Speech Acts and Speech Events

1
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 speakers
  intent and meaning may not be similar.
• eg Its rather warm in here, isnt 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.

2

• 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.)
• .

3
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

4
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

5
Searles (1969, 1976)

• Directives
• Commissives
• Representatives
• Declaratives
• Expressives

6
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)

7
Group Discussion

• Hatch, p. 123 Qs. 3
• Hatch p. 124 Qs. 5

8
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?

9
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

10
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

11
Expressives

• Statements of emotions
• Im so dissapointed.
• What a great day!
• Exercise-page 130 Qs. 1