In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, metapragmatics is the study of how the effects and conditions of language use themselves become objects of discourse. The term is commonly associated with the
semiotically-informed
linguistic anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past cen ...
of
Michael Silverstein
Michael Silverstein (12 September 1945 – 17 July 2020) was an American linguist. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of anthropology, linguistics, and psychology at the University of Chicago. He was a theoretician of se ...
.
Overview
Metapragmatic signalling allows participants to construe what is going on in an interaction. Examples include:
* Describing the "correct way" of using language ("I before E except after C."),
* Specifying under which conditions a specific kind of communication are, or should be, used ("You should never tell a dirty joke at a funeral."),
* Signalling, explicitly or implicitly, the type of social event occurring (explicit: "I promise to be there at 3:00 p.m." implicit: "I will be there at 3:00 p.m.")
* Linking speech to another event outside the moment of speaking ("Every day she goes jogging." ).
Discussions of linguistic
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
—that is, discussions of what speech ''does'' in a particular context—are meta-pragmatic, because they describe the meaning of speech as action. Although it is useful to distinguish
semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
(i.e. denotative or referential) meaning (dictionary meaning) from
pragmatic
Pragmatism is a philosophical movement.
Pragmatism or pragmatic may also refer to:
*Pragmaticism, Charles Sanders Peirce's post-1905 branch of philosophy
*Pragmatics, a subfield of linguistics and semiotics
*''Pragmatics'', an academic journal in ...
meaning, and thus metasemantic discourse (for example, "Mesa means 'table' in Spanish") from metapragmatic utterances (e.g. "Say 'thank you' to your grandmother," or "It is impolite to swear in mixed company"), meta-
semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
characterizations of speech are a type of metapragmatic speech. This follows from the assertion that metapragmatic speech characterizes speech function, and denotation or reference are among the many functions of speech. Because metapragmatics describes relations between different discourses it relates crucially to the concepts of
intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody,Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>H ...
or
interdiscursivity.
In
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
, describing the rules of use for metapragmatic speech (in the same way that a grammar would describe the rules of use for 'ordinary' or semantic speech) is important because it can aid the understanding and analysis of a culture's
language ideology
Language ideology (also known as linguistic ideology or language attitude) is, within anthropology (especially linguistic anthropology), sociolinguistics, and cross-cultural studies, any set of beliefs about languages as they are used in their soc ...
. Silverstein has also described universal limits on metapragmatic awareness that help explain why some linguistic forms seem to be available to their users for conscious comment, while other forms seem to escape awareness despite efforts by a researcher to ask native speakers to repeat them or characterize their use.
Self-referential
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philoso ...
, or reflexive, metapragmatic statements are
indexical
In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy of language, indexicality is the phenomenon of a ''sign'' pointing to (or ''indexing'') some object in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is called an index or, ...
. That is, their meaning comes from their temporal contiguity with their referent: themselves. Example: "This is an example sentence."
The anthropologist Aomar Boum uses a related concept of "ethnometapragmatics" to explain the Moroccan concept of showing the "plastic eye" (''
'ayn mika''), which refers to the practice of ignoring something while pretending it is not there.
See also
*
Metasemantics
In the philosophy of language and metaphysics, metasemantics is the study of the foundations of natural language semantics (the philosophical study of meaning). Metasemantics searches for "the proper understanding of compositionality, the object o ...
*
Metasyntax
In logic and computer science, a metasyntax describes the allowable structure and composition of phrases and sentences of a metalanguage, which is used to describe either a natural language or a computer programming language.Sellink, Alex, and Chr ...
References
* Lucy, John A. ''Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University 2004.
* Silverstein, Michael. "Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description." ''Meaning in Anthropology'', ed. Keith Basso and Henry A. Selby. Albuquerque: UNM Press, 1976.
* Silverstein, Michael. "The Limits of Awareness," in ''Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader''. Edited by A. Duranti, pp. 382–401. Malden: Blackwell, 2001.
* Verschueren, Jef. "Notes on the Role of Metapragmatic Awareness in Language Use." Pragmatics 10(4): 439–456.
Semantics
Pragmatics
Semiotics
Anthropology
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