This document provides an overview of speech acts and related linguistic concepts: 1) It outlines felicity conditions and contexts that determine speech acts, such as promises, threats, requests. 2) Indirect speech acts and how utterances can imply requests are discussed, like "Could you pass the salt?" 3) The document also examines types of speech acts, forces at play, and debates around analyzing speech acts.

1. SPEECH ACTS
by Don L. F. Nilsen
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2. CONDITIONS ON PERFORMATIVES
• Subject must be 1st person.
• Verb must be active.
• Verb must be non-durative.
• Adverb must be “hereby.”
• Sentence must be positive, not negative.
• Sentence must be Imperative or Declarative.
• Verb must perform the act.
• Must meet felicity conditions (authority, etc.)
• Must meet sincerity conditions (not a joke, etc.)
• Can be larger than a sentence (e.g. The Declaration of
Independence)
(Mey 107ff)
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3. CONTEXT OF SPEECH ACTS
• “There is a policeman at the corner.”
• This could be a warning, an assurance,
a dare, a hint, or a reminder to go and
take your car out of the handicapped
space you are parked in.
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4. • “I promise I’ll be there tomorrow.”
• This could be a threat or a promise,
depending on whether his presence
tomorrow is a disadvantage or an
advantage to the listener. Contrast the
sentence above with:
• “If you don’t behave, I promise you there’s
going to be trouble.” This sentence says
it’s a “promise,” but it’s a “threat.”
(Searle Speech Acts 58)
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5. • When he was campaigning, Clinton said he
would not turn away any Haitian refugees.
• When he became President, Clinton turned
away Haitian refugees.
• Clinton said that the conditions had changed.
• Based on this, Daniel Schorr on National
Public Radio said, “Campaigning is not the
same as governing,” because the conditions
are not the same.
(Mey 127)
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6. FELICITY CONDITIONS
• Authority
– Person
– Place
– Time
– Manner
• Sincerity
– Verbal Sincerity
– Intonational Sincerity
– Behavioral Sincerity
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7. INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
• “Could you move over a bit?”
• “Yes” (without moving is inappropriate)
• Moving (without “Yes” is appropriate)
• NOTE: “Could you move over a bit” is a
precondition to the actual speech act, “Move
over.”
(Mey 111)
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8. • Do you know what time it is?
• Do you have the correct time?
• Can you tell me how to get to the men’s room?
• Do you see the salt anywhere?
• It’s cold in here.
• Isn’t this soup rather bland?
• Why can’t you shut up?
• NOTE: These are preconditions
(Mey 126-127, 135)
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9. • I strongly suggest you shut your mouth.
• Sometimes it’s a good idea to shut up.
• I wonder if you really should do all that talking.
• I wouldn’t say more, if I were you.
• Remember the proverb, “Speech is silver….?”
• How about if you just shut up?
(Mey 136)
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10. • DURING A JOB INTERVIEW:
• “Would you like to tell us, Mr. Khan,
why you’ve applied to Middleton
College?
• This is known as “fishing for
compliments.”
(Mey 213)
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11. IRONIC SPEECH ACTS
• I promise not to keep this promise.
• Do not read this sign.
• You did a great job, and I’m not being
polite.
(Mey 129, 177)
• George Lakoff wrote a book entitled,
Don’t Think of an Elephant.
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12. LUMPERS AND SPLITTERS
• Splitters feel that there are many different types of
speech acts. Verschueren says that some splitters
have as many as five hundred or six hundred
different types of speech acts.
(Verschueren 10)
• Searle is a lumper. He has only five classes of
Speech Acts: Representatives, Directives,
Commissives, Expressives and Declarations.
(Searle 1979)
• We could lump all of these into a single class:
“Performatives.”
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13. MARKEDNESS OF SPEECH ACTS
• I beg your excellency to please accept these keys to the city as
a token of our humble submission to your excellency (to
commander of enemy troops who have captured a city)
• *I (hereby) promise to set fire to your house.
• *I (hereby) warn you that you will be awarded the Nobel Prize.
• *I (hereby) warn you that your lawn will turn brown in
November.
• Under penalty of law, do not remove this tag.
(Mey 130-131)
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14. SILENCE AS A SPEECH ACT
• In Mexico in the old days, the Federales
would pull a person over and ask to see their
driver’s license.
• Before handing over the driver’s license the
driver would attach a $20 bill onto the back
of the license.
• Nothing was said by either party. Was this,
therefore, a bribe, or not?
(Mey 211)
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15. • MOTHER (Calling out the window to
child in yard): Joshua, what are you
doing?
• JOSHUA: Nothing…
• MOTHER: WILL YOU STOP IT
IMMEDIATELY!
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16. • “What I like best is doing nothing…. It’s
when people call out at you just as
you’re going off to do it. ‘What are you
going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and
you say, ‘Oh, nothing,’ and then you go
and do it.”
(Milne, The House on Pooh Corner
Chapter 10)
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17. • STUDENT: I was going to talk to you about my term
paper, if it’s all right.
• PROFESSOR: SILENCE
• STUDENT: When do you think you’ll have it marked
then?
• PROFESSOR: Miriam, I hope you brought the book.
• MIRIAM: SILENCE
• PROFESSOR: Okay, but please remember it next
time.
(Blum-Kulka 176)
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18. SPEECH ACT FORCE
• Locutionary Force (what is said)
• Illocutionary Force (what is done)
• Perlocutionary Force (the effect)
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19. TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 1
• Commissives (Affect Speaker, Subjective)
• TYPES: Oath, Offer, Promise
• Declaratives (Change the Macrocosmic Social World)
• TYPES: Baptism, Marriage
• Directives (Change the Microcosmic Social World)
• TYPES: Command, Request
• Expressives (Feelings of Speaker)
• TYPES: Apology, Thanks
(Mey 120, Searle 1977, 34)
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20. TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 2
• Interrogatives (Hearer Knows Best)
• TYPES: Closed (yes-no), Loaded, Open
• Imperatives (Directives) (Affect Hearer)
• TYPES: Request, Requirement, Threat, Warning
• Performatives (Affect world)
• TYPES: Agreement, Appointment, Baptism, Declaration of
Independence, Dedication, Marriage
• Representatives (Objective Descriptive Statements)
• TYPES: Statement that is either True or False
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21. UPTAKE
• Some speech acts like betting and
thanking need an “uptake” from the
listener. Consider the following:
• BAR-LEV: Sir, I want to thank you for
your cooperation and I want to thank
you very much.
• IDI AMIN: You know I did not succeed.
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22. • !BAR-LEV: I have been requested by a
friend with good connections in the
government to thank you for your
cooperation. I don’t know what was
meant by it, but I think you do know.
• IDI AMIN: I don’t know because I’ve
only now returned hurriedly from
Mauritius
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23. !!CONTEXT OF BAR-LEV
CONVERSATION WITH IDI AMIN
• Bar-Lev is an Israeli colonel
• Idi Amin is the President of Uganda
• Israeli paratroopers have entered Uganda without permission
• Idi Amin heard that this was planned and left for Mauritius
• Therefore if Idi Amin accepts the thanks, it means he agrees
with the paratrooper drop. Since he was not in the country, he
can’t be held responsible.
(Mey 282-283)
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24. !!!CONCLUSION
• The chief beadle In Dutch universities
knows when doctoral defenses begin.
• After the defense has been in progress
for 45 minutes, he ceremoniously
enters the defense stamps his staff on
the floor, and proclaims in Latin “Hora
est.” (Time is up!).
(Verschueren 93)
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25. References # 1:
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 1962.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper eds.
Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood,
NJ: Ablex, 1989.
Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Language
Awareness. Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.
Mey, Jacob L., ed. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Oxford,
England: Elsevier Science/Pergamon, 1998.
Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford,
England, 2001.
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26. References # 2
Mey, Jacob L. When Voices Clash: A Study in Literary
Pragmatics. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999.
Mey, Jacob L. Whose Language? A Study in Linguistic
Pragmatics. Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 1985.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th
Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
Raskin, Victor. The Primer of Humor Research. New York, NY:
Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
Schiffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1994, pp. 49-96.
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27. References # 3
Searle, John R. A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” In Proceedings of
the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions, and
Implicatures. Eds. Andy Rogers, Bob Wall and John P. Murphy,
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1977, 27-45.
Searle, John R. “The Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” Language in
Society 8 (1979): 137-151.
Searle, John R. "Indirect Speech Acts." Syntax and Semantics III: Speech
Acts. New York, NY: Academic Press, 1975, 59-82.
Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Verschueren, Jef. Understanding Pragmatics. London, England: Arnold,
1999.
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