Speech act . Act that is carried out through the issuance of a statement with a specific purpose in a given context, such as requesting information, offering it, requesting and offering apologies, expressing indifference, liking or disliking, among others. Speech acts can be direct and indirect
Summary
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- 1 Theory of speech acts
- 2 Speech act
- 3 Ilocutive act
- 4 Perlocutionary act
- 5 Source
Theory of speech acts
The theory of speech acts was formulated in the 1960s by the British philosopher JL Austin (1962) and was developed by the American philosopher JR Searle (1969). Austin conceived the theory to demonstrate, with what he called descriptive fallacy, that a declarative sentence is not always used to describe a fact or state of affairs. For example, in the sentence I declare you husband and wife, in the proper context you are not describing something but doing something.
Austin criticized the descriptivism of traditional philosophical semantics , inspired by logical atomism, that is, against the exclusive attention to the propositional contents of sentences, to which he opposed the need to extend the study to expressive and especially performative sentences. or executives, with whom it is not affirmed, but something is done or executed. He introduced notions that have come to support the most fruitful Pragmatic Theory on speech acts.
Joint speech acts, that is, acts in which more than two participants intentionally coordinate their actions, in order to be successful in communication, have been analyzed little. Almost all theories formulated on speech acts refer to what are called canonical speech acts, in which there is a single sender and a single receiver, which can be, in turn, direct speech acts and speech acts. indirect talk.
From other points of view, more classifications of speech acts can be made. Searle’s, which only deals with illocutionary acts, is widely accepted, since it has served as a starting point for many other attempts to create typologies of speech acts (M. Hancher, 1979). Five are the most prominent groups in this classification: the representative, the directive, the commissive, the expressive and the declarative.
Direct speech acts are those in which a performative or performative verb is used, Examples:
- I suggest you come
- I beg you to get up.
Direct speech acts are more typical of official, contractual and written language, in which it is clearly said they agree, promise, resign, agree, etc.
But the reality is that most speech acts are carried out indirectly, through what are called indirect speech acts. In conversation or colloquial communication between friends or colleagues these are preferred, and the use of direct speech acts; in these cases it should be interpreted as an emphasis on the ordinary message.
Speech act
It is the very act of speaking as an explicit and intelligible sequence of linguistic elements: saying something. The speech act has three components:
- Most elementary component that consists of the mere pronunciation of sounds .
- Emission of sounds belonging to a lexicon and subject to grammatical rules.
- Superior component of the speech act that consists of the emission of sounds endowed with meaning and reference and, therefore, carriers of the propositional value of said act.
Illocutionary act
Elocutive speech acts manifest a ‘performative’ statement, it is the act of assertion, question, order, supplication, which is carried out when issuing a locution or statement: doing something when saying something, for example, inform, ask, order, etc. . It is often done implicitly by means of the illocutionary force or implicit or explicit linguistic configuration of the propositional content of a sentence. Ilocutive assimilation is the recognition by the listener of the illocutionary force of a statement as an essential requirement for understanding it.
Perlocutionary act
Act by which the speaker intends, by means of a locution or statement, to achieve a certain practical end. These speech acts involve extralinguistic results (convince, threaten, command).
The perlocutionary effect is the effect that the issuance of a statement produces in the listener, the practical result that the speaker pursues when issuing the statement: convince, dissuade, annoy, console, obtain something … From a single statement, results can be claimed different. Example: My head hurts, it can serve to awaken compassion, prevent a project, divert attention, etc. The perlocutionary act concerns the more or less intended consequences of the statement. Something is said to achieve something, to produce certain consequences.
