Pragmatic transposition of sentences

Pragmatic aspect. Speech acts theory. Classification of speech acts

J.L. Austin claims that many utterances are equivalent to actions. When someone says: “I name this ship”, the utterance creates a new social or psychological reality.

Speech acts theory broadly explains these utterances as having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place. Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one’s troth, welcoming and warning. Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned.

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of categories or types.

David Crystal, quoting J.R. Searle, gives five such categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations.

Representatives – here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report.

Directives– here the speaker tries to make the hearer do something, with such words as: ask, beg, challenge, command, dare, invite, insist, request.

Commissives– here the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future) course of action, with verbs such as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake.

Expressives– the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs, using such verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome.

Declarations– the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by making the utterance: I now pronounce you man and wife, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you be dead, I name this ship...

Performatives An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that of performatives. These are speech acts of a special kind where the utterance of the right words by the right person in the right situation effectively is (or accomplishes) the social act. In some cases, the speech must be accompanied by a ceremonial or ritual action. Whether the speaker in fact has the social or legal (or other kind of) standing to accomplish the act depends on some things beyond the mere speaking of the words.

Sometimes a sentence characterized by formal features of some pragmatic type in speech acquires illocutionary power of sentences of another type. Such cases are referred to as indirect speech acts. Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example a speaker asks, “Would you like to meet me for coffee?” and another replies, “I have class.” The second speaker 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.

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