FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE: SPEECH AS ACTION

(A REFLECTION)

Muhlas Maulana Rusli

165110500111028

Discussing functions of language in semantic, the class was suggested to read

John Saeed’s book entitled “Semantic” 4th edition. The subject lied in chapter eight, page
229 – 252. This chapter divided into six sub-chapters which are introduction, Austin’s
speech act theory, categorizing speech acts, indirect speech acts, sentence types, and
summary. To make the readers get their deeper understanding, Saeed also put some
exercises. Moreover, Saeed gave the reader some suggestions to read another books
related to the chapter by mentioning some recommended books. In the end of the chapter,
the reader would find some notes and also references.

To start the discussion, Saeed emphasized that the learning of a language is more
than learning grammar and pronunciation. We have to learn how to ask a question, greet,
thank, apologize, make suggestion, and so on. It means that we need to learn some
utterances which are have specific purposes in uttering what in our mind in context so
that we can avoid some misunderstandings and not-in-context utterances. Based on
Austin (1975), such language function terminology is called speech act. In line, Saeed
said that the function of communication depends on social conventions knowledge and
specific knowledge about the local context of speech.

Saeed mentioned that there are two important characteristics of speech act which
are interactivity and context-dependence. Interactivity means that the speaker should have
coordination with other language user in creating meaningful utterances. For the example,
in conveying our condolence to someone who are sad because of some reasons, we can
say “I’m so sorry about your condition”. It means that the use of “sorry” is not only about
uttering an apology but also condolence. This utterance can be successfully delivered
when both of the speaker and the hearer have the same understanding about the meaning.
Context dependence has two aspects. The first is that many speech acts rely on social
conventions to support them and the second one is the local context of a speech act.
 Then, in the second sub chapter, Saeed explained about Austin’s speech act
theory. He summed up that there were three statements in understanding Austin’s speech
act theory. The first is that the basic sentence type in language is declarative. The second
is that the principal use of language is to describe states of affairs, and the last is that the
meaning of utterances can be described in terms of their truth or falsity. In contrast, Austin
oppositions have different perspectives. They tend to state that not all sentences are
statement, it can be a question, suggestion, exclamation, etc. These sentences cannot be
judged as it is true or false. It called performative utterance. Not only explaining about
performative utterance, but Saeed also explained about non-performative utterance and
contrast both of them. He provided some examples in every explanation which mean it
makes easier for the reader to understand about the materials.

There were three facets of speech act as Saeed wrote on the book. Those are
locution, illocution, and perlocution. Locution means the literal meaning of the utterance
uttered by the speaker. Illocution means the act performed by saying the utterance while
perlocution means the effect on the hearer after the utterance is uttered by the speaker.
After explaining and exampling those facets of speech act, Saeed gave more explanation
about the categorization of speech act by providing Searle (1976) statements. According
to Searle (1976), there were 5 types of speech act. Those are representatives, directives,
commissives, expressive, and declaratives. Meanwhile, Kreidler (1998) provided 7 types
of speech act. Those are assertive utterance, performative utterance, veridictive utterance,
expressive utterance, directive utterance, commissive utterance, and phatic utterance.

The next sub-chapter was discussing indirect speech act. When someone says
“would you mind passing the glass?”. The form of the utterance should be a question, but
literally, it should be a request. The “question” in that utterance is called as direct speech
act, and the “request” is called as indirect speech act. Based on this illustration, there
should be a big question that is how we understand the indirect speech act. Searle (1976)
stated that in understanding indirect speech act, we should combine our knowledge of
three elements. Those elements are the felicity conditions of direct speech acts, the
context of the utterance, and principles of conversational cooperation. An illustration in
understanding how these three elements may help the hearer to understand indirect speech
act is provided in the book.
 Discussing indirect speech act, we cannot ignore the role of politeness. People
tend to use indirect speech act in uttering request or order. For the example, we say “would
you mind passing the glass?” to make a request to the addressee to pass the glass over us.
We do not use “pass the glass” to show our politeness. Interrogative requests such as the
example above are useful because they allow speakers to explicitly state some conditions
that make compliance impossible. Politeness is often associated with the concept of face.
Goffman (1967) face concept is one’s social image an individual seek to projects. In line,
Brown and Levin (1978) claim that face is the public face image every member want to
claim. Positive face express individual desire to seem worthy and deserving for approval
while negative face represent an individual’s desire to be autonomous.

In the end of the discussion, Saeed explained about sentence types. Sentence type
is a conversational matching between grammatical form and speech act, some languages
has a question contrast with declarative speech act. Saeed introduced the idea of
classifiers that marks the distinction between different verbal inflections for person etc.
The problem with marking by special words can be used for a variety of semantic
distinctions. Sadock and Zwicky (1985) suggested some rule thumb for identifying
sentences. Those are that the sentence types should form a system, so that there should
be corresponding versions of a sentence in each type, the type should be mutually
exclusive, such as there should be no combination of two sentence type markers in the
same sentence, and there should be a conventional association with a speech act.
References
Austin, J. L. 1975: How to Do Things with Words, second edition. Oxford: Clarendon
Press. (First published 1962.)
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson 1987: Politeness: Some Universals in
Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, Erving 1967: Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior. Garden City,
NY: Anchor Books.
Sadock, Jerrold M. and Arnold M. Zwicky 1985: Speech act distinctions in syntax. In
Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. 1,
155–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, John R. 1976: The classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5: 1–
23. Reprinted in Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts,
1979. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–29.