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Chapter 5 Speech Acts

The document provides an overview of speech acts, defining them as utterances that convey meaning and prompt specific actions from listeners. It discusses the different types of speech acts, including locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts, as well as classifications proposed by philosophers John Austin and John Searle. Additionally, it addresses indirect speech acts and the conditions necessary for their successful performance.

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Muhammad Qasim
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17 views21 pages

Chapter 5 Speech Acts

The document provides an overview of speech acts, defining them as utterances that convey meaning and prompt specific actions from listeners. It discusses the different types of speech acts, including locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts, as well as classifications proposed by philosophers John Austin and John Searle. Additionally, it addresses indirect speech acts and the conditions necessary for their successful performance.

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Muhammad Qasim
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SPEECH ACTS

PRESENTED TO:
DR. MUHAMMAD SABBOOR
PRESENTED BY: SHAHIDA
PHD1
DEFINITION OF SPEECH ACTS

❖Speech Acts are the utterances of the speaker which


convey meaning and listeners do specific things.
❖The functional or communicative value of utterances
with language used to perform actions – actions such
as greeting, inviting, offering, ordering, promising,
requesting, warning, and so forth.
SPEECH ACTS
• FORM AND FUNCTION
• Sentences can be accounted for in terms of form or function. Consider
the following three sentences:
1. I need help.
2. Can you help me?
3. Help me!
• In terms of grammatical form, these sentences would be labelled
declarative, interrogative and imperative, respectively.
PERFORMATIVES

The British philosopher John Langshaw Austin made a huge


contribution to the study of speech acts by publishing his book
‘How to do things with words’ (1962).
• Austin believed that all utterances are performative.
• Performative utterances are expressed with a performative
verb and emphasizes the performative nature of the utterance.
THREE LEVELS OF SPEECH ACTS

• Locutionary acts: “roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence


with a certain ‘meaning´ in the traditional sense.”

• Illocutionary acts: “such as informing, ordering, warning, etc.,


i.e., utterances which have a certain (conventional) force.”

• Perlocutionary acts: “what we bring about or achieve by saying


something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring or surprising”.
ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE

• The utterance with some kind of function in mind


are the illocutionary forces or acts. The illocutionary
act is performed via the communicative force of an
utterance.
FIVE CATEGORIES WHICH WERE PUT FORWARD AS A TENTATIVE
FRAMEWORK BY AUSTIN (1962)

1. Verdictives – the giving of a verdict, as by a jury or umpire – for example, estimate,


reckon, appraise;
2. Exercitives – as mentioned above, the exercising of power, rights or influence – for
example, appoint, vote, order, urge, advise, warn;
3. Commissives – for example, promising or otherwise undertaking – promise, contract,
undertake;
4. Behabitives – a miscellaneous group, having to do with attitudes and social behaviour –
for example, apologies, congratulate, commend;
5. Expositives – the clarifying of reasons, arguments and communications – for example,
reply, argue, concede,
JOHN SEARLE (1976)

This theory was further classified by John Searle. He states that the taxonomy used by
Austin is defective, especially in its lack of clear criteria for distinguishing one kind of
illocutionary force from another. Searle’s taxonomy, despite critiques, has been the one
that has been the best received and most applied.
Searle divides illocutionary acts into five basic types.
1. Directive
2. Commissive
3. Representative/Assertive
4. Declarative
5. Expressive
DIRECTIVE

• It is conversation between 1st and 2nd person here


the speaker tries to make the hearer do something,
with such words as: ask, order, command, request,
beg, plead, pray, entreat, invite, permit, advise,
demand etc.
• Ex: Give me your pen.
• Leave the town immediately.
COMMISSIVE

• Here the speaker commits himself or herself to the future


course of action, with verbs such as: guarantee, promise, swear,
refuse, threating etc.
• Ex: I will repay the money.
• I swear to tell the truth.
REPRESENTATIVE/ASSERTIVE

• Here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using


such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report,
state. etc
• Ex: The earth is round.
• I think, he is saying the truth.
DECLARATIVE

• Here the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object,


situation or context solely by making the utterance.
• Ex: Class dismissed.
• You are fired.
• We find defendant not guilty.
EXPRESSIVE

• Here the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a situation, using


such verbs as: thanks, congratulate, apologize, praise etc.
• Ex: I am sorry for being late.
• What a great day!
• Congratulation!
INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

• For many reasons, perhaps because we are abiding by the


politeness principle, for example, and we don’t wish to impose –
we may ask for something to be done indirectly.
• ‘Can you pass the salt?’ is not really a question, but a directive;
and answer of ‘yes’, without an attempt to pass it would be totally
inappropriate and would violate the maximum of relevance.
DIRECT/ INDIRECT SPEECH

• A direct match between a sentence type and an illocutionary force,


equals a direct speech act.
• If there is no direct relationship between a sentence type and an
illocutionary force, it indicates an indirect speech act.
FROM SPEECH ACT TO GRADATION OF INDIRECT SPEECH ACT

• Shut the door!


• I’d be grateful, if you’d shut the door.
• Could you shut the door?
• It’d help to have the door shut.
• It’s getting cold in here. Shall we keep out the draught?
FELICITY CONDITIONS

• The context and the situation that allow us to recognize a


speech act as intended by the speaker.
• The conditions that must be fulfilled for a speech act to be
satisfactorily performed or realized.
• A sentence must not only be grammatically correct, but it must
also be felicitous , that is situational appropriate.
FELICITY CONDITIONS

• The propositional content condition specifies the content of an


utterance, which requires participants to understand language, not
to act like actors .
• The preparatory condition sets out the conditions which must hold
prior to the performance of the speech acts.
• The sincerity condition requires that, for a request, the speaker
genuinely wants the hearer to do the acts.
• The essential condition where the speaker intends that an
utterance be acted upon by the addressee
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

• Say if the verbs in the following utterances are performatives or not.


1. You are reminded not to smoke in this office.
2. I suggest you come back tomorrow.
3. I declare this conference open.
4. I can’t ask him to do it again.
5. The room is cooled by the air conditioner.
REFERENCES

Flowerdew, J. (2012). Discourse in English language education. Routledge.

Miller, J. H. (2001). Speech acts in literature. Stanford University Press.


Bruner, J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of child language,
2(1), 1-19.
•Thank you!

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