Advanced Spoken English

Speech Act Theory

What are Speech Acts?

Speaking is performativeUtterances are functional-Giving orders, instructions-Making requests,

suggestions-Offering advice, opinions-Taking orders, taking advice--> These are “Speech Acts”

Propositional Content/ Illocutionary Force

Literal meaning of utterance

“It’s cold in here”

“There’s food in the fridge”

“Thank you for not smoking”

Aim, intention of utterance

•Offering

•Promising•Enquiring•Requesting•Exclaiming in pain•Ordering

Three Kinds of Act

LocutionaryIllocutionaryPerlocutionary

Actual, literal meaning

Speaker’s intentions in uttering

Effect on receiver’s thought or action

Illocutionary Acts

Depend on …FormContentContextE.g. Possible

illocutionary force of ‘Oh’, ‘Yes’ or ‘Hello’

… Can be spread over several sentences

…Two or more can coexist in one utterance

Sentence Structure and Language Function

InterrogativeDeclarativeImperative

Elicits information

Conveys information

Issues an order

Direct/ Indirect Speech Acts

We don’t always mean what we say

We don’t always intend what is expressed by the literal meaning (implicature, irony)

Modality e.g. ‘can’

Indirect Speech Acts:

“There’s beer in the fridge”

“Can I help you?”“I’ll take six

lemons”“Nice haircut!”

Direct/ Indirect Requests

Brainstorm with a partner how many ways you can think of to request someone to take the rubbish out.

(3 mins!)

Direct/ Indirect Requests

Please take out the rubbish

I request you to take out the trash

Trash out now!

The garbage isn’t out yet

Could you take out the garbage?

Who’s doing the trash this week?

Are you in charge of the waste?

The wastepaper needs emptying

Politeness and Indirectness

“I was wondering if you’d like to go to a movie”

“Would you mind closing the door?”

“Would I be able to borrow some paper?”

“What was your name again?”

Performative Verbs

I guess you’re from ChinaI bet Roddick’s gonna winI now pronounce you man and

wifePromise!

Felicity Conditions-“Right person, place and time”-Successful performative Speech

acts need ...a social construct (Priest,

Queen, Judge, police)appropriate circumstancesA speaker with authorityCorrect procedure and responseSpeakers with sincere thoughts/

intentions

Cross Cultural Pragmatics and Pragmalinguistics/ Sociopragmatics

Across cultures, meaning behind a speech act can vary, e.g. status of the ‘apology’, force of the ‘complaint’, cultural content of ‘requests, questioning styles, ways of giving advice

Utterances have local, sociopragmatic conditions

There are culturally distinct ways of showing and understanding speech acts (Wierzbicka, 1991)

Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure

Due to:-L2 speaker assessing situational factors on

the basis of sociopragmatic norms of L1, e.g. Japanese over-apologizing, students misunderstanding the role of the teacher

-L2 speaker transferring procedure and linguistic way of realising a speech act from L1 to L2, e.g. complaining, bartering

Difference between meaning and saying

Think ….

Have you ever experienced Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure?

Describe it and analyse it in terms of ‘saying’ and ‘meaning’

Reference

Slides adapted from Brian Paltridge (2002).

Making Sense of Discourse Analysis, AEE: Gold Coast. ‘Speech Act Theory’, pp. 13-36