Group 4:Annisa Nur Fitria Riska LestariDini Handayani Sofiyatul Inayah

SPEECH ACTS(Pragmatics)

Class 4C English Department

A. Speech Acts

When someone expresses something, he does not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, but he also performs an action through the utterances.

Action performed by an utterance called speech acts.

Example: You’re fired!This utterance can be used by us as an action to fire someone from his current job.

Performing action by producing an utterance has three kinds of related acts. Those are:

Locutionary ActIllocutionary

Act/Illocutionary Force

Perlocutionary Act/Perlocutionary

Effect

An utterance that produces literal

meaning

An utterance which has social function

in mind

An utterance that gives an effect to do

something

For example: It’s hot here.- Locutionary act: The speaker feels hot in his place.- Illocutionary act: The utterance has two possible meanings

inside• An indirect request for someone to open the window.• An indirect refusal to close the window because someone

is cold- Perlocutionary act: The hearer will open/close the window

B. Illocutionary Act

Illocutionary act is the main focus of speech acts.

Illocutionary force from an utterance is what it ‘count as’.

Example: I’ll see you later. We could find three different assumptions of its meaning. (I predict that) I’ll see you later => a

prediction (I promise you that) I’ll see you later => a

promise (I warn you that) I’ll see you later => a

warning.

There are two ways to answer this:

How to solve this problem?

The problem could happens in every utterance:They might have different meaning which can make the hearer can not recognize the real illocutionary force from the utterance.

IFIDs Felicity condition

1. IFIDs

Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices => an expression from an utterance which contains a slot to put a verb that explicitly named the illocutionary act being performed.

The verb called performative verb (Vp)I (Vp) you that...I’ll see you later.

I warn you that I’ll see you later. I promise you that I’ll see you later.

Speakers do not usually ‘perform’ their speech acts with a performative verb. But sometimes, they use it to distinct their speech act.Him: Can I talk to Mary?Her : No, she is not here.Him: I’m asking you—can I talk to her?Her : And I’m telling you—SHE IS NOT

HERE!

They explicitly describe their utterance’s illocutionary act by using ‘ask’ and ‘tell’ as performative verb.

IFIDs can be identified as a word order, stress, and intonation.

a. She is going! => I tell you.b. She is going? => I request

confirmation.c. Is she going? => I ask you.

2. Felicity condition

To make the utterance can be recognize by the hearer, the circumstance surrounding the speaker must be appropriate with the condition.

Such condition called felicity condition.Ex: I sentence you to six months in prison.

The performance won’t be appropriate if the speaker is not a specific person in special context (in this case, the speaker must be a judge in a courtroom).

A speech act needs to be performed along certain types of conditions, in order to be successfully recognized.

Propositional content condition

Preparatory condition

Requires the participants to understand the

language, not to act like actors or to lie.

E.g. Promise or warning must be about

the future.

Requires that the speech act is embedded

in a context that is conventionally

recognize, thus, just by uttering a promise, the event will not happen

by itself.

A speech act needs to be performed along certain types of conditions, in order to be successfully recognized.

Sincerity condition Essential condition

Requires that the speaker is sincere in

uttering the declaration.

E.g. Promise is only effective when the

speaker really intends to carry it out.

Requires that all parties intend the

result.E.g. Changes state of

speaker from non-obligation to obligation

(promise).

C. The Performative Hypothesis

A way to assume the underlying utterance (U), there is a clause, similar to the previous example (I (Vp) you that ...), containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary force explicit.

I (hereby) Vp you (that) UIn this clause, the subject must be first

person singular (‘I’), followed by the adverb ‘hereby’, indicating that the utterance ‘counts as’ an action by being uttered.

Look at the examples below:

I hereby order you that you clean up this

mess.

Clean up this mess!

The underlying clause in the blue box will always make explicit, and the second one is implicit.

The first example (normally without ‘hereby’) is used by speakers as explicit performatives. And the second example is an implicit performatives

or primary performatives.

The advantage of this analysis type:It makes clear just what elements are involved in he production and interpretation of utterances.

Do it yourself! (implicit)The reflexive in ‘yourself’ is made possible by the antecendent ‘you’ in explicit version.I order you that you do it yourself. (explicit)

The disadvantage of this analysis type:Not all the pervormative verbs can be use to make an explicit version of the implicit utterance.- You’re dumber than a rock.- ? I hereby insult you that you’re dumber than a rock

The really practical problem with any analysis based on identifying explicit

performative is we simply do not know how many performative verbs are there in any language. To solve this, there is a general

classification system list of function performed by speech acts that can be used.

D. Speech Act Classification

One general classification system lists five types of general function performed by speech acts:

Declaration

Representative Expressive

Directive Commissive

1. Declaration

Speech acts that change the world via their utterance/word.

For example:a) Priest: I now pronounce you husband and

wife.b) Referee: You’re out!c) Judge: I sentence you to six months in

prison!

2. Representative

Speech acts that state what speaker believes to be the case or not.

Fact, assertions, conclusions, descriptions => representing the world as he believes it is.

The speaker makes the words fit the world (of belief).

For example:a) The earth is flat.b) Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts.c) It was a warm sunny day.

3. Expressive

Speech acts that state what speaker feels.Psychological expression => pleasure, pain,

likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow.The speaker makes words fit the world (of

feeling).For example:

a) I’m really sorry!b) Congratulations!c) Oh, yes, great, mmm, ssahh!

4. Directive

Speech acts that speaker use to get someone else to do something.

Command, orders, requests, suggestion => can be positive or negative.

The speaker attempts to make the world fit the words (via hearer).

For example:a) Gimme a cup of coffee. Make it black.b) Could you lend me a pen, please?c) Don’t touch that.

5. Commissive

Speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some future action.

Promises, threats, refusals, pledges => can be performed alone or by a group.

The speaker undertakes to make the world fit the words (via the speaker).

For example:a) I’ll be back.b) I’m going to get it right next time.c) We will not do that.

Speech act type

Direction of fit S = Speaker, X = Situation

Declarations Words change the world S causes X

Representative Make words fit the world

S believes X

Expressive Make words fit the world

S feels X

Directives Make the world fit words

S wants X

Commissive Make the world fit words

S intends X

Table of Speech Act Classification

E. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

Look at the examples below:a. She plants a mango tree. (declarative-

statement)b. Does she plant a mango tree? (interrogative-

question)c. Plant a mango tree!

(imperative-command/request).There is an easily recognized relationship

between three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and three general communication function (statement, question, command/request).

Direct speech is a direct relationship between a structure and a function.

Indirect speech is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function.

For example:

We have known that a declarative sentence has a function as a statement, so we call it direct speech act.But if the declarative sentence used to be a request, we call it indirect speech act.

a) It’s cold outside.b) I hereby tell you about the weather.c) I hereby request of you that you close the

door.The utterance a) is a declarative. If we used it make a statement as paraphrased in b), it is functioning as a direct speech.If the a) used to make a command/request, as paraphrased in c), it is functioning as an indirect speech.

a) Move out of the way! (imperative-command)

b) Do you have to stand in front of the TV? (interrogative-command)

c) You’re standing in front of the TV. (declarative-command)

Could you open the window?The utterance not only needs the

answer Yes/No, but it also asks the hearer to do something.

Interrogative sentence as a command (indirect speech act).

F. Speech Event

Speech act => one person trying to get another person to do something without risking refusal or causing offense.

Speech event => the set of utterance produced in a social situation involving participants who necessarily have a social relationship and have particular goals.

The activity in which participants interact via language in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome.

a) : I don’t really like this.b) : Ok, I will take another

one. a)As an obvoius central speech act

b)As the speech act that reacts to the central speech act.

It means that in the speech event above (complaining), there is a central speech act and the other speech act that lead

up and reacts to the central action/speech act.

A speech event can be defined by a unified set of components through out:Same purpose of communicationSame topicSame participantsSame language variety (generally)

For example: exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches, requesting help, complaining, etc.

Speech event: exchanging greetingsA : Good morning, Sir. (speech act 1)B : Morning. How are you today?

(speech act 2)A : I’m fine, Sir. Thank you. (speech

act 3)

Speech event: asking the timeA : What time is it? (speech act

1)B : It is 3 o’clock. (speech act 2)A : Thank you. (speech act 3)