3 DEC 2018 · Similar to another myth discussed, people believe that the younger a child is when they start to acquire a second language, the more skilled or successful they will be. This is why most individuals will tell you to ensure your child learns other languages as soon as possible. However, there is no research to support this claim. One example stated in the article was that children who had only studied the French language for five years performed better than children who had been studying it for a longer period of time. However, the article does state that younger children do better with pronunciation. They develop a more native-like accent, as opposed to individuals who learn a language later in life. The reason for this could be due to the fact that the motor patterns involved in pronunciation are difficult to alter after a certain age. Difficult does not mean impossible though. Therefore, it is still possible for someone who learned a second language at a later age to develop a native-like accent, they will simply have to work harder. Another reason stated could be that teaching phonology in a second language has not been properly developed. Pronunciation is the only field where younger children perform better, so the “younger is better” narrative is very weak in terms of proof and research. However, learning a second language at a younger age can be helpful to children. In the process of learning another language, they could also learn another culture. According to the text, however, early exposure to English, in the American context, is important. This isn’t because you learn quicker the sooner you are introduced to something. Rather, in the American context, a child must also learn other subjects while at the same time trying to master a foreign language. The foreign language in this case being English. Second language acquisition takes a long time, so it is important to also encourage and motivate students to not get discouraged. The article also states that older student show success more quickly, whereas younger students will have an advantage in pronunciation. This myth could be based on the fact that beginning to learn a second language at a younger age gives one more exposure. However, as the article stresses, exposure to language itself is not language acquisition. Rather, it is based on how a student learns, what works for them, and what motivates them to learn the language.

30 NOV 2018 · Continuing on what we discussed in the last chapter, sociolinguistic variation can also be associated with cultural differences. The book defines culture as the ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. Culture can be defined as socially acquired knowledge. We acquire this similar to how we acquire our first language, which is to say without conscious awareness. In order to develop words, we must have a system that includes people, things, and ideas as distinct and identifiable categories. A category is a group with certain features in common. Every vocabulary we learn can be thought of as category labels, which are used to label or refer to concepts that people in our culture talked about.While it would be easy to believe there is a fixed relationship between words we’ve learned and the external reality, external reality varies to some extent. For example, some languages may have various words for types of rain while other languages may have only one or two. These words are then being lexicalized in that particular language, which means to be expressed as single word. The greatest example of this would be kinship terms. Kinship terms are words used to refer to people who are members of the same family. Every language consists of kinship terms, but they are not always categorized in the same way. For example, in English, we use the term uncle to refer to a parent’s brother, whether it be maternal or paternal. However, in Papua New Guinea, there are two different words to refer to an uncle depending on whether they are maternal or paternal. Another example is that in Norwegia, the distinction between a paternal and maternal grandmother is lexicalized, whereas grandmother is used for both in English. We also have time concepts, which is when we have words for units of time even though time is something abstract. Despite this, we think of time in amounts and use noun phrases to describe it. This is evidenced by saying two hours, similar to the way we describe people or things. These differences evidenced in external reality are referred to as linguistic relativity. At its base, this is the idea that we not only talk but also think about the world using the categories provided in out language. On a much wider scale, it is the idea that language determines thought. This is referred to as linguistic determination. If this were true and language did determine though, then we would be limited to only being able to think with the categories provided by our language. The book uses the example that we would see white stuff and label it snow, whereas an Eskimos will see it and see many different things since they have lots of different words for snow. There also exists social categories, which are categories of social organization that we can use to say how we are connected or related to others. This marks individuals as members of a group defined by social connections. The way people choose to address one another is referred to as address terms. There are different ways to address certain individuals, depending on the closeness of your relationship. For example, one would not usually refer to a stranger in familiar terms unless they were trying to create familiarity in order to then create solidarity. Gender is also used in languages, especially in languages such as Spanish. In Spanish, nouns can either be masculine or feminine. Even in the English language, there are some words that are either masculine or feminine, for example the word latino or latina. However, the addition of the new word latinx to refer to a latin individual that can be either male, female, or nonbinary breaks down the use of gender in that specific word.

30 NOV 2018 · Unlike the last chapter, this chapters focuses on the fat that not every person in the same geographical area will speak in the same way. Language variation may differ due to education or economic status, as well as gender. These are indicators of a membership in different social groups or speech communities. A speech community is a group of people have the same rules and expectations regarding the use of language. The term sociolinguistics is used to describe the study of the relationship between language and society. Just as discussed in the last chapter, dialects are not only different regionally, but socially as well. This is distinguished by social class to define what speakers have in common. Sociolects are a variety of language associated with one social group. An example of this would be “upper-middle-class speech.” When studying social dialects, only certain features are relevant such as pronunciation, words, or structures. Even the smallest difference in any of these indicates social status. When studying social dialect, class is the social variable and the pronunciation as the linguistic variable. An example of social dialect would be someone using the phrase I ain’t hungry, which is referred to as working-class speech. However, each person has their own dialect, which is referred to as idiolect. At the same time, we tend to sound similar to those who we share educational backgrounds or occupations with. That is to say that people who continued education will have a different way of speaking than those who did not or those who dropped out early. The book states that the outcome of our time in the education system is reflected in our occupation and socioeconomic status. In the 1960’s, William Labov conducted an experiment where he went to three different departments stores with different classes and asked sales people specific questions. In this study, he found that the department stores of a higher class pronounced more r sounds than the ones of a lower class status. However, a British study conducted found the opposite in that the higher class pronounced less r sounds than the lower status class. This can be used as an example of a social marker. A social marker is a linguistic feature that marks the speaker as a member of a particular social group. This can be done whether you realize it or not. A social marker would be if someone pronounces it as sittin’ rather than sitting. Another social feature of language use is speech style, which is a way of speaking that is either formal and careful or informal and casual. They can also be referred to as careful style and casual style. When you change from one style to another, you are style-shifting. An example would be in the way you speak to your friends versus how you speak to a professor. In his experiment, Labov assumed that the retail workers were speaking in an informal manner. When he asked them to repeat themselves, they switched to a more careful style. Some individuals change their speech to what they perceive would belong to a higher class status. This is referred to as overt prestige, which is when a status is recognized as better or valued more positively in the community. Covert prestige on the other hand is when the status of a speech style or feature as having positive value, but is not valued in the same way within the community. This is evidenced when lower-working- class speakers do not change their speech style because they value the features that mark them as members of their social group.

30 NOV 2018 · While our book has mainly been focused on a whole language, such as English or Spanish, it is also important to note the variety that each language has. For example, the English languages used in America is different that the English spoken in Australia or Britain. Geographically, even if a language is the same, it will be different. One example I can think of is how in Australia they use the word thong to refer to sandals, or rubber to refer to as an eraser. While Australia and the United States both use the English language, they are different because of their different geography. This is referred to as linguistic geography, which is the study of language variation based on where different varieties of the language are used, such as region or country. In most academic settings, we focus on the standard language, which is an idealised variety of the language and exists for most people as the version that is accepted as the official language of their community or country. In reality, it has no specific region. This standard English is the one most commonly used when we try to teach individuals how to speak English. Standard English is mostly associated with the written language rather than the spoken language. There is much more emphasis placed on vocabulary, spelling, and grammar in written standard english. Even if we all spoke standard variety English, we would all have an accent. An accent is simply an aspect of the pronunciation of language that identifies where the speaker is form regionally and socially. An example could be a Southern accent and a Boston accent. While they both originate the the United States, they help identify where a speaker learned language. This is different to a dialect. A dialect describes features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects on pronunciation. The book uses an example a Scottish person using a different dialect than an American. What is fascinating is that, since they are both English, even if the dialects are vastly different, one can still infer what is being said.According to our text, dialect variations are not frequently documented. DIalectology is the study of dialects to distinguish between two different dialects of the same language and two different languages. An example could be that I could mostly understand the Scottish dialect, but would have trouble understanding the dialect of a language that I am not 100% familiar with. There are also regional dialects, which I briefly mentioned before. A person from the South will have a different dialect than a person from the North in the United States. There are various stereotypes associated with each dialect. A person who speaks in a southern dialect, with a southern accent, may be regarded as not very intelligent. When conducting studies for regional dialects, most of the people chosen were individuals who were less likely to have been influenced from outside the region in their speech. Most of these individuals were referred to as NORMS, or non-mobile, older, rural, male speakers. They, however, are not an accurate representation in terms of time.

30 NOV 2018 · The English language was not always the one that we are familiar with to this day. The study of older languages and how they developed into modern languages is known as philology. The study of philology lead to the creation of “family trees” to show how languages were related to one another. In 1786, a British official suggested that languages from different areas have to have a common ancestor. This was revolutionary at the time. The term used to describe the common ancestor was Proto-Indo-European, which is the hypothesized original form of a language that was the source of many languages in India and Europe. This term was established as the great great grandmother of language. According to our text, Indo-European is the family, so to speak, with the largest population and distribution in the world. For example, from Indo-European, comes the Celtic language, which has the Welsh language as well as Gaelic and Irish language. However, Indo-European is not the only one with a large population. According to the text, about thirty language families exist. Our book states that are 7,102 known languages in the world. Our book states that Chinese has the most native speakers, with over 1 billion, while Spanish has over 400 million and English has over 330 million. However, China has different varieties of Chinese which are as diverse as other language families. With a simple glance, one might be confused as to how all these vastly different languages are related. To see the connection, one must look further back into the family history. While it is unlikely that the exact same words will be found throughout all languages, there is a connection there, which is good evidence for the idea of a family connection between languages. This process of establishing a connection between languages using words is referred to as cognate. Cognates are words in different languages that have similar forms and meanings. For example, the german word Mutter and the english word Mother. Using this example, it is easy to see that English and German share a common ancestor. Another example would be the word madre in spanish, which is the same in italian. By using cognates, we can comparative reconstruct what must have been an earlier form in the common ancestral language. Comparative reconstruction is the creation of the original form of an ancestor language on the basis of comparable forms in languages that are descendants. Connected with comparative reconstruction are two principles. The first is the majority principle, which is the basis that the form that occurs more often than any other form in the set of descendant language. The example the book gives is that, if three words begin with a p and one with a b, we can infer that the majority kept the p sound. The second principle is the most natural development principle. This is the choice of older versus newer forms on the basis of commonly observed types of sound change. Comparing cognates is a good way to begin comparative reconstruction. By comparing them, it will be easy to decide what was the form of the initial sound in the original source.

30 NOV 2018 · Writing, according to our text, is defined as the symbolic representation of language through the use of graphic signs. This system has to be learned through sustained conscious effort. Writing is a relatively new phenomenon, and not every language has a written form. In fact, even among people whose language has a writing system, there is a large majority of people who can’t use the writing system. Writing may be able to be traced back at least 20,000 years ago to cave drawings, or 10,000 years ago to clay tokens. However, they are most likely precursors to writing. The earliest clear evidence of writing is about 5000 years old. 3000 years ago, inscriptions were being used in an ancient script that has a better connection to the writing system we use today. While cave drawing are precursors to written language, they are better thought of as pictorial art. Pictograms is when pictures are used to represent something and can also be referred to as picture-writing. Similar to the way we interpret words, we also interpret the pictures. For example, a circle surrounded by extending lines can be interpreted as the sun. However, it can also come to mean heat. This is considered to be idea-writing, or ideograms. The difference between pictograms and ideograms is the difference in the relationship between what the symbol is and what it represents.The similarity between them is that neither represent words or sounds in any particular language. If a symbol is used to represent a word in a language, then is it a logogram. Logogram is a way of writing in which each symbol represents a word. An example of this would be when a squiggly line came to be used for the actual word meaning of water. A modern logogram is the @ symbol as well as the $ symbol. In China, they use symbols, or character, to represent the meaning of words and not the sounds of the spoken language. This system is based on the use of logograms. A benefit to this system is that it means that individuals with different dialects can both read and write the same text. However, a disadvantage is that there has to be a large number of different symbols required within this writing system. Some list of characters used in China have up to 50,000 characters. This would make it hard to truly master the writing system. The pattern of using existing symbols to represent sound of words in language is described as the rebus principle. This is the process of taking one symbol for one entity and using it as the symbol for the sound of a spoken word. There is also syllabic writing, which is when a writing system employs a set of symbols, with each one representing the pronunciation of a syllable. No writing system consists of purely this. However, modern japanese can be written with a set of single symbols representing soken syllables. There is also alphabetic writing, which is a way of writing in which one symbol represents one sound segment. While the alphabetic writing system is based on the correspondence between a single symbol and a single sound, there is still a lot of variation in how the English language is written compared to how it sounds. An example would be in the words critique and queen. Both of them use the vowel sound represented by i, but are written in different ways. Written English is not always as consistent as Italian or Spanish, which have writing systems that hold much more closely to the one sound, one symbol principle.

30 NOV 2018 · Most commonly, when we consider language acquisition, we think of speech. However, language can also be acquired through sign, or sign language. Some of these children even sign in their sleep, similar to how children will talk in their sleep. Like spoken language, sign language is different in various parts of the world. In America, it is referred to as American Sign Language, which was developed from French Sign Language. While ASL is used by about two million people, it was not initially considered a real language. Rather, people thought they were merely gestures. While they are similar in the fact that both involve the use of hands and other parts of the body, they are vastly different. Sign is used in place of speech, whereas gestures are used while speaking. An example would be if you tap your wrist while telling someone that you were late this morning. Gestures are part of the way in which meaning is expressed. There are also emblems, which can exist without speech. An example is putting a finger to your lips, which is the universal code for be quiet. In this case, it works as a fixed phrase. Emblems, however, depend on social knowledge. While one emblem may not be offensive here, it may be offensive elsewhere, so the use of emblems must be chosen based on setting. Iconics are gestures used in tangent with what is being said. An example would be holding a hand to your ear and saying I’m looking for my phone. By itself, it doesn’t signify that you are looking for anything, but it added to the meaning of what was said. Other gestures include deictics. Deictics refers to pointing. The use of deictic gestures occur when you point to something and make a statement or ask a question. For example, pointing to a box and asking will you hand me that box? There are also beats. Beats are short and quick movements of the hand or fingers. These gestures follow the rhythm of what is being said and is often used to emphasize or mark a change in what is being said. like with most gestures, on their own, they do not mean anything, but simply accompany speech. If hand movements are used to speak, then is is sign language. There are generally two categories of language. The first is alternate sign language, which is a system of hand signals used in a specific context where speech cannot be used.The next category is primary sign language. Primary sign language is the first language of a group of people who are typically deaf and do not use a spoken language. As stated before, sign language is different geographically. Since sign language was not considered a real language, teachers believed that spoken English needed to be taught to deaf children. Oralism, a method designed to teach deaf students to speak and read lips rather than use sign language, was used in the classroom. This method was never seriously challenged, despite its resounding failure. This was due to the fact that most people believed that most deaf children would never achieve very much. While oralism failed, sign language usage become more widespread. Rather than being passed from teacher to student, it was passed from student to student. Signed English is using English sentences with signs instead of words, also called Manually Coded English or MCE. This was emphasized in deaf education. It is designed to make interaction with deaf and hearing communities easier. It also helps a hearing parent communicate with their child much easier. Contrary to typical language, ASL is made for the eyes, not the ears. Signers use four key aspects visual information to produce linguistic forms. They are referred to as articulatory parameters, and consist of shape, orientation, location, and movement. Shape is the configuration of the hands used in forming the sign. Orientation is the way a hand is positioned. Location is used in identifying the place where hands are positioned in relation to the head and upper body of the signer. The last is movement, which described the type of motion used in forming signs.

30 NOV 2018 · Neurolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the brain. Obviously, the capacity for language is located in the brain, but as evidenced by Phineas Gage, it is not located in the front. Our texts states that the parts of the brain related to language exist in the areas above the left ear. To make it easier to discern, the brain is basically split into two separate parts, the right and left hemisphere. Language functions are located in the left hemisphere. There are four major parts of the brain that our text focuses on. The first is Broca’s area, which is described at the anterior speech cortex. This area, when damaged, leads to difficulty in producing speech. Therefore, it is crucially involved in the production of speech. The next area is Wernicke’s area, described as the posterior speech cortex, which, when damaged, causes speech comprehension difficulties. This means that this area is crucial in understanding spoken language. The third area is the motor cortex, which controls the movement of muscles needed to move hands, feet, arms, etc. This area is close to Broca’s area, and controls the muscles of the face, jaw, tongue, and larynx. This means that it is needed physical articulation of speech. The last area is the arcuate(R Q IT) fasciculus, which is a bundle of nerves that connects Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area. With these areas, it is easy to conclude that the brain activity involved in hearing, understanding, and saying a word follow a definite pattern. This is referred to as the localization view. Hearing and comprehending a word occur in Wernicke's area. It is then transferred through the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area, where it is prepared to be spoken. It is then articulated using the motor cortex. This is, of course, a very oversimplified version of what may actually happen. Since we have no direct access to the linguistic process in the brain, we have to rely on what is discovered using indirect methods. Most of our information comes from observing what happens when the system has problems or malfunctions. An example would be when you have a word at the tip of your tongue. This most commonly occurs when trying to think of uncommon words or names. This can suggest that our word storage, so to speak, is organized based on phonological information. These mistakes are most commonly made when the target word and the mistaken word have phonological similarities. These mistakes are referred to as malapropisms. There is also the error of slips of the tongue. This is when some words get mixed up. An example would be, Give me my keys car instead of Give me my car keys. Slips of the tongue occur in three types. There is perseveration, which is when one sound is carried over to the next word. An example of this would be my favorite fovie. The next is anticipation, which is when a sound if used before its occurrence in the next word. An example of this is a tup of tea. The this is exchange, which is when sounds change places. An example of this would be pobody’s nerfect. While these are errors in articulation, they can also be referred to as slips of the brain. There are also slips of the ear, which is when we interpret or hear one word or phrase as another. While most of these are humorous and good natured, some of these occur to serious disorders in brain function. Language disorders are described as aphasia (A Faxia). Aphasia is the impairment of language function due to brain damage, which leads to difficulty in understand or producing linguistic forms. Most of this damage is caused by a stroke. However, it can also be caused by accidents. There is also Broca’s, or motor, aphasia, which is characterized by reduced speech and distorted articulation. There is also Wernicke’s, or sensory, aphasia, which is characterized by difficulties in auditory comprehension. People who suffer Wernicke’s aphasia may be fluent in speech, but do not make sense when they speak. The text also mentions the critical period of learning language, which is the belief that first language acquisition lasts from birth until puberty and if a child does not learn language in this time, then it will be impossible for them to learn language later on.

29 NOV 2018 · In chapter 10, we discussed how language users successfully interpret what one another is trying to convey. They study of language beyond the sentence, in text and conversation is referred to as discourse analysis. Typically, one is concerned with accurate representation of forms and structures in language. However, the phrase No shoes, no service can be understood even if it is not grammatically correct. This is a fragmented linguistic message. These forms, or messages, aren’t rejected even if they are ungrammatical, rather we try to make sense of them. This is the basis of the study of discourse. While we do rely on structure and form, we interpret beyond what is written on paper. Another aspect includes cohesion. Cohesion is the ties and connections that exist between words and phrases in a text. A simpler way to view this is by looking at the “flow” of a text. If the text is connected to one another, it is cohesive. However, simply because a sentence is cohesive does not mean it will be easy to interpret. This is because some of the connections that words have are not compatible to make a successful sentence. The book uses the example of My father bought a Lincoln convertible. The car driven by the police was red. That color doesn’t suit her. She consists of three letters. However, a letter isn’t as fast a a telephone call. In this example, the connections between words are there. The first sentence mentions a Lincoln, while the second references a car, which is the connection. The second and third sentence are connected by color, whereas the third and fourth sentence are connected by the words she and her. The fourth and fifth sentence are connected by the use of the word letter. However, they are referring to different types of letters, which are the letters used in the alphabet, and letters in reference to a written message people send to one another. Therefore, while these sentences are indeed cohesive, they do not really make sense. In order to make everything it well together, or coherent, the listener or reader has to create a meaningful connection to interpret the text successfully. Coherence is something that exists differently within every person, because every person will use their own experiences to try to interpret a text. Coherence is the ability to form a consistent and logical unified whole. Our text also analyzes how we have a conversation, which is by taking turns. Usually, only one person will be talking at a time. When one individual is finished speaking, hey signal a completion point. This is done by pausing at the end of a phrase or sentence to indicate that you are done. Conversations are usually conducted with turn-taking, which means one person speaks, and then the other, and then back to the first, and so on until the conversation is done. However, this is not always the case. One speaker may interrupt another, or one speaker may be too shy to speak. In conversation, adjacency pairs also exist. This is when we respond to something in an almost automatic way. For example, when someone says Hello or Good afternoon, it is automatic to respond back with a similar greeting. There is also an insertion sequence, which is an adjacency pair that comes between the first and second parts of another pair. An example would be: Do you want some cake? said by the first person, followed with Is it gluten free? spoken by the second person. The first person responds with a negative or positive, such as Yes, it is gluten free, in which the second person will finally respond to the original question, such as Yes, I want some. This is an example of insertion sequence, since the phrases Is it gluten free? and Yes, it is gluten free were their own adjacency pair. In conversation discourse, there is also the co-operative principle, which is the assumption that participants are cooperating with each other. Philosopher Paul Grice described four maxims, or elements, to the co-operative principle. First is the quantity element, which is to make the information being relied as informative as required, no more or no less. The second is the quality element, which is to say the truth. The third is the relation element, which is to be relevant to what is being discussed. The fourth element is the manner element, which is to be clear, brief and orderly. In other terms, we expect people to make honest, clear, and relevant contributions to the interaction occurring. Our understanding of language is not simply used by what we read or hear, but also by what we have in our minds.

29 NOV 2018 · According to our text, communication relies on recognizing what speakers mean when they use a certain word. This is termed pragmatics, which is the study of speaker meaning. Pragmatics is how we interpret what is meant even if it is not explicitly said or written. This relies on shared assumptions and expectations when communicating, which is to say that individuals assume and expect that people have the same meaning for a word as they do. In terms of pragmatics, there is always more to what is being communicated than what was actually said. In pragmatics, context is important. There needs to be pre-existing knowledge of what is likely being said to work towards a reasonable interpretation. An example of this would be when viewing signs with little words on them. By using context and pre-existing knowledge, it may make a sign easier to interpret. According to our text, humans are actively involved in creating an interpretation of what we hear and read by using context. There are two different kind of context, physical and linguistic. Physical context can be location where words or phrases are encountered. An example of this would be a building with the words Dentist Office on its wall, which we understand as signifying that the building is a dental care facility. Linguistic context, or referred to as co-text in our book, is the set of other words used in the same phrase of sentence. An example the book demonstrates is the usage of the word bank. Alone, a bank could mean a financial institution. However, by pairing the word bank with the word steep, we can infer which type of bank is intended. There are some words that exist that cannot be interpreted at all if context is not provided. These words are here, there, this, that, now, then, yesterday, today, tomorrow and pronouns such as you, me, she, him, it and them. A sentence that contains many of theses words is vague without any context. An example would be: If you can’t do it now, she’ll have to come back tomorrow. This sentence, without context, is very vague. What has to be done? Who has to come back? Without context, these questions are unanswered. These words are known as deictic expressions. They are used to point to people, places, and times. They can be interpreted in terms of who or what the speaker has in mind. According to the textbook, one can also infer what is close or distant to the speaker based on what expression they used. For example, using the word this as opposed to the word that. It is important to note, however, that words themselves don’t refer to anything. Rather, people refer. A speaker is using language to allow a listener to identify something. This can be done using proper nouns, such as names, or pronouns such as he or she. A reference depends on the listeners or readers ability to recognize what the speaker or writer means rather than the dictionary knowledge of a word. Pragmatics also consists of inference, which means that we can use nouns associated with things to refer to people and use names of people to refer to things. An example would be saying that you are wearing Calvin Klein or Oscar de la Renta. There is also anaphora, which is referring back. For example, we could use the sentence: Jennifer walked to work today. She forgot her bus pass. By using the term she rather than Jennifer, we are referring back. The opposite of this, in which we refer to something as it or she before revealing specific information, is referred to as cataphora. This, however, is very uncommon, as we tend to use a noun first rather than a pronoun. A way that speakers can indicate how their words are supposed to be interpreted is by using pragmatic markers. These included phrases such as I don’t know, you know, well, I mean. The term I don’t know has recently become a pragmatic marker rather than a way to indicate lack of knowledge. Instead, it has become a marker of hesitation and uncertainty. Politeness has to do with pragmatics as well. In terms of pragmatics, politeness is defined as showing awareness and consideration of another person’s face. In other words, it is how you address another individual. The book uses the phrase Give me that paper as opposed to Could you pass me that paper to show the politeness in an interaction. Whereas one is asking for something, the other is a demand. In short, pragmatics is how people make sense of one another linguistically.