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) • 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 addressees- 1) Subordinates - I need the file on the international language conference. (Personal need/desire statement) 2) Familiar equals - Give me the file…………………………..…. . (Imperative) 3) Unfamiliar people - Could you give me the file…………….… ? (Embedded imperative) 4) Obstacle to compliance - Do you have/ May I have………… ..? ( Permissive directive) 5) 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 • Statements of emotions • I’m so dissapointed. • What a great day! • Exercise-page 130 Qs. 1

Speech Acts and Speech Events