SPEECH ACTS

by Don L. F. Nilsen

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CONDITIONS ON PERFORMATIVES

Subject must be 1st person.

Verb must be active.
Verb must be non-durative.
Adverb must be hereby.
Sentence must be positive, not negative.
Sentence must be Imperative or Declarative.
Verb must perform the act.
Must meet felicity conditions (authority, etc.)
Must meet sincerity conditions (not a joke, etc.)
Can be larger than a sentence (e.g. The Declaration of
Independence)
(Mey 107ff)

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CONTEXT OF SPEECH ACTS

There is a policeman at the corner.
This could be a warning, an assurance,
a dare, a hint, or a reminder to go and
take your car out of the handicapped
space you are parked in.

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 I promise Ill be there tomorrow.

This could be a threat or a promise,
depending on whether his presence
tomorrow is a disadvantage or an advantage
to the listener. Contrast the sentence above
with:
If you dont behave, I promise you theres
going to be trouble. This sentence says its
a promise, but its a threat.
(Searle Speech Acts 58)
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 When he was campaigning, Clinton said he

would not turn away any Haitian refugees.
When he became President, Clinton turned
away Haitian refugees.
Clinton said that the conditions had changed.
Based on this, Daniel Schorr on National
Public Radio said, Campaigning is not the
same as governing, because the conditions
are not the same.
(Mey 127)
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FELICITY CONDITIONS
Authority
Person
Place
Time
Manner

Sincerity
Verbal Sincerity
Intonational Sincerity
Behavioral Sincerity
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INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

Could you move over a bit?
Yes (without moving is inappropriate)
Moving (without Yes is appropriate)
NOTE: Could you move over a bit is a
precondition to the actual speech act, Move
over.
(Mey 111)
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Do you know what time it is?

Do you have the correct time?

Can you tell me how to get to the mens room?

Do you see the salt anywhere?

Its cold in here.

Isnt this soup rather bland?

Why cant you shut up?

NOTE: These are preconditions

(Mey 126-127, 135)

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 I strongly suggest you shut your mouth.

Sometimes its a good idea to shut up.
I wonder if you really should do all that talking.
I wouldnt say more, if I were you.
Remember the proverb, Speech is silver.?
How about if you just shut up?
(Mey 136)

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 DURING A JOB INTERVIEW:

Would you like to tell us, Mr. Khan,
why youve applied to Middleton
College?
This is known as fishing for
compliments.
(Mey 213)
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IRONIC SPEECH ACTS

I promise not to keep this promise.
Do not read this sign.
You did a great job, and Im not being
polite.
(Mey 129, 177)
George Lakoff wrote a book entitled,
Dont Think of an Elephant.
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LUMPERS AND SPLITTERS

Splitters feel that there are many different types of
speech acts. Verschueren says that some splitters
have as many as five hundred or six hundred
different types of speech acts.
(Verschueren 10)
Searle is a lumper. He has only five classes of
Speech Acts: Representatives, Directives,
Commissives, Expressives and Declarations.
(Searle 1979)
We could lump all of these into a single class:
Performatives.
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MARKEDNESS OF SPEECH ACTS

I beg your excellency to please accept these keys to the city as

a token of our humble submission to your excellency (to
commander of enemy troops who have captured a city)

*I (hereby) promise to set fire to your house.

*I (hereby) warn you that you will be awarded the Nobel Prize.

*I (hereby) warn you that your lawn will turn brown in

November.

Under penalty of law, do not remove this tag.

(Mey 130-131)

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SILENCE AS A SPEECH ACT

In Mexico in the old days, the Federales
would pull a person over and ask to see their
drivers license.
Before handing over the drivers license the
driver would attach a $20 bill onto the back
of the license.
Nothing was said by either party. Was this,
therefore, a bribe, or not?
(Mey 211)
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 MOTHER (Calling out the window to

child in yard): Joshua, what are you
doing?
JOSHUA: Nothing
MOTHER: WILL YOU STOP IT
IMMEDIATELY!

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 What I like best is doing nothing. Its

when people call out at you just as
youre going off to do it. What are you
going to do, Christopher Robin? and
you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go
and do it.
(Milne, The House on Pooh Corner
Chapter 10)

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 STUDENT: I was going to talk to you about my term

paper, if its all right.
PROFESSOR: SILENCE
STUDENT: When do you think youll have it marked
then?
PROFESSOR: Miriam, I hope you brought the book.
MIRIAM: SILENCE
PROFESSOR: Okay, but please remember it next
time.
(Blum-Kulka 176)
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SPEECH ACT FORCE

Locutionary Force (what is said)
Illocutionary Force (what is done)
Perlocutionary Force (the effect)

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TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 1

Commissives (Affect Speaker, Subjective)

TYPES: Oath, Offer, Promise

Declaratives (Change the Macrocosmic Social World)

TYPES: Baptism, Marriage

Directives (Change the Microcosmic Social World)

TYPES: Command, Request

Expressives (Feelings of Speaker)

TYPES:
Apology, Thanks
(Mey 120, Searle 1977, 34)

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TYPES OF SPEECH ACTS 2

Interrogatives (Hearer Knows Best)

TYPES: Closed (yes-no), Loaded, Open

Imperatives (Directives) (Affect Hearer)

TYPES: Request, Requirement, Threat, Warning

Performatives (Affect world)

TYPES: Agreement, Appointment, Baptism, Declaration of
Independence, Dedication, Marriage

Representatives (Objective Descriptive Statements)

TYPES: Statement that is either True or False

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UPTAKE
Some speech acts like betting and
thanking need an uptake from the
listener. Consider the following:
BAR-LEV: Sir, I want to thank you for
your cooperation and I want to thank
you very much.
IDI AMIN: You know I did not succeed.
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 !BAR-LEV: I have been requested by a

friend with good connections in the
government to thank you for your
cooperation. I dont know what was
meant by it, but I think you do know.
IDI AMIN: I dont know because Ive
only now returned hurriedly from
Mauritius

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!!CONTEXT OF BAR-LEV
CONVERSATION WITH IDI AMIN

Bar-Lev is an Israeli colonel

Idi Amin is the President of Uganda

Israeli paratroopers have entered Uganda without permission

Idi Amin heard that this was planned and left for Mauritius

Therefore if Idi Amin accepts the thanks, it means he agrees

with the paratrooper drop. Since he was not in the country, he
cant be held responsible.
(Mey 282-283)

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!!!CONCLUSION
The chief beadle In Dutch universities
knows when doctoral defenses begin.
After the defense has been in progress
for 45 minutes, he ceremoniously
enters the defense stamps his staff on
the floor, and proclaims in Latin Hora
est. (Time is up!).
(Verschueren 93)
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References # 1:
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 1962.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper eds.
Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood,
NJ: Ablex, 1989.
Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Language
Awareness. Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.
Mey, Jacob L., ed. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Oxford,
England: Elsevier Science/Pergamon, 1998.
Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford,
England, 2001.

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References # 2

Mey, Jacob L. When Voices Clash: A Study in Literary

Pragmatics. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999.
Mey, Jacob L. Whose Language? A Study in Linguistic
Pragmatics. Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 1985.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th
Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
Raskin, Victor. The Primer of Humor Research. New York, NY:
Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
Schiffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1994, pp. 49-96.

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References # 3
Searle, John R. A Classification of Illocutionary Acts. In Proceedings of
the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions, and
Implicatures. Eds. Andy Rogers, Bob Wall and John P. Murphy,
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1977, 27-45.
Searle, John R. The Classification of Illocutionary Acts. Language in
Society 8 (1979): 137-151.
Searle, John R. "Indirect Speech Acts." Syntax and Semantics III: Speech
Acts. New York, NY: Academic Press, 1975, 59-82.
Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Verschueren, Jef. Understanding Pragmatics. London, England: Arnold,
1999.

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