English Semantics

Group 4 Class B:
Easter Sayori (16403009)
Gabyriel Rooroh (16403048)
Jeirel Manggaribet (16403090)
Muhhammad Taufik Ibrahim (16403043)
Yohanes Sulung (16403059)

English Education Department

Faculty Of Languanges And Arts
Manado State University
2019
Speech Act
“A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication.” We perform speech
acts in everyday life by: Greeting Apologising Requesting Complaining and so on… The cultural
differences are also important while performing a speech act.

Felicity conditions by Austin

Two types:
1)Constitutive conditions: necessary to successfully perform an speech act.
2)Regulative conditions: “concerned how happily or how well it is performed”
Example of felicity conditions One Example of “How to do things with words”: “I name this ship
the Queen Elizabeth- as uttered when smashing the bottle against the stem.” (Austin:5)
=> It is necessary to smash the bottle against the stem in order to make this speech act happy
or felicitous. Otherwise the speech act is infelicitous to keep it simple.

Performative and constative

Austin distinguishes between the two main speech act as performatives and constatives:
Performatives: are used to undertake an action which is rather felicitous or infelicitous.
Constatives: are used to make just a statement which can be either true or false.

Performatives
Performative utterances often take the form of declarative sentences with which the speaker
performs the action denoted by some performative verb (e.g. promise, declare etc.). In so
doing, the speaker does not describe the world but changes it. Austin claims about
performatives that

“they do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything at all, are not ‘true or false’; and
the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of an action, which again would
not normally be described as, or as ‘just’, saying something” (Austin 1976:5).
Example
By uttering (i) the speaker actually makes an apology, he does not describe himself apologizing
for his behaviour.
( i ) I apologize for my behaviour
This distinguishes performatives from constatives which are used to make a true or false
statement. Performatives do not have truth conditions but felicity conditions.

Performative Verbs
The type of verbs used to make performative utterances are called performatives or
performative verbs. Examples are: promise, name, bet, agree, swear, declare, order, predict,
warn, insist, declare or refuse. The propositional content of the utterance functions as a
complement of the performative verb. Characteristics of performative verbs are:

1. Performative verbs are verbs that describe actions carried out by speakers.
2. They are used in 1st person singular, simple present, indicative, active.
3. They can be combined with hereby (cf. Bublitz 2009:75f).

Austin (1976:5) provides the following examples of performatives in his work:

 a) “‘I do (sc. Take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)’ – as uttered in the course of
the marriage ceremony.”
 b) “‘I name this ship the Queen Elisabeth’ – as uttered when smashing the bottle against the
stem.”
 c) “‘I give and bequeath my watch to my brother’ – as occurring in a will.”
 d) “‘I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.’”

DIRECT SPEECH ACT

An utterance is seen as a direct speech act when there is a direct relationship between the
structure and the communicative function of the utterance. The following examples show that
the form correspondences with the function:
(6) A declarative is used to make a statement: “You wear a seat belt.”
(7) An interrogative is used to ask a question: “Do you wear a seat belt?”
(8) An imperative is used to make a command: “Wear a seat belt!”
(Yule (1996, 55)
Direct speech acts therefore explicitly illustrate the intended meaning the speaker has behind
making that utterance.

INDIRECT SPEECH ACT

Searle stated that an indirect speech is one that is “performed by means of another” (Searle
quoted in Thomas, 1995, p.93). That means that there is an indirect relationship between the
form and the function of the utterance. The following examples show that the form does not
correspondence with the function:
(9) An interrogative is used to make a request: “Could you pass the salt?”
(10) A declarative is used to make a request: “You’re standing in front of the TV.”
(Yule 1996, 56)
The speaker does not explicitly state the intended meaning behind the utterance. It is the
hearer’s task to analyse the utterance to understand its meaning.

Sentences and Their Relation to Speech Acts

We now turn our attention to the relationship between speech acts and sentences. Remember
that speech acts are identified by the speakers’ goals. Thus there are many different ways to
perform the same speech act, because there are many different sentences that will accomplish
the same goal. Not only do we have the choice between speaking directly (with or without
performatives) or indirectly, but we can also choose a particular sentence type. Certain speech
acts are so common that many languages have particular syntactic structures conventionally
used to mark them. Some examples of different types of sentence structures for English are
given in (33), along with a basic notation of the order of subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) as a
shorthand for their major syntactic characteristics.
(33) Sentence Type Examples
Declarative He is cooking the chicken.
Interrogative Is he cooking the chicken?
Who is cooking the chicken? What is he cooking?
Imperative Cook the chicken.

References:
- http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Performative
- https://www.grin.com/document/341843
- Department of Linguistics The Ohio State University (2016). Language Files.
Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Twelfth Edition. (Page
496)