3. Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students must be able to:
a. distinguish the three types of speech acts
b. identify the types of speech acts Respond
appropriately and effectively to a speech act
c. create a jingle showing the importance of the
different speech acts.
4. SPEECH ACT
Speech acts is the tool employed in accomplishing
certain kinds of acts.
In linguistics, it is an utterance defined in terms of a
speaker’s intention and the effect it has on the
speaker. Speech acts are different from physical acts
like eating spaghetti, or mental acts like thinking
about eating spaghetti.
5. Speech Act Theory
To illustrate this, eating spaghetti is an action.
Asking someone else to get you is also an act. When
we speak, our words do not have meaning in and of
themselves. What we say is very much affected by the
situation, the speaker and the listener. Thus, words
alone do not have a simple fixed meaning.
6. 1. Locutionary Act
Locutionary act refers to saying something
(the locution) with a certain meaning in
traditional sense. In other words, it is “what
is said”. This may not constitute a speech act.
7. Two Types of Locutionary Act
Utterance act
this is where
something is said (or a
sound is made) and
which may not have
any meaning.
Propositional act
this is where a
particular reference is
made.
8. 2. Illocutionary Act
Illocutionary act refers to the performance of an act in saying something (vs.
the general act of saying something). The illocutionary force is the speaker’s
intent, a true ‘speech act.’ In other words it is “what does in uttering the
words.”
It may also be defined as a complete speech act , made in a typical utterance,
that consists off the delivery of the prepositional content of the utterance
including references and predicate; and a particular illocutionary force
whereby the speaker as search suggests, demands, promises, or vows
10. 1. Commend
A command is an illusionary act that has the directive illocutionary
point of getting another to do or not to do something.
A command is a syntactic sentence type in a language that is used
primarily to express such elocutionary acts, and is described as
having imperative form.
Examples:
Open the windows, please.
Would you open the windows, please?
11. 2. Complex Illocutionary Act
This kind of illocutionary act has a negated elocutionary
force, is performed conditionally or is conjoined with
another illocutionary act.
a. Conjunctive Illocutionary Act
b. Illocutionary Conditional c
c. Illocutionary Denegation
12. a. Conjunctive Illocutionary Act
consists of the performance of two or more elocutionary acts in one
utterance.
Example: Cherrie will go to his dormitory tomorrow, but will he be
there?
b. Illocutionary Conditional
consists of an illocutionary act conditional consists of an
illocutionary act and a stated condition for the performance of that
act.
Example: If Ramon will be the next candidate for treasurer, I bet you
a hundred pesos that he will win.
13. c. Illocutionary Denegation
consists of the negation of its illocutionary force. It
expresses that the speaker is not performing a
particular illocutionary act.
Example:
I do not promise to see him.
14. 3. Defective Illocutionary Act
whether successful or unsuccessful, in which one or more of the
preparatory or sincerity conditions for the act are not met.
Example:
The utterance “Pass the pepper” is a situation in which a preparatory
condition, the addressee’s ability to comply, is not met because there’s
no paper on the table. There is a lie or insincere promise, in which the
act itself is defective even if the statement or promise is successfully
made.
15. 4. Direct Illocution
is an illusionary act in which only be illocutionary force and
propositional content literally expressed by the lexical items
and syntactic form of the utterance or communicated.
is the kind of illocutionary act that does not have a
negated illocutionary force, is not performed
unconditionally, and is not conjoined to another
illocutionary act.
16. 6. Exclamation.
An exclamation, broadly defined, is any utterance made with
strong emotion.
An exclamation, an exclamation, narrowly defined, is a sentence
type that is used to express a strong emotional state. It contrasts in
syntax or morphology with other sentence type which typically
express the statements, commands and questions.
Example: What a cold night it was! Wow, it amazes me!
17. 7. Indirect Illocution
is a type of act with all the presuppositions of the
propositional content conditions, preparatory conditions
and sincerity conditions are satisfied.
8. Non defective Illocutionary Act
is an illocutionary act in which the speaker expresses another
illocutionary force other than that literally expresses in the
appearance, by relying on shared background knowledge,
principles of conversation such as cooperative principle, convention
and the ability of the addressee to make inferences.
18. 9. Questions
a. A question is an elocution react that has a directive illocutionary
point of attempting to get the addressee to supply information
Example: Tell me your birthday. Give your permanent address.
b. A question is a sentence type that has a form (labelled
interrogative) typically used to express illocutionary act with the
directive illocutionary point mentioned above. It may be actually as
used as a (direct illocution), or used rhetorically.
Example: When is your birthday? Did you eat your breakfast?
19. Some kinds of questions:
1. Alternative questionpresents two or more possible answers and presupposes
that only one is true.
Examples: Would you like yellow, pink or orange shirt? 58 Would they like
swimming, biking, or walking as a form of exercise?
2. Tag question is a constituent that is added after a statement in order to
request confirmation or this confirmation of the statement from the addressee.
Often it expresses of the bias of the speaker toward one answer. A tag question
often includes a ‘be’ verb, predicate meaning ‘true’, and negative.
Examples: aren’t they, isn’t she
The flood victims are in the evacuation center, aren’t they?
She is beauty and brain, isn’t she?
20. Some kinds of questions:
3. Wh-questionis a question that contains an interrogative pronoun is a question that
contains an interrogative pro-from. Itis also known as content question, question word
question and information question.
Examples:
What is your favorite food?
Why are you excited to attend the English class?
21. Some kinds of questions:
4) Yes-No questionis a question for which an answer of yes or no is acceptable. It can be
distinguished with the following features: rising sentence-final intonation, a sentence-
initial or a sentence-final particle, verb morphology in a difference of word order , such
as the placement of the verb closer to the beginning of the sentence verb morphology in
a difference of word order , such as the placement of the verb closer to the beginning of
the sentence than in the declarative sentence and an interrogative clitic that attaches to
the item in the sentence that is being questioned.
Examples:
Are the young boys enjoying the movie? Did they ask
permission from their parents?
22. 10. Statement
A statement is an illocutionary act that has an assertive illocutionary point of
saying that some state of affairs is true.
A statement is a sentence having a form that is typically used to express
(such illocutionary acts such as an English declarative sentence which has a
verb followed by a subject ).
Example:
She wrote an inspirational poem, did Mercie.
He’s an honest and responsible guy, is Rudy.
23. 3. Perlocutionary Acts
Perlocutionary acts refer to speech acts that have an effect on the
feelings, thoughts or actions of either the speaker or the listener. In
other words, they seek to change or transform minds! In contrast
to look using acts, perlocutionary acts or external to the
performance. For examples, persuading, inspiring, encouraging,
convincing, scaring, insulting or deterring.
25. 1. Assertives/Representatives.
These are statements that may be judged true or false because they
aim to describe a state of affairs in the world, e.g. affirming,
believing, concluding, denying, reporting, describing, etc.
2. Directives.
These are statements that attempt to make the other person's
actions fit the propositional content. The speakers try to get their
listeners to do something, e.g. begging, commanding, requesting,
ordering, questioning, etc.
26. 3. Commissives.
These are statements which commits the speaker to a course of
action as described by the propositional content. The speakers
commit themselves to a future course of action, e.g. promising,
guaranteeing, offering, etc.
4. Expressives
These are statements that express the sincerity condition of the
speech act. The speakers express their feelings, apologizing,
welcoming, sympathizing, thanking, etc.
27. 5. Declaratives.
These are statements that attempt to change the world by
representing it as having been changed. The speaker’s
appearance brings about a new external situation, e.g.
christening, marrying, resigning, declaring war, etc.
LOCUTION: (Speaker) “Can I have a pinch of salt?”
ILLOCUTION on directives: (Hearer) immediately passes the
salt without saying anything.
PERLOCUTIONARY: the after-effect act on directing
28. For example:
When a Filipino says “Hi you’re a handsome Negro man!”
to a black American, the latter (Black American) would not
be happy about it because the word “Negro” is the meaning
in so far as their culture is concerned. Although, the
intention of the former (Filipino) is sincerely admiring the
physicality of the black American.
29. Dialogue 1:
Teacher: Maria, could you please return these books to the library
for me?
Maria: Sure, Ma’am. I will.
Teacher: Thank you, Maria.
Maria: You’re welcome, Ma’am. (Maria leaving)
Dialogue 2:
Boss: (angrily shouts at a subordinate) I told you to deliver the
package as soon as possible! You did not!
Employee: (head bowed) I forgot, Sir.
Boss: (angrier) What are waiting for? Do it, now! Employee:
(scampering away) Yes, Sir. Right now, Sir!
Speech acts include promising to eat spaghetti, asking for spaghetti, ordering someone to eat spaghetti, requesting someone to cook spaghetti and so on. These are called “communicative acts”, but speech and even language are not strictly required. We can ask for a plate of spaghetti by just pointing to the platter and miming the act of eating.
Introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (How Do Things With Words, 1962) and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle, considers three levels or components of such utterances.
(Note: Acts are sometimes also called utterances – thus a perlocutionary act is the same as perlocutionary utterance.)
For examples, of someone says “Close the window!” the locutionary act is the realization of the speaker’s utterance or if someone says “Study your lesson.” The locutionary act is the recognition of the speaker’s utterance.
” For examples, ordering, asking, informing, advising or warning. To illustrate this, someone says “I promise to talk to him right away” is used to perform the illocutionary act of promising.
The meaning of the term command does not appear to extend to such utterances as “It’s dark in here.” This utterances might have the intended perlocutionary effect of getting the addressee to switch on the light, but it does not have that as a directive illocutionary point.
In this example, there are two illocutionary acts which are assertion and question
In this example, the illusionary act of betting is performed only if the condition that Ramon is the next candidate for treasurer, is true.
This illocutionary act contrast with “I promise not to say him,” in which the speaker does not perform an illocutionary act.
1. Clitic is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but shows evidence of being phonological bound to another word. For example, the contraction of the morpheme, is, in the sentence “What’s going on here?” and the possessive marker‘s in the sentence “The lady’s leather bag.”
3. A tag statement is a kind of statement. It is an elliptical statement that follows and echoes a main clause statement. Is a subject noun or pronoun followed by or preceded by an auxiliary verb.
In order to correctly decode the illocutionary act performed by the speaker, it is also necessary for the hair to be acquainted with the context the speech act occurs in. In other words, meaning resides in a specific situation. Simply the act is context- specific or culture- specific and therefore cannot be employed a universally at all times
That interpretation of speech acts differs throughout the cultures and the illocutionary act performed by the speaker can be easily misinterpreted by a member of different cultural backgrounds. As already pointed out in the previous example, there are cases when the here fails to recognize the speaker’s intentions and he therefore only interprets the speakers utterance. This misunderstanding may lead to funny situations and hands it is often an unfailing source for various jokes. It should be clear by now that the issue of illocutionary acts is sometimes quite complicated because one and the same appearance and have more illocutionary force azure meanings depending on the context, the conventions and other factors.
In the first dialogue, the teacher requests a student named Maria to return some books to the library. You can conclude that a teacher made a request because she used the word please. Maria expresses her willingness to fulfill the request by answering, “Sure, Ma’am, I will.” The congenial exchange continues with the teacher expressing gratitude which Maria acknowledges as she leaves. Here is an analysis of the interaction between the teacher and Maria in terms of speech acts: the teacher uses the words please and thank you(locutionary)to perform the linguistic act of requesting and then thanking (illocutionary). Maria, on the other hand, responds by saying, “Sure, Ma’am, I will” and “You’re welcome, Ma’am” to express willingness and to acknowledge the gratitude her teacher expresses. In such instance, both the teacher and Maria are pleased with the exchange: the former gets her quest done (returning of the books) while Maria receives the acknowledgment she deserves for willingly acceding the request (perlocutionary). In the next dialogue, a boss shout out his employee for failing to do what he (employee) was tasked-to deliver a package. The boss’s stern language and raise the voice causes the employee to meekly admit that you forgot to do as told. The boss is out again to reiterate that the package should be delivered at once. As a result, the employee gets scared and scampers away. The uttering of harsh words is the location react, commanding and berating or the locutionary act, being scared and scampering away constitute the perlocutionary being scared and scampering away constitute the perlocutionary acts.
