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Unlocking the Power of Speech Acts: Semantics Explained Simply

Dive into the world of semantics and speech acts, exploring how utterances can be used to perform actions. Discover the nuances between descriptive fallacy and performative utterances, along with examples of performative verbs in action. Learn to wield the power of words effectively.

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Unlocking the Power of Speech Acts: Semantics Explained Simply

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  1. Topic 8: speech act Introduction to Semantics

  2. How to do things with words • Speech act • We make an utterances to perform actions. • Can we really do things with words?

  3. Act of Assertion • An utterance of a declarative sentence with a commitment to the speaker. • ‘John is doing his homework in the room.’

  4. The descriptive fallacy • The purpose of the utterance is the description of the event, and nothing more. • ‘John is doing his homework in the room.’

  5. A performative utterance • The utterance that perform and describe the act at the same time. • ‘I promise I’ll buy you a cup of coffee tomorrow.’ • Perform an describe • ‘I promised to buy you a cup of coffee tomorrow.’ • Describe but not perform

  6. Performative verbs • Used in a simple positive present tense sentence • 1st person singular subject • I promise… • I sentence you… • I apologize…

  7. Test of performative verbs • I hereby V • I _______ name the ship ‘Elizabeth’. • I _______ warn you not to sleep in class. • I _______ believe that there’s no Santa Claus.

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