Speech Acts

& Language Functions

Pragmatics
Not only language structure is rule governed

language use is, too

Rules of language use are social: Is saying this
possible? / feasible? / appropriate? /
done?
(Dell Hymes)
Oxford 1930s-1940s:
Ordinary Language Philosophers John Austin

(The early)

John Austin

Language is not only about making true/false

statements (cp. Logical Positivism)

Language is also performing social actions, cp.:
Constatives = true/false statements
The car is in the garage
Hitler died in 1945
Nitric acid dissolves zink

Performatives = social actions saying is

doing
I declare this bazaar open
Go get my slippers
Ill pay you tomorrow

Performatives = social actions

saying is doing if the speech act is felicitous:
- I declare this bazaar open
(but not anybody is authorized to do this)
- Give me one million dollars!
(but speaker may happen to know 2nd person
doesnt have one million)
- Ill pay you tomorrow
(but speaker may not intend to do this)

= conditions to be fulfilled for utterances to be felicitous

performatives
Explicit performatives use performative verbs

e.g. promise, recommend, warn, babtize, order

However, apparent constatives can also be

performatives:
Its hot in here!

and what action is being performed here:

(I dont have the money with me) can you manage until
tomorrow?

Felicity conditions

The later Austin drops the

Constative/Performance distinction
- and now talks only about

SPEECH ACTs
a. Locutionary acts: pronouncing meaningful
sentences
b. Illocutionary acts: expressing intention
c. Perlocutionary acts: affecting the listener
(a), (b) and (c) happen simultaneously
to be separated by analysis only

Can you reach the salt?

the title of Carol Henriksens anthology
Locutionary meaning?
Illocutionary force?
Perlocutionary effect?

The perlocutionary effect is not necessarily the

intended one!

Austins How to Do Things with Words

(1962)
became the foundation of

PRAGMATICS

carried on by two equally famous students of

his:
(from Ordinary Language Philosophers):

John Searle
H. Paul Grice

John R. Searle
Speech Act in Searle = Austins Illocutionary Act
aims to group illocutionary acts into categories
based on constitutive rules (cp. Austins felicity

conditions)
Constitutive rules e.g. those making up game of
chess
(as opposed to)
Regulative rules e.g. one should not swear in
public

Thus promise (Ill bring the book

tomorrow) based on 9 constitutive
rules, e.g.:
Preparatory conditions (rules 4 & 5)

(4) H would prefer Ss doing A to his not doing A

S believes that H feels that way
(5) It isnt obvious to both S and H that S would
do A
anyway
Sincerity condition (rule 6): S intends to do A
Essential condition (rule 7): S intends that

saying the sentence will place him under an

obligation to do A

Categories of Speech Act

(Searle)
Representatives
Directives
Commissives
Expressives
Declaratives
Cp. p. 45 of your Readings

Propositions and function indicating

devices
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bill, open the window!

Would Bill open the window, please?
Bill opened the window
Did Bill open the window?
I forbid Bill to open the window!

Proposition: Bill + open + the window

What are the (pragmatic-) function indicating
devices in each example?
Ex. of utterances without propositional content:
Yes/yea
/mm, hurrah, ouch, OK

Indirect Speech Acts

Problem: Representatives are often indirect
directives
e.g. x. Youre standing on my foot!
Primary illocutionary force of (x): Directive
Secondary illocutionary force of (x): Representative
We can distinguish because of
principles of cooperation (Searle refers to Grice!)
contextual factors

Linguistic conventions
in Indirect Speech Acts:
Can you reach the salt?
Would you mind opening the window?
certain syntactic constructions, e.g. interrogative
clauses introduced by a modal verb (can/could,
will/would, etc.)
= (potential) performative signals by

convention
to express degrees of POLITENESS

H. Paul Grice
elaborates further on how to get from the literal
meaning of
Can you reach the salt?
to the illocutionary force of Pass the salt!
the cooperative principle
cooperation about the production of meaning

Cooperativeness
means observing 4 maxims:
1. Quantity: Make your contribution neither
less nor more informative than is required
A. Where do you live?
B. In the neighborhood.
cp. B. In the little red house over there in
the
basement my wife wont
let me sleep in
the bedroom

(Grices maxims, continued)

2. Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is

true
= Do not say what you know to be false
AND
= Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence
3. Relation: Be relevant
But then, how do we take up new aspects of the
topic,
let alone change the topic?

(Grices maxims, continued)

4. Manner: Be perspicuous
i. Avoid obscurity of expression
ii. Avoid ambiguity
iii.Be brief (cp. 1st maxim, quantity)
iv.Be orderly

Implicature = exploitation of the maxims

Hearer expects cooperation
seeing some breaches of the maxims as
meaning strategies
intended to be interpreted as such

Implicature = exploitation of
the maxims
and the Hearers ability to infer the intended
meaning
cp.
(1) A.You look unhappy
(2) B.I have to be in Copenhagen in an hour and a
half,
and I cant make it by train
(3) A.Ive got a car
(4) B.That would be absolutely wonderful are
you sure its 0k?

Implicature = exploitation of
the maxims
and the Hearers ability to infer the intended
meaning
cp.
(1) A.You look unhappy
(2) B.I have to be in Copenhagen in an hour and a
half,
and I cant make it by train
(3) A.Ive got a car and Im willing to lend it to
you
(4) B.That would be absolutely wonderful are you
sure
its 0k?

(Implicature = exploitation of the

maxims)

Quantity
Last night John was not drunk

Quality
Of course Id love to take out the garbage

(irony)
His two gorillas were guarding the door
(metaphor)
McCarthy was a little touchy about Communists
(understatement)
Danish TV is always boring
(generalization / overstatement / hyperbole)

(Implicature = exploitation of the maxims)

Relation
in most cases relevance is only apparently broken:
Ive got a car (example above: implicit
relevance)
when there is a change of topic
but significant violation of the maxim in e.g.
Look what a beautiful day!
by way of diverting attention after someone has
committed a social blunder!

(Implicature = exploitation of the maxims)

Manner
Obscurity, ambiguity, prolixity to show that S finds the
subject ticklish, or is being devious:
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages

are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language

(Gibbons Autobiography)

Polonius suggests we should by indirections find

directions out
(Hamlet II.1)