SYNTACTIC AND PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH TAG QUESTION

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ TỐ UYÊN

SYNTACTIC AND PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH TAG
QUESTION
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ DỤNG HỌC CỦA CÂU HỎI TÁCH BIỆT
TRONG TIẾNG ANH)

M.A THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2019


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201

SYNTACTIC AND PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH TAG
QUESTION
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ DỤNG HỌC CỦA CÂU HỎI TÁCH BIỆT
TRONG TIẾNG ANH)

LÊ THỊ TỐ UYÊN
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr Vo Dai Quang

Hanoi, 2019


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
“The syntactic and pragmatic features of English tag question” submitted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without
due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2019

Le Thi To Uyen

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Vo Dai Quang, Ph,D
Date:……………………………..
i


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a
number of people. I would like, hereby, to express my profound gratitude to my
supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang who has patiently and constantly supported
me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and
suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher.
Also, I am very grateful to all the teachers at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies of
Hanoi Open University for their interesting and useful lectures which have built in me

a firm foundation with immense ideas for the fulfillment of this paper.
In conducting this research, I have benefited a lot of ideas from the research work:
“The Syntax and Pragmatics o f English Tag Questions: A Study o f Adult Arabic
Learners of English” by Imad Al-Nabtiti”.
Last but not least, I should also express my heartfelt thanks to my family who have
supported me a lot during my studies and my research work as well.

ii


ABSTRACT
In English, tag questions play an important part in communicative process. People
are not able to communicate well without making and answering questions. In reality,
people make tag question for confirmation or checking information. It is obvious that
tag questions cannot be missed in communication. However, there are several
problems when using tag questions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe
the syntactic and pragmatic features of English tag questions. This study used both
quantitative and qualitative methods as the main ones. In addition, a descriptive
method was also used to shed light into the features of these English structures in
terms of syntax and pragmatic. Finally, some other methods and techniques such as
statistical technique and error method were also used by the writer of this paper to
measure the chosen participants‟ ability to respond to a written test and an oral test. In
the previous research, the syntactic and pragmatic features were shown. However, this
study‟s contributions are: describing the syntactic and pragmatic features of English
tag question and pointing out the commonly errors committed by students at Nguyen
Thi Minh Khai high school and the solutions to the errors will be recommended.
These findings will be useful.

iii

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1

Word order in English tag questions

9

Table 2

Canonical TQs identified in English by various authors

18

Table 3

Word order in English tag questions in the written test

29

Table 4

The typical intonation of English tag questions

33

Table 5

Summary of errors made by participants on the oral and 36
written test

Table 6

Rhetorical tag question

41

Table 7

Verb tenses in English tag question

46

Table 8

Intonation of English tag questions based on pragmatic 47
function

LIST OF FIGURES
Chart 1

Types of English tag questions

iv

30


TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.............................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................iii
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... iv
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1.1 Rationale for the Study ..................................................................................... 1
1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study ..................................................................... 2
1.2.1. Aims of the study ........................................................................................... 2
1.2.2. Objectives of the study .................................................................................. 2
1.3 Research questions ............................................................................................ 2
1.4 Methods of the study ......................................................................................... 2
1.5 Scope of the study .............................................................................................. 2
1.6 Significance of the study.................................................................................... 3
1.6.1 Theoretical significance .................................................................................. 3
1.6.2 Practical significance ...................................................................................... 3
1.7 Design of the study ............................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................... 4
2.1. Previous studies .................................................................................................. 4
2.2 Theoretical background...................................................................................... 5
2.2.1 An overview of syntactic features .................................................................. 5
2.2.2 An overview of pragmatic features............................................................... 12
2.2.3 Summary ....................................................................................................... 19
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................. 20
3.1 Approaches ........................................................................................................ 20
3.2 Methods .............................................................................................................. 25
3.3 Data collection instruments .............................................................................. 26
3.4 Data analysis technique .................................................................................... 27
Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................ 28
4.1 Syntactic features of tag question in English .................................................. 28

4.2 Pragmatic features of tag question in English ................................................ 37


4.3 The possible solutions for learning and teaching English tag question at
Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school ..................................................................... 43
4.4 Summary ............................................................................................................ 47
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 48
5.1 Recapitulation .................................................................................................... 48
5.2 Concluding remarks.......................................................................................... 48
5.2 Limitations of the current research ................................................................. 50
5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study .......................................... 50
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 51
Book ........................................................................................................................... 51
Website ........................................................................................................................ 52


Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale for the Study
Tag Questions are important devices in the English language and are used very
often by native speakers. Almost all languages have tag questions; however,
Canonical Tag Questions are unique to the English language (Bublitz, 1979) and
mastering them requires a high level of proficiency in English (Holmes, 1982). In
terms of formal properties, canonical English tag questions are sensitive to three main
factors: the choice of auxiliary and pronoun, polarity (negation), and intonation
pattern. Even though the general uses of tag questions follow the described
constraints, their actual use in real life appears to be much more complex (Ann, 2011,
p. 6).
Students over the world find learning question tags in English confusing and
difficulty because some Asian languages don‟t have question tags. The results of the
survey in Vietnamese students' classrooms are also given the fact that English tag

questions is still limited because of commonly mistakes. To overcoming these
obstacles is probably a big challenge for students. This is also the reason why students
lack confidence in using English tag questions to communicate.
This study investigates to find out what are the syntactic and pragmatic features of
English tag questions. The results of the study reveal that non-native speakers cannot
use Canonical Tag Questions appropriately because of the syntactic complexity of
these kinds of questions, but because of their pragmatic requirements. The results also
show possible solutions to mistakes commonly committed by students at Nguyen Thi
Minh khai high school.

1


1.2

Aims and Objectives of the study

1.2.1. Aims of the study
This research is aimed at helping students to have an insightful look at the syntactic
and pragmatic features of English tag question.
The findings of this research are expected to improve the ability to use English tag
question effectively; particularly, in the teaching and learning of English tag question.
1.2.2. Objectives of the study
To achieve the aims mentioned above, following objectives are put forward:
(1) Describing the syntactic and pragmatics features of English tag questions;
(2) Pointing out possible solutions for mistakes commonly committed by students at
Nguyen Thi Minh khai high school when they use English tag question.
1.3 Research questions
The paper will attempt to answer three following questions:
•

What are the syntactic and pragmatic features of tag question?

•

What are the mistakes commonly committed by students at Nguyen Thi Minh

Khai high school?
•

What are the possible solutions to the mistakes?

1.4 Methods of the study
The thesis is conducted by combining the main research approaches which are mixed
method, quantitative method , qualitative method which are carried out with the
following orientations.
- Various sources of printed publications as books, articles, journals will be used as
the data.
- Some questionnaire and interview with students at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school.
1.5 Scope of the study
The scope of the study is the syntactic and pragmatic features of English tag question.
The survey will be carried out at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school to find out the
mistakes commonly committed by students at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school.
2


The participants of the study are students in class 12A1 at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai
high school. The level of the students is good. They have studied about English tag
question.
1.6 Significance of the study

1.6.1 Theoretical significance
The study is expected to help people to know about the syntactic and pragmatics
features of English tag questions.
1.6.2 Practical significance
The results of the research were able to be referenced and used for learning English
language effectively. Accordingly, the thesis points out commonly errors committed
by students at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school and possible solutions to the
problems. Therefore, it also helps seeking some appropriate solutions for the problem
of learning English question
1.7 Design of the study
With the purpose of creating an easy-understanding research, this paper is divided into
five chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction of the thesis in which rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of
the study, method of the study, design of the study is introduced to give the
background of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review
This part refers to the overview of some studies on English tag questions, provides the
basic knowledge about the tag questions in English.
Chapter 3: Methodology
This chapter consists of approaches, methods, data collection instruments, data
analysis technique, and data related issues.
Chapter 4: Finding and discussion

3


It provides the results obtained via applications of the concerned an investigation into
the syntactic and pragmatic features of English tag questions and possible solutions to
the mistakes commonly committed by students at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school.

Chapter 5: Conclusion
The last chapter presents the review of the study and the references will put the end of
the paper.

4


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Previous studies
English tag question has been studied by many researchers and discussed in
many grammar books by many authors.
In Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Ngan (2016) indicates the features of tag questions
in English with their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and
semantic features. The author makes comparison of tag questions between
English and Vietnamese and points out the similarities and differences
between the two languages. (Ngan, 2016)
In over the world, Imad Al-Nabtiti (2012) reveals that non-native speakers
cannot use Canonical Tag Questions appropriately not because of the syntactic
complexity of these kinds of questions, but because of their pragmatic
requirements. The results also show the importance of incorporating a
pragmatic theory and the social contexts in which discourses take place in ESL
curricula.
Besides, Gunnel Tottie and Sebastian Hoffmann (2009) states that Canonical
tag questions in Present-day English (PDE) have received ample coverage in
the literature, but their historical development has so far been given little
attention.
Furthermore, enka Vondrus ov (2007) shows how the English question tags
are translated into Czech. It points out the frequency and types of question tags
encountered by translators of fiction, the meanings and communicative

functions they convey, and the means of expression used to translate them. The
thesis provides an overview of existing translations and at least partly clarify
their foundation, thus outlining translation equivalence of the English and
Czech structures. (Vondrus ov , 2017)
Finally, Qiyun Zhang (2010) points out that questioning or being questioned is
a necessity in communicative activities. The tag question plays an important
role in everyday communication. In the tag mechanism of those questions, the
4


tags are not formed in accordance with the general forming rules. So, learners
often commit errors. This paper studies the types and causes of errors of the tag
question. By analyzing these error sources, the learner can avoid and benefit
from errors. Thus, they can understand tag questions better. (Qiyun, 2010)
2.2 Theoretical background
2.2.1 An overview of syntactic features
Syntax refers to the ways symbols may be combined to create wellformed programs in the language. It defines the formal relations between the
constituents of a language, thereby providing a structural description of the
various expressions that make up legal strings in the language.
According to Peter Svenonius (2017), the theory of features in syntax
derives from earlier work in morphology and phonology, especially the
foundational work in the first half of the twentieth century by Jakobson and
Trubetzkoy and others (e.g., Jakobson 1990 [1942], Jakobson et al. 1951;
see Clements and Hume 1995, Halle et al. 2000 for discussion). In
phonology the term feature is normally used in the restrictive sense of
“distinctive features” of phonemes—all and only the properties that are
necessary to uniquely distinguish each item in the phoneme inventory of a
language. These properties are normally assumed to be phonetically (or articulatorily) grounded. They define natural classes. For example, a
distinctive feature distinguishes /p/ from /b/ in English, as demonstrated by
the ex- istence of minimal pairs such as pray and bray. In contrast, no

distinctive feature distinguishes the aspirated /p/ ([ph]) in pat from the
unaspirated one in spat or ape. (Svenonius, 2017 , p. 2)
In

Syntactic

Structures,

Chomsky

lays

down

the

foundation

of

transformational grammar and tries to construct a formalized theory of
linguistic structure. He begins by focusing on the grammar of a language,
stating that the grammar of a language is the device that generates all
sensical and nonsensical sequences of words for a language. Afterwards,
Chomsky argues that the fundamental aim of linguistic analysis of a
5


language is to separate grammatical sequences from ungrammatical
sequences of a language and to study the structure of the grammatical

sequences. From there he concludes that grammar is autonomous and
independent of meaning. For the rest of his book Chomsky argues that
language utilizes a transformational grammar that has a natural tripartite
arrangement consisting of: phrase structure rules, transformational rules, and
morphophonemic rules. Syntactic Structures is regarded as one of the most
influential pieces on current linguistic theory. From there on out, Chomsky
co
ntinued to prove that he is an academic intellectual. His later linguistic and
philosophical works assert that most of grammar is innate knowledge and
has been termed universal grammar. This has had strong support in the field
of psychology and has directly challenged many behaviorist theories and
prior theories that have attempted to explain how children learn language
and gain the ability to use language. (Keller, 2012)
Other scholar such as Leonard Bloomfield (1939) considered syntax was the
study of free forms that were composed entirely of free forms. Central to his
theory of syntax were the notions of form classes and constituentstructure.
(These notions were also relevant, though less central, in the theory of
morphology.) Bloomfield defined form classes, rather imprecisely, in terms
of some common “recognizable phonetic or grammatical feature” shared by
all the members. He gave as examples the form class consisting of
“personal substantive expressions” in English (defined as “the forms that,
when spoken with exclamatory final pitch, are calls for a person‟s presence
or attention”—e.g., “John,” “Boy,” “Mr. Smith”); the form class consisting
of “infinitive expressions” (defined as “forms which, when spoken with
exclamatory final pitch, have the meaning of a command”—e.g., “run,”
“jump,” “come here”); the form class of “nominative substantive
expressions” (e.g., “John,” “the boys”); and so on. It should be clear from
these examples that form classes are similar to, though not identical with,
the traditional parts of speech and that one and the same form can belong to
6

more than one form class. What Bloomfield had in mind as the criterion for
form class membership (and therefore of syntactic equivalence) may best be
expressed in terms of substitutability. Form classes are sets of forms
(whether simple or complex, free or bound), any one of which may be
substituted for any other in a given construction or set of constructions
throughout the sentences of the language. (Brittanica, 1995)
Question tags are formed in several ways, and many languages give a choice of
formation. In some languages the most common is a single word or fixed
phrase, whereas in others it is formed by a regular grammatical construction.
Word order of English tag question:
According to Luke Maurits, basic word order is essentially grounded on
properties of a certain kind of sentence. The kind of sentence we are interested
in is the declarative sentence, that is, a sentence which makes a statement about
something, rather than being asking a question or issuing a command.
Furthermore, it is a declarative sentence which states, very loosely, that
something has done something to something else. Examples of the sort of
sentence we are interested in, in English, are:
(1) The dog bit the man
(2) John kissed Mary
(3) A fire destroyed the town
Note that we are not interested in declarative sentences involving more than
two items (or two noun phrases), such as “John gave Mary the book”. An
underlying assumption in trying to define basic word order is that all languages
contain sentences of the kind described above.
The sentences we are interested can typically be analysed as having three
constituents: a subject (S), a verb (V) and an object (O). For instance, in “the
dog bit the man”, the subject is “the dog”, the verb is “bit” and the object is
“the man”. As a matter of logical necessity, any such sentence must place these

three constituents in some linear order, for example SVO in the case of “the
dog bit the man” (or, indeed, all of the three example sentences above). There
7


are six logically possible ways in which these constituents can be ordered, and
these are SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS and OSV.
In most languages, one of these six orders can be considered as being, loosely,
the most typical, natural or important. For instance, the majority of English
declarative sentences use SVO word order rather than any of the other five,
although there are exceptions. On the other hand, Japanese declarative
sentences are most often constructed using SOV word order, as the example
below shows:
(4) Inu ga otoko o kamimashita
Dog (subj) man (acc) bit
“The dog bit the man”
As a first approximation to a definition, then, we can say that the basic word
order of a language is the ordering of subject, verb and object which best
characterizes declarative sentences in that language. In many cases, assigning a
basic word order to a language is quite straightforward and this sort of informal
definition is arguably entirely adequate. For example, speakers of English
should have little trouble in convincing themselves that English has a basic
word order of SVO. However, if we wish to assign a single basic word order,
with confidence, to every language in the world, we rapidly run into a number
of complications and suddenly things are not so straightforward. The following
section deals with the major sources of this trouble. (Maurits, 2011, p. 10)
English tag questions are shown in the table below, with either reversed or
constant polarity in the main clause, henceforth called the anchor, and in the
tag. The subject of the anchor can be any noun, a pronoun, or there. The verb
of English tag question can be of any type, but in the tag, the subject must be

either a personal pronoun, one, or there, and the operator can only be a form of
have, be, or do, or a modal verb. Besides, tag questions with truncated
anchors—normally deletion of subject and verb—as well as imperatives can
have either Positive-Negative or Negative-Positive polarity. (Hoffmann, 2009,
p. 131)
8


ANCHOR

TAG

(1) Makes you really doesn‟t it?

POLARITY
Positive-Negative

think,
(2) Oh the ring‟s not is it?

Negative-Positive

very valuable
(3) So this is the letter he is it?

Constant Positive

sent you

(Positive-Positive)

(4) Yes, they don‟t come don‟t they?

Negative-Negative

cheap
Table 1: Word order in English tag questions

Types of English tag question:
The different varieties o f tag questions make it difficult to set up a clear and
systematic categorization of them; however, there is a sort of agreement among
scholars who dealt with tag questions on dividing them into two categories:
canonical tag questions and invariant tag questions.
Bublitz (1979) mentions that there are two kinds of tag questions in the English
language: lexical tag questions such as “right, okay”; and the intonational tag
“eh”. Cheng and Warren (2001), on the other hand, adopt a different definition
that classifies tag questions into two categories: canonical tag questions, with
both matching and contrasting polarity, e.g., “It is hot, is it?” and “It is hot,
isn‟t it?” and invariant tag questions, e.g., “right”. The canonical tag question
with contrastive polarity is referred to as a “checking tag” and the one with
matching polarity is referred to as a copy tag. “Word tags”, according to Cheng
and W arren (2001), refer to invariant tags.
Holmes (1982) also argues that tag questions in the English language can
be classified into two categories. One is “the grammatically complex tag
forms” (Holmes, 9

9


1982, p. 41) which also can be referred to as canonical tag questions, e.g., “It

is going to rain tomorrow, isn‟t it?” and the other type is “grammatically simple
tags” (Holmes,
1982, p. 41) which can be refereed to as invariant tag questions such as “right
and okay”. The syntactic form o f canonical tag questions involves an auxiliary
verb that agrees with the host sentence in tense and number, a pronoun, and
matching or contrasting polarity. The form ofthe canonical tag question should
agree with the subject and the auxiliary of the preceding host sentence in
number, gender and tense. On the other hand, the invariant tag question
involves words, such as “right”, “eh”, “okay” and “yeah” and does not have to
change its form to agree with gender, number or tense o f the host sentence.
The invariant tag question is less formal than the canonical tag question.
Sometimes these invariant tag questions are referred to as response elicitors or
response getters because they aim to elicit a response from the listener or
promote interaction in the conversation (Biber et al., 2002).
This study adopts Holmes‟s (1982) categorization o f tag questions. So, in
this study canonical tag question will be used to refer to the grammatically
complex tag forms and invariant tag question will be used to refer to tag words
such as “right and okay”. (Al-Nabtiti, 2013, p. 9)
Typical intonation of English tag question
The term intonation refers to a means for conveying information in speech
which is independent of the words and their sounds. Central to intonation is the
modulation of pitch, and intonation is often thought of as the use of pitch over
the domain of the utterance. However, the patterning of pitch in speech is so
closely bound to patterns of timing and loudness, and sometimes voice quality,
that we cannot consider pitch in isolation from these other dimensions. The
interaction of intonation and stress — the patterns of relative prominence
which characterise an utterance — is particularly close in many languages,
including English. For those who prefer to reserve „intonation‟ for pitch effects
in speech, the word „prosody‟ is convenient as a more general term to include
patterns of pitch, timing, loudness, and (sometimes) voice quality. In this

10


Chapter, however, intonation will be used to refer to the collaboration of all
these dimensions, and, where necessary, the term „melody‟ will be used to refer
specifically to the pitch-based component.
Intonation is used to carry a variety of different kinds of information. It signals
grammatical structure, though not in a one-to-one way; whilst the end of a
complete intonation pattern will normally coincide with the end of a
grammatical structure such as a sentence or clause, even quite major
grammatical boundaries may lack intonational marking, particularly if the
speech is fast. Intonation can reflect the information structure of an utterance,
highlighting constituents of importance. Intonation can indicate discourse
function; for instance most people are aware that saying „This is the

eeds

train‟ with one intonation
constitutes a statement, but, with another, a question. Intonation can be used by
a speaker to convey an attitude such as friendliness, enthusiasm, or hostility;
and listeners can use intonation-related phenomena in the voice to make
inferences about a speaker‟s state, including excitement, depression, and
tiredness. Intonation can also, for instance, help to regulate turn-taking in
conversation, since there are intonational mechanisms speakers can use to
indicate that they have had their say, or, conversely, that they are in full flow
and don‟t want to be interrupted.
Intonation is not the only linguistic device for which pitch is recruited by
languages; many languages use pitch to distinguish words. In languages around
the world as diverse as Thai, Hausa (Nigeria), and Mixtec (Mexico), words are
distinguished not only by vowels and consonants but also by the use of one of a

limited set of distinctive pitch patterns or heights on each syllable. Such
languages are called tone languages. A number of other languages, such as
Swedish and Japanese, make a more limited use of pitch to distinguish words.
These languages might best be called lexical accent languages. All tone
languages and lexical accent languages also have intonation, but in general the
greater a language‟s use of pitch for distinguishing words, the less scope it has
to develop an elaborate intonation system. English, on the other hand, is not a
11


tone language or lexical accent language, and is generally agreed to have
relatively complex intonation. (Nolan, 2014, pp. 1,2)
English tag questions can have a rising or a falling intonation pattern.[3] This
can be contrasted with Polish, French or German, for example, where all tags
rise, or with the Celtic languages, where all fall. As a rule, the English rising
pattern is used when soliciting information or motivating an action, that is,
when some sort of response is required. Since normal English yes/no questions
have rising patterns (e.g. Are you coming?), these tags make a grammatical
statement into a real question:
Ex:
You're coming, aren't you?
The falling pattern is used to underline a statement. The statement itself ends
with a falling pattern, and the tag sounds like an echo, strengthening the
pattern. Most English tag questions have this falling pattern.
Ex:
He doesn't know what he's doing, does he?
The meaning of a tag question can be changed with the pitch of our voice. With
rising intonation, it sounds like a real question. But if our intonation falls, it
sounds more like a statement that doesn't require a real answer.
2.2.2 An overview of pragmatic features

According to Pininta Veronika Silalahi, pragmatics is a relatively late comer in
linguistics. It enters the linguistic scene at the end of the 1970s. However, to
many people, this is a rather new area. Pragmatics was a reaction to structural
linguistics as outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. In many cases, it expanded
upon his idea that language has an analyzable structure, composed of parts that
can be defined in relation to others. Pragmatics first engaged only in
synchronic study, as opposed to examining the historical development of
language. However, it rejected the notion that all meaning comes from signs
existing purely in the abstract space of langue.

12


Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the
intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language.
Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions,
and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we
shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties
that differentiate them. Pragmatics is sometimes characterized as dealing with
the effects of context. This is equivalent to saying it deals with utterances, if
one collectively refers to all the facts that can vary from utterance to utterance
as „context.‟ One must be careful, however, for the term is often used with
more limited meanings. (Silalahi, 1945, p. 83)
There are many definitions of pragmatics, because this field of linguistics has
been so charming and appealing to so many people that each one of them
seems to claim an interest in it and define it from different perspective.
According to Leech (1983: X), pragmatics can be usefully defined as the study
of how utterances have meanings in situations. In a way, through this
definition, Leech is clearing up the differences between semantics, syntax, and
pragmatics. What he is trying to say here is like this: Sentences are for syntax,

while utterances for pragmatics; sentence meanings free from situations are for
semantics, while utterance meanings bound with situations are for pragmatics.
Crystal (1987: 120) says that pragmatics studies the factors that govern our
choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.
This definition emphasizes the absolute roles that context and language users
(speaker and hear) play. The former is instrumental in framing language users‟
choices of linguistic means for optimal communication outcomes, while the
later are solely responsible for the awareness of context or speech environment
in which they are to perform certain functions via language or fulfill specific
objectives by utilizing available linguistic means within their capability.
eech (1983:6) defines pragmatics as “the study of meaning in relation to
speech situations”. The speech situation enables the speaker use language to
achieve a particular effect on the mind of the hearer.” Thus the speech is goaloriented (i.e. the meaning which the speaker or writer intends to communicate).
13


evinson (1983:9) defines pragmatics as “the study of those aspects of the
relationship between language and context that are relevant to the writing of
grammars.” In this definition that interest is mainly in the interrelation of
language and principles of language use that are context dependent. While Yule
(1996:127), pragmatics is “the study of intended speaker meaning”. This
definition is in accord with Crystal (1997, p. 301) who says that pragmatics is
“the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the
choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social
interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the
act of communication. Mey (1993:42) states that pragmatics is the study of the
condition of human language uses as this is determined by the context of
society. Pragmatic is needed if we want a fuller, deeper, and generally more
reasonable account of human language behavior. (Silalahi, 1945, p. 84)
Principles of Pragmatics is a general map of the terrain. It cannot give a

detailed view of every square inch. In particular, Leech's treatment of the
Textual Rhetoric is not fully worked out, as he himself states. There is need for
further formalization and testing, analysis of corpus data, cross-cultural studies,
and the extension of the discussion to whole texts or discourses, as opposed to
individual utterances or small exchanges. These are necessary limitations, in
the present state of the art. We are better off with a general map, since detailed
predictions (weak or strong) must await consensus on the outlines. (C, G. . N .
L E E, 1983, p. 123)
Pragmatic axis of English tag question
In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging,
describes the way in which information is formally packaged within a sentence.
This generally includes only those aspects of information that “respond to the
temporary state of the addressee‟s mind”, and excludes other aspects of
linguistic information such as references to background knowledge, choice of
style, politeness, and so forth. For example, the difference between an active
clause (e.g., the police want him) and a corresponding passive (e.g., he is
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wanted by police) is a syntactic difference, but one motivated by information
structuring considerations.
The given information is shown in the anchor and the unknown information is
the answer of the listener based on the tag.
For example: He is a student, isn‟t he?
The given information is “he is a student” and the unknown information is the
confirmation or the denial to the given one. The unknown information will be
stated by answer the tag “isn‟t it?”
Pragmatic function of English tag questions
According to M.V. Tomaselli, A. Gatt (2015), depending on discourse
context, TQs with the same form can have different functions. Most research

on TQ functions has focused on English, though this section will also deal
with related work on other languages.
In line with the distinction between the speaker‟s stance on a proposition
and the interactional impact of a TQ, Holmes (1995) divides TQs into
„epistemic modal‟ and „affective‟ types. Epistemic modal TQs „„express
genuine speaker uncertainty rather than politeness‟‟ (p. 80), as in (1) below.
Examples (1) to (5) come from Holmes (1995), where a downward slash
indicates falling intonation, and an upward slash rising intonation.
Ex1: Fay Weldon‟s lecture is at eight /isn‟t it?
Affective

TQs

are

subdivided

into

„facilitative‟,

„softening‟,

and

„challenging‟. Facilitative TQs‟‟. . . are examples of hedges
which serve as positive politeness devices. They invite the addressee to
contribute to the discourse‟‟ (Holmes, 1995, p. 81):
Ex2: You‟ve got a new job Tom \haven‟t you?
Softening TQs, on the other hand, serve a negative politeness function and

are used to attenuate the force of negatively affective utterances, for
example, directives and criticisms (Holmes, 1995, p. 81):
Ex3: Make a cup of tea /would you?
Ex4: That was a really dumb thing to do \wasn‟t it?
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Challenging TQs are „„confrontational strategies [which] may pressure a
reluctant addressee to reply or aggressively boost the force of a negative
speech act‟‟ (Holmes, 1995, p. 80):
Ex5:
A: . . .you‟ll probably find yourself in front of the Chief Constable,
/okay?
B: Yes, Sir, yes, understood.
A: Now you er fully understand that, \don‟t you? B: Yes, Sir, indeed,
yeah.
Algeo (1990, 2006) proposes a different classification, and divides TQs into
„informational‟,

„confirmatory‟,

„punctuational‟,

„peremptory‟,

and

„aggressive‟ (renamed „antagonistic‟ in Algeo, 2006). When using
informational TQs, „„the speaker has an idea about something (the statement
preceding the tag), but asks for information without presuming to know

what the answerer will say‟‟ (1990, p. 445). In fact, in (6) the speaker‟s
presupposition turns out to be false.
Ex6:
Q: You don‟t have to wear any sort of glasses or anything, do you?
A: Well, I wear glasses for reading sometimes.
Confirmatory TQs are used to „„draw the person addressed into the
conversation (. . .) [asking] for confirmation of what the speaker has said‟‟
(Algeo, 1990, pp. 445--446). The difference is that the speaker assumes that
the addressee will agree with the statement, so this type of TQ does not seek
information, as shown in (7) where the speaker is teasing. Some responses
listed by Algeo are „of course‟, „yes, certainly‟, „that‟s right‟, or a nod of the
head (p. 446).
Ex7:
Q: You have some pull with the management, do you?
A: [laugh]
Punctuational TQs „„point up what the speaker has said [and] are the vocal
equivalent of an exclamation point or of underlining for emphasis‟‟ (Algeo,
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