教学语境教学是语用学在语文教学中的重要应用之一。
语境包括语言语境、情境语境和文化语境。
在语文教学中，教师应关注语境的创设，引导学生理解和运用语言。
（1）语言语境教学：教师在教学中，要注重语言环境的设计，让学生在具体的语言环境中感受和体验语言。
例如，在教学《草原》一课时，教师可以创设草原风光的图片、音乐等情境，让学生在直观感受中理解草原的美丽。
（2）情境语境教学：情境语境是指语言在实际使用中的具体情境。
教师在教学中，要关注情境的创设，让学生在具体情境中运用语言。
例如，在教学《我的老师》一课时，教师可以组织学生进行角色扮演，让学生在模拟情境中体会老师的关爱。
（3）文化语境教学：文化语境是指语言使用背后的文化背景。
教师在教学中，要关注文化背景的介绍，让学生了解语言背后的文化内涵。
例如，在教学《背影》一课时，教师可以介绍朱自清所处的时代背景，让学生更好地理解文章的意义。
2. 交际教学交际教学是语用学的另一个重要应用。
在语文教学中，教师应注重培养学生的交际能力，让他们在实际交际中运用语言。
（1）口语交际教学：教师在教学中，要关注口语交际能力的培养，让学生在日常生活中学会运用语言。
例如，在教学《自报家门》一课时，教师可以组织学生进行口语交际活动，让他们在交流中提高口语表达能力。
王尔德《理想丈夫》语用学解读论文
王尔德《理想丈夫》的语用学解读摘要文学语用学是一门新兴的边缘学科。
本文运用该学科的主要理论——合作原则以及brown & levinson的礼貌模式对英国剧作家王尔德的《理想丈夫》第一幕中的人物对话进行分析，旨在探索剧中人物形象的塑造及作者所要表达的深层意图，并进一步验证语用原则应用于文学作品赏析的可行性。
关键词：合作原则合作准则礼貌模式拒绝言语行为文学语篇中图分类号：i106 文献标识码：a一引言《理想的丈夫》是英国唯美派剧作家奥斯卡·王尔德的名剧作。
该剧的主角罗伯特·齐尔顿爵士是一名仕途得意的议会议员和完美的绅士，拥有光明的政治前途，是女人心目中的理想丈夫。
然而，齐尔顿的发迹是极不光彩的。
本文将采用语用学的一些原理对该剧的第一幕进行分析，以证明在文学语篇中语用原则可以增加对作品赏析的能力，加深对人物性格及剧作意旨的理解。
二理论背景——合作原则与b-l礼貌模式20世纪60年代，语言学家grice提出的会话含义理论认为，言语交际双方为求得交际成功需要遵守“合作原则”。
而合作原则又可以分为四项准则：量准则、质准则、关系准则、方式准则。
但是，grice同时也指出，在言语交际中，说话人实际上经常违反这些准则。
这种会话双方通过合作原则中的准则而产生或推导的各种含义称为会话含义（conversational implicature），也称语用含义。
“合作原则对分析丰富、复杂的文学语言具有较强的概括力和解释力。
”后来的学者如布朗（p.brown）、列文森（levinson）和利奇（leech）等人，从修辞学、语体学的角度提出了与grice的合作原则相互补益的礼貌原则，帮助“会话含义”理论解答了这个问题，从而丰富了grice的会话含义学说。
brown和levinson礼貌模式（简称b-l模式）的核心是社会中的典型人（model person）概念。
典型人是有意愿的某种自然语言的流利的使用者，具有两大特性：面子和理性。
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296
G Myers / Speech acts and sclent@
facts
how each part of this stereotypical form relates to the mstltutlon of the scientific article These are particularly important sentences they state the article’s mam knowledge claim, the assertion for which the authors hope to be cited - and credited - m future articles In performing such an act they dre like the stereotypical sentences m patent claims The stereotypical form of such sentences leads to these five questIons 1 What about these particular features accounts for their use to make a claim? 2 What IS the effect of the use of other verbs, other tenses, other complements? 3 How are these sentences recognized m contmuous discourse? 4 What 1s the relation between the sentence marked this way and other possible claims? 5 Do different dlsclphnes use different forms? I will draw my examples from a selection of fifty related articles m molecular genetics (see Myers 1990a), and compare them to similar sentences m other contexts I am assuming that these sentences beginning ‘In this article we report’ are recognizably different from all the others m a sclentlfic article, that is, from the sentences that state knowledge taken from earlier articles, or that detail steps of an experiment, or that suggest future work, or that thank sponsors and collaborators Readers must be able to pick these sentences out easily, and must Interpret them as mdlcatlons of potential facts The reader must be able to locate the shift from the part of the mtroductlon that relates the earlier work on which the report IS based, the accepted facts, from the summary of the claim m this particular article, the potential fact (see Swales 1990, Bazerman 1988) But if we are to see how these sentences establish facts. we cannot learn much Just from the isolated sentences, we need to see them m the context of the sequence of the discourse, and of relation of the writers to their readers within the scientific discourse community The claim must also be made m a way that 1s polite m relation to other researchers (Myers 1989, 1991), so we can use the framework of Brown and Levmson (1978, 1987) as a guide to the relations of writer and reader How do issues of politeness arise? In this collection of articles, as m almost any collection dealing with rapidly developmg scientific fields, there are are several instances of what was later consldered simultaneous discovery The authors of these papers had to do two things make interpretations that seem to follow definitely from observations of external facts, while retaining a tentativeness of statement that acknowledges that the community must evaluate the claim and attribute any discovery If I know, say, that five other groups have found split genes m eukaryotes, and
By ‘something like this’, I mean that the sentence has some (but maybe not all) of the following features (1) a first person pronoun sublect, (2) a verb of saying, what Austin (1962) classified as an ‘exposltlve’, (3) m the present tense, (4) with a nominal complement, (5) and with an adverbial referrmg to the paper itself, or to here or now Though such sentences are by no means universal m any scientific dlsaphne, they are common enough to make us ask
Journal
of Pragmatlcs Nhomakorabea17 (1992) 295-313
295
North-Holland
‘In this paper we report . . .’ : Speech acts and scientific facts
Greg Myers
Received June 1991, rewed version November 1991
Correspondence to G Myers, Dept of Lmgmstlcs Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK 0378-2166/92/$05 00 Q 1992 and Modern Enghsh Language, Umverslty of
Elsevler Science Pubhshers
In a collectlon of fifty related articles m molecular genettcs, most had one mtroductory selfreferential sentence that had (1) a first person pronoun, (2) a present tense verb, (3) most often report, (4) with a nommal complement, and (5) an adverbial referrmg delctlcally to the present or the paper Itself A typlcal sentence of this type IS ‘In this paper we report thefinding of a novel mechamsm of RNA processmg’ These sentences mark each article’s mam knowledge claim, the dssertlon that the authors do not attrlbute to anyone else and for which they hope to be cited Though they are not performatlve utterances (the sentence Just quoted does not Itself report the novel mechamsm) they share some features of exphcltly marked assertive speech acts, and raise some of the same Issues concermng the form and status of assertlons of fact Different choices of verb and tense make for different assertlons and different kmds of knowledge In the texts studled, these self-referential mtroductory statements can be recognized m contrast to the other declarative sentences before or after them by the shifts In SubJects, verbs, tenses, or the use of delctlc expresslons A comparison to claims In another discourse, that of hngmstlcs, suggests how pragmatic analysis of texts may contribute to an understandmg of social acts m the productlon of sclentlfic knowledge