Discourse analysis , speech acts

1. Department of English Language and Literature
Major: English Language and Literature
Discourse Analysis
Sessions 8 Pragmatics and speech acts
Dr. Badriya Al Mamari
Academic year 2021/2022

2. Speech acts and discourse
• Two influential works in the area of pragmatics relevant to the area of discourse analysis
are Austin’s ( 1962 ) How to Do Things With Words and Searle’s ( 1969 ) Speech Acts .

3. A speech act
In linguistics, a speech act is an utterance defined
in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect it
has on a listener. Essentially, it is the action that
the speaker hopes to provoke in his or her
audience.

4. Speech Acts:
Speech Act is an action performed in saying something. A speech
act is an utterance that serves a function in communication.
We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting,
request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal or any
number of declarations
A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to
perform an apology, or several words or sentences: "I’m sorry I
forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind."

5. Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language
but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture.
Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:
Greeting: "Hi, Eric. How are things going?“
Request: "Could you pass me the salt, please?“
Complaint: "I’ve already been waiting three weeks for the computer, and I was told it
would be delivered within a week.“
Invitation: "We’re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted to know if
you’d like to join us.“
Compliment: "Hey, I really like your scarf!“
Refusal: "Oh, I’d love to see that movie with you, but this Friday just isn’t going to work."

6. Austin (1962) suggested three kinds of acts;
• 1.The locutionary act refers to the literal meaning of the actual words
(such as ‘It’s hot in here’ referring to the temperature).
• 2.The illocutionary act refers to the speaker’s intention in uttering the
words (such as a request for someone to turn on the air conditioning).
• 3.The perlocutionary act refers to the effect this utterance has on the
thoughts or actions of the other person (such as someone getting up
and turning on the air conditioning).

7. Speech act theory broadly explains these utterances:
1.Locutionary act : saying something (the locution) with a certain meaning
in traditional sense.
Two types of locutionary act :
a)utterance acts : where something is said (or a sound is made) and which
may not have any meaning ,
Example : Oh! - is an utterance (communication is not intended - it is
just a sound caused by surprise
b)propositional acts : where a particular reference is made.
Example: ”The black cat ” (something is referenced, but no
communication may be intended

8. 2.lllocutionary acts: are the real actions which are performed by
the utterance, where saying equals doing, as in betting, believe
, dare, warning. etc .
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’, such as “informing, ordering, warning, undertaking”.
Example:”I promise to pay you back”- is an illocutionary act (it
intends to communicate.

9. 3.Perlocutionary acts: 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 minds! such as persuading,
convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or
otherwise getting someone to do or realize
something.

10. As an example, consider the following utterance:
"By the way, I have a CD of Titanic; would you like to borrow
it?"
Its illocutionary function is an offer, while its intended
perlocutionary effect might be to impress the listener, or to
show a friendly attitude, or to encourage an interest in a
particular type of movie, music…etc.

11. • Example 1:
Bus driver: “This bus won’t move until you boys move in out of the
doorway.”
• The locutionary act: is the driver saying he won’t start the bus with people
standing in the doorway.
• The illocutionary act: is an order.
• The perlocutionary act: is the boys moving inside the bus.

12. • Example 2:
What are you doing tonight?’
1.This statement might be both a question and an invitation. A person
might reply ‘I still haven’t finished my homework’ treating the utterance
as both a question and invitation which they decide not to accept.
2.They may equally reply ‘Nothing special. What do you feel like doing?’
providing an answer to the question but this time accepting the (as yet
unspoken) invitation.

13. Direct speech acts
When the semantic meaning of a sentence is the same as
what the speaker intended to convey, it is described as a
direct speech act.
For example, when a speaker doesn't know something
and asks the hearer to provide the information, he or
she will typically produce a direct speech act of the
following type: Can you ride a bicycle ?

14. Structures and their Functions
Structures Functions
Did you eat the pizza?........................ Interrogative (Question)
Eat the pizza (please)! ……………....Imperative Command (Request)
You ate the pizza. …………..… Declarative Statement (declaration/advertising)

15. •Indirect Speech act
• “Can you pass the salt ?
• In this example, you would not usually understand the utterance as a
question about your ability to do something. In fact, you would not
treat this as a question at all. You would treat it as a request and perform
the action requested.
• We are not really asking a question about someone’s ability. In fact, we
don’t normally use this structure as a question at all. We normally use it
to make a request. That is, we are using a syntactic structure associated
with the function of a question, but in this case with the function of a
request. This is an example of an indirect speech act.

16. • It is possible to have strange effects if one person fails to
recognize another person’s indirect speech act.
Example:
Consider the following scene. A visitor to a city, carrying his
luggage, looking lost, stops a passer-by.
• A: Excuse me. Do you know where the Hilton Hotel is?
• B: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)

17. The main reason we use indirect speech acts seems to be
that actions such as requests presented in an indirect
way (Could you open that door for me?) are generally
considered to be more gentle or more polite in our
society than direct speech acts (Open that door for
me!).
Exactly why they are considered to be more polite is
based on some complex social assumptions.

18. Reference
• Paltridge, B. (2021). Discourse analysis: An introduction. Bloomsbury
Publishing.