Criteria for Speech Act Classifications
There exist different criteria for speech act classification. In the first place, speech acts can be classified according to their origin into primary (or natural) and secondary (or institutional) speech acts. Primary (or natural) speech acts are necessary for any kind of human interaction. Secondary (or institutional) speech acts are specific for a certain institution, for example, for school instruction, courtroom investigation, political debate, commercial advertising, etc.
Institutions can bring into life new types of speech acts, for example, the giving of a verdict, the opening of a meeting, etc. On the other hand, institutions can modify primary speech acts. Thus, an examination question is different from a question in everyday communication. The latter asks for information, for new information. As for the examiner, he naturally knows the answer to the question. His aim consists in testing the knowledge of the person taking the exam.
In the second place, speech acts can be classified according to their function or, to put it differently, according to their position within speech -act patterns. In this case, a distinction is- drawn between initiating and reacting speech acts [L.P. Chakhoyan; W. Edmondson], Some speech acts, in particular questions or requests, have a tendency to function as initiating moves. On the other hand, confirmations or answers are typical reacting moves.
The differentiation of initiating and reacting speech acts is not an easy task because most speech acts perform both functions in the process of communication, e.g.:
We're lucky. — Why? - Because there aren't any clouds (English Course).
Here the speech act Why1? is reacting in regard to the preceding speech act We 're lucky, but it is an initiating speech act in regard to the following speech act Because there aren 't any clouds.
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In the third place, speech acts can be classified according to their linguistic characteristics: lexical, morphological, and syntactic. The authors of the lexical classification of speech acts take as a starting point the lexical character of the verb [J.L. Austin; Th. Ballmer, V. Brennenstuhl; M.K. Kreckel]. The meaning of the verb does help classify speech acts. However, the lexical criterion is applicable only to speech acts comprising a notional verb. Speech acts based on 'sentence representatives' and most sentencoids stand outside the lexical classification.
The authors of the morphological classification of speech acts are guided by the mood of the verb. Thus, D. Wunderlich singles out four types of speech acts:
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1) speech acts of the question type that have a verb in the
interrogative mood,
2) speech acts of the directive type that have a verb in the
imperative mood,
3) speech acts of the representative type that have a verb in the
declarative mood,
4) speech acts of the declaration type that have specific
performative formulas.
The morphological classification of speech acts, like the lexical classification, does not take into consideration the existence of verbless speech acts. What is more, there is often no one-to-one correspondence between the mood of the verb used in the speech act and the intention of the speaker. Cf.:
Someone's at the door, - Is everything ready? ~ Yes, dear, everything's fine, Answer the door (English Course).
The verb in the speech act Someone's at the door is in the so-called 'declarative mood'. However, the speech act was intended not as a representative, but as a directive. Since the addressee failed to understand the implied directive, the speaker accompanied the implied directive Someone's at the door by a 'bald' (or imperative) directive Answer the door.
The authors of the syntactic classification of speech acts take word order as a starting point, namely the order of subject and predicate. The absence of one-to-one correspondence between the type of syntactic structure and the pragmatic function of the corresponding speech act exposes the vulnerability of the syntactic classification. Thus, if we were guided by the syntactic criterion of
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word order, we would be bound to say that the speech act Won 'tyou stay a little longer? (A.S. Hornby) asks for information. But it was not intended as a question. It was intended as a request.
Most syntactic structures are polyfunctional. In S. Greenbaum's book we find examples of various speech acts performed by declarative sentences. Cf:
You should take an aspirin (S. Greenbaum) — advice.
I'm going to give you a bicycle for your birthday (S. Greenbaum) - promise.
It's going to rain (S. Greenbaum) - prediction.
You mustn 't smoke in here (S. Greenbaum) - prohibition.
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You may take another one (S. Greenbaum) — permission.
What is more, the syntactic criterion of word order is applicable only to sentences and 'sentence representatives', and does not work in the domain of sentencoids.
But the main drawback of all linguistic classifications lies in the heterogeneity of the phenomenon under examination and the criterion of classification. W. Motsch writes apropos of this, 'It seems to be a wild goose chase trying to define types of illocution on purely linguistic grounds.' Speech acts are functional phenomena. Hence, their classification should be based on the functional criterion. The functional heterogeneity of speech acts knows no bounds. According to J.L. Austin, for instance, there are over a thousand types of speech acts. The essence of each classification, however, consists in generalization. So, the number of the singled out speech acts should be relatively small, or else we would simply be creating the illusion of classification.
The founder of the speech act theory is the English logician J.L. Austin. He distinguishes three kinds of speech acts: 1) locutionary acts, 2) illocutionary acts, and 3) perlocutionary acts.
A locutionary act is an act of saying something in the full sense of the word say.
An illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something. It realizes the intent of the speaker, such as asking or answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning, announcing a verdict or an intention, pronouncing sentence, making an appointment or an appeal or a criticism, and so on.
The illocutionary force of a speech act is always interpreted as having been intended. If one says, 'I christen this ship the Kneydel'
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while breaking a bottle of champagne on the stern of a vessel, it would raise more than a few eyebrows to say subsequently, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to christen this ship.' To claim that one was not responsible for one's own illocutionary act is to claim that one was not responsible at the time he performed it.
A perlocutionary act is an act performed as a result of saying. Here we deal with the effects of the communication on the addressee. For example, by making a promise a speaker may reassure and create expectations in his audience. Perlocutionary effects may be achieved intentionally, as, for example, when one gets one's hearer to do something by asking him to do it; or unintentionally, as when one annoys one's audience without intending to do so.
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We may always deny that a particular perlocutionary act was intended by saying things like / didn 't mean to embarrass you or 7 was simply stating a fact.
The product of a speech act is an utterance. In issuing an utterance, the speaker performs the three acts simultaneously. They are differentiated only in the process of analysis.
J.L. Austin draws a distinction between two kinds of utterances: constatives and performatives. Constatives are primarily locutionary speech acts. Their intent is to communicate a certain piece of true or false information, e.g.:
The earth moves round the sun (J.L, Austin) - true information.
The sun moves round the earth - false information.
As opposed to constatives, performatives are not performed in order to communicate something about this or that fact of objective reality. In a performative, the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action. Thus, saying / congratulate you, the speaker is not describing what he is doing but performing the action of congratulating. Hence, the term 'performative'. Performatives have certain pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic peculiarities.
1. Performatives must satisfy the sincerity condition, i.e. the
speaker is to speak seriously and literally.
2. As opposed to constatives, performatives cannot be either
true or false. If the illocutionary force takes effect, it is said to be
happy (or felicitous). If it doesn't, the performative is said to be
unhappy (or infelicitous).
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3. It is usually verbs denoting speech activity that are used as
performatives. These verbs are to belong to content-descriptive
verbs, e.g.: state, ask, promise, guarantee, apologize, thank, etc.
Sound descriptive verbs of the type gasp, murmur, giggle, shout,
whine cannot function as performatives.
4. Performatives are generally expressed by verbs in the first
person singular present indefinite of the indicative mood, which
denote actions simultaneous with the moment of speech, e.g.:
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I name this ship the 'Queen Elizabeth' (J.L. Austin). But there are exceptions, e.g.: You are advised to take an aspirin (S. Greenbaum). It is forbidden to smoke here (S. Greenbaum).
5. Performatives are never used in the continuous aspect.
6. Performatives cannot be negative.
7. Performatives are never accompanied by modal words.
8. Performatives allow the introduction of the word hereby
that means 'by means of this utterance', e.g.;
/ hereby declare her elected (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).
The use of hereby is restricted to highly formal contexts.
9. Performatives can be regarded as a subtype of indirect
speech: they name the illocutionary act performed by the speaker
himself. As a result, utterances comprising performatives admit only
of one interpretation as far as their illocutionary force is concerned.
J.L. Austin singles out five illocutionary types of performatives: 1) verdictives, 2) exercitives, 3) commissives, 4) behabitives, and 5) expositives.
The communicative intent of the., verdictiye is to evaluate something, express an opinion or give a verdict, e.g.: characterize, convict, value, diagnose, describe, analyze, etc.
The illocutionary force of the.exercitiye consists in imposing one's will on the addressee, e.g.: order, choose, advise, appoint, dismiss, recommend, etc.
The cpmmissiye is an assuming of an obligation or a declaring of an intention, e.g.: promise, undertake, intend, plan, adopt, bet, consent, etc.
Ib.e..behabitiy.e is the adopting of an attitude. Behabitives comprise various formulas of social etiquette: greeting, farewell, apology, congratulation, condolence, etc.
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The., expositive is the clarifying of reasons, arguments, and communications, e.g.: affirm, deny, state, describe, tell, answer, ask, report, agree, correct, etc.
In the opinion of the American logician J. R. Searle, J.L. Austin's classification of illocutionary speech acts is not devoid of serious drawbacks. First, what J.L. Austin deals with is illocutionary verbs, not illocutionary speech acts. Illocutionary verbs constitute only one illocutionary force-indicating device, The other illocutionary force-indicating devices are the mood of the verb, word order, stress, intonation contours, punctuation, and the context. J.L. Austin disregards them completely, which, of course, cannot but influence the validity of his conclusions.
Second, not all the verbs, mentioned by J.L. Austin, can be referred to illocutionary (or performative). Thus, to say / intend... does not mean to really intend to do something. That's why nowadays linguists refer to performatives only those verbs that satisfy the sincerity condition.
Third, and most important of all, there is no unifying principle (or principles) underlying J.L. Austin's classification of illocutionary speech acts. As a result, the singled out classes are heterogeneous and often interpenetrate. Thus, J.L. Austin lists the verbs dare, defy, and challenge alongside the verbs thank, apologize, deplore, and welcome as behabitives. But the verbs dare, dejy, and challenge have to do with the 'addressee's subsequent actions. So, they are rather exercitives than behabitives. On the other hand, J.L. Austin lists the verb describe as both a verdictive and an expositive. Given his definition, it is easy to see why: describing can be both the delivering of a finding and an act of exposition. But then any 'act of exposition involving the expounding of views' could also be 'the delivering of a finding'. And indeed, a look at J.L. Austin's list of expositives is sufficient to show that most of his verbs fit his definition of verdictives. Consider the verbs affirm, deny, state, class, identify, conclude, and deduce. All of these are listed as expositives, but they could just as easily have been listed as verdictives.
It should be mentioned that J.L. Austin understands very well that his findings are far from conclusive. His paper offers no more than a preliminary dip into the problem and, consequently, cannot be foolproof. The classes of behabitives and expositives are those
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that he finds most troublesome. Behabitives are troublesome because they seem too miscellaneous, and expositives - because they are enormously numerous and important, and seem both to be included in the other classes and at the same time to be unique in a way that he has not succeeded in making clear even to himself.
J.R. Searle postulates 12 criteria for speech act classification, but in practice uses only three: illocutionary point, direction of fit, and expressed psychological state.
Each type of illocution has an illocutionary point (or purpose). The illocutionary point of statements and descriptions is to tell people how things are; the illocutionary point of promises and vows is to commit the speaker to doing something; the illocutionary point of orders and commands is to try to get people to do things, and so on.
The illocutionary point is achieved on the prepositional content. The prepositional content is made up of the non-illocutionary acts of reference and predication. The illocutionary point relates the prepositional content to the world of the utterance, J.R. Searle calls the way in which a prepositional content is related to a world of utterance its direction of fit. For example, in the case of a description, the propositional content of the speaker's utterance is supposed to match some independently existing state of affairs. But in the case of an order, the addressee is supposed to change his behaviour to match the propositional content of the order. There are four directions of fit in language.
1. The word-to-world direction of fit. In this case, language is
fitted to reality, i.e. the utterance gives a correct description of a
state of affairs in the world.
2. The world-to-word direction of fit. In this case, the speaker
expresses a wish, issues an order, etc., producing a change in the
world. In other words, reality is fitted to language.
3. The double direction of fit: the world-to-word direction of
fit and the word-to-world direction of fit.
4. The null (or empty) direction of fit.
Whenever one performs an illocutionary act with a propositional content, one expresses a certain psychological state. It is always possible to express a psychological state that one does not have. An insincere speech act is one in which the speaker performs a speech act and thereby expresses a psychological state even
though he does not have that state. Thus, an insincere statement (a lie) is one where the speaker does not believe what he says; an insincere apology is one where the speaker does not have the sorrow he expresses; an insincere promise is one where the speaker does not in fact intend to do the things he promises to do. An insincere speech act is defective, but not necessarily unsuccessful. A lie, for example, can be a successful assertion.
J.R. Searle's taxonomy includes five types of speech acts: 1) representatives, 2) directives, 3) commissives, 4) declarations, and 5) expressives.
Representatiyes have the assertive illocutionary point. These are speech acts by which a speaker represents a state of affairs. Representatives carry the value 'true' or 'false'. Utterances with the assertive illocutionary point have the word-to-world direction of fit. In an assertive speech act the propositional content is expressed as representing an independently existing state of affairs in the world. The psychological state expressed in all assertive speech acts is belief.
Directives have the directive illocutionary point. These speech acts embody an effort on the part of the speaker to get the addressee to do something. Directives have the world-to-word direction of fit: the world is adapted to the uttered words. The psychological state expressed in all directives is want or desire.
Comrnissiyes have the commissive illocutionary point. In these speech acts, the speaker commits himself to doing things. Like directives, commissives have the world-to-word direction of fit: the world is adapted to the uttered words. The psychological state expressed in all commissives is intention.
Declarations have the declarative illocutionary point. The speaker brings about changes in the world through his utterances, e.g.:
I declare you man and wife (J.R. Searle).
Declarations have the double direction of fit: world-to-word and word-to-world. The psychological states expressed in all declarations are belief and desire.
Expressives. The illocutionary point of an expressive is to express the speaker's attitude about the state of affairs specified by the propositional content. Expressives have a null direction of fit. The point of an expressive is not to say that the propositional
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content matches the world, nor to get the world to match the prepositional content, but to express the speaker's attitude about the state of affairs represented by the propositional content. Most expressive illocutionary forces have the preparatory condition that the propositional content is true in the world of the utterance.
J.R. Searle's classification of speech acts in many respects resembles J.L. Austin's classification. Thus, J.R. Searle, like J.L. Austin, distinguishes five classes of speech acts; and one of J.R. Searle's classes, the so-called 'commissives', is more or less conceptually identical with the class defined by J.L. Austin under the same name. J.R. Searle's directives correspond roughly to J.L. Austin's exercitives, expressives - to behabitives.
The representatives of J.R. Searle, according to J.L. Austin, are locutionary rather than illocutionary speech acts. J.R. Searle's point of view seems more convincing because the presentation of something as a fact is also a kind of intent.
Having gone outside the domain of illocutionary verbs, J.R. Searle overcame the first drawback of J.L. Austin's classification. As far as the classification criteria are concerned, J.L. Mey is quite right when he says that in J.R. Searle's papers much is made of all the different criteria that one could employ in order to establish a coherent and consistent taxonomy; but when it comes to applying the criteria, only a few of them are used, and not even these are applied exclusively all the time.
In one respect, however, J.R. Searle's taxonomy is superior to J.L. Austin's: it is more oriented towards the real world.
The main drawback of the speech act theory consists in the fact that it disregards the role of the addressee. A speech act, as I.P. Susov rightly points out, is not interactive, and communication presupposes interaction. The term 'communicative act' emphasizes its interactive nature. That's why we call the basic unit of speech communication !a communicative act'.
Linguists usually single out three components in a communicative act: speaker, addressee, and the thing that is spoken about [B. Bailey, D.H. Morgan; M. Speier; R. Hausser]. The term 'thing' is used in the widest possible meaning. Tt embraces physical objects, abstract notions, and even whole situations.
In our opinion, the tripartite structure of a communicative act disregards a most important component, namely the physical
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channel and psychological connection between the speaker and the addressee mentioned by R. Jakobson. In accordance with the four main components of a communicative act, we single out four pragmatic types of utterances: expressives, volitives, informatives, and phatives. Exgressives are focused on the speaker. They are aimed at a direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward what he is speaking about. Cf.:
What a perfect angel you are, Cecily (O. Wilde).
/ can speak four languages. - / can *t (L. and J. Soars).
What a busy day! (English Course).
Volitiyes are focused on the addressee. Here we deal with questions and inducements. Cf.:
Why do you hate reporters? - Because I don't like answering all these questions (V. Evans).
We can't go all this way back. - Why can't we? - Because that's a stupid thing to do (S. Hill).
I'm looking at the paperbacks. - Why? - Because I want a book for Jane (English Course).
Shut the door there (J. Galsworthy).
/ must offer to bring her the next time she comes. - Don't (D. Robins).
A glass of milk for him, please (English Course).
Informatives are focused on the thing spoken about. Cf.:
I've left you a cold supper (A. Ayckbourn).
Did she tell you what the row was about? - She did (J. Parsons).
Where's the telephone? - It's there. - Where? - On the table (English Course).
Phatives serve to establish, maintain or terminate communication, to check whether the channel works, to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his continued attention. Cf.:
Excuse me, - Yes? - Are you Miss Smith? - No, I'm sorry, I'm not Miss Smith. I'm Miss Wilson (BBC London Course).
It means a lot to me. - Does it? I 'm surprised (J. Parsons).
Each pragmatic type of utterance can be further classified.
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Conversational Principles
The most important conversational principles are a cooperative principle and a politeness principle. The cooperative principle was formulated by H.P. Grice. The cooperative principle consists of four sub-principles (or categories): 1) the category of quantity, 2) the category of quality, 3) the category of relation, and 4) the category of manner.
The. category of .quantity relates to the quantity of information to be provided. In includes two maxims:
1) make your contribution as informative as is required,
2) do not make your contribution more informative than is
required.
The... categoryof..quality relates to the truth-value of the information to be imparted. Under this category falls a supermaxim 'Try to make your contribution one that is true' and two more specific maxims:
1) do not say what you believe to be false,
2) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Under fee. category ...ofreiatior^ H.P. Grice places a single
maxim, namely 'Be relevant'. By relevance, G.N. Leech understands the relevance of an utterance to its speech situation. An utterance, in his opinion, is relevant to a speech situation if it contributes to the conversational goals of speaker or addressee. Cf:
A: Where's my box of chocolates?
B: If sin your room (G.N. Leech).
A's goal is to find out where his box of chocolates is. B supplies the information required. So B's utterance is relevant to A's utterance.
Under the .category...of...manner, H.P. Grice includes the supermaxim 'Be perspicuous', i.e.:
1) avoid obscurity of expression,
2) avoid ambiguity,
3) be brief.
4) be orderly.
The category of manner appears to be the Cinderella of H.P. Grice's categories. He himself sees this maxim as in some sense less important than, for example, the category of quality, and
as differing from the others in relating not to what is said but, rather, to how what is to be said is to be said.
In the opinion of G.N. Leech, H.P. Grice was right to recognize the category of manner as one of the elements of the cooperative principle because the charge 'to be clear' is placed on language users as part of the Interpersonal Rhetoric, as well as of the Textual Rhetoric. G.N. Leech draws a distinction between two kinds of clarity. One kind consists in making unambiguous use of the syntax and phonology of the language in order to construct a clear text. Another type of clarity consists in framing a clear message, i.e. a message which is perspicuous or intelligible in the sense of conveying the intended illocutionary goal to the addressee. Perspicuity in this sense is obviously hand in glove with relevance; both the category of manner and the category of relation will favour the most direct communication of one's illocutionary point.
Another conversational principle is a politeness principle. Politeness concerns a relationship between two participants whom we may call self and other. In conversation, se//will normally be identified with the speaker, and other will typically be identified with the addressee. But speakers also show politeness to third parties, to people designated by third-person pronouns.
According to G.N. Leech, the point of politeness, as a principle, is to minimize the expression of impolite beliefs and to maximize the expression of polite beliefs.
J.L. Mey defines politeness as a strategy for cooperation with least cost and maximum benefit to all interlocutors.
In other words, the politeness principle can be seen not just as another principle to be added to the cooperative principle, but as a necessary complement, which rescues the cooperative principle from serious trouble.
True, there are some situations where politeness takes a back seat, so to speak. This is so, for example, when the interlocutors are engaged in a collaborative activity in which exchange of information is equally important to both of them. On the other hand, there are situations where the politeness principle overrules the cooperative principle to the extent that even the category' of quality is sacrificed. Thus, in certain circumstances, people feel justified in telling 'white lies'. For example, the speaker may feel that the only
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way of declining an invitation politely is to pretend to have an alternative engagement.
G.N. Leech mentions six maxims dealing with polite behaviour: 1) tact maxim, 2) generosity maxim, 3) approbation maxim, 4) modesty maxim, 5) agreement maxim, and 6) sympathy maxim.
Thetactm.axim_(m impositivesandcommissives)
Minimize cost to other: Maximize benefit to other. Thus, an imperative, which does not allow the addressee to say No is a positively polite way of making an offer. Cf.:
Help yourself "(G.N. Leech).
Have another sandwich (G.N. Leech).
The ^enerpsitj ma^m_(in impositives and commissives)
Minimize benefit to self: Maximize cost to self. The offer and invitation are presumed to be polite for two reasons: firstly, because they imply benefit to the addressee; secondly, because they imply cost to the speaker. Cf.:
lean lend you my car (G.N. Leech) - offer.
You must come and have dinner -with us (G.N. Leech) -invitation.
The.approbation maxirn_(in expressives and assertives)
Minimize dispraise of other: Maximize praise of other.
Since dispraise of the addressee or of a third party is impolite, various strategies of indirectness are employed in order to mitigate the effect of criticism, e.g.:
A: Her performance was magnificent, wasn 't it?
B: Was it? (G.N. Leech).
Assuming that both A and B listened to the performance, B's reply is evasive and implicates an unfavourable opinion.
The rnodesty maxim_(in expressives and assertives)
Minimize praise of self: Maximize dispraise of self.
It is felicitous to agree with another's commendation except when it is a commendation of oneself, e.g.:
They were so kind to us. - Yes, they were, weren't they (G.N. Leech).
Self-dispraise is regarded as quite benign, e.g.:
How stupid of me! (G.N. Leech).
The understatement of one's generosity is shown to be quite normal, e.g.:
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Please accept this small gift as a token of our esteem (G.N. Leech).
In Japanese society, and more particularly among Japanese women, the modesty maxim is more powerful than it is in English-speaking societies, where it would be more polite to accept a compliment graciously (for example, by thanking the speaker for it) rather than to go on denying it.
The.agreement maxim_(in assertives)
Minimize disagreement between self and other: Maximize agreement between self and other.
There is a tendency to exaggerate agreement with other people, and to mitigate disagreement by expressing regret, partial agreement, etc. Cf.:
A referendum will satisfy everybody. — Yes, definitely (G.N. Leech) - agreement.
English is a difficult language to learn. - True, but the grammar is quite easy (G.N. Leech) - partial agreement.
The book is tremendously well written. - Yes, well written as a whole, but there are some rather boring patches, don't you think? (G.N. Leech) - partial agreement.
As the last two examples show, partial agreement is often preferable to complete disagreement.
The..sym.pathy maxim (in assertives)
Minimize antipathy between self and other: Maximize sympathy between self and other.
The sympathy maxim presupposes empathy, i.e. the ability of the speaker to imagine himself in the position of the addressee, and so to share and understand his feelings.
The sympathy maxim explains why congratulations and condolences are considered to be courteous communicative acts.
Indirect Communicative Acts
J.R. Searle draws a distinction between direct and indirect communicative acts. In direct communicative acts, the speaker means exactly and literally what he says, e.g.:
/'// be there. ~ How will I know you? - I'll have my three sons with me (S. Sheldon).
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In indirect communicative acts, one communicative act is performed indirectly by way of performing another, e.g.:
Would you give me your work number, please? (L. and J. Soars).
On the face of it, it is a question (partial inversion, interrogation mark). But it was not intended as an inquiry into the addressee's willingness to give the speaker her work phone number. The speaker simply asked the addressee to give him her work phone number, but he did it indirectly.
An indirect communicative act, according to J.R. Searle, always represents a combination of two acts, a primary act (in our example, a request) and a secondary act (in our example, a question). In other words, in indirect communicative acts the speaker communicates to the addressee more than he actually says. The addressee decodes the intended meaning by relying on their mutually shared background knowledge, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, and his power of inference [V.V. Dementyevj.
In our daily use of language, we often resort to indirect communicative acts. The question arises why? As a matter of fact, indirect communicative acts run counter to one of the categories of H.P. Grice's cooperative principle, namely the category of manner, which demands that the speaker should avoid ambiguity and obscurity of expression.
According to J.R. Searle, the chief motivation for using indirect communicative acts is politeness, G.N. Leech holds that the politeness principle has a higher regulative role than the cooperative principle. 'Unless you are polite to your neighbour, - he writes, -the channel of communication between you will break down,..'
Indirect communicative acts tend to be more polite than direct communicative acts. Thus, the question form of a request (Will you take me home?) is felt to be more tactful than the direct imperative (Take me home) because a yes/no-question about the addressee's willingness or ability to perform a certain action sounds less categorical and, consequently, gives the addressee freedom of response. He can, if he chooses, comply with or refuse the request but he can also indicate either that the request is inappropriate or that it cannot be responded to so simply. That's why interlocutors often give preference to indirect communicative acts.
It goes without saying, that the politeness potential of direct and indirect communicative acts is not absolute. It varies from one national culture to another. For example, Russian people consider direct imperative requests quite polite, even when they are not accompanied by the word nootcajiyucma. English people regard direct imperative requests, even with the word please, as not polite enough. J.M. Sadock writes apropos of this, 'There are cultural-specific rules of the use of language that tell us that it is uncivil directly to request something of a social equal or superior.'
In the opinion of A. Davison, politeness is not the chief motivation for using indirect communicative acts. To prove her point, she draws the attention of linguists to the fact that in a discourse in which the participants are continuously polite, the utterances used are not all indirect communicative acts. In fact, a number of consecutive indirect communicative acts in a discourse gives an impression of excess. The latter leads A. Davison to the conclusion that it is closer to linguistic reality to view indirect communicative acts as having a signalling function of some sort rather than an expressive function.
If indirect communicative acts were used as signals of the speaker's psychological state, then it would not be at all strange that they are used intermittently rather than continuously, and tend to occur in the beginning of a discourse. A. Davison gives examples of indirect communicative acts used to express anger and extreme rudeness, Cf.:
/ must say that I never want to come back here again (A. Davison).
Can I say that this is the worst party I have ever been tol (A. Davison).
What is more, politeness is not sufficient to explain why some illocutionary acts may be performed indirectly (e.g. requests) and other illocutionary acts may not (e.g. declarations). Thus, a person who is considerate and tactful (and empowered to marry people) nevertheless may not say:
* Allow me to pronounce you man and wife (A. Davison).
*May I pronounce you man and wife? (A. Davison).
According to D. Tannen, speakers prefer indirectness for two reasons: to save face if their opinions or wants are not favourably
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received, and to achieve the sense of rapport that comes from being understood without saying what one means.
Many indirect communicative acts are on the way towards turning into conventional forms. Thus, utterances beginning with modal verbs Will you...7 Would you...? Could you...? are more often regarded as requests than as questions. But if in direct communicative acts we deal with conventions of language, in indirect communicative acts we deal with conventions of use, although sometimes there is a language sign testifying to the conventional nature of the indirect communicative act. Thus, if an utterance built on the mode! of a declarative sentence or on the model of a wh-interrogative sentence has the word please, it always functions as a request. Cf.:
I'd like an aisle seat, please. - There are none left (P. Viney).
And we'll have two coffees, please. - Black or -white? -White, please (Lingaphone English Course).
How muck is that., please? ~ That's eighteen pence (English Course).
Summing it all up, we can say that pragmalinguisties is a kind of grammar of man's speech behaviour in society. It is an extremely difficult task to master this kind of grammar. But it is indispensable for acquiring communicative competence, whose essence lies in sounding appropriate to every occasion. Compare in this respect the following extract from Voltaire's poem in which the pragmatic functions of the utterances Yes, Perhaps and No vary in accordance with the sex and the social position of the persons who use them:
| When a lady says 'no' She means 'perhaps'; When she says 'perhaps' She means 'yes'; And when she says 'yes' She is no lady. |
When a diplomat says 'yes' He means 'perhaps'; When he says 'perhaps' He means 'no'; And when he says 'no' He is no diplomat.
Without gaining communicative competence, one will always be regarded as a foreigner. That's why all the branches of linguistics, syntax including, must be pragmatically orientated.
25. TEXT
In our daily lives, we are surrounded by texts of all sorts: legal, religious, medical, literary, economic, educational, etc. Yet it seems hard to define the notion of text linguistically. The English Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics mentions the following approaches to text.
Primitive Notions of Text
One sense in which the word 'text' is used is that of 'record' (or 'document'). The notion of 'witness' is central here: texts are (written) witnesses of events, actions, or thoughts. The printed manifesto of a political party, a charter, a certificate, bus tickets and memoirs are texts in this sense. This is the meaning the term has for the historian, the judge, and the anthropologist. Texts, for them, are records (or documents) to be investigated because they can reveal something about a state of affairs in reality. All kinds of reports in newspapers and magazines are texts in this sense too, as are love letters and contracts.
This notion of text is, perhaps, the most widespread. However, to say that a text is anything written, is highly misleading. What about torn-up papers in a waste-paper basket? They are instances of writing, to be sure. But are they also 'text'? One is inclined to say Wo'. Thus, not all written things are texts. But the opposite is true, too: not all texts are written. This would follow from anthropological work involving the writing down of myths or folktales of a culture that is not in the possession of a script. For example, were the fairytales written down by the brothers Grimm not texts prior to their being written down? If not, what were they? It seems simpler to speak of 'oral texts' in this case. Thus, Beowulf existed once as an oral text being passed on from one generation to another, until at some moment in history it became a written text. So, the equation of text with writing is misconceived.
Another view takes texts to be mainly literary. Within this tradition, only poems, stories, and tales are considered as texts.
The second notion of text is as narrow as the first. There is no reason why nonliterary constructions should not be called 'text'.
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A third definition tries to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks by seeing texts as products made by human beings according to certain rules and principles. A text, in this view, is a composition.
This notion is a very old one, and can be traced back to the origins of Rhetoric in the Western world. Within the political and legal institutions of Ancient Greece and Rome, the orator, before presenting a speech in public, would compose his text according to techniques that were felt to be persuasive. He would then memorize it and ultimately deliver his speech orally. Today there are remnants of that practice in school essay writing or preparing a talk.
Although these products undoubtedly belong to what one intuitively calls 'text', the view that only such rhetorically composed utterances are texts does not stand criticism.
The term 'text' is derived from the Latin verb texere, meaning 'to weave'. In a text, some elements are 'woven together'. However, what kinds of linguistic elements are 'woven together' is something which is still open to debate.
Theoretical Notions of Text
In this section, three more approaches to the problem of textuality are outlined. They roughly correspond to efforts at understanding the concept of text in syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic terms.
Working within the framework of generative grammar, a text was defined as a string of sentences.
There are various problems with this view. First, not any suprasentential unit in itself constitutes a text. In a sense, this failure of the theory of text grammar was to be expected: it does not specify any structural principles determining the linkage of sentences in the text. Intuitively, one knows that such principles must exist, for not all sentences linked together form a text. This can be demonstrated quite easily: take a newspaper article and cut out the different sentences. Then type the sentences in random order and show the result to someone. The sentences on the page will not be recognized as a text; indeed, they might not even be understood by someone who has not seen the original text.
Another problem is that texts of only one sentence do exist. Imagine receiving a note bearing only the words:
Roger's finished the thesisl (R. Quirk et al.)-
Sometimes a text may be as short as a one-word notice, such as 'Exit*.
Thus, it is not necessary for a text to consist of more than one sentence.
The second approach concentrates on the semantic relationships between elements in a text. According to this view, it is meanings that are 'woven' together across sentence boundaries. This idea is referred to by the terms 'coherence' and 'cohesion'. Coherence refers to continuity of meaning that enables others to make sense of a text. Cohesion refers to different devices for linking parts of a text.
The question arises whether semantic relations must be necessarily realized linguistically. Scholars are still at variance as to the answer to this question, M.A.K. Halliday and R. Hasan appear to insist that such explicit realization is necessary. The opposing view is held by G. Brown and G. Yule who think that it is easy to find texts, which display few, if any, explicit markers of cohesive relations, e.g.:
There's the doorbell. -I'm in the bath (S. Greenbaum),
There is no explicit marking of relationships between the first and second sentences. Nonetheless, a normal reader will naturally assume that the two sentences constitute a text and interpret the second sentence in the light of the first. So, a purely semantic theory about textuality, although able to explain more than a purely syntactic theory, in the opinion of W. von Peer, still falls short: the criterion of cohesion is neither necessary nor sufficient in order to speak of a text, for cohesion occurs not only in texts but also in single sentences. For example, in the sentence Mary held on to her toy (W. von Peer), there is an unequivocal connection between Mary and her.
The third approach has been conceived in a pragmatic framework, taking into account the way a text functions within a specific situation, and considering it as 'meaning in action', hi Europe, this view is mostly associated with German text theorists. In the English-speaking world, M.A.K. Halliday has been the most
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outspoken advocate of this view, epitomized in his definition: 'A text is a unit of language in use.'
To sum up. Both the primitive and theoretical notions of text are not devoid of drawbacks. It was pointed out that the primitive notions of text are too narrow: they exclude many phenomena that could be regarded as texts, but which were nevertheless excluded. What is witnessed in the theoretical notions of text, is the opposite problem. In order to avoid giving too narrow a definition, these theorists seem to have fallen into the opposite extreme, namely that their definitions do no exclude anything at all. Such widening of the notion of text is frequently encountered in so-called poststructuralist thought, where everything, including nonlinguistic phenomena, is declared 'text', from fashion shows to urban planning. Some have gone so far as to declare life itself to be a text. When the notion of text has been blown up to such extent, however, it seems to lose its meaning altogether. Tims, in most of these theoretical notions, the term 'text' may be replaced by 'language'.
Is there a way out of this dilemma of over-narrow and over-wide definitions? In the present state of knowledge, it is hard to tell whether a positive answer can be given. But at least one interesting proposal has been made.
The starting point for this theory is the pragmatic situation in which texts are used. According to K. Ehlich, texts are linguistic constructions developed to overcome the transient nature of face-to-face communication. Their most characteristic trait is their ability to be transmitted through time and space. That is, a text may be detached from its original speech situation and subsequently be used again in a different and/or later situation, involving the same or different participants. Texts are seen as carriers of knowledge and values deemed important by a society, passing on this information from one individual or generation to another.
In order to make possible their detachment from a concrete utterance situation, texts develop specific forma! characteristics to allow speakers to reintroduce them in new situations. One of these is a clear marking of beginning and end. One, for example, knows that what comes between 'Once upon a time...' and 'They lived happily ever after' constitutes a text. These formal characteristics are partly bound to different text types, though: a sonnet is not a schedule, and a timetable is not a tale.
A developed theory of text types and their characteristics remains a desideratum. In linguistics, few efforts have been undertaken to come to terms with this problem.
Criteria of Text Classifications
Texts are heterogeneous. That's why it is impossible to classify texts according to one criterion. First of all, linguists draw a distinction between dialogical, monological, and mixed texts. A typical example of dialogical texts is everyday conversation, of monological texts - academic prose, of mixed texts - prose fiction, in which the author's speech is monological, while the speech of the characters is dialogical.
In the second place, texts are classified according to the type of the underlying situation. This criterion gives one an opportunity to draw a distinction between narrative, descriptive, and argumentative texts. Narrative texts we find in adventure fiction, in culinary recipes, etc. Descriptive texts are found in such branches of academic prose as biology, chemistry, etc. References provide another example of descriptive texts. Mathematical texts are primarily argumentative texts because reasoning prevails in them.
In the third place, texts can be classified according to the pragmatic criterion. Linguists single out the following types of texts: directive, assertive, commissive, texts-declarations and expressive texts. Orders, instructions, letters of recommendation, culinary recipes, etc. constitute directive texts. The main aim of directive texts is to make the addressee fulfil a certain action.
Texts of the assertive type are texts of academic articles and monographs, textbooks, theses, etc. The aim of assertive texts is to communicate to the addressee a certain amount of knowledge.
To texts of the commissive type, one can refer international treaties, letters of guarantee, etc. The aim of commissive texts consists in assuming certain obligations.
Texts of legal documents belong to texts-declarations. Their aim consists in regulating and changing the world.
Expressive texts are represented by congratulatory letters, welcome texts and texts conveying condolences. They put the speaker's attitude in focus.
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In the fourth place, texts can be classified into formatted and non-formatted. A formatted text has a standard form. Here belong certificates authenticated by a public notary., patents, synopses, etc. Many formatted texts include constant text components and blanks that are to be filled in by the applicant. Sometimes the volume of the text is modelled, too. For example, a sonnet always comprises 14 lines. Non-formatted texts are always created anew. A classic example of non-formatted text is fiction.
In the fifth place, texts can be classified into original and retold. To retold texts, one can refer abstracts, synopses, reviews, and adapted fiction.
In the sixth place, texts can be classified according to the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the constituent signs. Chemical and mathematical texts comprise heterogeneous signs: language signs, on the one hand, formulas, graphs and tables, on the other. No text can be totally homogeneous. Thus, verbal texts include both language signs and punctuation signs.
In the seventh place, texts can be classified into uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional. Multi-dimensional texts include tables, dictionaries, thesauri, etc. Many linguists deny the existence of multidimensional texts because they defy the coherence criterion.
hi the eighth place, texts can be classified into those written in the third person and those written in the first person [V.V. Bogdanov].
It is difficult to work out an exhaustive list of the criteria for text classification. Some criteria, (for example, pragmatic) are oriented more on the content; others (for example, the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the constituent signs) are oriented more on the form, although any criterion correlates both with content and form.
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