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13
Semantics, Pragmatics, and Text Semiotics |
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Once Jakobson remarked that to study language only from a syntactic standpoint is the same as defining a sleeping car as "the one that usually (and distributionally) stands between two passenger cars." I would like to add that to study language only from a semantic standpoint means for many authors to define a sleeping car as a railway vehicle where people can have a bunk. Even though this definition sounds acceptable, I do not know what would happen to a penniless tramp who takes it seriously. |
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Maybe my idea of semantics is exaggeratedly liberal, but I feel the need to enrich my dictionary entry with the information that sleeping cars are expensive. Unfortunately, many semanticists would object that the phrase all sleeping cars are vehicles expresses an analytical truth, whereas all sleeping cars are expensive conveys matters of world knowledge and, as so doing, should be studied only by pragmatics. If I wanted to patronize my tramp, I should tell him that, if he wants to avoid troubles, he should study pragmatics instead of semantics. He can ignore syntactics because he is not supposed to identify a sleeping car. I suppose that if I added to my dictionary entry the evident truth thatat least in Europeto take a sleeping car is also a status symbol, a bored semanticist would tell me that this is a matter for sociology. |
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Too many departments, indeed. Is there a name for that kind of |
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This chapter was presented at the International Pragmatic Conference, 1985, Viareggio, and subsequently published in I. Vershueren and M. Bertuccelli Papi, eds., The Pragmatic Perspective (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1987). |
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