Force and Conversational States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Murray ◽  
William B. Starr
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Grammatical Mood

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to serving as a particular type of speech act, that is, to serving as one of the three basic types of language game moves-making an assertion (declarative); posing a question (interrogative); or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). This type of semantics for grammatical mood is illustrated with the imperative.

Speech Acts in Discourse Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craige Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Consensus View ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
The Relationship

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to a particular type of speech act, i.e. one of the three basic types of language game moves—making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). There is relative consensus about the semantics of two of these, the declarative and interrogative; and this consensus view is entirely compatible with the present proposal about the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of grammatical mood. Hence, the proposal is illustrated with the more controversial imperative.

scholarly journals Politeness as a Linguistic Device in Response to the Speech Act of Modesty

2020 ◽  
pp. 378-390
Author(s):  
Maryam Shafaghi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
Negative Judgement

The context in which the speech act of modesty takes place has a considerable impact on the formation of meaning as well as the determination of the illocutionary force behind the modesty act. This context might include different speech acts, such as admiration, approval, and praise. Modesty can be either positive or negative. In positive modesty, i.e. sincere modesty, the speaker expresses his true feeling of respect and politeness. Thus, he or she conforms to accepted norms of expressing modesty in a society. In negative modesty, i.e. insincere modesty, the speaker deviates from those norms. To be modest is to be polite; therefore, responses given to the act of modesty include a range of different speech acts. Positive modesty entails the acts of approval, praise, admiration, and a request to end modesty, whereas negative modesty leads to the acts of disapproval, negative judgement, denial, reproach, and a request to end flattery. High modesty is indicative of a polite and modest person, while low modesty is suggestive of an impolite and egoistic person. Excessive and low modesty form an unfriendly and unequal interaction.

What is an indirect speech act?

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Jörg Meibauer
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Getting Lost ◽  
Indirect Speech Act

Abstract The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about the reasons for the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sentence types as indicators of illocutionary force seems to have been getting lost. Here, I go back to the seemingly outdated “literal force hypothesis” (see Levinson 1983: 263–264) and point out how it is still relevant for cognitive pragmatics.

Speech Acts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Green
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Made In

Speech acts are acts that can, but need not, be carried out by saying and meaning that one is doing so. Many view speech acts as the central units of communication, with phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of an utterance serving as ways of identifying whether the speaker is making a promise, a prediction, a statement, or a threat. Some speech acts are momentous, since an appropriate authority can, for instance, declare war or sentence a defendant to prison, by saying that he or she is doing so. Speech acts are typically analyzed into two distinct components: a content dimension (corresponding to what is being said), and a force dimension (corresponding to how what is being said is being expressed). The grammatical mood of the sentence used in a speech act signals, but does not uniquely determine, the force of the speech act being performed. A special type of speech act is the performative, which makes explicit the force of the utterance. Although it has been famously claimed that performatives such as “I promise to be there on time” are neither true nor false, current scholarly consensus rejects this view. The study of so-called infelicities concerns the ways in which speech acts might either be defective (say by being insincere) or fail completely. Recent theorizing about speech acts tends to fall either into conventionalist or intentionalist traditions: the former sees speech acts as analogous to moves in a game, with such acts being governed by rules of the form “doing A counts as doing B”; the latter eschews game-like rules and instead sees speech acts as governed by communicative intentions only. Debate also arises over the extent to which speakers can perform one speech act indirectly by performing another. Skeptics about the frequency of such events contend that many alleged indirect speech acts should be seen instead as expressions of attitudes. New developments in speech act theory also situate them in larger conversational frameworks, such as inquiries, debates, or deliberations made in the course of planning. In addition, recent scholarship has identified a type of oppression against under-represented groups as occurring through “silencing”: a speaker attempts to use a speech act to protect her autonomy, but the putative act fails due to her unjust milieu.

scholarly journals “I’m really sorry about what I said”

Pragmatics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Su ◽  
Naixing Wei
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Corpus Pragmatics ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Local Grammar

Abstract This paper extends the concept of local grammar to speech act studies, focusing specifically on apologising in English. It aims primarily to demonstrate the usefulness of a local grammar approach to account for speech acts and ultimately to contribute to the on-going development of corpus pragmatics. Apology expressions in a corpus of scripted TV conversations are first automatically extracted and then manually examined in order to make sure that all remaining instances have the illocutionary force of apologising and thus qualify for further analysis. The subsequent local grammar analyses facilitate the establishment of a local grammar of apology, comprising 14 local grammar patterns. The analyses show that it is promising to develop a set of local grammars to account more adequately for speech acts in general. The relationship between local grammars, functional grammars, and general grammars is further discussed, which suggests that local grammars can be an alternative approach to functional-pragmatic studies of language and discourse. Directions for future research are outlined; and implications and applications are briefly discussed.

Sprechakttheoretische Überlegungen zur Typographie – am Beispiel von Presseüberschriften

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-291
Author(s):  
Rita Finkbeiner
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
General Question ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Using the example of newspaper headlines, this paper develops a speech-act theoretic approach to aspects of meaning that can be communicated through the use of typographic means. After considering, more generally, the relationship between speech act theory and writing, analogies between prosody and typography are discussed and the claim is developed that typographic means, just as prosodic means, may function as illocutionary force indicating devices. Using Gallmann’s (1985) system of graphic means, newspaper headlines are defined, more specifically, as typographic objects indicating the (meta-textual) illocution type of an announcement of the text topic. Finally, the relationship between the grammatically determined illocution of a (sentential) headline and its typographically determined meta-textual illocution is modeled, on the basis of Searle’s (1982b) account of fictional speech acts, as an interplay of „vertical“ and „horizontal“ rules. The paper closes with a discussion of the more general question whether typographic acts are speech acts.

He said, she said

Target ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Bourne
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Directive Speech ◽  
Pragmatic Dimension ◽  
Selection Of

In this article it is suggested that the translation of speech-act report verbs may provide scope for achieving stylistic and pragmatic aims. Analysis of the translation of fictional dialogues from a contemporary English novel reveals considerable diversity in the choice of Spanish verbs used to render ‘said’ in the context of impositive directive speech acts. While the choice of a speech act with similar illocutionary force to “said” may fulfil only stylistic objectives, a pragmatic dimension is introduced by the selection of a speech-act verb with a different force. In the context of impositive directive speech acts such a choice may be viewed as an aspect of “pragmastylistics”, defined in Hickey et al. (1993) as “the area where pragmatic and stylistic considerations converge.”

Actes De Langage, Semi-Actes Et Typologie Des Connecteurs Pragmatiques

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Rubattel
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Discourse Units ◽  
The Relationship

This article deals with the syntactic properties of pragmatic connectives and with the relationship between their distributional and argumentative properties. Recent discourse models based on speech act theory assume that pragmatic connectives link sentences (or larger units). However, certain phrasal categories too can function as discourse units, and the set of pragmatic connectives therefore includes not only markers linking sentences provided with an illocutionary force (speech acts), but also phrases lacking an asserted illocutionary force (semi-speech acts). Moreover, many connectives either belong to the two subsets or are in complementary distribution, depending on the syntactic environment. Except for coordination, all these connectives are members of only two grammatical categories: Universal subordinators (including complementizers, subordinating conjunctions and prepositions), and modifying adverbs. Coordinate conjunctions are briefly reconsidered, and some arguments are given for restricting this class to et, ou and ni, both on pragmatic and on syntactic grounds.

scholarly journals An Analysis of the Illocutionary Acts on Donald Trump's Presidential Candidacy Speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Desinta Larasati ◽  
Arjulayana - Arjulayana ◽  
Cut Novita Srikandi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Illocutionary Acts ◽  
Illocutionary Act ◽  
Act One ◽  
Perlocutionary Act

ABSTRACTLearning language will also relate to speech act. When a speaker produce an utterance as well as utilize it to perform an action, it means that the speaker practices speech acts. In another hand, speech acts can be defined as an utterance used by speaker to perform an action. Speech acts are divided into three such as locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. One of them is illocutionary act. The illocutionary act refers to what someone does in saying something. In this act, illocutionary force is the speaker’s intent addressed to hearer. This research is aimed to find the types of illocutionary acts and identifying about how utterances in the Donald Trump’s speeches are able to be included into certain type of illocutionary acts be based on Searle’s theory. This research is designed in descriptive qualitative. The data is collected by documentation. The primary data are taken from two transcripts of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. While the secondary data are related theories obtained from literary books and journals. The procedure of analyzing the data starts by finding out the types of illocutionary acts in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches by using the illocutionary acts’ classifications proposed by Searle (1969). After that, the researcher also identifies about the different frequency of illocutionary acts appearances and the dominant illoctionary acts appeared in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. The finding shows that the type of illocutionary acts found in the Donald Trump’s speeches were assertive, commissive, expressive, and directive. Eventhough the types of illocutionary acts found in Donald Trump’s speeches were exactly the same, but they were different in the frequency of appearance. Donald Trump produced mostly assertive type of illocutionary acts and also asserting category of illocutionary type in both of the speeches. Moreover, some utterances are included into assertive type of illocutionary acts due to the fact that they have a suitability with the explanation of assertive type of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle.Keywords: Illocutionary Acts, Speech Acts, Presidential Candidacy Speeches.

scholarly journals Apology Strategies in Qassimi Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1535
Author(s):  
Lina I. Alrshoudi
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Najdi Arabic ◽  
Taking Responsibility ◽  
Explicit Expressions

This study aims to discover what types of apology strategies are utilized by Qassimi speakers. To achieve this, the data were collected by observations (n=34) where apology speech acts were produced. All the participants (n= 53) are Qassimi Arabic speakers (a variety of Najdi Arabic spoken in central Saudi Arabia) as their L1. The data were analyzed according to Blum-Kulka’s framework of apology strategies. The findings showed that Qassimi Arabic speakers used a range of apology strategies. Principally, they used a combination of illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs) and explanations of the reason for their apology. Besides, a range of alternative apology strategies was also evident; namely, using explicit expressions (only IFIDs), denying/taking responsibility, offering repair, and the promise of forbearance. Moreover, another novel apology strategy was also evident that has not been addressed previously in the literature; namely, where a victim apologies to an interlocutor who has offended them. These strategies differed in their popularity among the participants. The present study makes several noteworthy contributions to the field of pragmatics in general and the speech act of apology in particular.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document