间接言语行为理论

1、,Introduction Austins Speech Act Theory Searles Indirect Speech Act Theory -Classification of Indirect Speech Acts Its Relations with Other Pragmatic Theories,Introduction The theory of indirect speech acts was put forward by the American philosopher of language John Searle. It originated from Austins theory, but made some revisions. One of Searles contributions lies in his understanding of the importance of speech acts. He regards a speech act as a basic unit in social communication, yet not a

2、word or a sentence. This means that his theory pays much attention to the functions rather than the forms of languages.,Austins Speech Act Theory It all begins with Austins) distinction between two kinds of sentences: performatives(施为句) and constatives（叙事句）. Austin argues that the uttering of a performative sentence is actually doing an action. “I nominate John to be President“, “I sentence you to ten yearsimprisionment“, “I promise to pay you back.“ In these typical, rather explicit cases of pe

3、rformative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating,sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.,Later, when Austin tries to separate performatives from constatives, he realizes the difficulty in distinguishing them from apart. In fact, all sentences can be used to perform speech acts. In order to explain in what sense to say something is to do something, Austin classifies three kinds of speech acts: 1)locutionary act（言内行为） the movement of voc

4、al organs to produce a stretch of meaningful sounds,2) illocutionary act（言外行为） - the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. to fulfill the purpose of speaking. (3) perlocutionary act（言后行为） the effects left on the audiences. The second speech act, i.e. illocutionary act, is the focus of Austins research, because the illocution of an utterance is the speakers communicative intention or the function it is intended to perform. In this sense, Austins speech act theory is actually a theory of ill

5、ocutionary acts. His previous research focus performatives then in fact belongs to a special group of illocutionary acts which are expressed explicitly.,Searles Indirect Speech Act Theory Searle continues his teachers research on illocutionary acts, and finds that actually all the speech acts can be seen as illocutionary acts. He makes some revisions to Austins felicity conditions and use new terms to classify felicity conditions into three: preparatory conditions, propositional content conditio

6、ns and sincerity conditions.,1) Preparatory conditions conditions that identify the particular circumstances and participants appropriate to performing a given illocutionary act. 2) Propositional content conditions conditions that define the content f the utterance. 3) Sincerity conditions conditions that involve the speakers necessary belief, emotion and intention.,According to these principles, we can analyze the felicity conditions of a particular speech act. Take the speech act request as an

7、 example to show how A request B to do C. 1) Preparatory conditions A has not done C; A believes that B can do C; B will not do C if he is not asked to. a. 只有当听话人希望说话人去实施该行为，而且说话人也相信听话人希望他去实施该行为时，才能说出某一命题 b. 只有当说话人和听话人都明白，在正常情况下说话人不会趋势是某一行为时，才能说出某一命题,2) Propositional content conditions A States the act C that B will perform. 命题内容规则：命题只能出现在话语（或比话语更大的语境）中，他讲述了说话人将实施的某一行为。 3) Sincerity conditions A really wants B to do C. 只有当说话人希望实施某一行为时，才能说出某一命题。这一规则来自于真诚条件。,In the study of felicity conditions, Se

8、arle finds some utterances which deliberately fail to fulfill the conditions for the speech act. However, these utterances tend to conduct another speech act whose felicity conditions have been satisfied. This means that with the same utterance the “speaker meaning“ is different from the “literal meaning“, and that is the reason why the utterance performs a speech act which is different from the one usually related to the “literal meaning“. Based on the above understanding, Searle defines an ind

9、irect speech act as an illocutionary act which is performed indirectly by way of performing another.,塞尔认为间接言语现象实质上是“通过实施另一种言语行为来间接地实施某一种言语行为”。换言之，说话人想要通过句子的“字面用意”来表达间接的“言外之力”。 In summary, people often express ideas in an indirect way which leads to two illocutionary acts in the indirect utterance. The speech act related to the speaker meaning is called primary illocutionary act, while the act linked to the literal meaning is called secondary illocutionary act.,(1) Speaker X: “We should leave for the show or else well be late.” (2) Speaker Y: “I am not ready yet.“ Here the primary illocutionary act is Ys rejection of Xs suggestion, and the secondary illocutionary act is Ys statement that she is not ready to leave. By dividing the illocutionary act into two subparts, Searle is able to explain that we can understand two meanings from the same utterance all the while knowing which is the correct meaning to respond to.,例如：My dear，the beef here is too ex

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