I. Chapter One .

Outline

1.1. Significance of the research

This research will shed the light on the paramedical theory of speech acts and its
major type ‘threat’. This research will also show some examples in the dialogs of
Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler play. This will hopefully help clarify the meaning of
speech acts as an important theory of pragmatics.

1.2. Objectives of the research

The present study aims at analysing Ibsen’s dramatic play Hedda Gabler from a
pragmatic perspective. To explore the theory of speech acts and its major type
‘Threat’. A pragmatic approach implies providing a description of Speech acts in the
theory of ‘Threat’ . Also, to give examples and analyse the text of the play, and show
the meaning through the famous play Hedda Gabler. Finally it will provide some
information to stretch the readers mind about the theory.

I.3. Questions of the study

1. What's the meaning of speech acts and pragmatics ?
2. What are the different types of speech acts as a major theory of pragmatics?
3. What are the different examples of this theory that could be explored through
Hedda Gabler play?

1.3. Methodology
The method used in the research is to quote from traditional books of linguists that
discuss the same topic of the research to achieve the goal of defining and introducing
pragmatics and speech acts and the theory of threat . Using samples of quotations and
dialogs taken from the play Hedda Gabler by Ibsen to analyse the theory through it .
These evidences help to support the hypothesis. And realize weather its a successful
Act or not .

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 1.4 Review of Literature
The first writer on this topic was the British Philosopher J.L Austin, whose Harvard
lectures were published in a book, entitle How to Do Things with Words. Austin’s
student, the American philosopher John Searle, has carried on his work, first in a book
Speech Act (1969) and in subsequent (Brinton, 1984:301). In addition, both of John
Austin and John Searle developed speech act theory from the basic belief that
language is used to perform actions; thus its fundamental insight focus on how
meaning and action are related to language (Schiffrin, 1994: 49).

II. Chapter Two

Introduction

In a typical speech situation involving a speaker, a hearer, and an utterance by

the speaker, there are many kinds of acts associated with the speaker’s
utterance. The speaker will characteristically have moved his jaw and tongue and
made noises. In addition, he will characteristically have performed some acts
within the class which includes informing or irritating or boring his hearers; he
will further characteristically have performed acts within the class which
includes referring to Kennedy or Khrushchev or the North Pole; and he will also
have performed acts within the class which includes making statements, asking
questions, issuing commands, giving reports, greeting, and warning.
Although speech act theory has paid little attention to threats, they represent a
case in point to study the connections between words and actions, or more
broadly between communication and action. This paper analyses threats in
English through the famous play of Henrik Ibsen Hedda. Using samples of
quotations and dialogs taken from the play will analyse the theory and explain it
clearly. Standard speech act theory has been largely concerned with the
distinction between words and acts in an attempt to establish its own focus of
study. In general, the theory has been oriented to the production of speech acts,
that is, the felicity conditions justified and organized in terms of the speaker.
Context is assumed cognitively as the knowledge shared by speaker and hearer
about the conditions for the performance of speech acts. The usefulness of
specifying the conditions for every act has been considered secondary but when
verbal actions are regarded as instances of social actions, it is reality that needs
to be explained. So perlocutions come to the front. Since threats can also be
criminal offences, an analysis of legislation becomes relevant to their pragmatic

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account. In this respect, both the United States Code (section 18, chapter 41) and
the Spanish Criminal Law Code (articles 169-71) will be considered. The
comparison of linguistic and legal accounts of threats will lead to a broader
discussion of communicative action and its possible analysis within the limits of
pragmatics.

Pragmatics
Pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a speech act in social
situations, usually in conversation. A definition by George Yule is: ‘Pragmatics is
concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker are writer
and interpreted by a listener or reader it has consequently more to do with the
analysis of what people mean by their addresses then what the words or phrases
in the Saturn says might mean by themselves pragmatics is the study of speaker
meaning’. Another definition that is found in the encyclopaedia “Pragmatics is a
subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory,
conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language
behaviour in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology. Unlike
semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given
language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only
on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the
speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing
knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other
factors. In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time
etc. of an utterance.”

Speech acts

The main component of pragmatics is speech acts. A speech act in linguistics

and the philosophy of language is an utterance that has performative function in
language and communication. According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is
really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects
of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in
saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's
audience." The contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin's
development of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to
include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and

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congratulating. Just as people can perform physical acts, such as hitting a
baseball, they can also perform mental acts, such as imagining hitting a baseball.
People can also perform another kind of act simply by using language. These are
called speech acts. As mentioned above , we use language to do an extraordinary
wide range of activities. We use it to convey information, request information,
give orders, make requests, make threats, give warnings, make bets, give advice,
etc, as the following sentences suggest:

 John Jones has five dollars.

 Who ate my soup?
 Shut up.
 Please scratch my back.
 Do that again, and I’ll stop helping you.
 There is a mouse in the back seat of your car.
 Five bucks says the UH Warriors will beat Boise State this year.
 You ought to go to class at least once a week.

A typical speech situation involving a speaker, a hearer, and an utterance by the

speaker, there are many kinds of acts associated with the speaker’s utterance.
And so above are some of the English verbs and verb phrases associated with
illocutionary acts . Austin claimed that there were over a thousand such
expressions in English. The enormous impact of John Austin’s ideas beyond the
field of the philosophy of language was due to the change they brought about in
the study of the connections between language and reality. The postulate that
language is a form of action rather than a form of signification became popular
with the edited lectures collected in How to do things with words (1962) and
characterized performatives as threefold acts including locution, illocution and
perlocution. Therefore, Speech acts can be analysed on three levels : A locutionary
act, which is the performance of an utterance: the actual utterance and its
ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts corresponding to
the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance, an
illocutionary act: is the pragmatic 'illocutionary force' of the utterance. And in
certain cases a further perlocutionary act: is focused on the response others have
to a speech act. Its actual effect, such as persuading, convincing, scaring,
enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something,
whether intended or not (Austin 1962).

The concept of an illocutionary act is central to the concept of a speech act.

Although there are numerous opinions regarding how to define 'illocutionary
acts', there are some kinds of acts, which are widely accepted as illocutionary, as
for example promising, ordering someone, and bequeathing.

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Following the usage of, for example, John R. Searle, "speech act" is often meant to
refer just to the same thing as the term illocutionary act, which John L. Austin
had originally introduced in How to Do Things with Words (published
posthumously in 1962). Searle's work on speech acts is also commonly
understood to refine Austin's conception. However, some philosophers have
pointed out a significant difference between the two conceptions: whereas
Austin emphasized the conventional interpretation of speech acts, Searle
emphasized a psychological interpretation (based on beliefs, intentions, etc.).
According to Austin's preliminary informal description, the idea of an
"illocutionary act" can be captured by emphasizing that "by saying something,
we do something", as when someone issues an order to someone to go by saying
"Go!", or when a minister joins two people in marriage saying, "I now pronounce
you husband and wife." (Austin would eventually define the "illocutionary act" in
a more exact manner.)
An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that performed in the utterance
of what Austin calls performatives, typical instances of which are "I nominate
John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment", or "I promise
to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of performative sentences,
the action that the sentence describes (nominating, sentencing, promising) is
performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.
The locutionary act is the “act of saying something”, in which three actions are
identified: the phonetic act (uttering noises), the phatic act (uttering words in
constructions) and the rhetic act (uttering words with sense and reference)
(Austin 1975: 94). The illocutionary act is performed “in saying something” and
became the core of the theory since its performance amounts to asking,
answering, giving information, warning, and the like. This is opposed to the
performance of an act of saying something (ibid. 99-100).
The basic postulate is that by performing a locutionary act an illocutionary act
is produced although a distinction is made between the act of saying something
and the action performed in saying something. Together with these two acts, a
perlocutionary act is identified in reference to the effects produced by saying
something. Such effects may be intentional.
Example (1) illustrates this threefold distinction:
(1) Locution: a. She said: “Put on a tie.”
Ilocution: b. She suggested (recommended, ordered, etc.) that he
put on a tie.
Perlocution: c.1 She convinced him to put on a tie.
c.2 She irritated him (made him laugh, etc.)

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 This distinction is common lore in pragmatics but there remains some
unresolved ambiguity in Austin’s definition. Austin establishes that the
performance of a locutionary act is “by itself” the realization of a locutionary act.
From a rhetorical perspective, Leech (1983: 200) interprets acts in a scale of
instrumentality (perlocutions are performed by means of illocutions, which
result from locutions) and considers both locution and illocutions as objects
rather than actions. For Leech, it is misleading to attribute three different kinds
of actions to the speaker in the same way that it would be confusing to describe a
soccer action by saying that the forward kicked the football, that in addition, he
scored a goal and that he even won the match. In example (1) when the hearer
assigns sense and reference to the proposition included in (a), the locutionary
act is realized, and when the hearer understands utterance (a) as a suggestion
(or a directive or advice), the illocutionary act (b) is produced. This
understanding of speech acts as means and goals is appropriate for
perlocutionary act (c1) as long as it is intentional. But if the pragmatic force is
only interpreted as the speaker’s goal, then (c2) will remain outside the scope of
pragmatic analysis and taken to be simply a perlocutionary effect (e.g., she
embarrassed him, she bored him). In addition, one should bear in mind that this
rhetorical interpretation of speech acts as means and ends relies on the hearer
for the effective performance of acts, thus reversing Austen and Searle’s original
formulation, focused on the notions of speaker’s action and convention. On the
other hand, the relationship between locution and illocution is not so
straightforward as Leech maintains.

Austin (1976: 118) observes that in the absence of an illocutionary

formulation, perlocutionary acts are always sequels. Surprising, bothering, or
humiliating are always perlocutionary goals which cannot be obtained by
saying “I surprise you”, “I bother you”, or “I humiliate you”. Applying this
criterion, “threatening” should be considered a perlocutionary goal and
“threaten” a perlocutionary verb. It raises little doubt that “I threaten you” is
not an illocutionary act of threat but at the same time the inexistence of an
illocutionary verb is not a condition to establish a speech act.
Leech (1983: 204-205) suggests the test of using the verb as a complement of
“trying” to check whether a verb is illocutionary or perlocutionary.

(3) He tried to tell me that he would go to the police.

(4) He tried to threaten me with going to the police.

In example (3) something happened which prevented the illocutionary

act itself: He tried to but did not, or said something I could not hear or
understand. In (4), “tried” implies that the speaker did not achieve their
perlocutionary effect, that is, the illocutionary act X was produced, for instance
the speaker said “I’ll go to the police” and the hearer understood it but the

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 threat was not brought about. Adding “but he didn’t” to (3) would sound
strange but it is perfectly meaningful after (4).

III. Chapter Three

Hedda Gabler is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was

published in 1890, and it premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but
has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century
theatre, and world drama.The title character Hedda, is considered one of the
great dramatic roles in theatre, and portrayals have been known to vary widely.
Hedda, the famous daughter of General Gabler, married George Tesman out of
desperation, but she found life with him to be dull and tedious. During their
wedding trip, her husband spent most of his time in libraries doing research in
history for a book that is soon to be published. He is hoping to receive a position
in the university. An old friend of Hedda's comes to visit her and tells her of
Eilert Lö vborg, an old friend of both women. Eilert Lö vborg has also written a
book on history that is highly respected. In the past, however, he has lived a life
of degeneration. Now he has quit drinking and has devoted himself to serious
work. His new book has all the imagination and spirit that is missing in George
Tesman's book. Hedda's friend, Thea Elvsted, tells how she has helped Eilert stop
drinking and begin constructive work. Later at a visit, Lö vborg is offered a drink.
He refuses and Hedda, jealous over the influence that Thea has on Lö vborg,
tempts him into taking a drink. He then goes to a party where he loses his
manuscript. When George Tesman returns home with Lö vborg's manuscript,
Hedda burns it because she is jealous of it. Later, Lö vborg comes to her and
confesses how he has failed in his life. Hedda talks him into committing suicide
by shooting himself in the temple. Lö vborg does commit suicide later but it is
through a wound in the stomach. George then begins to reconstruct Lö vborg's
manuscript with the help of notes provided by Thea Elvsted. Suddenly, Hedda
leaves the room, takes her pistols, and commits suicide

Hedda is apparently jealous of Thea's influence over Eilert, Hedda hopes to come
between them. Despite his drinking problem, she encourages Eilert to
accompany George and his associate, Judge Brack, to a party. George returns
home from the party and reveals that he found the complete manuscript of
Eilert's great work, which the latter lost while drunk. When Eilert next sees
Hedda, he confesses to her, despairingly, that he has lost the manuscript. Instead
of telling him that the manuscript has been found, Hedda encourages him to
commit suicide, giving him a pistol. She then burns the manuscript and tells
George she has destroyed it to secure their future.

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When the news comes that Eilert has indeed killed himself, George and Thea are
determined to try to reconstruct his book from Eilert's notes, which Thea has
kept. Hedda is shocked to discover from Judge Brack that Eilert's death, in a
brothel, was messy and probably accidental; this "ridiculous and vile" death
contrasts with the "beautiful and free" one that Hedda had imagined for him.
Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Hedda that if he reveals
what he knows, a scandal will likely arise around her. Hedda realizes that this
places Brack in a position of power over her. Leaving the others, she goes into
her smaller room and shoots herself in the head. The others in the room assume
that Hedda is simply firing shots, and they follow the sound to investigate. The
play ends with George, Brack, and Thea discovering her body.

Hedda has been always jealous of Mrs. Elvsted’s hair. Hedda refers in Act I to
Thea’s "irritating hair that she was always showing off." Since it is "remarkably
light, almost a white-gold, and unusually abundant and wavy." Compare this to
the description of Hedda’s hair, which is "an agreeable brown" and "not
particularly abundant." As children, Hedda used to pull Thea’s hair and threaten
to burn it off – which she does again, by the way, at the end of Act II. In the scene
where all men are gone to the party without their women, Hedda is left alone
with Mrs, Elvsted. Hedda turns to Mrs. Elvsted. She anticipates Eilert coming
back "a free man," all "fiery" with "vine leaves in his hair.”. Mrs. Elvsted suspects
Hedda’s got something planned. Then Hedda admits. She wants to have control
over a human being, because she never has before. Then she threatens to burn
off all Mrs. Elvsted’s hair, and they both go in to supper.

MRS. ELVSTED.
“Have you not the power?”

HEDDA.
“I have not--and have never had it.”

MRS. ELVSTED.
“Not your husband’s?"

HEDDA.
“Do you think that is worth the trouble? Oh, if you could only understand how
poor I am. And fate has made you so rich! [Clasps her passionately in her arms.] I
think I must burn your hair off after all.”

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"MRS. ELVSTED. Let me go! Let me go! I am afraid of you, Hedda!

As seen in this dialog the Illocutionary act functions as a threat by the speaker
Hedda who said the threatening speech and the hearer Mrs. Elvsted who
received the threat. This Speech act is quite successful due to the fact that
Hedda’s threat worked well with Mrs. Elvsted . Even though the action itself,
which is the threat of burning Thea’s hair off, was not performed as Hedda said
she would. But the indentation or the illocutionary act in is dialog, is that Hedda
wants Mrs. Elvsted to feel scared and threatened to let go of the topic she was
talking about. Mrs. Elvsted

HEDDA.
“[Her smile vanishing.] I see you are a dangerous person--when it comes to the
point.”

BRACK.
“ Do you think so?”

HEDDA.
“I am beginning to think so. And I am exceedingly glad to think--that you have no
sort of hold over me.”

BRACK.
“[Laughing equivocally.] Well well, Mrs. Hedda--perhaps you are right there. If I
had, who knows what I might be capable of?”

HEDDA.
“Come come now, Judge Brack! That sounds almost like a threat.”

BRACK.
“[Rising.] Oh, not at all! The triangle, you know, ought, if possible, to be
spontaneously constructed.”

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 Judge takes Hedda aside and tells her that Eilert didn’t commit suicide. Rather
he accidentally shot himself in the gut. Hedda is devastated that the great poetic
death she imagined never came to pass. Brack also reveals that the pistol firing
the fatal shot was Hedda’s –he recognizes it. He can keep this info quiet, but only
if she does what he wants.
The function of the locutionary act presented in this dialog is obviously a threat
by the speaker who is the judge and the hearer who is Hedda Gabler . The judge
said to Hedda “Who knows what I mightn’t prove capable of…”(p338). Brack is
obviously threatening Hedda that if she don’t do what he wants he will not stay
quite about the fact that the pistol belongs to her and that fact might put her and
her reputation in great danger . The consequence of this discussion is the
perlocutionary act , which is the effect the speaker intended to put on the hearer .
In this case Brack’s intention was to make Hedda feel nervous or scared to
actually agree to what ever he might asks of her in the future . However , this
conversation in relation to the illocutionary act is apparently is unsuccessful .
Because Hedda as a hearer or receiver of the threatening act didn’t actually
respond to what he applied for . She realized his true intentions and refuses to
cooperate with him in his plan. She is known for being a strong independent
woman, who’s been raised as a boy by her father the general. She might be a bit
manipulative in her personality , but also her reputation means everything to
her.Hedda has a constant fear of scandal.
And that’s why she responded in a very smart way saying , "HEDDA: Come come
now, Judge Brack! That sounds almost like a threat." this type of response was
obviously a decline to the threat and she is intending to refuse whatever threat
he might apply for or any future actions that might threaten her as a person. So ,
in other words , she wasn’t affected by his threat . The illocutionary act is
therefore unsuccessful .

“ BRACK.
Well, you need not. I saw the pistol found in Lovborg's pocket, and I knew it at
once as the one I had seen yesterday—and before, too.
HEDDA.
Have you it with you?
BRACK.
No; the police have it.
HEDDA.
What will the police do with it?
BRACK.

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Search till they find the owner.
HEDDA.
Do you think they will succeed?
BRACK.
[Bends over her and whispers.] No, Hedda Gabler—not so long as I say nothing.
HEDDA.
[Looks frightened at him.] And if you do not say nothing,—what then?
BRACK.
[Shrugs his shoulders.] There is always the possibility that the pistol was stolen.”

In the dialog above , between Hedda and Brack , Brack is manipulating her
while saying his sentence "not so long as I say nothing" . Which could be
considered as a threat . In my opinion , he is reminding her that he got all the
evidences that could lead her and her reputation to a great disaster. The
illocutionary act still the same. Brack wants to have a full control over hedda’s
life. And this time, Hedda might started to get effected by his threat. In other
words, the perlocutionary act here is when she responded saying"[Looks
frightened at him.] And if you do not say nothing,—what then? " . She looked
frightened , as described in the play. Which means that Brack’s plan actually
started to work . The fact that his words effected Hedda , shows that this has
been a successful conversation according to the speech act theory. Then after
that comes this dialog:

HEDDA.
[Firmly.] Death rather than that.
BRACK.
[Smiling.] People say such things—but they don't do them.
HEDDA.
[Without replying.] And supposing the pistol was not stolen, and the owner is
discovered? What then?
BRACK.
Well, Hedda—then comes the scandal!
HEDDA.
The scandal!

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 Even though Hedda was scared of Brack’s threat. She still fight it. In this case
Hedda realized that Brack is in love with her and that he is ready to do whatever
he can to have her. So she wanted to use this weakness against him to win over
his threat. She threatened him that she would kill herself "[Firmly.] Death rather
than that." . Hedda’s Illicotionary Act or intention is to fight Bracks threat and
stand up for herself in this hard situation . Brack, However , didn’t seem quite
effected by her threat. He indeed loves her . But in his opinion , "People say such
things—but they don't do them" . He believes that Hedda is joking . Therefore,
this sort of dialog or act of threat , was unsuccessful . The perlocution didn’t give
the results of what the speaker intended of her illocution . and so its
Unsuccessful . However , Hedda Gabler does kill herself at the end , preforming
that threat she applied at first .

IV. Chapter Four

Finally, I think these quotes that’s been analysed showed the way of
analysing threats through the different dialogs of Hedda Gabler play. Especially,
while the information above it highlights the important types of speech acts
and the divisions of locutionary , illicotionary , perlocutionary acts. Moreover,
introducing Pragmatics and speech acts and clarifying each one of them
according to the theory and the way its used. I propose for others who are
interested in making something related to my topic to widen their search by
making a distinction or comparison between other types of speech acts . In
addition to threats , they can make a comparison between it and the theory of
promise . Therefore, it’d be interesting and beneficial. And because both of
them usually go together .

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 References

1975 [1962] , How to do things with words. (2nd edition) Oxford: O.U.P.
Austin, John L.
Dangerous words: threats, perlocutions and strategic action , Universidad
de Granada (Spain).
(2010) , PROMISES, THREATS, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF SPEECH ACT
THEORY. International Pragmatics Association
Antonio Blanco Salgueiro
1975 [1962] , Pragmatics (Oxford Introductions to Language Study).
Oxford: O.U.P.
George, Yule .
26 Nov. 2015. Web. 15 Dec. 2015. "Speech act." Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia contributors.

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