SPEECH ACTS

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SPEECH ACTS

• by Don L. F. Nilsen

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CONDITIONS ON PERFORMATIVES

• Subject must be 1st person.
• Verb must be active.
• Verb must be non-durative.
• Adverb must be hereby.
• Sentence must be positive, not negative.
• Sentence must be Imperative or Declarative.
• Verb must perform the act.
• Must meet felicity conditions (authority, etc.)
• Must meet sincerity conditions (not a joke, etc.)
• Can be larger than a sentence (e.g. The
  Declaration of Independence)
• (Mey 107ff)

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CONTEXT OF SPEECH ACTS

• There is a policeman at the corner.
• This could be a warning, an assurance, a dare, a
  hint, or a reminder to go and take your car out
  of the handicapped space you are parked in.

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• I promise Ill be there tomorrow.
• This could be a threat or a promise, depending on
  whether his presence tomorrow is a disadvantage
  or an advantage to the listener. Contrast the
  sentence above with
• If you dont behave, I promise you theres going
  to be trouble. This sentence says its a
  promise, but its a threat.
• (Searle Speech Acts 58)

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• When he was campaigning, Clinton said he would
  not turn away any Haitian refugees.
• When he became President, Clinton turned away
  Haitian refugees.
• Clinton said that the conditions had changed.
• Based on this, Daniel Schorr on National Public
  Radio said, Campaigning is not the same as
  governing, because the conditions are not the
  same.
• (Mey 127)

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FELICITY CONDITIONS

• Authority
• Person
• Place
• Time
• Manner
• Sincerity
• Verbal Sincerity
• Intonational Sincerity
• Behavioral Sincerity

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INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

• Could you move over a bit?
• Yes (without moving is inappropriate)
• Moving (without Yes is appropriate)
• NOTE Could you move over a bit is a
  precondition to the actual speech act, Move
  over.
• (Mey 111)

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• Do you know what time it is?
• Do you have the correct time?
• Can you tell me how to get to the mens room?
• Do you see the salt anywhere?
• Its cold in here.
• Isnt this soup rather bland?
• Why cant you shut up?
• NOTE These are preconditions
• (Mey 126-127, 135)

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• I strongly suggest you shut your mouth.
• Sometimes its a good idea to shut up.
• I wonder if you really should do all that
  talking.
• I wouldnt say more, if I were you.
• Remember the proverb, Speech is silver.?
• How about if you just shut up?
• (Mey 136)

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• DURING A JOB INTERVIEW
• Would you like to tell us, Mr. Khan, why youve
  applied to Middleton College?
• This is known as fishing for compliments.
• (Mey 213)

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IRONIC SPEECH ACTS

• I promise not to keep this promise.
• Do not read this sign.
• You did a great job, and Im not being polite.
• (Mey 129, 177)
• George Lakoff wrote a book entitled, Dont Think
  of an Elephant.

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LUMPERS AND SPLITTERS

• Splitters feel that there are many different
  types of speech acts. Verschueren says that some
  splitters have as many as five hundred or six
  hundred different types of speech acts.
• (Verschueren 10)
• Searle is a lumper. He has only five classes of
  Speech Acts Representatives, Directives,
  Commissives, Expressives and Declarations.
• (Searle 1979)
• We could lump all of these into a single class
  Performatives.

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MARKEDNESS OF SPEECH ACTS

• I beg your excellency to please accept these keys
  to the city as a token of our humble submission
  to your excellency (to commander of enemy troops
  who have captured a city)
• I (hereby) promise to set fire to your house.
• I (hereby) warn you that you will be awarded the
  Nobel Prize.
• I (hereby) warn you that your lawn will turn
  brown in November.
• Under penalty of law, do not remove this tag.
• (Mey 130-131)

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SILENCE AS A SPEECH ACT

• In Mexico in the old days, the Federales would
  pull a person over and ask to see their drivers
  license.
• Before handing over the drivers license the
  driver would attach a 20 bill onto the back of
  the license.
• Nothing was said by either party. Was this,
  therefore, a bribe, or not?
• (Mey 211)

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• MOTHER (Calling out the window to child in yard)
  Joshua, what are you doing?
• JOSHUA Nothing
• MOTHER WILL YOU STOP IT IMMEDIATELY!

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• What I like best is doing nothing. Its when
  people call out at you just as youre going off
  to do it. What are you going to do, Christopher
  Robin? and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you
  go and do it.
• (Milne, The House on Pooh Corner Chapter 10)

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• STUDENT I was going to talk to you about my
  term paper, if its all right.
• PROFESSOR SILENCE
• STUDENT When do you think youll have it marked
  then?
• PROFESSOR Miriam, I hope you brought the book.
• MIRIAM SILENCE
• PROFESSOR Okay, but please remember it next
  time.
• (Blum-Kulka 176)

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SPEECH ACT FORCE

• Locutionary Force (what is said)
• Illocutionary Force (what is done)
• Perlocutionary Force (the effect)

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TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 1

• Commissives (Affect Speaker, Subjective)
• TYPES Oath, Offer, Promise
• Declaratives (Change the Macrocosmic Social
  World)
• TYPES Baptism, Marriage
• Directives (Change the Microcosmic Social World)
• TYPES Command, Request
• Expressives (Feelings of Speaker)
• TYPES Apology, Thanks
• (Mey 120, Searle 1977, 34)

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TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 2

• Interrogatives (Hearer Knows Best)
• TYPES Closed (yes-no), Loaded, Open
• Imperatives (Directives) (Affect Hearer)
• TYPES Request, Requirement, Threat, Warning
• Performatives (Affect world)
• TYPES Agreement, Appointment, Baptism,
  Declaration of Independence, Dedication, Marriage
• Representatives (Objective Descriptive
  Statements)
• TYPES Statement that is either True or False

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UPTAKE

• Some speech acts like betting and thanking need
  an uptake from the listener. Consider the
  following
• BAR-LEV Sir, I want to thank you for your
  cooperation and I want to thank you very much.
• IDI AMIN You know I did not succeed.

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• !BAR-LEV I have been requested by a friend with
  good connections in the government to thank you
  for your cooperation. I dont know what was
  meant by it, but I think you do know.
• IDI AMIN I dont know because Ive only now
  returned hurriedly from Mauritius

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!!CONTEXT OF BAR-LEV CONVERSATION WITH IDI AMIN

• Bar-Lev is an Israeli colonel
• Idi Amin is the President of Uganda
• Israeli paratroopers have entered Uganda without
  permission
• Idi Amin heard that this was planned and left for
  Mauritius
• Therefore if Idi Amin accepts the thanks, it
  means he agrees with the paratrooper drop. Since
  he was not in the country, he cant be held
  responsible.
• (Mey 282-283)

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!!!CONCLUSION

• The chief beadle In Dutch universities knows when
  doctoral defenses begin.
• After the defense has been in progress for 45
  minutes, he ceremoniously enters the defense
  stamps his staff on the floor, and proclaims in
  Latin Hora est. (Time is up!).
• (Verschueren 93)

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• References 1
• Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words.
  Oxford, England Oxford University Press, 1962.
• Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House and Gabriele
  Kasper eds. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests
  and Apologies. Norwood, NJ Ablex, 1989.
• Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark.
  Language Awareness. Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.
• Mey, Jacob L., ed. Concise Encyclopedia of
  Pragmatics. Oxford, England Elsevier
  Science/Pergamon, 1998.
• Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics An Introduction, 2nd
  Edition. Oxford, England, 2001.

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• References 2
• Mey, Jacob L. When Voices Clash A Study in
  Literary Pragmatics. Berlin, Germany Mouton de
  Gruyter, 1999.
• Mey, Jacob L. Whose Language? A Study in
  Linguistic Pragmatics. Philadelphia, PA
  Benjamins, 1985.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 2000.
• Raskin, Victor. The Primer of Humor Research. New
  York, NY Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
• Schiffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse.
  Cambridge, MA Blackwell, 1994, pp. 49-96.

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• References 3
• Searle, John R. A Classification of Illocutionary
  Acts. In Proceedings of the Texas Conference on
  Performatives, Presuppositions, and Implicatures.
  Eds. Andy Rogers, Bob Wall and John P. Murphy,
  Washington, DC Center for Applied Linguistics,
  1977, 27-45.
• Searle, John R. The Classification of
  Illocutionary Acts. Language in Society 8
  (1979) 137-151.
• Searle, John R. "Indirect Speech Acts." Syntax
  and Semantics III Speech Acts. New York, NY
  Academic Press, 1975, 59-82.
• Searle, John R. Speech Acts An Essay in the
  Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, England
  Cambridge University Press, 1969.
• Verschueren, Jef. Understanding Pragmatics.
  London, England Arnold, 1999.