Austin’s new model of speech acts
According to Austin, while making an
utterance, a speaker is performing three
Utterance Meaning
It is context-dependent. It is the product of sentence meaning and context. Therefore, it is richer than the meaning of the sentence.
dinner in the living room or the kitchen. Annie
replies: It’s cold in here. PP (pragmatic paraphrase): Let’s eat in the kitchen.
Situation two: The Queen and her butler, James, are in the drawing room. The window is open. The Queen says: It’s cold in here.
speaker and the hearer, such as cultural background, situation(time, place, manner, etc.), the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, etc.….
Performatives
I name this ship Titanic.
I declare the meeting open. I warn you to leave away. (suggestion) I bet you six pence it will rain tomorrow. I promise to finish it in time.
Pragmatics can be defined as the
study of how speakers use the
sentences of a language to effect
successful communication.
It is the study of language in use or language communication; the study of
It’s cold in here.
SP (semantic paraphrase): The temperature in this place is frigid. Situation one: Mike and Annie are in the living room. Mike asks Annie whether she’d like to eat
Speaker’s
meaning
A father is trying to get his 3-year-old
daughter to stop lifting up her dress to
display her new underwear to the assembled
guests.
Father:
Summary
★Language meaning can be analyzed at several
levels.
★Semantics concentrates on the meaning that
comes from linguistic knowledge, while
★ pragmatics concentrates on those aspects of
1. Definition of Pragmatics
• The study of language in use. • The study of meaning in context. • The study of speakers’ meaning, utterance meaning, & contextual meaning.
What essentially distinguish semantics
and pragmatics is whether in the
study of meaning the context of use is considered. Parent: Where are your shoes, young man? Child: Under my bed.
event created at a particular point in time for a
particular communicative purpose.
Speech Act Theory
★It is a theory about language used to do things.
★The theory originated with British philosopher John Austin in the 50’s of the 20th century and developed by J. R . Searle. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking, thus linguistic communication is composed of a succession of acts.
We don’t DO that.
Daughter:
I KNOW, Daddy. You don’t WEAR dresses.
Utterance
Jane: Coffee? Steve: Sure. Jane: White? Steve: Black.
Sentence Meaning
It is the abstract context-independent entity called semantic proposition. It is the literal meaning of a sentence.
PP: James, shut the window.
Situation three: Mike and Annie are in the greenhouse. Mike wonders why his orchids（兰花） haven’t bloomed. Annie replies: It’s cold in here.
pragmatics Language in Use
Today is Thursday.
It can be 1.an answer for “what day is it today?” 2. statement
3. complaint: today is Thursday again, exam day
Illocutionary act theory
Searle’s classification of speech acts
Austin made the primary distinction between two types of utterances: constative & performative. Constatives (叙述句) ---- statements that either state or describe, and are thus verifiable; e.g. I go to the park every Sunday. I teach English. Performatives (施为句) ---- sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state, and are not verifiable.
4. reminder: today is Thursday, Christmas is coming. 5. criticism (reproach): today is Thursday, and you haven’t yet hand in your homework.
6.question “Today is Thursday?”
the use of context to make inference
about meaning.
Semantic meaning & Pragmatic meaning:
• Semantic meaning: the more constant,
inherent side of meaning • Pragmatic meaning: the more indeterminate, the more closely related to context
Parent: When I asked where your shoes
were, I wanted you to put them on. Speech Act actions performed via utterances
Speech Act Theory includes:
Distinction between constative & performative
• Contextual Meaning: meaning in context
– The meaning of the sentence depends on who the speaker is , who the hearer is, when and where it is used.
– It was a hot Christmas day so we went down to the beach in the afternoon and had a good time swimming and surfing.