Pragmatics Paper about Speech Acts

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1       The background of the study

People always communicate one aother by using language in their social environment. Language is one of tools of communication. In communication, language has an important role because it has to explain what the speaker wants the listener to do. The purpose of communication itself is informative which means an appeal to the mind that is accomplished through language.

While people communicate, they use utterances to express what they have in their mind toward the listener. Utterance produced by speaker does not only function to explain the speaker mind toward the listener, but also means to show the relationship between them. When we want to know people’s relationship through their utterance, we can see it from speech act. That is why this paper presents definition of speech acts and the types of speech acts so that you know what someone means.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

SPEECH ACTS

A.     Definition of Speech Acts

Yule (1996:47) proposes that speech acts is performed action via utterance. Another definition from Crystal in Soekemi (1995:121) mentions that speech act is a theory which analyses the role of utterance in relation to the behavior of speaker and listener in interpersonal communication According to Austin (1960), speech act is a theory of performative language, in which to say something is to do something.[1] In brief when speakers are saying words, they not only produce utterance containing words and grammatical structure, but they also perform action in those utterances.

Speech acts reveal the intentions of speakers and the effects the speaker’s utterances and expressions have on the hearers. The implication of speech acts is that every utterance has a purpose which derives from the specific context. It has been observed that language use depends on such contextual factors as social and physicalnconditions, attitudes, abilities, beliefs and the relationship existing between the speaker and the listener.[2]

B.     Type of Speech Acts

There are three types of speech acts, they are :

1.      Locutionary Acts

A locutionary act is the performance of an utterance, and hence of a speech act. The term equally refers to the surface meaning of an utterance because, according to J. L. Austin's posthumous "How To Do Things With Words", a speech act should be analysed as a locutionary act (i.e. 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).[3] It can be recognised by the hearer.

E.g : if someone says ‘Knock the door!’ the locutionary acts is the realization of the speaker’s utterance.

2.      Illocutionary Acts

Illocutionary acts is performing an act in saying something, what is done in uttering the word’, the function of the word, the specific purpose that the speaker’s have in mind. Searle (1975) set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts :[4]

v  Assertive: an illocutionary act that speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. The acts are stating, claiming, hypothesizing, describing, telling, insisting, suggesting, asserting that something is the case.

Example :

Stating                          : staff and VIP permitted here

v  Directive: an illocutionary act for getting the addressee to do something by responding to an utterance or by performing some physical actions.
The acts are ordering, commanding, defying, advising, asking, begging, challenging, daring, demanding, forbidding, insisting, inviting, permitting, recommending, requesting, suggesting, etc.

Example:

Command                    : Close the door please!!!

Forbid, Prohibit            : Don’t close the door!!! Don’t go to the party!

v  Commissive: an illocutionary act that the speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. The acts are committing, guaranteeing, offering, promising, refusing, threatening, volunteering, vowing, threatening, intending, vowing to do or to refrain from doing something.

Example :

Promising                     :We promise to give you much money.

Vowing                        : I will be the best husband in your life my darling.

v  Expressive: an illocutionary act that expresses the speakers feeling and attitudes toward events or affairs. The acts are congratulating, thanking, deploring, condoling, welcoming, apologizing.

Example :

Condoling                     : I am sorry to hear that.

Congratulating              : Hey Bro, congrats for your success

v  Declaration: an illocutionary act that brings into existence the state of affairs to which it refers. The speaker brings about a change in the word by uttering an Illocutionary act. The acts are blessing, firing, baptizing, bidding, passing sentence, excommunicating, marriage, arresting, approving, naming, etc.

Example :

Naming                        : I named my baby Amanda.

v  Verdictive : an illocutionary acts in which the speaker makes an assessment or judgement about the acts of another, usually the addressee. The acts are ranking, assessing, appraising, condoning. Verdictive verbs include accuse, charge,excuse, thank in the explicit forrame.[5]

Example :

Assessing                     : you have low score in undestanding Syntax.

3.      Perlucotionary Acts

Perlocutionary act is an act that is uttered to affect the listener. An utterance that is uttered by someone often has effect to the listener. Which can be expected or unexpected affect that created by the speaker. So, in other word, a perlocution is listener behavioral response to the meaning of the utterance, not necessarily physical or verbal response, perhaps merely a mental or emotional response.

There is an example of speech acts. A child refuse to lie down and go to sleep, then his mother says, “I’ll turn your light off”. The locutionary act is utterance of this sentence “I’ll turn your light off”. However, the mother may be intending that the utterance to be interpreted as a threat. The threat here is the illocutionary acts. It means that child does not sleep, his mother will turn off the light. As consequence behavior of that child, he must be frightened into silence and sleep is Perlocutionary act.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Speech acts reveal the intentions of speakers and the effects the speaker’s utterances and expressions have on the hearers. In brief when speakers are saying words, they not only produce utterance containing words and grammatical structure, but they also perform action in those utterances.

There are three types of speech acts, they are:

a.       Locutionary acts

b.      Illocutionary acts

Ø  Assertiv

Ø  Directive

Ø  Commissive

Ø  Expressive

Ø  Declaration

Ø  Verdictive

c.       Perlocutionary acts

REFERENCE

Dwi Purnomo, Maslathief. 2012. Diktat of Semantics In linguistics. Medan.

Kreidler, W. Charles. 2002. Introducing Semantic English. London : the Taylor and Francis e-library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act

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[1] http://www.managementfile.com/journal.php?id=161&sub=journal&page=strategic&awal=50. Access on 19 April 2013.

[2] Dwi Purnomo, Maslathief. 2012. Diktat of Semantics In linguistics. Medan.hl, 46

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act. Access on 19 April 2013.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act. Access on 19 April 2013.

                   [5] Kreidler, W. Charles. 2002. Introducing Semantic English. London : the Taylor and

 Francis e-library, page 187.

Language Comprehension and its Components

Language comprehension is something that is done unconsciously and quite easily by most humans.  Because of this, the specific way that comprehension works is something that many people never consider.  Therefore, this paper will attempt to answer the question: how does language comprehension work and what contributes to it?

Comprehension is mainly thought to occur in the Wernicke’s area of the brain which is located in the left temporal lobe (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/22/11).  The reason that understanding of language is assumed to be related to this area is because of a condition called Wernicke’s aphasia.  Patients that have this type of aphasia have had some sort of damage to their left temporal lobe.  They typically are unable to understand the spoken words of others, but their own speech production stays intact, albeit jumbled (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/22/11).  The results of this problem prove that language comprehension mainly takes place in Wernicke’s area.

Though humans are equipped with Wernicke’s area from birth, language comprehension develops along with the child.  It is very difficult for researchers to decipher when babies first begin to understand language, unlike learning where it occurs which was relatively obvious.  No baby can explain how much language they understand because they lack the ability to produce language.  Thus, many creative experiments have been conducted to attempt to see if babies are able to interpret different sounds.  If they are able to discriminate between sounds, they are one step closer to understanding the differences in meanings of words.  One study, by Eimas et al., looked at the rate of sucking on a pacifier that a baby had (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  The researchers played a certain sound and the child would become excited by the sound and suck more (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  Eventually, the baby would get used to the sound and the sucking would return to a normal rate (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  If the sound was changed, the sucking would once again become more intense (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  This study displayed that babies (as young as one month old!) are able to decipher between two different sounds.  However, this does not provide any solid information about comprehension.

Comprehension in babies is almost absolutely impossible to study because they cannot speak or move as well as older children and adults.  Because of this, most knowledge about comprehension is derived from children that already are able to fluently speak a language.  It is known that children at age five know between 10,000 and 15,000 words and are learning around 10 new words a day (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11). This knowledge is quite unbelievable and difficult to even comprehend.

The first words that a child uses and understands are usually concrete, short words that are used a lot by parents.  Many babies are bombarded with parents saying “mama” or “dada” in their face all the time and naturally, this is usually one of a child’s first words.  Not only does the repetition help, but the consonants /m/ and /d/ are easy for a child to pronounce (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  Does the fact that children say certain words earlier in life mean that they only understand those words at that point?  The answer to that question is currently unknown but the answer is assumed to be no.  Logic tells us that most babies are able to understand much more than they are able to produce.  Many young children are able to answer complex questions provided by their parents, without having the ability to form these questions on their own.

Many children show their understanding (or lack thereof) of language through a few common mistakes.  The first time a young child hears a word, they usually will assume that the word applies to the entire object (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  This idea is referred to as the “whole-object bias” (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  For example, if a parent comments on a pretty lampshade, the child may assume that the entire lamp is called a “lampshade.”  Another common error of children who do not have full language comprehension is the idea that the name of a certain item refers to its shape and will consequently extend the name to other items with the same shape (Psychology 240 lecture, 3/24/11).  In both of these cases, the child clearly does not understand what the word/component of language is attempting to talk about.

A piece that often accompanies language and helps children, and other adults, understand the topic being spoken about, is gesture.  Gestures are movements of the body used to help express the meaning of an idea (Merriam-Webster, 2011).

A study was conducted by Kelly et. al. to investigate the effects of gesture on language comprehension (Kelly et. al., 2009).  They propose a hypothesis that states that the relationship between gesture and language is bidirectional and occurs simultaneously in order to help the understanding of language (Kelly et. al., 2009).  In order to test this hypothesis, they used twenty-nine college students, a relatively small sample size, and had them watch a video of an action prime, have a blank screen, then see someone produce a gesture and word (Kelly et. al., 2009).  In the first experiment, about half of the videos had the video and the prime match.  The other half had the follow-up videos range in similarity to the prime, though not completely the same.  The subject’s job was to press a ‘yes’ button if the video and the prime matched and a ‘no’ button if it did not.  Their prediction was that if they have the same target and prime, the reaction times would be shorter and there would be fewer errors (Kelly et. al., 2009).  The results showed that their prediction was correct in both facets; the subjects were faster when the video matched the prime and there were fewer errors (Kelly et. al., 2009).

A second experiment was conducted that had basically the same set-up as the first with one major difference.  A new group of 41 college students were used and they were told similar directions to the first experiment except this time, they were only supposed to answer in regards to if the spoken word (not the gesture) was the same as the prime (Kelly et. al., 2009).  The researchers predicted that because they think that speech and gesture work together, if the gesture and speech become dissimilar, the reaction times will be longer and there will be more errors (Kelly et. al., 2009).  The results supported their prediction because as the speech and gesture became more incongruent, accuracy and reaction times both increased (Kelly et. al., 2009).

This study, which included two experiments, found that their logical hypotheses were in fact supported.  When gesture and language together help to both say the same thing, it is easier to understand and humans make fewer errors than if they say conflicting things (Kelly et. al., 2009).  During the incongruent conditions in the first experiment, the subjects made on average 8 times as many errors when the differences were weakly incongruent and 11 times as many when they were strongly incongruent (Kelly et. al., 2009).

Due to the findings of this study, there is solid data that supports the fact that gesture enhances understanding when paired with language.  This makes logical sense because humans tend to use and interpret gestures on a moment-to-moment basis.

Language comprehension is a complex process that occurs easily and effortlessly by humans.  It develops along with the brain and is able to be enhanced with the use of gesture.  Though it is unknown exactly how early comprehension is fully developed in children, gestures are undoubtedly useful for understanding the language around us.  Further studies need to be invented and conducted so that language comprehension can be even better understood.  An interesting study might be looking at whether gestures or language produce a more thorough understanding of a concept.  With time, comprehension may be able to be fully understood.

 References:

Kelly, S., Maris, E. & Özyüre A. (2009).  Two sides of the same coin: speech and

gesture mutually interact to enhance comprehension.

Psychological Science 21, 260-267

gesture. 2011. In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Retrieved March 26, 2011, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gestures

ENTAILMENT AND PRESUPPOSITION

I. Introduction

Entailment is a relation between sentence meanings, or propositions. (Sometimes, speaking loosely, we talk as though it were a relation between sentences.) Presupposition can also be seen as a relation between propositions, although many linguists (including George Yule) prefer to see presupposition as strictly pragmatic, and a relation between a speaker and a proposition. In any case it is important to see that these are two independent kinds of relations. A proposition which is presupposed in a particular utterance may or may not also be entailed.

II. Entailment (||-).

A. A sentence (meaning) A entails B (A ||- B) if whenever A is true, then B must also be true. Entailment is a very strong kind of implication. It is a semantic relation — thus, it holds no matter what the facts of the world happen to be (it holds in all possible worlds).

B. Examples.

(1)     a. Mary broke the window ||- The window broke
         b. Sue and Fred went to the party ||- Sue went to the party

III. Presupposition (>>).

A. Presuppositions are implications that are often felt to be in the background — to be assumed by the speaker to be already known to the addressee.

B. A good diagnostic: presuppositions are shared by members of ‘the S family’ — that is, they remain constant under

1. Negation (denial)
2. Questioning
3. Embedding under modals (e.g. might, it is possible that)
4. Embedding as the antecedent of a conditional (i.e. in an if-clause).

Example: A speaker of any of the sentences below would be presupposing that there is a king of France.

(2)     a. The king of France is bald.
         b. The king of France is not bald.
         c. Is the king of France bald?
         d. The king of France might be bald/Possibly the king of France is bald.
         e. If the king of France is bald, he should wear a hat in the winter.

C. A presupposition of the S family may or may not be entailed by S itself (as it is in the example above — see (2a)), but in any case it will not be entailed by the negated, questioned, modalized, or conditionalized sentences.

D. Some examples — the presupposition triggers are underlined in each example. For the first three categories, the presupposition is also an entailment of the S sentence (though not the negated version of S). For the last two, the presupposition is not entailed by S — these are sometimes called conventional implicatures.

1. Definite referring expressions (singular terms).

(3)     Mary saw/didn't see the horse with two heads >> There exists a horse with two heads

(4)     Kepler died/didn't die in misery >> There is some individual named Kepler

2. Change of state verbs (start, stop, continue, etc.).

(5)     Joan began/didn't begin planting tomatoes >> Joan had not been planting tomatoes before

3. Clefts, other focusing constructions.

(6)     What Bill lost was/wasn't his wallet >> Bill lost something

(7)     It was/wasn't his wallet that Bill lost >> Bill lost something

(8)     Bill lost/didn't lose HIS WALLET >> Bill lost something

4. Honorific terms.

(9)     Tu es/n’es pas très grande (Fr., ‘You (fam.) are/are not very tall’) >> The addressee is a close friend, a social
            inferior, or an animal

5. Various modifiers.

(10)     He is an Englishman; he is therefore brave >> Being brave is a consequence of being English

(11)     Even Bill could solve that problem >> Bill is the last person you’d expect to be able to solve the problem