Indirect speech acts

Speech acts are commonly accepted as being useful methods of accomplishing certain tasks. When one wants to commit to something he uses speech; likewise, when one wants to commemorate an event he uses speech. Among other things, speech acts are also used to ask others to accomplish certain tasks and to respond to proposals. 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. This poses a problem for linguists because it is confusing to see (using a strict approach) how the person who made the proposal is able to understand that his proposal was rejected. Searle suggests that we are able to derive meaning out of indirect speech acts by means of a cooperative process out of which we are able to derive multiple illocutions; however, the process he proposes does not seem to accurately solve the problem. Sociolinguistics has studied the social dimensions of conversations. This discipline considers the various contexts in which speech acts occur.

TASK:

1. What are indirect speech acts commonly used for?

2. Why do indirect speech acts cause a problem sometimes?

Illocutionary acts

The concept of an illocutionary act is central to Searle's understanding of speech acts. An illocutionary act is the expression of a proposition with the purpose of doing something else. This is a bit more complex than a simple locutionary act (such as "It is raining") because an illocutionary force is attached to the utterance that indicates how the expression should be taken. Examples of illocutionary acts are: "I will return this book to you next week" and "Please hand me that pencil." In the first example the illocutionary act has the force of a promise to return a book. The second example is an illocutionary act with a force of the form I request that in which the speaker is soliciting a reaction.

In most instances of language, the speaker's meaning and the literal meaning of an utterance are identical. For example if a speaker says: "I will return this book to you next week" or "When will you need this book returned?" the speaker's intention and the literal meaning are the same. In either example, a third person that happens to overhear this portion of a conversation and has no prior experience in the conversation would be able to understand the correct meaning of the utterances. However, there are some cases in which the speaker’s meaning of an utterance is different from the literal meaning of an utterance. Consider this situation:

Speaker (S) asks hearer (H), "Would you mind turning down the volume on your radio?" and H responds by lowering the volume.

Both S and H spoke and behaved in a way that we would expect, S performed the perlocutionary act of getting H to turn down the volume. However, this case is problematic for linguists because the speakers meaning differs from the literal meaning. The literal meaning of the question is that S is soliciting a verbal response of yes or no from H (and perhaps followed by an explanation). However, S intended H to understand the question as a command to turn down the volume and H understood the question as S intended it. This exchange, while not uncommon, is troubling because one questions how it is possible for a speaker to say something and mean something different from the meaning of the utterance and for the hearer to understand both meanings. Utterances of this nature are troubling for linguists and the problems caused by such statements are the concern of Searle in his article Indirect Speech Acts . Further examples of indirect speech acts include:

• "Can you hand me that pencil?"

• "I hope you will arrive on time."

• "Would you remove your hat?"

• "Do you want me to drop that off for you?"

• "It might help if you turn on the lights."

• "I might ask you to observe silence in the library."

Although many indirect speech acts are softened or polite commands, indirect speech acts can also include apologies, assertions, congratulations, promises, and thanks.

TASK:

1. Why do linguists find such examples as the one about the music volume problematic?