Transcript Speech Acts and Speech Events

Speech Acts and Speech Events
• Austin (1962) and Searle (1969)-it is possible to classify
utterances into very small set of functions.
• We ought to assign functions to utterances
• Problem of assigning functions is that speaker’s intent
and meaning may not be similar.
eg: It’s rather warm in here, isn’t it?
Possible intent? i) An ice-breaker
ii) A request
• No utterances is context-free in meaning and function.
eg: Since he always deceive us in many ways than one,
I always smell something fishy whenever he tries to be
nice to us.
• P. F. Strawson and John R. Searle, "speech act"
is often meant to refer just to the same thing as
the term illocutionary act, which John L. Austin
had originally introduced
• According to Austin “illocutionary act" can be
captured by emphasizing that "by saying
something, we do something", as when a
minister joins two people in marriage saying, "I
now pronounce you husband and wife." (Austin
would eventually define the "illocutionary act" in
a more exact manner.)
• .
Examples
• Greeting (in saying, "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing
("Sorry for that!"), describing something ("It is snowing"),
asking a question ("Is it snowing?"), making a request
and giving an order ("Could you pass the salt?" and
"Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a
promise ("I promise I'll give it back") are typical examples
of "speech acts" or "illocutionary acts".
• In saying, "Watch out, the ground is slippery", Peter
performs the speech act of warning Mary to be careful.
• In saying, "I will try my best to be at home for dinner",
Peter performs the speech act of promising to be at
home in time.
• In saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your
attention, please?", Peter requests the audience to be
quiet.
• In saying, "Can you race with me to that building over
there?", Peter challenges Mary
In language development
• Dore (1975) stated that children's utterances were
realizations of one of nine primitive speech acts:
• labelling
• repeating
• answering
• requesting (action)
• requesting (answer)
• calling
• greeting
• protesting
• practicing
Searle’s (1969, 1976)
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Directives
Commissives
Representatives
Declaratives
Expressives
Directives
• Syntactic form alone does not tell us how to interpret the speakers’
intent.
eg. How many times do I have to tell you?
* Five times.
• Directives can be classified into 5 types, depending n the
relationships of speaker and addressees1) Subordinates - I need the file on the international language
2)
3)
4)
5)
conference. (Personal need/desire statement)
Familiar equals - Give me the file…………………………..…. .
(Imperative)
Unfamiliar people - Could you give me the file…………….… ?
(Embedded imperative)
Obstacle to compliance - Do you have/ May I have………… ..?
( Permissive directive)
People w/ shared rules like family - This has to be done over. What
about the file…..?
(Hint-w/ humor)
Group Discussion
• Hatch, p. 123 Qs. 3
• Hatch p. 124 Qs. 5
Commissives
• Statements that function as promises or refusals
for actions.
• May be strong (highly hedged) in positive or
negative directions
• Eg. Maybe I can do that tomorrow
I already gave the assignment to the office
• This form vary acc.- social relationships, status,
situations and gender.
• Women are commonly thought to use more
commissives than men.
• Why?
Representatives
• Can be judged as truth value
• Avoiding weasel words (temper directness
of statement) with hedges (soften claims
or statement)
• Examples• “Maybe she just feels kinda blue”.
• Refer to page 127
Declaratives
• Austin calls it performatives
• When this act is performed it becomes a
new state of being
• Example- “class dismissed”
• “ I pronounce you man and wife”
• Exercise page 129 Qs. 1
Expressives
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Statements of emotions
I’m so dissapointed.
What a great day!
Exercise-page 130 Qs. 1