Semantics and pragmatics
3 important questions on Semantics and pragmatics
What or arbitrary words?
Compound words such as bookcase and rocking chairs often do have a clear meaning, as they are in fact two words placed together. However, the individual words are arbitrary. If you split up the word bookcase you get book and case, together they have a clear meaning but if you split them up they are arbitrary, meaning that is determined by chance not by reason.
What is the politeness theory?
The theory by Brown and Levinson (1978), for politeness issues in linguistics. Politeness has to do with how we address other people.
Think of ways in English to express politeness.
Use model verbs to hedge the sentences, use grammatical constructions to form longer sentences, use more passive voice, ample use of the words please thank you, use more upscale synonyms of vocabulary.
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