Local grammars and diachronic speech act analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-136
Author(s):  
Hang Su
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
American English ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Speech Act Analysis ◽  
Local Grammar

Abstract This paper proposes a method that is designed to facilitate diachronic speech act analysis. The proposed method draws on the corpus linguistic concept of local grammar – an approach which seeks to account for, not the whole of a language, but one meaning or function only. Local grammar descriptions capture both formal and semantic regularities of speech act realisations, and local grammars offer a more reliable way to quantify speech act realisations across time. It is particularly in this respect that it is argued that a local grammar approach can be useful for diachronic speech act studies, which is demonstrated subsequently by tracing one particular speech act, namely “apology”, in a sample of the Corpus of Historical American English (coha).

scholarly journals The Speech Act Fallacy Fallacy

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hurka
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

John Searle has charged R.M. Hare's prescriptivist analysis of the meaning of ‘good,’ ‘ought’ and the other evaluative words with committing what he calls the ‘speech act fallacy.’ This is a fallacy which Searle thinks is committed not only by Hare's analysis, but by any analysis which attributes to a word the function of indicating that a particular speech act is being performed, or that an utterance has a particular illocutionary force. ‘There is a condition of adequacy which any analysis of the meaning of a word must meet,’ Searle writes, ‘and which the speech act analysis fails to meet. Any analysis of the meaning of a word must be consistent with the fact that the same word (or morpheme) can mean the same thing in all the different kinds of sentences in which it can occur.' Hare maintains that the word ‘good’ is used to indicate the speech act of prescribing. He maintains that one of the principal functions of this word is to indicate that utterances of sentences containing it have prescriptive illocutionary force, and that an analysis of its meaning must make explicit and ineliminable reference to this force-indicating function. But ‘good’ regularly occurs in sentences utterances of which appear to have no prescriptive illocutionary force.

scholarly journals Contrastive Pragmatics: Apologies & Thanks in English and Italian

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Cuneyt Demir ◽  
Mehmet Takkac
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
American English ◽  
The Status ◽  
Language Competency ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Remedial Strategies

<p>Awareness of language or language competency has greatly changed from the focus of language itself as form and structure to language use as pragmatics. Accordingly, it is widely accepted that different cultures structure discourse in different ways. Moreover, studies have shown that this holds for discourse genres traditionally considered as highly standardized in their rituals and formulas. Taking inspiration from such studies, this paper employs a corpus-based approach to examine variations of the apology and thanking strategies used in English and Italian. First the apology itself as a form of social action is closely analyzed and then thanking. This study also pays special attention on analyzing and contrasting apology and thanking strategies in American English and in Italian in terms of Marion Owen’s remedial strategies (Owen, 1983), and Olshtain &amp; Cohen’s semantic formulas in the apology speech act set (Olshtain &amp; Cohen, 1983). The purpose of the study is not only to compare apology and thanking speech acts but to also learn their contextual use. The findings suggest that the status and role of the situation affect the speakers’ choice of apology and thanking strategies, and semantic formulas are of great importance.</p>

scholarly journals The Pragmatic Study of Speech Act Analysis in Discussion Activities on Speaking Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-72
Author(s):  
Widiastuti Muchsin
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Speech Act Analysis ◽  
Perlocutionary Act ◽  
Pragmatic Study ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

The research problems of this research is what are the types and functions of speech acts that appear in discussion activities on speaking learning of 3rd semester students of Polytechnic ATI Makassar. The methods in this research is a descriptive qualitative method. The subject of this research is the 3rd semester Politechnic ATI Makassar students in class discussion activities. The results of the study can be described as follows. There are several types of speech acts found. Based on the action objectives of the speaker's perspective, Locutionary act, Illocution act, and perlocutionary act are found. Locutionary speech acts include news, questions and orders. Illocutionary speech acts include assertive, directive, expressive, commissive and declarative illocution

Lexical priming in humorous satirical newspaper headlines

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Skalicky
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
American English ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
Do So

Abstract Satire is a type of discourse commonly employed to mock or criticize a satirical target, typically resulting in humor. Current understandings of satire place strong emphasis on the role that background and pragmatic knowledge play during satire recognition. However, there may also be specific linguistic cues that signal a satirical intent. Researchers using corpus linguistic methods, specifically Lexical Priming, have demonstrated that other types of creative language use, such as irony, puns, and verbal jokes, purposefully deviate from expected language patterns (e.g. collocations). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether humorous satirical headlines also subvert typical linguistic patterns using the theory of Lexical Priming. In order to do so, a corpus of newspaper headlines taken from the satirical American newspaper The Onion are analyzed and compared to a generalized corpus of American English. Results of this analysis suggest satirical headlines exploit linguistic expectations through the use of low-frequency collocations and semantic preferences, but also contain higher discourse and genre level deviations that cannot be captured in the surface level linguistic features of the headlines.

scholarly journals Speech act analysis of Igbo utterances in funeral rites

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Martha Chidimma Egenti ◽  
Benjamin I. Mmadike
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Funeral Rites ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

scholarly journals The Construction of Away Messages: A Speech Act Analysis

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1025-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Nastri ◽  
Jorge Peña ◽  
Jeffrey T. Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

Corpus linguistics in language and sexuality studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiko Motschenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
American English ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
Linguistic Methodology ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Queer Linguistics ◽  
Per Se

Abstract As an introduction to the special issue, this paper presents an overview of previous corpus linguistic work in the field of language and sexuality and discusses the compatibility of corpus linguistic methodology with queer linguistics as a central theoretical approach in language and sexuality studies. The discussion is structured around five prototypical aspects of corpus linguistics that may be deemed problematic from a poststructuralist, queer linguistic perspective: quantification and associated notions of objectivity, reliance on linguistic forms and formal presence, concentration on highly frequent features, reliance on categories, and highlighting of differences. It is argued that none of these aspects rules out an application of corpus linguistic techniques within queer theoretically informed linguistic work per se and that it is rather the way these techniques are employed that can be seen as more or less compatible with queer linguistics. To complement the theoretical discussion, a collocation analysis of sexual descriptive adjectives in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is conducted in an attempt to address some of the issues raised. The concluding section makes suggestions for future research.

Constitutive Rules and Speech-Act Analysis

1971 ◽  
Vol 68 (13) ◽  
pp. 385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ransdell
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Analysis
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