Speech Acts
Pragmatics
Conversational maxims
Interpersonal function
Austinian Speech Acts
Gricean Conversational Principles
I can’t find any whisky!
Sam-I-Am’s
been here.
1
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
Functions
2
Functions
Ideational function:
Ideational function:
What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an expression in
the system of English?
How?
Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, …
Interpersonal function:
What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an expression in
the system of English?
How?
Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, …
Interpersonal function:
What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X, when
said by speaker Y, in context Z?
How?
What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X, when
said by speaker Y, in context Z?
How?
Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, …
Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, …
English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
4
1
Meaning
Semantics
Propositions
Truth/falsity
Context-free
Language-in-vitro
Ideational function
Pragmatics
What we’ve been studying to this point:
Language from the perspective of encoding ideas, and the mechanics
of transmitting those ideas, within the system of a language.
Utterances
Appropriateness
Context-dependent
Language-in-vivo
English 306A; Harris
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Interpersonal function
6
Interpersonal function
Language from the perspective of making and
maintaining human contact, so we can
coöperate, negotiate, decide, get along, build
bridges, and generally function as social
animals.
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
A supplement to the ideational function—not a
substitute—but a crucial supplement.
The ideational function is necessary, but not
sufficient.
7
English 306A; Harris
8
2
Interpersonal function
Interpersonal function
Phatic
Phatic communion
social contact
Communicative
mental contact
The use of language to establish or maintain
social relations
Sam!
English 306A; Harris
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Communicative
Hi, Hello, yo, …
How are you, How’s it going,
How’s it hanging, …
Live long and prosper, Keep
on truckin, Keep it real, …
Nice weather, Cold enough
for you?, Hope the rain
don’t hurt the rhubarb, ….
English 306A; Harris
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Interpersonal function
Phatic
Utterances whose
chief function is to
establish or maintain
contact; much like
canine gluteusmaximus reciprocal
olfactory analysis.
English 306A; Harris
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The use of language to encode and transmit
intentions
I will try them.
You will see.
English 306A; Harris
12
3
Interpersonal function
Interpersonal function
The use of language to encode and transmit
intentions
The use of language to encode and transmit
intentions
Communicative
Communicative
Wait! Hold the presses.
That sounds like the
ideational function!
What gives?
English 306A; Harris
Not quite. Notice the
word is “intentions,”
not “ideas”.
13
English 306A; Harris
Interpersonal function
Communicative
Communicative
Utterances whose
chief function is to
share mental contents
The use of language to encode and transmit
intentions
Take, for instance, the
utterance, If you will let me be,
I will try them. You will see.
Information
Attitudes
Worldviews
Ideationally, it’s just a pair of
propositions.
Communicatively, it’s a
surrender, a capitulation, a
collapse of my resolve, and a
prediction that I won’t like your
damn viridescent chow!
English 306A; Harris
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15
The cat is on the mat.
Homer eats crap.
Huh?
Try them, try them, and you
may, I say.
My kingdom for a horse.
Please put the lid back down.
Put the F&^#ing lid down!
e = mc2
English 306A; Harris
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4
Phatic and Communicative
Phatic and Communicative
Every utterance has both
phatic and communicative
dimensions.
=
Sam!
If you will let
me be, I will
try them.
You will see.
English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
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Speech Acts & Conversational Maxims
J. L. Austin
People do things with words beyond asserting
truth. We act through speech.
H.P. Grice
The way people coordinate their
speech is very intricate. We follow maxims.
English 306A; Harris
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5
Speech acts
Speech acts
Locution
Locution
the utterance of a sentence with
specific denotation
the utterance of a sentence with
specific denotation
Illocution
Illocution
the making of a statement, offer,
promise, …
the making of a statement, offer,
promise, …
Perlocution
Perlocution
the bringing about of effects on
the audience by means of uttering
a sentence (persuading,
entertaining, scaring, …)
English 306A; Harris
the bringing about of effects on
the audience by means of uttering
a sentence (persuading,
entertaining, scaring, …)
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English 306A; Harris
Illocutions/
Speech Acts
statement
Speech acts
statement
Locution
22
the utterance of a sentence with
specific denotation
statement
Illocution
confirmation
= the speech act
Perlocution
the bringing about of effects on
the audience by means of uttering
a sentence (persuading,
entertaining, scaring, …)
English 306A; Harris
despisement
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English 306A; Harris
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6
Acts through speech
Performative verbs
Offer, decline, accept, promise, bet, warn, threaten,
suggest, advise, declare, marry, christen, compliment,
insult, joke, …
Try them! Try them!
Try them and you may
I say!
Sam!
If you will let me be, I
will try English
them.
You will see.
306A; Harris
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Performative verbs
English 306A; Harris
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Performative verbs
ask, tell, describe,
state, …
promise, advise,
request, …
pronounce,
christen,
sentence, …
English 306A; Harris
Verbs which describe
the action speakers
perform with the
corresponding
sentences.
They do not need
to be present;
diagnostics.
ask, tell, describe,
Informative
state, …
promise, advise,
Obligative
request, …
pronounce,
christen,
Constitutive
sentence, …
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English 306A; Harris
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7
Performative verbs—informative
Performative verbs—obligative
ask, tell, describe, assert, …
promise, advise, request, …
I ask you: is the cat on
the mat?
I’m telling you, the cat
is on the mat.
I assert: the cat is on
the mat.
English 306A; Harris
I promise you: the cat
is on the mat.
I advise you: the cat is
on the mat.
I request of you: put
the cat on the mat.
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English 306A; Harris
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Performative
Speech acts
acts
without
without
performative verbs
Performative verbs—constitutive
pronounce, christen, sentence, …
I pronounce you
husband and wife.
I christen this vessel
the Good Ship
Lollipop.
I sentence you to
thirty days in the
hole.
English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
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Speech acts without
performative verbs
Speech acts without
performative verbs
I ask you, is the cat on
the mat?
OR
Is the cat on the mat?
OR
I’m sorry.
vs.
I apologize.
I’m sorry for The Cat.
vs.
I apologize for The Cat.
The cat is on the mat?
English 306A; Harris
33
Categories of speech acts
English 306A; Harris
Categories of speech acts
(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
Constitutive
Ritualized social circumstances (thank someone
when something has been exchanged, sentence at
termination of trial, pronunciation of marriage,…);
utterance primarily constitutes act.
Constitutive
Informative
Communicate, or request communication of
information (assert facts, question truth of facts, solicit
the completion of an assertion, …); utterance primarily
engages in trafficing information.
Informative
Obligative
Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer
assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance
primarily concerns future conduct.
Obligative
English 306A; Harris
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35
Expressive
thanking, apologizing, …
Declarative
sentencing, pronouncing, …
Assertive
asserting, describing, …
Interrogative
asking
Directive
requesting, ordering, …
Commissive
promising, offering, …
English 306A; Harris
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9
Speech Act?
Speech Act?
Would you? Could you?
In a box?
Could you? Would you?
With a fox?
Would you? Could you?
In a box?
Could you? Would you?
With a fox?
Obligative (Commissive)
Offering
English 306A; Harris
37
Speech Act?
English 306A; Harris
Speech Act?
Would you? Could you?
In a box?
Could you? Would you?
With a fox?
Obligative (Commissive)
Offering
Obligative (Directive)
Urging
English 306A; Harris
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38
Not in a box.
Not with a fox. …
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
English 306A; Harris
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10
Speech Act?
Not in a box.
Not with a fox. …
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Speech Act?
Not in a box.
Not with a fox. …
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Obligative (Commissive)
Declining
English 306A; Harris
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H. P. Grice
Informative (Assertive)
Warranting
English 306A; Harris
42
How to talk
Make your conversational
contribution such as is
required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or
direction of the talkexchange in which you are
engaged.
(Grice 1975: 45)
English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
44
11
How to talk, more specifically
How to talk
Grice’s Maxims
Relation
Be relevant.
Quality
Be truthful.
Coöperate.
Quantity
Be sufficient
(but not prolix).
Manner
Be perspicacious.
English 306A; Harris
45
How to talk and interpret; conversational implicature
Grice’s Maxims
Not moral or social injunctions
English 306A; Harris
46
Maxim of relation
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be relevant.
A1: Yep, there’s a gas station at
King and Weber. [closed]
A2: Nope, you’ll have to go all the
way to Erb Street;
everything’s closed around
here because of the anthrax
scare.
Empirically derived principles
Maxims that people naturally
follow, and generally expect
others to follow
To speak
To understand (conversational
implicature)
Observable mostly in violation
English 306A; Harris
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English 306A; Harris
48
12
Maxim of quality
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be truthful
Maxim of quality
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be truthful
Say what you believe to be
true.
Don’t say what you believe
to be false.
A1: Nope. [ommitting that there
is gas bar at the Canadian
Tire.]
A2: Well, there’s a gas bar, if you
just need some gas.
Say what you believe to
be true.
Don’t say what you
believe to be false.
English 306A; Harris
49
Maxim of quality
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
50
Maxim of quantity
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Provide enough information
But not too much
A1: Yep.
A2: Sure, King and Erb.
A3: Yep, King and Erb.
They have a sale on
gumboots at the
hardware store across
the street from it, too.
Be truthful
Say what you believe to be
true.
Don’t say what you believe
to be false.
A1: Nope. [false; there is one]
A2: Yep, two lights up on the left
there’s a new Petrosaurus
Station.
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
51
English 306A; Harris
52
13
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be clear
Don’t be obscure
Don’t be ambiguous
Be brief
Be orderly
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be clear
Yes. Somewhere near the
theatre.
Don’t be obscure
Don’t be ambiguous
Be brief
Be orderly
English 306A; Harris
53
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
Be clear
Don’t be obscure
Yep. Next to the old Smith
place.
Don’t be ambiguous
Be brief
Be orderly
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
54
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
Be clear
Don’t be obscure
Don’t be ambiguous
Maybe there is, maybe
there isn’t.
Be brief
Be orderly
55
English 306A; Harris
56
14
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
Be clear
Don’t be obscure
Don’t be ambiguous
Be brief
Sure quite a few. I know where every gas
station built in the KW area since the Great
War was located. First, there was the Ollie
Petrie Service Station at the corner of …
Be orderly
English 306A; Harris
Maxim(s) of manner
Is there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
Be clear
Don’t be obscure
Don’t be ambiguous
Be brief
Be orderly
Sure. At Erb, turn right off King. To get to King,
take Westmount, and turn left when you get there.
Before that, go three lights down University and
turn left at Westmount. First, however, …
57
How to listen
English 306A; Harris
58
Grice’s Maxims
(Conversational implicature)
The important point:
Grice charted the many,
many ways we coordinate
our speech to each other’s
needs and expectations.
[T]hough some maxim is
violated at the level of
what is said, the hearer is
entitled to assume that
that maxim, or at least the
overall cooperative
principle, is observed at the
level of what is implicated.
English 306A; Harris
59
English 306A; Harris
60
15
Intention; figuration
Metonymy
All language dialogic (conversational).
Grice’s maxims form a baseline of expectations.
Figures of thought (tropes) function by violating
maxims, deviating from baseline.
The ‘first reading’ doesn’t make sense, so hearers figure
out the speaker’s intention--not what the utterance
means, but what the speaker means by that
utterance.
English 306A; Harris
61
Metaphor
Violates quality
Satisfies relation,
quantity, manner
English 306A; Harris
62
Repetitio
My love is red,
red rose.
My love is red,
red rose.
Violates manner
(brevity)
Satisfies relation,
quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris
63
English 306A; Harris
64
16
Polyptoton
Irony
Lovely day!
Violates manner
(brevity)
Violates quality
Satisfies relation,
quantity, manner
Satisfies relation,
quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris
65
Paronomasia
66
English 306A; Harris
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
What do you read, my lord?
Violates manner
(clarity)
Satisfies relation,
quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris
67
Words, words, words.
Violates quantity and relation
(Satisfies quality and mostly manner)
English 306A; Harris
Hamlet
68
17
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
I mean the matter that you read,
my lord.
What is the matter, my lord?
Between whom?
Violates relation
(satisfies quantity,
manner, … quality?)
English 306A; Harris
Hamlet
69
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
s
e
t y
a
l it
o
i
t
n
V a
qu
Hamlet
70
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
I mean the matter that you read,
my lord.
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says
here that old men have grey beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and
that they have plentiful lack of wit,
together with most weak hams; all of
which though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir,
shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you
could go backward.
English 306A; Harris
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says
here that old men have grey beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and
that they have plentiful lack of wit,
together with most weak hams; all of
which though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir,
shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you
could go backward.
English 306A; Harris
s
e
t
a
l on
o
i
i
t
V la
re
I mean the matter that you read,
my lord.
Hamlet
71
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says
here that old men have grey beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and
that they have plentiful lack of wit,
together with most weak hams; all of
which though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir,
shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you
could go backward.
English 306A; Harris
Hamlet
72
18
Now, for the high-brow stuff
s
e
t r
a
l
e
o
i
n
V an
m
Polonius:
Polonius:
I mean the matter that you read,
my lord.
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says
)
here that old men have grey beards, that
ss
e
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
n
purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and
rli
that they have plentiful lack ofrwit,
de
oall of
together with most weak hams;
y, and
t
which though I most powerfully
i
potently believe, yet I hold
ev it not honesty
br for yourself, sir,
to have set it thus, down,
y
shall grow olditas
like a crab you
r I am, if English
306A; Harris
lacould go backward.
(c
I mean the matter that you read,
my lord.
?
y
it
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says
here that old men have grey beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and
that they have plentiful lack of wit,
together with most weak hams; all of
which though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir,
shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you
could go backward.
English 306A; Harris
l
a
u
Hamlet
73
Now, for the high-brow stuff
English 306A; Harris
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Hamlet
75
Q
Hamlet
74
I ask to be, or not to be.
That is the question, I ask of me.
This sullied life, it makes me shudder.
My uncle's boffing dear, sweet mother.
Would I, could I take my life?
Could I, should I, end this strife?
Should I jump out of a plane?
Or throw myself before a train?
Should I from a cliff just leap?
Could I put myself to sleep?
…
To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub.
I could drop a toaster in my tub.
English 306A; Harris
Hamlet
76
19
Pragmatics
Interpersonal function
Phatic and Communicative
Speech acts
Informative, Constitutive, and Obligative
Grice’s Maxims
The coöperative principle (and its ramifications)
Speaking and understanding (conversational implicature)
English 306A; Harris
77
20