90年代看语用

Pragmatics from a perspective of the 90s

９０年代看语用何兆熊［Ａｂｓｔｒａｃｔ］Ｔｈｅｐａｐｅｒｃｏｎｓｉｓｔｓｏｆｔｈｒｅｅｓｅｃｔｉｏｎｓ．Ｔｈｅｆｉｒｓｔｓｅｃｔｉｏｎｉｓａｂｒｉｅｆｒｅｔｒｏｓｐｅｃｔｉｏｎｏｆｔｈｅｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔｏｆｐｒａｇｍａｔｉｃｓｆｒｏｍａｐｅｒ...

The paper consists of three sections. The first section is a brief retrospection of the development of pragmatics from a perspective of the 90s. Initiated in the 70s, pragmatics took shape as an independent subbranch of linguistics in the 80s, and has been blooming in the 90s. The second section reasserts that the essence of pragmatics is the study of meaning, which should be interpreted as a multi layered entity. In the third section some marked trends in pragmatic studies in the 90s have been pointed out, i.e. (1) a shift from a static view to a dynamic one, (2) a shift in focus from the single utterance to the larger communicative unit, and (3) mounting interest in the cultrual aspects of studies.