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Speech acts and events
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Ctions performed To express themselves, people do not only produce utterances, they perform actions via those Utterances, such as compliment in [2a], acknow- Ledgement of thanks in [2b] and surprise in [2c]. [2] a. You’re so delicious. b. You’re welcome. c. You’re crazy. Actions performed via utterances are called speech acts. Different kinds of speech acts apply to the speaker’s communicative intention.
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Ctions performed The circumstances surrounding the utterance are called speech event. Types of speech acts 1- locutionary act: It is the act of uttering or producing a meaningful Linguistic expression. 2- illocutionary act: It is the communicative purpose of an utterance. It is known as illocutionary force. 3- perlocutionary act: It is the effect of an utterance on the hearer. It is known as perlocutionary effect.
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Ctions performed Q. How can speakers assume that the intended illocutionary force will be recognized by the hearers? A.By two things: illocutionary force indicating devices and felicity conditions. IFIDs It is an expression where there is a slot for a verb that explicitly names the illocutionary act being performed. Such a verb can be called performative verb (Vp). [6] I (Vp) that ….. The (Vp) can be ‘promise’, ‘warn’ etc.
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Ctions performed Other IFIDs which can be identified are word order, stress and intonation, as in [8]. [ 8] a. You’re going! [I tell you Y-G] b. You’re going? [I request confirmation about Y-G] c. Are you going? [I ask you if Y-G] Felicity conditions are appropriate circumstances for the performance for a speech act to be recognized as intended. For example, the performance of [9] will be infelicitous (inappropriate) if the speaker is not a specific person in a special context (a judge in a courtroom) [9] I sentence you to six months in prison.
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Felicity Conditions General Conditions. Participants can understand the language being used. They are not play-acting or being nonsensical
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Content Conditions For both a promise and a warning, the content of the utterance must be about a future event Preparatory Conditions. When I promise to do something: The event will not happen by itself The event will have a beneficial effect
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Sencerity Conditions For a promise, the speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future action For a warning, the speaker genuinely believes that the future event will not have a beneficial effect.
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Essential Conditions By the act of uttering a promise I intend to create the obligation to carry out the action as promised. The utterance changes my state from non- obligation to obligation.
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Ctions performed There are preconditions on speech acts. 1-The general conditions 2-The content conditions 3-The preparatory conditions 4-The sincerity conditions 5-The essential conditions (cf. pp.50-51) The performative hypothesis It assumes that underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary force explicit. [10] I (hereby) Vp you (that) U
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Ctions performed [11] a. Clean up this mess! (implicit performative) b. I hereby order you that you clean up this mess! (explicit performative) The advantages - It makes clear just what elements are involved in the production and interpretation of utterances. - It shows that some adverbs (honestly) or adverbial clauses (because I may be late) naturally attach to the explicit performative clause rather than the implicit version.
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Ctions performed The disadvantages - uttering the explicit performative has a much more serious impact than the implicit version. - It is difficult to know exactly what the performative verb might be for some utterances. (p.52) Speech act classification There are five types of general functions performed by speech acts. 1- Declarations are those which change the world via their utterance. [15] a. Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
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Ctions performed 2- Representatives are those which state what the speaker believes to be the case or not, such as statements of fact, assertions, conclusions and descriptions. [16] a. The earth is flat. b. It was a warm sunny day. 3- Expressives are those which state what the speaker feels. [17] a. I’m really sorry. b. Congratulations!
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Ctions performed 4- Directives are those which speakers use to get someone else to do something, such as commands, orders, requests and suggestions. [18] a. Gimme a cup of coffee. b. Could you lend me a pen, please? c. Don’t touch that. 5- commissives are those which speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. [19] a. I’ll be back. b. I’m going to get it right next time.
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Ctions performed Direct and indirect speech acts Types of speech acts can be made on the basis of structure: declarative, interrogative and imperative. Their related communicative functions are statement, question and command/request. [20] a. You wear a seat belt. b. Do you wear a seat belt? c. Wear a seat belt! Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever we have an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act.
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Ctions performed Thus, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act. [21] a. It’s cold outside. * The same applies to the other structures. [23] a. Could you pass the salt? b. Would you open this? * * * * * * * * *
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