This is a summary of the lectures given in the course Pragmatics. It contains information about the concepts 'Meaning and Truth', 'Multimodality', 'Communication as Behaviour', 'Pragmatics and Culture' and 'Intersubjectivity in Interaction'.
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John Austin Speech act theory: performatives and constatives
John Searle Speech act theory: locution, illocution and perlocution
Pieter Seuren Social binding force theory
Paul Grice Theory of conversational implicature
John Austin - Speech act theory: performatives and constatives
Speech act is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance
1) Constatives are utterances that describe something true or false
(1) conveys a message, (2) can be compared to the real world and (3) can be
declared as true or false
- False statement: the situation changed which made the statement false
- Unclear statement: no clear reference
- Non-existence of referent: the referent does not exist
2) Performatives (illocutionary acts) are utterances that sentences which are not only
passively describing reality, but they are changing the reality they are describing
(1) conventional procedure has a conventional effect, (2) circumstances and persons
has to be appropriate, (3) the procedure has to be executed correctly and (4) persons
need to have requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions
- Implicit performatives: what the speaker has in mind is not directly indicated
- Explicit performatives: what the speaker has in mind is directly indicated
- Happy performatives: well chosen and appropriate utterances
- Unhappy performatives: not well chosen and inappropriate utterances
John Searle - Speech act theory: locution, illocution and perlocution
Speech act (locutionary act) is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance
- Utterance act (the uttering of words)
- Propositional act (making a reference and predicating)
- Illocutionary act (contains a illocutionary force)
- Perlocutionary act (the achieved effect on the listener)
Different forms of performatives (illocutionary acts)
- Representatives speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the
expressed proposition
- Directives speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action
- Expressives speech acts that expresses the speaker’s attitude and
emotions towards the proposition
- Declarations speech acts that change the reality in accord with the
proposition of the declaration
Semantical rules (the meaning of linguistic expressions)
- Propositional content rule: performative (P) is to be uttered only in the context of an
utterance which predicates some future act (A) of the speaker (S)
- Preparatory rule: (1) performative (P) is uttered only if the hearer (H) would prefer the
speaker (S) doing an act (A) to his not doing an act (A), and the speaker (S) is
believing that about the hearer (H) or (2) performative (P) is to be uttered only if it is
, not obvious to both speaker (S) and hearer (H) that the speaker (S) will do an act (A)
in the normal course of events
- Sincerity rule: performative (P) is to be uttered only if the speaker (S) intend to do an
act (A)
- Essential rule: performative (P) counts as the undertaking of an obligation to do an
act (A)
Felicity conditions are the rules under which the performative can be enacted
- The performative should have a proper authority
- The performative should be understood
- The performative should be clear
- The performative should be able to be executed
Pieter Seuren - Social binding force theory
Every utterance has a force in it that creates social binding relation which consists on:
- A commitment on the part of the listener
- An appear issued to the listener
- Institution of a rule of behaviour with regard to the proposition expressed
- An appellation
The social partners to which the speech act is valid form a force field → binds people with
certain rights, responsibility and personal dignity
Paul Grice - Theory of conversational implicature
Cooperative principle (CP) make your conversational contribution such as required, at
the state at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of talk exchange in which you are engaged
(conversational maxims)
Controversational maxims rules
1) Quantity: give the right amount of information
- Be as informative as required
- Do not be more informative as required
2) Quality: try to make your contribution one that is true
- Do not say what you believe is false
- Do not say things for which you lack adequate evidence
3) Relation: try to be relevant
4) Manner: the way things are being said
- Be perspicuous
- Avoid obscurity of expression
- Avoid ambiguity
- Be brief
- Be orderly
, Five properties of implicatures
- Implicatures are cancellable (opzegbaar)
- Implicatures are defeasible (vernietigbaar)
- Implicatures are alculable
- Implicatures are unconventional (niet conventioneel)
- Implicatures are not fully determinable (niet volledig bepaalbaar)
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