5.6

5.6 Speech acts

Much smaller units of analysis than the speech event are the speech acts out of which the speech events are composed, that is, such entities as statements, commands, questions, promises, threats, etc. speech acts have been studied from different perspectives by both philosophers and linguists, and the sociological relevance of their work is becoming increasingly apparent. Most utterance investigated by students of speech acts can be classified as both “serious” and “literal,” as those terms are used by Searle (1969). He contrasts “serious” with play acting, teaching a language, reciting a poem, practicing pronunciation, etc, and he contrasts “literal” with metaphorical, sarcastic, etc.
It is clear that a large percentage of speech act in ordinary conversational are not serious in nature, for example, the widespread “kidding” which takes place in face-to-face groups or the culturally stylized “sounding” in the black vernacular culture. Obviously, knowledge of the social situation and of the rules of discourse is imperative for deciding (on the part of either speakers or analyst) whether a given utterance is to be taken seriously and/or literally. Thus, not only linguistic competence but also communicative and social competence is involved.
Whereas the ethnographers of communication (Ervin-Tripp, Gumperz, Hymes, etc) analyze speech acts as units of linguistic structure, generative semanticists, such as Ross, Lakoff, and McCawley, support and approach known as the performative analysis. The latter assumes that the structure of speech acts, such as declaring, questioning and commanding, are coded in the form of abstract underlying sentences which contain a verb like assert, say, etc, as well as the pronouns you and I. for example, all declarative sentences would have as part of their abstract underlying structure something like”I assert to you that …” Thus, in a sentence like “Frankly, this just won’t do,” frankly modifies the deleted underlying performative verb (Sherzer 1973:271).
In speaking a person is characteristically performing at least there different kinds of speech acts, which Searle (1969:23-24) calls utterance acts (uttering words, morphemes, sentences, etc), propositional acts (referring and predicating), and illocutionary acts (stating, questioning commanding, promising, etc). although one can perform an utterance act without performing a propositional or illocutionary act, one cannot normally perform an illocutionary act without performing propositional and utterance acts. The same propositional acts can be common to different illocutionary acts, and conversely the same illocutionary act may involve different propositional acts.
Searle (1972:137) argues that illocutionary acts, such as asking questions or making statements, are rule-governed and that therefore it is possible to state a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the performance of that particular type of illocutionary act. Then, it should be possible to derive the set of semantic rules which marks that particular type of illocutionary act. One often states directly what one is doing by saying, for example, I promise you that … or I hereby appoint you…. The sentence is said to be felicitous if the illocutionary act succeeds. A bet, for example, cannot succeed unless both parties agree. Like-succeeds. A bet, for example, cannot unless both parties agree. Likewise, if a command is to be heard as a valid command, then, where A is the speaker and B the hearer, B must believe that A believes that :
1. X needs to be done
2. B has the ability to do X
3. B has an obligation to do X
4. A has the right to tell B to do X (Wootton 1975)
The social distribution of rights and privileges becomes an explicit and formal part of the knowledge required to identify valid commands. Interlocuters knowledge about the rights and obligations of various participants in speech setting is of crucial importance, although such knowledge is for them only part of that involved in making and evaluating speech acts. Sociologists ought to be able to make some strong contributions to this point in the light of their long-standing interest in social norms and the distribution of social statuses. Norms and their applicability on particular occasions, however, are to some extent indeterminate and negotiable.
A performative sentence is specifically an utterance which itself describes the speech act which it performs. It is syntactically marked by having a first person subject (I or we), with the verb in the simple present tense (ask, bequeath, declare). The only possible indirect object is you. The sentence cannot be negative, and it is possible to insert the adverb hereby. The following sentence manifests all these characteristics.
I hereby promise you my loyalty.
The following sentences demonstrate the fact that not all verbs referring to speech events can function as performative verbs:
• I hereby remark that the room is dingy.
• I hereby persuade you to vote for Schlupp,.
• I hereby denigrate your profession.
For every nonperformative sentence, it is possible to find one or more performative equivalents. Thus, a sentence like I order you to go! Is explicitly performative, while Go! Is implicitly perfofrmative.
The illocutionary force of an utterance is not ordinarily marked by a performative formula. There are a number of more subtle means of indicating what the speaker is trying to accomplish by speaking, such as word order, intonation, special morphemes, or deletion, depending on the language. Normally, simple sentences have one and only one illocutionary force (Saddock 1975:10-11)
When there is a possibility of noncompliance. Imbedded imperatives and permission directives are used with unfamiliar interlocutors or possibly in speaking with superiors.
When we consider the consequences or effects which illocutionary acts have on the actions or thoughts of the hearers, we may speak of perlocutionary acts. As Searle notes, “For example, by arguing I may persuade or convince someone, by warning him I may scare or alarm him, by making a request I may get him to do something, by informing him I may convince him (enlighten, edify, inspire him, get him to realize). The italicized expressions above denote perlocutionary acts.” (Searle 1969:25) Perlocutionary effects may be intentional or unintentional, suggesting a connection with the concept of manifest and latent functions.

Discussion questions
1. What are the most important purposes people accomplish with language? In this connection, how does form relate to function?
2. What is a domain? What are the principal domains in which you as an individual use language? How do these relate to your various social roles?
3. What are some of the topics deal with in the analysis of discourse?
4. Observe some conversations during the next day or so and check how many started in each of the ways described by Farb.
5. Does the discussion of telephone conversations in this country agree with your experience? What do you say, and what do people at the other end say ordinarily at the beginning of such conversations?
6. Observer some conversations involving sex, age and status differences among speakers, and summarize what you observed with regard to the frequency of interruption of one speaker by another.
7. What is code switching? Discuss your observations of others’ code switching and your estimate of why they are doing it.
8. State the necessary and sufficient conditions for the performance of some illocutionary act like a threat, order, declaration, question, etc.