Speech acts theory

By:
Sept/ 316
inMarie
semantics

Contents
1

Introduction

Austins speech act theory

Direct & indirect speech act

Politeness in speech act

Politeness in speech act

Introduction
Learning to communicate in a language
involves more than acquiring the pronunciation and
grammar.
We need to learn how to ask question, make
0
suggestion, greet and thank other speakers.
In other words we need to learn the uses to which
utterances are conventionally put in the new
language community and how these uses are
signaled.
The terminology of such function of language is
called speech acts (J.L. Austin,1975).
Communication function rely on the knowledge
of social convention &specific knowledge of local
context of utterance
( Saed, 2003:220).

Characteristics of speech acts

In discussing speech acts we are examining the union of linguistic and social
behavior.
There are two important characteristics of speech acts:

Characteristics of speech acts

Whether there is a match between a grammar form of speech function we
can identify a sentence type. Saed sets differences between the two as
below:

Austin speech act theory

Austins work in many respects a reaction to some traditional and influential
attitudes to language. The attitudes can be said to involve three related
assumptions as follows:

Austin speech act theory

Although some of these assumptions are discernible in recent formal approaches
to semantics, they are associated with the philosophers known as logical
positivists, a term originally applied to the mathematicians and philosophers
of the Vienna Circle;
in terms of how far the meaning of a sentence is reducible to its verifiability, i.e. the
extent to which, and by which, it can be shown to be true or false.
Austins opposition to these views is:

Austin speech act theory

Performative utterances: are sentences that they were in themselves a kind of
action, they perform the action named by the first verb rather than describing it in the
sentence, and we can insert the adverb hereby to stress this function,
e.g. I hereby request that you leave my properly.
We can contrast performative and non-performative verbs by:
A speaker
would not,
expect the
uttering a
sentence to
constitute the
action
e.g. I cook this cake.
?hereby cook this cake.

They describe
actions
independent of
the linguistic
act.

Evaluating performative
utterances
o It is not useful to ask if a perfromative utterance is true or false, just if they work or
not. They have to be felicitous, felicity requires satisfying social conventions.
Austin named these conditions as felicity conditions are either formal or informal.
o Austin (1975:25-38). Wrote a general schema:

Explicit & implicit performatives

They tend to begin with a first person
An utterances ability to be expanded
verb in a form
to an explicit performative that
This verb belongs to a special class
identified it as a performative
describing verbal activities
utterance
Generally their performative nature
the mood of the verb, auxiliary verbs,
can be emphasized by in
intonation, etc.
asserting the adverb hereby.
It focuses attention on the task
explicit performatives are
of classifying the performative verbs of
seen as merely a specialized subset of
a language
performatives whose nature as speech
(Austin 1975: 5393)
acts is more unambiguous than most.
a. You are (hereby) charged with treason.
b. Passengers are requested to avoid
jumping out of the
c. Five pounds says he doesnt make the
semi-final.
D. Come out, and see me sometime.

a. I (hereby) charge you with treason.

b. We request that passengers avoid
jumping out of the aircraft.
c. I bet you five pounds that he doesnt
make the semi-final.
d. I invite you to come up and see me
sometime.

Statements as performatives
Austins original position was that performatives (stating) subject to felicity
conditions, are to be contrasted with declarative sentences (constatives)
which are potentially true or false descriptions of situations
(Schiffrin,1994: 504).
In simple terms, Austin argued that there is no theoretically sound way to
distinguish between performatives and constatives.
E.g. The king of France is bald.
All utterances constitute speech acts of one kind or another. For some
the type of act is explicitly marked by their containing a verb labeling an
act.
Some speech acts are so universal and fundamental that their
grammaticalization is the profound one of the distinction into sentence
types.Sentence is a basic marker of primary performative types.
This conclusion that all utterances have a speech act force has led to a
widespread view that there are two basic parts to meaning: the
conventional caning of the sentence (often described as a proposition)
and the speakers tended speech act.(Sadock and Zwicky , l985: 160).

Three facets of speech act

Kreidler (1998) concludes that what is said - the utterance, can be called the
locution. What the speaker intends to communicate to the addressee is the
illocution. The message that the addressee gets, his interpretation of what
the speaker says, is the perlocution. If communication is successful, the
illocution and the perlocution are alike or nearly alike.

Categorizing speech act

o J. R. Searle (1976: 1016) proposed that all acts fall into five main
types:
1) REPRESENTATIVES, which commit the speaker to the truth of the
expressed proposition (paradigm cases: asserting, concluding);
2) DIRECTIVES, which are attempts by the speaker to get the address
see to do something (paradigm cases: requesting, questioning);
3) COMMISSIVES, which commit the speaker to some future course
of action (paradigm cases: promising, threatening, offering);
4) EXPRESSIVES, which express a psychological state (paradigm cases:
thanking, apologizing, welcoming, congratulating);
5) DECLARATIOIS, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state of
affairs and which tend to rely on elaborate extra linguistic institutions (paradigm
cases: excommunicating, declaring war, christening, marrying, firing from
employment).
o Searle uses a mix of criteria to establish these different typesincluding the
acts illocutionary point;
fit with the
world

the psychological
state of the speaker

the content of the

act

Categorizing speech act

The first step was to point out that in some cases the same Kreidler (1998:183)
presents different categorization
1. Assertive utterence: states that in the assertive function speakers and
writers use language to tell what they know or believe; assertive language is
concerned with facts. The purpose is to inform. Its devided into two, there are
direct and indirect assertive. Direct assertive utterance start with I or we and
an assertive verb. Indirect assertive utterances also include assertive verbs.
Assertive verb include allege, announce, agree, report, remind, predict,
protest.
2. Performative utterance: Speech acts that bring about the state of affairs
they name are called performative. Performative utterances are valid if spoken
by someone whose right to make them is accepted and in circumstances
which are accepted as appropriate. The verbs include bet, declare, baptize,
name, nominate, pronounce.
thesubjec
t of the
sentence

Speaker
authority
and
circumsta
nces

the verb
must bein
the
present
tense

Categorizing speech act

3. Veridictive utterances: are speech acts in which the speaker makes an
assessment or judgment about the acts of another, usually the addressee.
These include ranking, assessing, appraising, condoning.
4. Expressive utterance: springs from the previous actionsor failure to actof
the speaker, or perhaps the present result of those actions or failures.
Expressive utterances are thus retrospective and speaker-involved. The most
common expressive verbs (in this sense of expressive) are: acknowledge,
admit, confess, deny, apologize.
5. Directive Utterance:Directive utterances are those in which the speaker tries
to get the addressee to perform some act or refrain from performing an act. Thus
a directive utterance has the pronoun you as actor, whether that word is actually
present in the utterance or not.
one cannot tell other people to do something in the past. Like other kinds of
utterances, a directive utterance presupposes certain conditions in the
addressee and in the context of situation.
Three kinds of directive utterances can be recognized:
commands, requests and suggestions.

Categorizing speech act

6. Commisive Utterance: Speech acts that commit a speaker to a
course of action are calledcommissive utterances. These include
promises, pledges, threatsand vows.Commissive verbs are
illustrated byagree, ask, offer, refuse,swear,all with following
infinitives. They are prospective and concernedwith the speakers
commitment to future action.
A commissive predicate is one that can be used to commit oneself(or
refuse to commitoneself) to some future action. The subject ofthe
sentence is therefore most likely to beIorwe.Further, the verb
must be in the present tense and there is some addressee, whether
the utterance shows it or not, since the speaker must bemaking a
commitment to somebody.
7.Phatic utterance: Phatic utteranceisto establish rapport
between members of the same society. Phatic language has a less
obvious function than the six types discussedabove but it is no less
important. Phatic utterances include greetings,farewells, polite
formulas such as Thankyou, Youre welcome,Excuse me when
these are not really verdictive or expressive.

Felicity conditions
Searl developed felicity conditions for an act which are Preparatory, Propositional,
Sincerity& Essential:
Conditions for promising (Searle 1969: 62ff.)
[where S = speaker, H = hearer, A = the future
action, P the
proposition expressed in the speech act, e = the
linguistic expression]

Conditions for questioning (Searle 1969: 66)

[where S = speaker, H hearer, P = the proposition
expressed in
the speech act]
L=J

a. Preparatory 1: H would prefer Ss doing A to his not

a. Preparatory 1: S does not know the answer, i.e. for a

yes/no
question, does not know whether P is true or false; for an
elicit
ative or WH-question, does-not know the missing
information.
b. Preparatory 2: It is not obvious to both S and H that H
will
provide the information at that time without being asked.
c. Propositional: Any proposition or propositional
function.
d. Sincerity: S wants this information.
e. Essential: The act counts as an attempt to elicit this
information from H.
These questions only belong to prototypical, they
cannot apply to theoretical questions nor to the
questions of a teacher.
Propositional condition say that there are no semantic
restrictions on the content of question of speech act.
There is linguistic marking supported by contextual
information of correlation between form and function.

doing A
and S believes H would prefer Ss doing A to not doing A.
b. Preparatory 2: It is not obvious to both S and H that S
will do
A in the normal course of events.
c. Propositional: In expressing that P, S predicates a
future act A
of S.
d. Sincerity: S intends to do A.
e. Essential: the utterance e counts as an undertaking to
do A.
One normally does not promise what would happen.
Proposition is something of the speaker that has already

Indirect speech act

The conventionally expected function is known as the direct speech act
(interrogative )and the extra actual function is termed the indirect speech act
(questioning).
According to Searl (1975) whether the hearers are only conscious of indirect
or whether they have both available to choose the indirect as most
contextually apt. He answers by saying that speaker have access to both
literal (direct and nonliteral(non-direct)use of speech acts
E.g. can you pass the salt?
Please pass the salt.
When one of these sentences is uttered with primary locutionary point of a
directive, the literal illocutionary act is also formed (1975:70)
Searl relies on system of felicity conditions in working literal but not all nonliteral acts.
Searl argues that other sentence can only work when they address the
conditions for request. Indirect speech act work because they are
systematically related to the structure of the associated direct act , they are
tied to one or another of the acts felicity conditions.

Understanding indirect speech

act
Searl states that to understand indirect speech act we combine our
knowledge of three elements to support a chain of inference
There is a certain degree of conventionality in using forms like can you, or
conversational postulates :shortcuts employed by speakers,
they are often used when the speaker is encouraged
to search for an indirect speech act.
They reduce the amount of speech involved in tracing the
indirect act.
The postulated can be seen as reflection of conventionally
of some indirect actsIndirect speech act involve postulation,
there is a view that they are idioms involving no inference.
This view is cut by common-sense that hearers decide
to be uncooperative , there is also a psychological
evidence that hearers have access to direct act in indirect
requests which proves that direct speech acts are
understood more quickly and that hearers seem
to have access to the literal meaning of indirect
acts.
They suggested that literal meaning of indirect act is important in politeness

The concept of politeness

Searl since conversational requirements of politeness normally
make it awkward to issue flat impressive statement, we seek
indirect act to illocutionary end. In indirective, politeness is main
motivation for indirectness
Speaker conclude social power of politeness in framing speech acts
. Indirect interrogative requests are useful because they permit
participants to explicitly state some condition which make
compliance impossible
Politeness is often associated with the concept of face.
Goffman(1967) face concept is ones social image an individual
seek to projects. While brown &levin (1978:66) claim that face is
the public face image every member want to claim
Positive face express individual desire to seem worthy and
deserving for approval. While negative face represent an
individuals desire to be autonomous , unimpeded by others .
Mutual interest requires participants maintain their face (in this
view many verbal interactions are potential threat to face).

The concept of politeness

Sentence type
Sentence type is a conversational matching between grammatical form and
speech act, Some languages has a question contrast with declarative speech
act. Saed (2003:237) introduce the idea of classifiers that marks the
distinction between different verbal inflections for person etc.
The problem with marking by special words can be used for a variety of
semantic distinctions. Sadock and Zwicky(1985:167) suggested some rule
thumb for identifying sentences:

References:

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Kreidler, C. W. (1998). Introducing English semantics. London: Routledge
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University Press.
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2nd edition. Cambridge university press.
Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse. Oxford:Blackwell.
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Questions?