SPEECH ACT AND EVENTS

6.1 Speech Acts6.2 IFIDS

6.3 Felicity Conditions6.4 The Performative Hypothesis

6.5 Speech Act Classifications6.6 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

6.7 Speech Events

IntroductionSpeech Situation: at the bus stop Speech event (asking the time)Speaker A: What is the time? (speech act 1) Speaker B: It’s 1 o’clock (speech act 2) Speaker A: Thanks (speech act 3)

• : contexts of language use. e.g: ceremonies, fights, hunts, classrooms, conferences

• : a unified set of components through out: • same purpose of communication• same topic • same participants • same language variety (generally).

E.g: exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches.

• : group of utterances with a single interactional function. E.g: a request, a command, a greeting, a promise, an apology.

• . [1] “You’re fired.” The boss’s utterance in [1]can perform the act of ending your employment. unpleasant[2] You’re so delicious compliment[3] You’re welcome acknowledgment of thanks [4] You’re crazy. expression of surprised

“This tea is really cold!”• On a wintry day complaint• On a hot summer day praise

6.1 Speech Acts• speech acts: actions performed via utterances

A speech act has 3 aspects:o : physical utterance by the speakero : the intended meaning of the utterance by

the speaker (performative) o : the action that results from the locution

• (1983): 3 basic components with the help of which a speech act is formed:

o locutionary act: performing an act of saying somethingo illocutionary act: performing an act in saying somethingo perlocutionary act: performing an act by saying something.

• :communicative force of an utterance that forms a locutionary act

• : effect the speaker wants to exercise over the hearer.

e.g: “I’ve just made some coffee”o illocutionary force: to make statement, an offer, an explanation,

or for some other communicative purposes o perlocutionary effect: to account for a wonderful smell, or to get

the hearer to drink some coffee

e.g: “ I’ll see you later “a. [I predict that] I’ll see you later a predictionb. [I promise you that] I’ll see you later a promisec. [I warn you that] I’ll see you later a warning

Different illocutionary

forces

Speakers can assume that the intended illocutionarry force will be recognized by the hearer by considering:

1.IFIDs2.Felicity conditions

6.2 IFIDSIllocutionary Force Indicating Devices

• IFIDs: are supposed to be elements, or aspects of linguistic devices which indicate either that the utterance is made with a certain illocutionary force, or else that it constitutes the performance of a certain illocutionary act.

• In English, for example,o the interrogative mood: question

A man trying to contact Mary : Can I talk to Mary?Mary’s friend : No, she’s not hereA man trying to contact Mary : I’m asking you- can I talk to her?Mary’s friend : and I’m telling you-SHE’S NOT

HERE!

o the directive mood: a directive illocutionary act (an order, a request, etc.)

e.g You’re going! (I tell you to go)You’re going? (I request confirmantion about you to go)Are you going? (I ask you if you go)

o the words “promise”: a promise.e.g I promise you that I’ll see you later

• Possible IFIDs in English include:

word order, stress, intonation contour, punctuation, the mood of the verb, and performative verbs.

Verb v.s Verb

• Performative utterances: utterances that perform a speech act and explicitly describe the intended speech act

• Contative utterances: utterances that perform a speech act without explicitly describe the intended speech act

• E.g Performative ConstantiveI promise I’ll be there I’ll be thereI admit I was foolish I was foolishI warn you, this gun is loaded this gun is loadedI apologize I’m sorryI thank you I’m very gratefulI order you to sit down You must sit down

• Performative verbs: the underlined words• a performative, unlike a constative, cannot be true or false

constative (it can only be felicitous or infelicitous)• from the grammatical point of view, a performative:

- first person - active sentence in the simple present tense- a hereby test since performative verbs only can collocate with

this adverb.

While the first sentence would make sense under specific conditions,uttering of the second would be rather strange. From this it follows that (1a) is a performative, (1b) is not.

• Felicity conditions: expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of a speech act to be recognized as intended.

• The performance will be infelicitous (inappropriate)if the speaker is not a specific person in a special context (in this case, a judge in a courtroom).

6.3 Felicity Conditions

• Yule (1996:50) proposes further classification of felicity conditions into five classes:o general conditions: presuppose the participants’ knowledge of

the language being used and his non- playactingo content conditions: the appropriate content of an utteranceo preparatory conditions: differences of various illocutionary acts o sincerity conditions: speaker’s intention to carry out a certain act o essential conditions.: combine with a specification of what must

be in the utterance content, the context, and the speaker’s intentions, in order for a specific act to be appropriately (felicitously) performed

• E.g promise and warningo General conditions: they understand the languageo Content conditions: the content of utterance about future events

• E.g promise and warningo General conditions: they understand the languageo Content conditions: the content of utterance about future eventso Preparatory conditions:Promise: 1. the event’ll not happen by itself

2. It’ll have beneficial effect Warning: 1.the hearer know the event’ll happen

2.The speaker think the event’ll happen3. No beneficial effect

o Sincerity conditions:Promise: the speaker’ll do the future actionWarning: the future event won,t have beneficial effecto Essential conditions:Promise: change the state from non-obligation to obligationWarning: change the state from non-informing of a bad future event to informing

6.4 The Performative Hypothesis• Performative hypothesis: speech act that is peformed via uttrance

is to assume that underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause, containing a performative verb (Vp which makes the illocutionary force explicit)

Explicit and Implicit Performative• Having defined performatives, Austin draws a basic distinction

between them.• He distinguishes two general groups - explicit and implicit

performatives• E.g:• X

• X

• The effect of performative hypothesis-Explicit performative has serious impact than the implicit one

• It’s not sure the number of performative verbs

6.5 Speech act classification• Declaration: speech acts that change the world via utterance• E.g

• Representative: speech acts that state what the speaker believe to be the case or not

• E.g

• Expressive: speech acts that state what the speaker feel• E.g

• Directives: speech acts that speakers use to get someone to do something

• E.g

• Commisive: speech acts that speakers commit themselves to some future actions

• E.g

6.6 Direct and indirect speech acts• Types of speech acts that can be made on the basis of structure:

• Declarative : You wear a seat belt.• Interrogative: Do you wear a seat belt?• Imperative: Wear a seat belt!

• Direct speech act:Direct relationship between a structure and a function

• Indirect speech act:indirect relationship between a structure and a function

• E.gI hereby tell you about the weather (direct speech act)I hereby request of you that you close the door (indirect speech act)

• Indirect speech acts are associated with politeness

6.7 Speech events• Speech events: an activity in which participants interact via

language in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome

A “requesting” speech event

• The analysis of speech events is clearly another way of studying how more gets than communicated than is said