Basic notions of pragmatics. Locution, illocution, perlocution. Types of addressees.

Ò Pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speaker's meaning.

Ò Pragmatics is all about use:

to describe pragmatics, one must describe semantics, and to describe semantics one must describe syntax.

Austin introduced the difference by means of a contrast with the three kinds of acts or aspects of acting:

the locutionary act is an act of saying something,

the illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something,

the perlocutionary act is an act performed by saying something.

Austin, however, eventually abandoned the "in saying" / "by saying" test (1975).

In uttering the locution “We’ve run out of bread" at the dinner table, one may thereby perform the illocutionary act of requesting / ordering to buy some bread, as well as the distinct locutionary act of uttering the declarative sentence about the absence of bread, and the further perlocutionary act of causing somebody to buy bread.

 

Speech acts classification (John Searle)

• Theory of meaning holds that the meaning of linguistic expressions can be explained in terms of the rules governing their use in performing various speech acts

e.g., admonishing, asserting, commanding, exclaiming, promising, questioning, requesting, warning.

Illocutionary speech acts:

Ò Assertives 

Ò Directives

Ò Commissives 

Ò Expressives 

 Declaratives

Speech acts classification (Pocheptsov G.G., Shevchenko I.S.)

Ò CONSTATIVES The Earth is round

Ò PROMISSIVES & MENASIVES I’ll come some time

Ò PERFORMATIVES I apoplogise

Ò DIRECTIVES (COMMANDS & REQUESTIVES) Go away (, please).

Ò QUESITIVES What’s your name?

Prof. I.S.Shevchenko: + METACOMMUNICATIVES

Direct :: indirect speech acts

Direct speech act occurs when semantics of the sentence corresponds the speech act:

Where do you live? – In Kyiv. (question > quesitive)

Get lost! – Imperative > Directive (command

Indirect speech act occurs when semantics of the sentence does not correspond the speech act: I want to know where you live. – In Kyiv. (indirect quesitive)

Don’t you want to go away?

(indirect command)

Pragmatic transposition.

J.L. Austin claims that many utterances are equivalent to actions. When someone says: “I name this ship”, the utterance creates a new social or psychological reality.

Speech acts theory broadly explains these utterances as having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place. Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one’s troth, welcoming and warning. Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned.

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of categories or types.

David Crystal, quoting J.R. Searle, gives five such categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations.

Representatives – here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report.

Directives– here the speaker tries to make the hearer do something, with such words as: ask, beg, challenge, command, dare, invite, insist, request.

Commissives– here the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future) course of action, with verbs such as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake.

Expressives– the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs, using such verbs as:apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome.

Declarations– the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by making the utterance: I now pronounce you man and wife, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you be dead, I name this ship...

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