Semantics Session 11_22_11_2021 Interpersonal meaning Speech Acts.pdf
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This document provides an overview of speech acts and performative utterances in linguistics. It defines a speech act as an utterance intended to provoke a specific response or action from the listener. Speech acts can include requests, warnings, promises, apologies, and greetings. The document then discusses the difference between performative and constative utterances. Performative utterances both describe and perform an act, like saying "I promise." while constative utterances only describe. It provides examples of performative verbs and how to identify performative utterances using the adverb "hereby."
Semantics Session 11_22_11_2021 Interpersonal meaning Speech Acts.pdf
- 1. Department of English Language and Literature Major: English Language and Literature Semantics Session 12 Interpersonal meaning : Speech Acts Dr. Badriya Al Mamari Academic year 2021/2022
- 2. A speech act In linguistics, a speech act is an utterance defined in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect it has on a listener. Essentially, it is the action that the speaker hopes to provoke in his or her audience. Speech acts might be requests, warnings, promises, apologies, greetings, or any number of declarations.
- 3. An Act of Assertation An ACT of ASSERTION is carried out when a speaker utters a declarative sentence (which can be either true or false), and undertakes a certain responsibility, or commitment, to the hearer, that a particular state of affairs, or situation, exists in the world.
- 4. Example: ‘Simon is in the kitchen’, I assert to my hearer that in the real world a situation exists in which a person named Simon is in a room identified by the referring expression the kitchen. • According to semanticists there was not much more to the meanings of sentences (and utterances) than this kind of correspondence between sentences (and utterances) and the world. This view has been called the Descriptive Fallacy. • The DESCRIPTIVE FALLACY is the view that the sole purpose of making assertions is to DESCRIBE some state of affairs.
- 5. • Examples: Are the following assertions describing some existing state of affairs in the world?? 1.There is a wasp in your left ear’ 2.‘Someone has broken the space-bar on my laptop’ 3.‘This gun is loaded’ 4.‘You are a fool’ 5.‘I love you’
- 6. • Answers: 1.To warn the hearer of danger of being stung by an insect or being shocked… 2. To complain about the damage, or to apologize for breaking the space bar of the laptop , etc. 3. To warn during an armed robbery, or during a weapon- training lesson, etc. 4.To insult the hearer, or to tease him, etc. 5.To please the hearer or make them feel better…
- 7. • Warning, shocking, complaining, apologizing, insulting, reassuring, etc. are all acts. • They are all things that we DO, using language. • An important part of the meaning of utterances is what speakers DO by uttering them. • Acts such as teasing, insulting, etc. are aspects of utterance meaning and not of sentence meaning.
- 8. Example: What does the following utterance mean? • There’s a piece of fish on the table.
- 9. • (1) Could this sentence be uttered as a means of complaining to a waiter in a restaurant that a table had not been cleared properly? • (2) Could it, in other circumstances, be uttered to warn one’s husband or wife not to let the cat in the kitchen? • (3) Could it, in still other circumstances, be uttered to reassure one’s husband or wife that his or her lunch has not been forgotten? • (4) Could it, in a different situation, be used to incriminate a child who had raided the refrigerator? • One sentence can generally be uttered to perform a wide variety of different acts, depending on who utters it and where, when, and why it is uttered.
- 10. Performed utterance Examples: • (1) Can you congratulate someone by a pat on the back, or a hug? • (2) Can you congratulate someone by uttering ‘Well done’? • (3) Can you bid at an auction by nodding? • (4) Can you bid at an auction by saying ‘Eleven pounds’? • (5) Can you promise someone something by a nod? • (6) Can you promise someone something with an utterance beginning ‘I promise . . .’?
- 11. • A large number of acts, then, can be performed either by means of an utterance or by some other means such as gesture, or by making an appropriate utterance (hug… nodding…. I promise…11 pounds….etc.)
- 12. A performative utterance vs Constative utterance • a performative utterance is one that actually describes the act that it performs, i.e. it performs some act and simultaneously describes that act. • a constative utterance is one which makes an assertion (i.e. it is often the utterance of a declarative sentence) but is not performative.
- 13. • Example: 1.“I promise to repay you tomorrow”. 2.‘John promised to repay me tomorrow’.
- 14. • 1.‘I promise to repay you tomorrow’ ..is performative because in saying it the speaker actually does what the utterance describes, i.e. he promises to repay the hearer the next day. That is, the utterance both describes and is a promise. • 2.‘John promised to repay me tomorrow’ Although it describes a promise, is not itself a promise. So this utterance does not simultaneously do what it describes, and is therefore not a performative.
- 15. • Examples: (act or performative): • 1.“I warn you not to come any closer” (act of warning / performative utterance) • 2.I admit that I took 50p from the coffee money (act of admitting that he took the money/performative) • 3.I’m trying to get this box open with a screwdriver’ (act of trying to open a box with a screwdriver /Performative)
- 16. Example: • ‘I’m trying to get this box open with a screwdriver’ A constative utterance, because it makes an assertion about a particular state of affairs, but is not performative, i.e. the utterance does not simultaneously describe and perform the same act.
- 17. Performative (P) Vs Constative (C)? • (1) ‘I name this ship Sohar’ • (2) ‘I believe in the importance of learning a new foreign language at early childhood stages’ • (3) ‘I admit I was driving fast’ • (4) ‘I think I was wrong’ • (5) ‘I hereby inform you that you are chosen for giving a presentation next week’ • (6) ‘I write your homework every day’
- 18. A performative verb • A performative verb is one which, when used in a simple positive present tense sentence, with a 1st person singular subject, can make the utterance of that sentence performative. • Example: • I promise . . .’, ‘I admit . . .’, ‘I congratulate . . .’, etc.
- 19. • Example: • Sentence is a performative verb because, for example, ‘I sentence you to be hanged by the neck’ is a performative utterance. • Punish is not a performative verb because, for example, ‘I punish you’ is not a performative utterance. • Note that although some verbs describe acts carried out in speech, they are not therefore necessarily performative (argue / warn)
- 20. • Performative utterances contain a performative verb, and many have 1st person singular subjects and are in the present tense. But there are exceptions to this pattern. Examples: • 1.‘You are hereby forbidden to leave this room’ • 2.‘All passengers on flight number forty-seven are requested to proceed to gate ten’ • 3. ‘We thank you for the compliment you have paid us’.
- 21. • The most reliable test to determine whether an utterance is performative is to insert the adverbial word hereby immediately before the verb and see if the modified utterance is acceptable. If a sentence can be accompanied by hereby without seeming odd, then the utterance of that sentence (in normal circumstances) constitutes a performative utterance. Examples: • 1.‘I (……… ) give notice that I will lock these doors in sixty seconds’ • 2. ‘Hayyak users are (………. ) reminded that their subscription expires on April 4th’ • 3.‘I (……….. ) warn you not to talk to my sister again’
- 22. Activity: Indicate whether the following sentences are (odd / not odd): • (1) I hereby warn you that you will fail • (2) They hereby warn her that she will fail • (3) I hereby promised him that I would be at the station at three o’clock • (4) The management hereby warn customers that mistakes in change cannot be rectified once the customer has left the counter • (5) Spitting is hereby forbidden • (6) I hereby sing
- 23. References: Hurford, J. R., Heasley, B., & Smith, M. B. (2007). Semantics: a coursebook. Cambridge university press.