“Today is Sunday”, semantically, it means that today is the first day of the week; pragmatically, you can mean a lot by saying this, all depending on the context and the intention of the speaker, say, making a suggestion or giving an invitation…
performed as a result of saying something: by saying X and doing Y, I did Z.
For example,“It is cold here.”
Its locutionary act is the saying of it with its literal meaning the weather is clod in here;
Its illocutionary act can be a request of the hear to shut the window;
Its perlocutionary[pə:lɔ‘kju:ʃənəri] act can be the hearer’s shutting the window or his refusal to comply with the request.
----Analyze one more example: “You have left the door wide open.”
Note: Of the three acts, what speech act theory is most concerned with is the illocutionary act. It attempts to account for the ways by which speakers can mean more than what they say.
The locutionary act（言内行为）an act of saying
something,uttering words,phrases ,clauses and so on, i.e. an act of making a meaningful utterance (literal meaning of an utterance);
For example, “The bag is heavy” can mean
a bag being heavy (sentence meaning); an indirect, polite request, asking the hearer to help
him carry the bag; the speaker is declining someone’s request for help. Note: The meaning of an utterance is based on the
Speech act theory（言语行为理论） ----Austin(奥斯汀）
Speech acts is a term derived from the work of the philosopher Austin (1962) and now used to refer to a theory which analyzes the role of utterances in relation to the behavior of the speaker and the hearer in interpersonal communication. It aims to answer the question “What do we do when using language?”
when uttering these sentences, is actually doing sth
Austin’s new model of speech acts
Later, he thought a speaker might be performing 3 acts sumultaneously when speaking:
Traditionally philosophers were interested in the truth-value(真值）of sentences, i.e,how to judge a sentence is true or false. They believed that a statement was used either to state a fact or to describe a state of affairs.
Chapter 6 Pragmatics
---- the study of language in use or language communication; the study of the use of context to make inference about meaning.
---- the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication.
Performatives (行事话语) ---- sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state, and are not verifiable.
Not confused, e.g.“It is raining outside” can be a constative, and also a performative, for by uttering such a sentence, we may not only state a fact, but involve in the act of informing someone about the rain.
Some Examples of Performatives
“I do” “I name this ship Elizabeth.” “I give and bequeath my watch to my brother.” “I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.” “I declare the meeting open.” Instead of stating or describing sth, the speaker,
Some basic notions in Pragmatics
Context Pragmatics vs. semantics Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning Correctness vs. appropriateness
Context
Context---- a basic concept in the study of pragmatics. It is generally considered as constituted knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer, such as cultural background, situation(time, place, manner, etc.), the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, etc.….
Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning
---- Sentence meaning（句子意义）: Abstract and context-independent meaning; literal meaning of a sentence; having a dyadic relation as in: What does X mean? ----utterance meaning（话语意义）: concrete and context-dependent meaning; intended meaning of a speaker; having a triadic relation as in: What did you mean by X?
E.g. If it rains, the ground will be wet (T)
if it doesn’t rain, the ground won’t be wet (F)
The ground is wet, so it rains (F)
The ground isn’t wet, so it doesn’t rain. (T)
sentence meaning; it is the realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context; utterance meaning is richer than sentence meaning; it is identical with the purpose for which the speaker utters the sentence.
Thus, he made the distinction between constatives(叙事话语） and performatives （行事话语）
Two types of utterances
Constatives (叙事话语) ---- statements that either state or describe, and are thus verifiable（可验证 的，意思是说可以检验其真值）;