Members:

Cristina Guadalupe Cruz de la Cruz.

Karen Guadalupe Serrat Prats.
Profesor:
Pedro Zapata Jiménez
Group:
CIDI
Subject:
Semantics and pragmatics

December 13, 2022

 Introduction
Languages are very important in the life of a human being, it is the way we communicate and
exchange ideas. Pragmatics is the part of semiotics that deals with the relationship between
signs and their users in this document we will obtain information on speech act, cooperative
principle and speech events, these are used to make requests or to signify global contents, to
accompany or describe actions, to express even ideas of a certain complexity, in which the
adult interlocutor must naturally make up for a quota of missing information. We used the
series called “that 70s show” where we examine the language used with the items we are
studying e.g. speech events is one of the ones we will read in this document that is obout of
events at which speech typically takes place, for another hand speech acts is analysis
comissives, directives and expressives speech.

CONCEPT AND THEORY: SPEECH ACTS

The analysis in this report is based on dialogue from the famous American series of the 2000s,
"That 70s Show". The collected chapters contain the characteristics of the types of speech acts,
focus on the following examples: "commissives", "directives" and "expressives".

COMMISSIVES:
Excerpt Episode 11, Season 2

Jackie: Fine, I believe you, Michael, but know this. If you're not telling the truth, I will find out.
Cause I'm smart and you aren't.

“Fine, I believe you…”

In this part, Jackie takes Kelso at his word when they argue over a girl.

DIRECTIVES:

However, in the next part of the dialogue she threatens him and stresses that he is not smart
enough like her and and is regarded as an example of directive speech.

“If you're not telling the truth, I will find out. Cause I'm smart and you aren't.”

Then, another example is in the following excerpt:

Excerpt Episode 10, Season 1

Kitty Formann: I’m a nurse. I know that 1 in 5 teenagers smoke. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now, I’m going to
close my eyes and when I open them there had better be a cigarette between these two fingers.
Come on people hop to! . . . Thank you… Light!
In this episode, Kitty Formann goes down to the basement with the guys and finds them chatting,
and when she sees them, he asks them for a cigarette to calm the anxiety and stress caused by his
mother-in-law and her visit.

EXPRESSIVES:
Excerpt Episode 19, Season 2

Donna: Jackie, I though you hated him.

Jackie: Feelings changes, Donna. Like, remember when we first met and I hated you.

Donna: What?

Jackie: Yeah, I thought you were like this big goon. Didn't we have this talk?

Donna: No…

Jackie: I'm so sorry.

In this part of the episode, Jackie talks to Donna about their friendship and confesses that she
didn't like her when she first met her and accidentally tells her something embarrassing she
thought about her that she thought she had said before, and apologises.

THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

Maxim of Quantity

It means that when someone asks a question about something, the listener should respond as the
informative answer, say enough and not say too much. It should be the answer or information
needed by the person who asked the question. Even though providing more information
sometimes but, in principle, cooperative norms require only the information that is needed.

Excerpt Episode 1, Season 6

Jackie: I know I promised I wouldn´t do any wedding stuff, and I know you´re probably really mad.
So just go ahead and yell.

Steven: You´re beautiful.

Jackie: Oh, my god. You like me in a wedding dress, which means that someday we´re gonna get
married, which means that I can talk about it. I want a spring wedding outside with white doves
and I want the sun to be setting behind me, so that I have a halo kinda like an angel. Oh, and then
wild mustangs can take us to our honeymoon in Hawaii! . . . Oh, but your family can´t come.

Maxim of Quality

People like true answers. The maxim of quality is about saying something that you have reason to
believe is true. You must avoid any information that could be false, as you would be in breach of
the maxim. The interlocutor must say something that is true or something that he or she is sure of.
Excerpt Episode 4, Season 3

Fez: Something´s wrong. I don´t feel special.

Jackie: Me neither.

Steve: Yeah, I don´t think those were special brownies, man.

Eric: Oh, no, no. They´re special. Say, Donna. Do you have any more of that special ingredient we
used?

Donna: Well, I certainly do, Eric. Chocolate Super Lax!

Kelso: You didn’t.

Donna: We did. We so did and maybe you´ll think twice before screwing us.

Maxim of Manner

Maxim of manner when the conversation is be brief, clear, and unambiguous. According to Grice
(as cited in Yule, 1996) these are the rules in maxim of manner;

a. Avoid obscurity of expression

b. Avoid ambiguity

c. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

d. Be orderly

Excerpt Episode 5, Season 2

Steve: See what that file says about you, Jackie.
Jackie: Go ahead, I have a perfect record.
Steve: Would anybody like to know what Jackie´s middle name is?
Jackie: (scream)
Steve: Jackie´s middle name is…
Jackie: No! (hits Steve)
Steve: It´s Beulah.
Speech Events
There are several types of events where the speech normally takes place:
Welcoming
All: Surprise!
Leo: Oh guys you got me
in this expression the characters show us how to say surprise remains in that scene because they
made a surprise party and that is its meaning.
Telephone conversation
Michael Kelson: Hello, Hello. Uh, White House?, yeah, yes. I have a couple of questions.
when we talk on the phone we use a little more informal language with shorter and quicker
questions.
 Conclusion
Finally the researcher concluded that speech act was an action that
performed by the speaker when making utterance. Speech acts belonging
to the class of assertives, such as hypotheses, predictions, or estimations.
Employing the concepts of speech act theory, in this paper we implemented
which speech acts we perform when we end up with an instance of a
practical argument and present its result in a linguistic form, it is
remarkable all the speech acts when we talk and start a conversation.