Theoretical preliminaries

Pragmatics

Ever since Morris (1971) defined pragmatics as the study of the relationship between [the symbols of] language and its users, pragmatics has been seen as encompassing a number of informational levels considered incompatible with a description in terms of formal semantics. However, Morris's definition is too broad; in particular, it fails to offer any criteria for delimiting sociolinguistics as a separate discipline, despite the fact that the constraints imposed by social status and background constitute one type of relationship between speakers and their utterances. Another common definition, according to which pragmatics deals with ‘language in context’, is similarly too broad, since the definition of ‘context’ itself includes historical, social, individual and textual environments. I shall therefore adopt a narrower definition of pragmatics as ‘the discipline dealing with linguistic choices constrained by speakers' attitudes towards the propositional content of utterances’. Consequently, in what follows, I shall examine the main types of change in some areas which are particularly relevant for encoding the speaker's point of view.

Discourse analysis

I shall define discourse analysis as ‘the study of constraints imposed by the organization of the discourse’. Word order and voice are the most general signals of discourse organization, since they mark the referents and/or events which correspond to the speakers' centre of attention (their cognitive viewpoint) and are consequently their preferred topics. It should be noted that the relevant unit of analysis here is the utterance and not the sentence, which is the principal domain of syntax.