pragmatics

1. Speech Act Theory
Eda Nur ÖZCAN

2. A speech act is a functional unit in communication.
Cohen, A.D

3. Speech Act ıs a performatıve utterance wıth ıts usage ın the sıtuatıon
J.L. Austin stated that speech act theory deals with
communication but communication in its wider sense. It does
not refer to a simple information transmission but rather it
includes making promises, refusals, apologies, decisions...

4. Speech act and ıllocutıonary act are used ınterchangeably
We can hear other terms, too.
● Illocutionary act
● Illocutionary force
● Pragmatic force
● Force

5. J.L Austın and hıs theory of speech acts
● The british philosopher John Langshaw Austin made a huge
contribution to the study of speech acts by publishing
“how to do things with words” (1962)

6. When someone say a sentence, they do not say it
inconsequentially, but rather the utterances create a new
social or psychological reality.
● I pronounce you husband and wife
● I sentence you to death

7. Austın made 3 dıstınctıons regardıng utterances:
● Performatives vs. Constatives
● Explicit and Implicit Performatives
● Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary acts

8. Performatıve Utterance
These are utterances in which an action is performed that is
entitled by the verb.
● I promise to help you (act of promising)
● I declare the session open (act of informing)
● I advise you to leave soon (act of advising)

9. Constatıve utterance
These utterances come in form of statements and questions,
and in this type of utterance the action is being asked or
described.
● I made the cake.
● Can you make the cake?

10. More Examples...
● I promise I will be there (Performative)
● I will be there (Constative)
● I apologize (Performative)
● I am sorry (Constative)
● I order you to read (Performative)
● You must read (Constative)

11. Explıcıt Performatıves
There are utterances that accompanied with a performative
verb in which identifies the performed action. Verbs such as:
assert, request, state, warn, apologize etc.
Implıcıt Performatıves
These are verbs by which the performative verb is absent. In
spite of that, an implicit utterance can be enlarged so that
presence of a performative verb can be assumed. “Be aware of
the dog” ---enlarged---“I warn you against the dog”

13. Locutıonary, Illocutıonary, Perlocutıonary
● Locutionary act: it is the act of uttering the actual
utterance. The utterance must be well-formed and
meaningful.
● Illocutionary act: it is the force of the utterance, it
is when the action is equivalent to the words uttered and
the speaker is performing an act. Such as: requesting,
promising etc.
● Perlocutionary act: it is the effect of the illocutionary
act on addressee, therefore it is the act in which
getting someone to do or realize something, for instance:
intention, persuading, convincing, surprising, satisfying
etc.

14. Felicıty CONDITIONS
● Certain criteria and standards of the context
must be achieved with the purpose of attain the
force of the speech act.
● Sincerity is needed to say “I apologize”
● “Can you take me” presupposes that the addresser
possesses a car.

15. Austın’s felıcıty condıtıons
● Three criteria in order to judge whether an utterance is
true speech act or not. If one or more of the conditions
are violated, the performative utterance is unfulfilled.
1. Preparatory conditions: suitable individuals and
circumstances.
2. Conditions for executions: it should be performed
correctly and completely.
3. Sincerity conditions: participants must have essential
thoughts, feelings and intentions.

16. Refusal strategies of Turkish pre-service teachers of English: A focus on gender and status
of the interlocutor*
1. What refusal strategies are employed by Turkish pre-service teachers of English
depending on the status of the interlocutor?
2. Is there a significant difference between the refusal strategies employed by male
and female Turkish pre-service teachers of English?
3. What are the most frequent combinations of refusal strategies by Turkish pre-
service teachers of English?
4. Does the number of refusal combinations change according to the status of
interlocutor?

17. Methodology
● Çukurova University, ELT department (1st year ss)
● WDCT (Yuan, 2012): read the situation and write what
would you say in that scenario.
● 14 Males - 13 females
● no training was given

18. The descrıptıon of REFUSAL SCENARIOS IN THE WDCT

19. RESULTS
● Regardless of the status of interlocutors, participants mostly used the “excuse, reason, explanation” strategy
and the other mostly used refusal strategies were “non-performative statement” and “negative
willingness/ability”.
● Turkish participants were found to use more indirect refusal strategies and they were prone to use “excuse,
reason, explanation” strategy mostly.
● Participants are inclined to use longer sentences including more refusal strategies depending on the status of
the interlocutor.
● There is not a meaningful difference between refusal strategies of male and female participants e
● the mostly-used combination was 2A+2C, namely “statement of regret” + “excuse, reason, explanation”
combination
● Numbers of combined strategies in the present study provide the information that the participants have a
tendency to use more strategies when the status of the interlocutor increases.
● All in all, the data demonstrate that there is a need to focus on pragmatic abilities and to make students aware
of the fact that pragmatic skills are as essential as linguistic skills.

20. Refusal Strategies Used by Turkish university Instructors of English*
This study aims to present what kind of
refusal strategies Turkish university
instructors of English use.

21. Methodology
● 20 Turkish university instructors of English
● 12 Females and 8 males
● DCT (Beebe, 1990) (12 situations: 3 requests,
invitations, offers, suggestions)
● Speech acts include one lower, one equal and one higher
interlocutor.

22. Refusal Strategıes fall under three maın headıngs
● Direct Strategies -I refuse (performative) , I can’t
(non-performative)
● Indirect Strategies - I wish I could help you, I will
think about it..
● Adjuncts to refusals - I realize you are in a difficult
situation.. (both direct and indirect strategies are
used)

23. 1b2: negatıve willıngness/abılıty
2c: eXCUSE, REASON, EXPLANATION

24. REFUSAL STRATEGIES
● I refuse (performative)
● No
● Negative willingness/ability
● Statement of regret
● Wish
● Excuse, reason, explanation
● I can do X instead of Y
● Set condition for future/past acceptance
● Statement of principle
● Statement of negative consequences

25. REFUSAL STRATEGIES
● Criticizing the request
● Request for help/empathy
● Let interlocutor off the hook
● Self-defence
● Repetition of part of request
● Postponement
● Hedging
● Statement of positive opinion
● Statement of empathy
● Pause fillers
● Statement of gratitude

26. my Questıon...
Can I use these codes in my research and
should I divide the strategies as
direct, indirect and adjunct?

27. RESULTS
● 496 strategies used in total
● Indirect strategies have the highest percentage (58%) (consistent with previous research)
● Adjuncts (24%), Indirect (18%)
● The tree most favored strategies are
○ Excuse, reason, explanation (26%)
○ Negative willingness/ability (14%)
○ Statement of regret (13%)

28. Employment Rejection Emails: A linguistic analysis and professors’ perceptions
1. What are the frequently appearing moves of employment rejection emails sent to
academic applicants? What is the order of moves in these emails? What are the
components and linguistic features of each of these moves?
2. What is the lexical profile of the employment rejection emails?
3. How long is an average employment rejection email in terms of total number of
sentences and the number of words used?
4. What are university professors‟ perceptions of different types of email rejection letters?

29. Methodology
● 58 rejection letters, 4534 words in a corpus
● Analysis of moves based on Baresova (2008) taxonomy.
● Directness (Blum-Kulka, ?)
● Positivity and negativity based on (Fielden & Dulek, ?)

30. RESULTS

31. RESULTS

32. Evaluation of four coursebooks in terms of three speech acts: Requests, refusals and
complaints
1. Do Turkish learners of English at preparatory schools, who undergo an intense English
program during at least 8 months, make use of semantic formulas in their request, refusal
and complaint realizations?
2. Do the coursebooks that the learners have as input throughout their courses present
request, refusal and complaint strategies?

33. Methodology
● 90 TOBB preparatory students (intermediate
level)
● Top Notch and Summit coursebook series
● DCT (9 situations: 4 requests, 3 complaints, 2
refusals)
● The situations were given in the native
language (Turkish)

34. RESULTS
- Results of DCT
- indirect strategies used more (Students are aware of the fact that they lessen the
FT effect.
- Students were found to be successful at adopting appropriate strategies.
- Results of Coursebooks
- Books are rich in terms of request strategies but there is no diversity.
- Refusal strategies come after request strategies (limited to reason or excuse,
explanation)
- Indirect refusals are used more.

35. THANK YOU