In the
philosophy of language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
and
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
, speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well.
For example, the phrase "I would like the
kimchi
''Kimchi'' (; ko, 김치, gimchi, ), is a traditional Korean side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish. A wide selection of seasonings are used, including '' gochugaru'' (Korean chili powder), ...
; could you please pass it to me?" is considered a speech act as it expresses the speaker's desire to acquire the kimchi, as well as presenting a request that someone pass the kimchi to them. According to
Kent Bach
Kent Bach (born 1943) is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. His primary areas of research include the philosophy of language, linguistics and epistemology. He is the author of three books: ''Exi ...
, "almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience". The contemporary use of the term goes back to
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Austin pointed out that we u ...
's development of
performative utterance
In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing.
In a 1955 lecture series, later published as ''How to D ...
s and his theory of
locutionary,
illocutionary The concept of illocutionary acts was introduced into linguistics by the philosopher J. L. Austin in his investigation of the various aspects of speech acts. In his framework, ''locution'' is what was said and meant, ''illocution'' is what was done, ...
, and
perlocutionary act A perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect) is the effect of an utterance on an interlocutor. Examples of perlocutionary acts include persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise affecting the interlocutor. The perlocut ...
s. Speech acts serve their function once they are said or communicated. These are commonly taken to include acts such as apologizing, promising, ordering, answering, requesting, complaining, warning, inviting, refusing, and congratulating.
History
For much of the history of the
positivist philosophy of language, language was viewed primarily as a way of making factual
assertions, and the other uses of language tended to be ignored, as Austin states at the beginning of Lecture 1, "It was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the business of a 'statement' can only be to 'describe' some state of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which it must do either truly or falsely."
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
came up with the idea of "don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use," showing language as a new vehicle for social activity. Speech act theory hails from Wittgenstein's philosophical theories. Wittgenstein believed meaning derives from pragmatic tradition, demonstrating the importance of how language is used to accomplish objectives within specific situations. By following rules to accomplish a goal, communication becomes a set of
language games
A language game (also called a cant, secret language, ludling, or argot) is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to an untrained listener. Language games are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their c ...
. Thus, utterances do more than reflect a meaning, they are words designed to get things done. The work of
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Austin pointed out that we u ...
, particularly his ''How to Do Things with Words'', led philosophers to pay more attention to the non-declarative uses of language. The terminology he introduced, especially the notions "
locutionary act
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, a locutionary act is the performance of an utterance, and is one of the types of force, in addition to illocutionary act and perlocutionary act, typically cited in Speech Act Theory. Speech Act Theor ...
", "
illocutionary act The concept of illocutionary acts was introduced into linguistics by the philosopher J. L. Austin in his investigation of the various aspects of speech acts. In his framework, ''locution'' is what was said and meant, ''illocution'' is what was don ...
", and "
perlocutionary act A perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect) is the effect of an utterance on an interlocutor. Examples of perlocutionary acts include persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise affecting the interlocutor. The perlocut ...
", occupied an important role in what was then to become the "study of speech acts". All of these three acts, but especially the "illocutionary act", are nowadays commonly classified as "speech acts".
Austin was by no means the first one to deal with what one could call "speech acts" in a wider sense. The term 'social act' and some of the theory of this type of linguistic action are to be found in the fifth of
Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid (; 7 May ( O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher. He was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he wa ...
's ''Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind'' (1788, chapter VI, Of the Nature of a Contract).
Adolf Reinach
Adolf Bernhard Philipp Reinach (23 December 1883 – 16 November 1917) was a German philosopher, phenomenologist (from the Munich phenomenology school) and law theorist.
Life and work
Adolf Reinach was born into a prominent Jewish family in ...
(1883–1917) and
Stanislav Škrabec Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, Cali ...
(1844–1918) have been both independently credited with a fairly comprehensive account of social acts as performative utterances dating to 1913, long before Austin and Searle.
The term "Speech Act" had also been already used by
Karl Bühler
Karl Ludwig Bühler (27 May 1879 – 24 October 1963) was a German psychologist and linguist. In psychology he is known for his work in gestalt psychology, and he was one of the founders of the Würzburg School of psychology. In linguistics he ...
.
Overview
Speech acts can be analysed on multiple levels:
# A locutionary act: the performance of an
utterance
In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written lang ...
: the actual utterance and its apparent meaning, comprising any and all of its verbal, social, and rhetorical meanings, all of which correspond to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance;
# an illocutionary act: the active result of the implied request or meaning presented by the locutionary act. For example, if the locutionary act in an interaction is the question "Is there any salt?" the implied illocutionary request is "Please pass the salt to me." or at least "I wish to add salt to my meal.";
# and under certain conditions a further perlocutionary act: the actual effect of the locutionary and illocutionary acts, such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something, whether intended or not.
# Additionally, a metalocutionary act categorizes speech acts that refer to the forms and functions of the discourse itself rather than continuing the substantive development of the discourse, or to the configurational functions of
prosody and
punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
.
Illocutionary acts
The concept of an
illocutionary act The concept of illocutionary acts was introduced into linguistics by the philosopher J. L. Austin in his investigation of the various aspects of speech acts. In his framework, ''locution'' is what was said and meant, ''illocution'' is what was don ...
is central to the concept of a speech act. Although there are several scholarly opinions regarding how to define 'illocutionary acts', there are some kinds of acts which are widely accepted as illocutionary. Examples of these widely accepted acts are commands or promises.
The first of these opinions is the one held by
John L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British people, British philosophy of language, philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech ...
who coined the term "speech act" in his book ''
How to Do Things with Words
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Austin pointed out that we u ...
'' published posthumously in 1962.
According to Austin's preliminary informal description, the idea of an "illocutionary act" can be captured by emphasizing that "by saying something, we ''do'' something", as when someone issues an order to someone to go by saying "Go!", or when a minister joins two people in marriage saying, "I now pronounce you husband and wife." (Austin would eventually define the "illocutionary act" in a more exact manner.)
John R. Searle gave an alternative to Austin's explanation of the illocutionary act saying, a "speech act" is often meant to refer to exactly the same thing as the term illocutionary act. Searle's work on speech acts is understood to further refine Austin's conception. However, some philosophers have pointed out a significant difference between the two conceptions: whereas Austin emphasized the conventional interpretation of speech acts, Searle emphasized a psychological interpretation (based on beliefs, intentions, etc.).
Perlocutionary acts
While illocutionary acts relate more to the speaker,
perlocutionary act A perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect) is the effect of an utterance on an interlocutor. Examples of perlocutionary acts include persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise affecting the interlocutor. The perlocut ...
s are centered around the listener. Perlocutionary acts always have a 'perlocutionary effect' which is the effect a speech act has on a listener. This could affect the listener's thoughts, emotions or even their physical actions. An example of this could be if someone uttered the sentence "I'm hungry." The perlocutionary effect on the listener could be the effect of being persuaded by the utterance. For example, after hearing the utterance, the listener could be persuaded to make a sandwich for the speaker.
Performative speech acts
An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that performed in the utterance of what Austin calls
performative utterance
In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing.
In a 1955 lecture series, later published as ''How to D ...
s, typical instances of which are "I nominate John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment", or "I promise to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating, sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself. J.L. Austin claimed that performative sentences could be "happy or unhappy". They were only happy if the speaker does the actions he or she talks about. They were unhappy if this did not happen. Performative speech acts also use explicit verbs instead of implicit ones. For example, stating "I intend to go." does convey information, but it does not really mean that you are
.g.''promising'' to go; so it does not count as "performing" an action ("such as" the action of promising to go). Therefore, it
he word "intend"is an implicit verb; i.e., a verb that would not be suitable for use in performative speech acts.
Indirect speech acts
In the course of performing speech acts people communicate with each other. The content of communication may be identical, or almost identical, with the content intended to be communicated, as when a stranger asks, "What is your name?" However, the meaning of the linguistic means used may also be different from the content intended to be communicated. One may, in appropriate circumstances, request Peter to do the dishes by just saying, "Peter ...!", or one can promise to do the dishes by saying, "Me!"
One common way of performing speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed performs this act, but also performs a further speech act, which is indirect. One may, for instance, say, "Peter, can you close the window?", thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to close the window, but also requesting that he does so. Since the request is performed indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question, it counts as an
indirect speech act
In the philosophy of language and linguistics, speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the kimchi; could you please pass it to me?" ...
.
An even more indirect way of making such a request would be to say, in Peter's presence in the room with the open window, "I'm cold." The speaker of this request must rely upon Peter's understanding of several items of information that is not explicit: that the window is open and is the cause of them being cold, that being cold is an uncomfortable sensation and they wish it to be taken care of, and that Peter cares to rectify this situation by closing the window. This, of course, depends much on the relationship between the requester and Peter—he might understand the request differently if they were his boss at work than if they were his girlfriend or boyfriend at home. The more presumed information pertaining to the request, the more indirect the speech act may be considered to be.
Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example, if a speaker asks, "Would you like to meet me for coffee?" and the other replies, "I have class", the second speaker has used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the literal meaning of "I have class" does not entail any sort of rejection.
This poses a problem for
linguists, as it is confusing to see how the person who made the proposal can understand that his proposal was rejected. In 1975 John Searle suggested that the illocutionary force of indirect speech acts can be derived by means of a
Gricean reasoning process; however, the process he proposes does not seem to accurately solve the problem .
In other words, this means that one does not need to say the words apologize, pledge, or praise in order to show they are doing the action. All the examples above show how the actions and indirect words make something happen rather than coming out straightforward with specific words and saying it.
Examples
Speech Acts are commonplace in everyday interactions and are important for communication, as well as present in many different contexts. Examples of these include:
*"You're fired!" expresses both the employment status of the individual in question, as well as the action by which said person's employment is ended.
*"I hereby appoint you as chairman" expresses both the status of the individual as chairman, and the action which promotes the individual to this position.
*"We ask that you extinguish your cigarettes at this time, and bring your tray tables and seatbacks to an upright position." This statement describes the requirements of the current location, such as an aeroplane, while also issuing the command to stop smoking and to sit up straight.
*"Would it be too much trouble for me to ask you to hand me that wrench?" functions to simultaneously ask two questions. The first is to ask the listener if they are capable of passing the wrench, while the second is an actual request.
*"Well, would you listen to that?" acts as a question, requesting that a listener heed what is being said by the speaker, but also as an exclamation of disbelief or shock.
In language development
In 1975 John Dore proposed that children's utterances were realizations of one of nine primitive speech acts:
#labelling
#repeating
#answering
#requesting (action)
#requesting (answer)
#calling
#greeting
#protesting
#practicing
Formalization
There is no agreed formalization of Speech Act theory. In 1985,
John Searle and D. Vandervecken attempted to give some grounds of an illocutionary logic. Other attempts have been proposed by
Per Martin-Löf
Per Erik Rutger Martin-Löf (; ; born 8 May 1942) is a Swedish logician, philosopher, and mathematical statistician. He is internationally renowned for his work on the foundations of probability, statistics, mathematical logic, and computer scie ...
for a treatment of the concept of assertion inside intuitionistic type theory, and by
Carlo Dalla Pozza Carlo Dalla Pozza (October 16, 1942 in Taranto – July 18, 2014 in Lecce) was an Italian philosopher of science and logician.
Biography
Carlo Dalla Pozza was born in Taranto, in the Southern region Apulia, from Luigi Dalla Pozza, an officer of th ...
, with a proposal of a formal pragmatics connecting propositional content (given with classical semantics) and illocutionary force (given by intuitionistic semantics). Up to now the main basic formal application of speech act theory are to be found in the field of human-computer interaction in chatboxes and other tools.
In computer science
In 1991, computational speech act models of
human–computer conversation have been developed, and in 2004 speech act theory has been used to model
conversations for automated classification and retrieval.
''Conversation for action''
Another highly-influential view of Speech Acts has been in the ''conversation for action'' developed by
Terry Winograd
Terry Allen Winograd (born February 24, 1946) is an American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human–Computer Interaction Group. He is known within the philosophy of mind and artificial intel ...
and
Fernando Flores
Carlos Fernando Flores Labra (born January 9, 1943) is a Chilean engineer, entrepreneur and politician. He is a former cabinet minister of president Salvador Allende and was senator for the Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá regions between 20 ...
in their 1986 text "Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design".
Arguably the most important part of their analysis lies in a state-transition diagram in Chapter 5, that Winograd and Flores claim underlies the significant illocutionary (speech act) claims of two parties attempting to coordinate action with one another, no matter whether the agents involved might be human–human, human–computer, or computer–computer.
A key part of this analysis is the contention that one dimension of the social domain-tracking the illocutionary status of the transaction (whether individual participants claim that their interests have been met, or not) is very readily conferred to a computer process, regardless of whether the computer has the means to adequately represent the real world issues underlying that claim. Thus a computer instantiating the conversation for action has the useful ability to model the status of the current social reality independent of any external reality on which social claims may be based.
This transactional view of speech acts has significant applications in many areas in which (human) individuals have had different roles, for instance, a patient and a physician might meet in an encounter in which the patient makes a request for treatment, the physician responds with a counter-offer involving a treatment they feel is appropriate, and the patient might respond, etc. Such a conversation for action can describe a situation in which an external observer (such as a computer or health information system) may be able to track the ''illocutionary'' (or speech act) ''status'' of negotiations between the patient and physician participants even in the absence of any adequate model of the illness or proposed treatments. The key insight provided by Winograd and Flores is that the state-transition diagram representing the ''social'' (Illocutionary) negotiation of the two parties involved is generally much, much simpler than any model representing the world in which those parties are making claims; in short, the system tracking the status of the conversation for action need not be concerned with modeling all of the realities of the external world. A conversation for action is critically dependent upon certain stereotypical ''claims'' about the status of the world made by the two parties. Thus a conversation for action can be readily tracked and facilitated by a device with little or no ability to model circumstances in the real world other than the ability to register claims by specific agents about a domain.
Rules
In the past, philosophy has discussed rules for when expressions are used. The two rules are ''constitutive'' and ''regulative rules''.
The concept of
constitutive rules finds its origin in
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
and
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...
, and has been elaborated by
G.C.J. Midgley
Geoffrey Charles John Midgley ( Ilford, Essex, 14 June 1921 – Newcastle, 16 April 1997) was a British philosopher.
Life, education & career
Midgley had won a classical scholarship to Oxford, but served four years as a radar engineer in the R ...
,
Max Black
Max Black (24 February 1909 – 27 August 1988) was an Azerbaijani-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philo ...
,
G.H. von Wright
Georg Henrik von Wright (; 14 June 1916 – 16 June 2003) was a Finnish philosopher.
Biography
G. H. von Wright was born in Helsinki on 14 June 1916 to Tor von Wright and his wife Ragni Elisabeth Alfthan.
On the retirement of Ludwig Wittgenste ...
,
David Shwayder
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, and
John Searle.
Whereas ''regulative rules'' are prescriptions that regulate a pre-existing activity (whose existence is logically independent of the rules), ''constitutive rules'' constitute an activity the existence of which is logically dependent on the rules.
For example: traffic rules are ''regulative rules'' that prescribe certain behaviour in order to regulate the traffic. Without these rules however, the traffic would not cease to be. In contrast: the rules of chess are ''constitutive rules'' that constitute the game. Without these rules chess would not exist, since the game is logically dependent on the rules.
In multiagent universes
Multi-agent systems sometimes use speech act labels to express the intent of an agent when it sends a message to another agent. For example, the intent "inform" in the message "inform(content)" may be interpreted as a request that the receiving agent adds the item "content" to its knowledge-base; this is in contrast to the message "query(content)" which may be interpreted (depending on the semantics employed) as a request to see if the item content is currently in the receiving agents knowledge base. There are at least two standardisations of speech act labelled messaging
KQML and
FIPA.
KQML and FIPA are based on the Searlian, that is, psychological semantics of speech acts.
Munindar P. Singh
Munindar P. Singh is an Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor and a full professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. Singh is an IEEE Fellow, a AAAI Fellow, a AAAS Fellow, an ACM Fellow, a Member of A ...
has long advocated moving away from the psychological to a social semantics of speech acts—one that would be in tune with Austin's conception. Andrew Jones has also been a critic of the psychological conception. A recent collection of manifestos by researchers in agent communication reflects a growing recognition in the multiagent systems community of the benefits of a social semantics.
Other uses in technology
* An office can be seen as a system of speech acts. The abbreviation SAMPO stands for Speech-Act-based office Modeling approach, which "studies office activities as a series of speech acts creating, maintaining, modifying, reporting, and terminating commitments".
* Speech act profiling has been used to detect deception in synchronous
computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated format ...
.
In political science
In political science, the
Copenhagen School adopts speech act as a form of felicitous speech act (or simply 'facilitating conditions'), whereby the speaker, often politicians or players, act in accordance to the truth but in preparation for the audience to take action in the directions of the player that are driven or incited by the act. This forms an observable framework under a specified subject matter from the player, and the audience who are 'under-theorised
ouldremain outside of the framework itself, and would benefit from being both brought in and drawn out.' It is because the audience would not be informed of the intentions of the player, except to focus on the display of the speech act itself. Therefore, in the perspective of the player, the truth of the subject matter is irrelevant except the result produced via the audience.
The study of speech acts is prevalent in legal theory since laws themselves can be interpreted as speech acts. Laws issue out a command to their constituents which can be realized as an action. When forming a legal contract, speech acts can be made when people are making or accepting an offer. Considering the theory of freedom of speech, some speech acts may not be legally protected. For example, a death threat is a type of speech act and is considered to exist outside of the protection of freedom of speech as it is treated as a criminal act.
In economic sociology
In a sociological perspective, Nicolas Brisset adopts the concept of speech act in order to understand how economic models participate in the making and the spreading of representations inside and outside of the scientific field. Brisset argues that models perform actions in different fields (scientific, academic, practical, and political). This multiplicity of fields induces a variety of felicity conditions and types of performed actions. This perspective is a criticism of the essentialism of philosophical modelling studies. This approach is largely inspired by the work of
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...
and
Quentin Skinner.
In finance, it is possible to understand mathematical models as speech acts: in 2016 the notion of "financial Logos" was defined as the speech act of
mathematical modelling
A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, ...
of financial risks. The action of the financial Logos on financial practices is the framing of financial decision-making by risk modelling.
See also
*
Analogy
*
Cooperative principle
*
Direction of fit
The technical term direction of fit is used to describe the distinctions that are offered by two related sets of opposing terms:
* The more general set of mind-to-world (i.e., mind-to-fit-world, not from-mind-to-world) ''vs.'' world-to-mind (i.e., ...
*
Discourse-completion task
*
Entailment (pragmatics)
Linguistic entailments are entailments which arise in natural language. If a sentence ''A'' entails a sentence ''B'', sentence ''A'' cannot be true without ''B'' being true as well. For instance, the English sentence "Pat is a fluffy cat" entails ...
*
Implicature
In pragmatics, a subdiscipline of linguistics, an implicature is something the speaker suggests or implies with an utterance, even though it is not literally expressed. Implicatures can aid in communicating more efficiently than by explicitly sayi ...
*
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
*
Phatic
In linguistics, a phatic expression (, ) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-pragmatic rather than denotational functions. They can be obse ...
*
Pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the in ...
*
Presupposition
*
Politeness theory
Politeness theory, proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, centers on the notion of politeness, construed as efforts on redressing the affronts to a person's self-esteems or effectively claiming positive social values in Social inter ...
*
Relevance theory#Speech acts
Notes
Bibliography
*
John Langshaw Austin: ''How to Do Things With Words''. Cambridge (Mass.) 1962, paperback:
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
, 2nd edition, 2005, .
*
William P. Alston: 'Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning'. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2000, .
* Bach, Kent. "Speech Acts." Speech Acts. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
* Doerge, Friedrich Christoph
''Illocutionary Acts – Austin's Account and What Searle Made Out of It''. Tuebingen 2006.
* Dorschel, Andreas, 'What is it to understand a directive speech act?', in: ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'' LXVII (1989), nr. 3, pp. 319–340.
*
John Searle,'' Speech Acts'', Cambridge University Press 1969, .
* John Searle, "Indirect speech acts." In ''Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts'', ed. P. Cole & J. L. Morgan, pp. 59–82. New York: Academic Press. (1975). Reprinted in ''Pragmatics: A Reader'', ed. S. Davis, pp. 265–277. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (1991)
* Geo Siegwart, "Alethic Acts and Alethiological Reflection. An Outline of Constructive Philosophy of Truth." In ''Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the philosophy of language'', ed. D. Greimann & G. Siegwart, pp. 41–58. New York: Routledge. (2007)
*
Terry Winograd
Terry Allen Winograd (born February 24, 1946) is an American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human–Computer Interaction Group. He is known within the philosophy of mind and artificial intel ...
&
Fernando Flores
Carlos Fernando Flores Labra (born January 9, 1943) is a Chilean engineer, entrepreneur and politician. He is a former cabinet minister of president Salvador Allende and was senator for the Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá regions between 20 ...
, ''Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design'', Ablex Publishing Corp, (Norwood), 1986. .
* Birgit Erler: ''The speech act of forbidding and its realizations: A linguistic analysis''. Saarbrücken:
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
Omniscriptum Publishing Group, formerly known as VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, is a German publishing group headquartered in Riga, Latvia. Founded in 2002 in Düsseldorf, its book production is based on print-to-order technology.
The company publis ...
, 2010, .
*
Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford''Illocutionary acts, Subordination, and Silencing''in ''Analysis'', July 2009.
* Outi, Malmivuori: ''Zu Stand und Entwicklung der Sprechakttheorie. Zu Grundsätzen der Theorie des spachlichen Handelns''. AkademikerVerlag. 2012. .
* Matt McDonald
''Securitisation and the Construction of Security.''University of Warwick. (2008)
* Barry Buzan, Ole Waever & Jaap de Wilde:
Security: A New Framework for Analysis'' Colorado Boulder: Lynne Rienner. (1998)
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
*
ttp://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith//articles/speechact.html Barry Smith, ''Towards a History of Speech Act Theory''ed. M. McDonald, pp. 2–3. Warwick: University of Warwick. (2008)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical AgentsStrategies for Learning Speech Acts in Japaneseby Noriko Ishihara
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speech Act
Discourse analysis
Semantics
Oral communication
Philosophy of language
Pragmatics
Formal semantics (natural language)