| TOEFL Listening Tips 3: pragmatic
function |
| Sometimes a statement of fact can be an order. |
| Example 1: Sometimes when the
telephone rings
in my house and my wife is busy, she may say to me, "The
telephone is ringing." Actually what I am communicating to her is that I want her to answer the telephone. |
| Sometimes it is a question of
politeness. |
| Example 2: If
you walk into a room where someone is smoking, you could say, "Stop smoking." That, however,
might be considered too direct and thus impolite. If you say, "It's really unhealthy in here.",
you are not being so direct, but the smoker will certainly understand
that you want him to stop smoking. (A few weeks ago, I took my daughter to the doctors and when we entered the waiting room it was full of coughing and sneezing children. I said the same thing to my wife, "Its really unhealthy in here." In the context of the doctor's office, it had a completely different meaning from the one stated above: I was just stating a fact.) |
| Example 3: A few
weeks ago, a student came into my office and said, "I want you to check my essay."
This I thought was very impolite. She should have said, "I wonder if you could check my essay."
or "Would it be
possible for you to check my essay." The student was not actually being impolite, she just didn't understand the pragmatic function of what she had said. |
| Sometimes it is a question of
intonation. |
| Example
4: Conversation after a girl's first meeting with her boyfriend's
parents. Girl: Your parents seem nice. Boy: Yes, they seem nice. Actually what the boy is trying to say is that though his parents appear to be nice, in reality they aren't. |
| Sometimes the words just mean something totally different. |
| Example 5: The example in your textbook is a good one. When the student says "Can I ask you a question?", the professor replies with, "If it is a short one." Of course he doesn't mean that he will only answer if the question is only three or four words long. What he means is that he is in a hurry and can only spend a short time anse\wering the question. |
| Example 5: While walking in the Scottish mountains with my sister one winter's day, I said, "I think my feet are going to fall off". Of course, I didn't actually think my feet would fall off. What I meant was that my feet were extremely cold. |
| Task 1 |
| While playing a game of rugby, the ball was
rolling loose in a very dangerous position near our touchline. The
captain shouted to me, "Get it
out." What did he mean? |
| Task 2 |
| In class one day, the teacher said to his
students, "OK everyone, I hope
you all remembered to bring your new vocabulary notebook. Get it out,
please." What did he mean? |