Patricia Elena Gallego Alfaro

ID. 1094931232
Wednesday 25-09-2019
1) What are Felicity conditions? Please give 2 examples of what they are.
(Reading 2a, page 50 - 51)

It refers to the conditions that must be in place and the criteria that must be
satisfied for a speech act to achieve its purpose. The communication should do
it by the correct person and the right time and the correct intention.

E.g.
 The great majority of Colombians elected Álvaro Uribe in 2004 as
president of the country.
 In 1982 the Swedish academy awarded the Nobel prize for literature to
Gabriel Garcia Marques.

2) What are the 5 Speech Act Classifications presented in Chapter 6? List them
and present an example for each one.

Declarations are kinds of speech act that change the world via utterances.
The speaker must have a special institutional role, in a specific context, in order
to perform a declaration appropriately.
Example:
a. Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.

Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker
believes to be the case or not. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and
descriptions are all examples of the speaker representing the world as he or she
believes it is.
Example:
a. The earth is flat.

Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels.
They express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes,
dislikes, joy, or sorrow. They can be caused by something the speaker does or
the hearer does, but they are about the speaker’s experience.
Example:
a. I’m really sorry!
b. Congratulations!

Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else
to do something. They express what the speaker wants. They are commands,
orders, requests, suggestions, etc.
Examples:
a. Give me a cup of coffee. Make it black.
b. Could you lend me a pen, please?
Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit
themselves to some future action. They express what the speaker intends. They
are promises, threats, refusals, pledges. They can be performed by the speaker
alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group.
Example:
a. I’ll be back.

3) What is the difference between a Direct and an Indirect Speech Act? Please
give an example. (Reading 2a, pages 54 - 56)

Direct speech implies a direct discourse, that uses the actual words of the
speaker to report it.
Indirect speech refers to indirect discourse that delineates what a person said, in
own words.

Direct: The sports teacher said, “Run fast, boys.”

Indirect: The sports teacher asked the boys to run fast.