Speech Acts II

1. Speech Acts II Week 7 Language in Context

2. A: I don’t want to bother you, but could you please have a look at my dress? B: I have to finish this assignment right now. A: I’m not threatening you, but if you don’t look at me right now then I will ----. B: Oh, No. I do not understand what it means over here. A: Oh no Drink this !!! B: Oh no!!!!! ________________.

3. 5.3 Speech act verbs

4. 5.3.1 The number of speech acts Speech act verbs (SAV) somehow or other seem to be the natural way of expressing a particular speech act. Traditional syntactic classification: indicative, subjunctive, imperative, optative Semantic distinctions: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations.

5. Syntactic classification

6. The optative mood • that indicates a wish or hope. It is closely related to the subjunctive mood. • In English, the optative is ordinarily expressed by the use of a modal verb (e.g. "May you have a long life!"). The verb to be is a special case in that the optative can be expressed by a subjunctive form (e.g. "If only I were rich!"), although it is frequently abandoned in informal usage.

7. the subjunctive mood (abbreviatedSJV or SBJV) • is a verbmood typically used in subordinate clauses to express a wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred. It is sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood, as it often follows a conjunction

8. subordinate clauses • Wherevershegoes, she leaves a piece of luggage behind. • (The adverbial clause wherever she goes modifies the verbleaves.) • Bob enjoyed the movie more thanI did. • (The adverbial clause than I did modifies the adverb more.)

9. 5.3.2 speech acts, speech act verbs and performativity

10. verbs Verb: a number of languages associate some kind of activity Austin • SAV in working environment: to baptize, to invest, to dub, to sentence, denoting, performatives • SAV in situation: not to produce true or false statements about those situations: constatives,.

11. Working verbs: Speech Act Verbs • Denoting, performatives

12. Asymmetry in SAVS vs SAs • Not all SAs are represented by a specific SAV • Ordering by: Indirect ways: It is hot in here. Babies are sleeping. Direct ways: I order you to shut the door Shut the door. You will shut the door

13. 2. Not every SA has a corresponding, custom-made SAV of its own.  To act of pronouncing a jury’s finding is called ‘to render a verdict’’. Verdict is not SAV • I promise to come.  leads an action of coming. • I promised to come. explicit performative is absent. • He promised to come.  some one’s SA not mine. One cannot perform an SA without having an explicit performative at one’s disposal.

14. No explicit performative at one’s disposal there is no SAVs? • I believe in god. act of faith (o) • I believe that the Earth is flat. belief and opinion. (X) To announce, to declare, to inquire : are all these always performative? • I hereby declare this bridge to be opened. • He declared himself to be innocent/that he was innocent/his innocence. • I hereby love you. • I hereby know that the Earth is flat. • I hereby declare my innocence. Is the typical SAV ‘hereby’ exclusively of performativity?

15. Denying SAV? I don’t want to bother you, but could you please have a look at my program? I’m not threatening you, but if I ever see your face again around these parts… We may conclude that performativity is a property that is not specifically bound up with SAVs;

16. 5.3.3 speech acts without SAVs

17. Performativity is all over the verbal spectrum • We do not need a SAV to perform a SA. (Example?) • Often we cannot perform the very SA that is officially expressed by the verb. • Speech Act Formulae (SAF; Verschueren, 1979)  verbal expressions that in all respects behave like SAV, stylistic or other variations on a common semantic theme. • I want to express my gratitude for your valuable assistance • I want to thank you for your help.

18. 2. It has to do with verbless expressions of the kind ‘Thanks’.  no verb but it has its own performativity. So it seems clear, SA and SVAs only make sense when used in their proper contexts. SAV or SAF does not always and necessarily tell the truth about what it is doing. SAVs or SAFs may substitute for one another,. Speech acts may be used in ways that have nothing, or not much to do with what they really stand for.  Indirect speech acts.

19. Example 1

20. A: I don’t want to bother you, but could you please have a look at my dress? B: I have to finish this assignment right now. A: I’m not threatening you, but if you don’t look at me right now then I will ----. B: Oh, No. I do not understand what it means over here. A: Oh no Drink this !!! B: Oh no!!!!! ________________.

21. 5.4 Indirect speech acts. 5.4.1 recognizing indirect speech acts

22. Indirect speech acts • Could you move over a bit? • Without an intention that this sentence would gain an answer  but it is answered either verbally or by reaction indirect SA. • Let’s go to the movies tonight. • I have to study for an exam. No sign of using negation or rejections. We use indirect SAV more than direct. Since these are proper in their proper contextual afforcances, as pragmatic acts.

23. 5.4.2 the ten steps of Searle. • Primary illocutionary acts. • Secondary one How does the listener understand the nonliteral primary illocutionary act from understanding the literal secondary illocutionary act? Ex) Well It’s bit chilly outside.

24. Locutionary aspect it’s cold in here.’‘ Illocutionary ‘force’ or ‘point’ (Intension) Intimately related to the very form the utterance may have: stating, wishing, promising etc.  non predictable. Perllocutionary effect The person I’m addressing closes the door, or turns on the radiator, Such further effects depend, of course, on the particular circumstances of the utterance, and are by no means always predictable.

25. Cooperative principle: communication requires people to cooperate: the bare facts of conversation come alive only in a mutually accepted, pragmatically determined context.

26. Cooperative principle The maxim of quantity. • Make your contribution as informative as required. • Do not make your contribution more informative than required. the maxim of quality • Do not say what you believe to be false; • Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. The maxim of relation: Make your contribution relevant. The maxim of manner: Be perspicuous, and specifically; • Avoid obscurity • Avoid ambiquity • Be brief • Be orderly.

27. Task 1 • Select one step and explain • Make or find one dialogue or sentence to explain.

28. 5.4.3 The pragmatic view

29. Linguistic construction of social facts Speak not only of the social construction of reality but of the linguistic construction of social facts: Language of the law, legal language, the language of the church, or religious language, the language of institutionalized aggression, or military language; and so on.

30. 5.5 Classifying speech acts.5.5.1 the illocutionary verb fallacy. Illocutionary point (the force of the speech act in Austin’s terminology) Direction of fit (the way the speech act fits the world, and/or the world the speech act) Expressed psychological state (of the speaker: a ‘belief’ may be expressed as a statement, an assertrion, a remark etc) Content (what the speech act is ‘about’: e.g., a ‘promise’ to attend the party has the same content as a refusal’ and so on) Reference (to both speaker and hearers) Contextual conditions of speech acting, that is, the societal framework in which a speech act has to be performed in order to be valid. Representatives Directives Commissives Expressives Declarations.

31. Representatives Assertions about a state of affairs in the world, and thus carry the values true or false. This is their point as to fit, they should, of course, match the world in order to be true. People cannot have a sex before marriage. I am really angry at your laziness and irresponsible manner as a man in a family.

32. Directives An effort on the part of the speaker to get the hearer to do something, to ‘direct’ him or her towards some goal. This is their illocutionary point; at the extreme end of this category, we have the classical imperatives. Shut the door. It’s hot in here. The professor is in the classroom. I need some money.

33. Commissives Like directives, commissives operate a change in the world by means of creating an obligation: this obligations is created by the speaker, not in the hearer, as in the case of directives. Promises Requires.

34. Expressives Expresses an inner state of the speaker; the expression is essentially subjective and tells us nothing about the world. Appreciation Condolences. Congratulations.

35. Declarations Changes the state of affairs in the world with respect to I declare this bridge to be opened. I declare you to be husband and wife. I just resigned  locutionary (no change but report, constative) You’re fired  illocurionary ( make change, performative, enuciative)

36. D1 • A: Can you see them? • B: No, where are they • A: Look, over there, behind that tree. • B: Wow! That’s really interesting!

37. D2 • A: how long? • B:I’m not sure… • A: But I need to know. • B: come back later then.

38. D3 • Please tell me. • What can I tell you? • You know what I mean. • How CAN I tell you that?

39. D4 • A: Who did this? • B: I’m not sure. • A: But you must know. You were here all the time. • B: I’m sorry… It’s a secret.

40. So As pragmaticists, we should pay serious attentions to contextual conditions when describing speech acts and, in general, people’s use of language.

41. A: Sure? B: Sure. A: Really? B: Sure. A: I can’t. B: Yes, you can. A: No, I can’t. B: OK, then,

42. Midterm I will give you a few issues. Select one of these. Write about 2000 ~ 3000 words long (p 8~10) assignment

43. Examples • You visit the store to make some purchases. Inquire about the cost of several items. • Make an apology to a passer-by whose packages you have accidentally knocked to the ground.

44. Midterm issues. Issue 1 What are context, implicature and references and how these affect on reference, indexicals and deictics by selecting two dialogues from textbooks. Ex) A: is this a puppet? B: Yes, it is. It’s my puppet. A: Where’s he going? B: He is going to the park. A: Where’s the cake? B: it’s in the living room.

45. Issue 2 • Define what speech act is and how the context affect these speech act function in the real life. And select two textbook dialogues try to think about different kinds of situations and how these situations affect the speech act functioning.

46. Issue 3 • Define roles and functions of nonverbal language and explain how these affect (positive or negative) context, conversational implicatures, and speech acts. • You have to think about how we can create and use these nonverbal language in a classroom situation and how learners response to this activities.

47. NO reading for the next week. • Bring your idea about midterm. • Must be handed in by 7th of May. • We will have a class that day.