同学们，本栏目是对你们学过的知识和生活中常见问题的归纳。其中，有一些共性问题，也许你会需要哦！

让我来帮你解决常见问题！

Question1: What are the differences between the two linguistic studies of meaning – semantics and pragmatics?

Answer:

(1) Semantics studies literal, structural or lexical meaning, while pragmatics studies non-literal, implicit, intended meaning, or speaker meaning.

(2) Semantics is context independent, decontextualized, while pragmatics is context dependent, contextualized.

(3) Semantics deals with what is said, while pragmatics deals with what is implicated or inferred.

Question2: what is the definition of deixis?

Answer:

Deixis is a word originally from Greek. It means pointing via language. An expression used by a speaker/writer to identify something is called deictic expression. Out of context, we cannot understand sentences containing deictic expressions, because we do not know what these expressions refer to respectively.

According to referential content, deixis can be put into person deixis, place deixis, time deixis and discourse deixis.

Question3: What is the constative –performative dichotomy?

Answer:

Constatives are used to convey something. Performative means that the utterance of the sentence is performing an action. A performative is characterized by the “first person singular, present tense, indicative mood, active voice”.

There are two sets which can roughly mark the distinction:

1) By inserting the word “hereby” in an utterance. The insertion, if the performative verb is available, won’t make the read with oddity.

2) By using the formula: “in saying “I V.…” “I was V-ing”” e.g. I promise, I was promising.

By distinguishing performative and constative he made the point that not all sentences can be analyzed in terms of true or false.