Speech act theory
1. Code Model
A sentence represents a proposition/state of affairs:
E.g. 'Snow is white' represents the fact that snow is white.
When I communicate, my words represent just those states of affairs. The hearer decodes what I said and thus gets to know what I meant.
A problem: there are sentences representing the same state of affairs that can be used for different purposes:
- You will come tomorrow
- Will you come tomorrow?
- Come tomorrow!
2. Speech act theory (Austin)
Watch video 1 and do exercise 1.
Remember what you have just learned:
- Locutionary act: utterance of a meaningful statement. The act of saying something.
E.g. the utterance of 'I promise that today I won't be late'
- Illocutionary act: the action performed by the mere fact of having uttered something meaningful (assertions, questions, promises, etc.). The act performed in saying something.
E.g. a promise
- Perlocutionary act: the effect achieved by the utterance.The act performed by saying something.
E.g. getting someone not to feel anxious
For further information, check out links 1 and 2 (you can use multidict to read them).