Indirect Speech Acts

In most languages, we have three basic sentence types: declarative, interrogative and imperative. If there is no direct relationship between a sentence type and an illocutionary force, the speech act is indirect. If there is a direct match, it is a direct speech act.

Examples:

1. “Pass the salt!” - Imperative is used to make a request > direct speech act.

2. “Can you pass the salt?” - Interrogative is used to make a request > indirect speech act.

Some more examples: For instance, my remark that you are standing on my foot is normally taken as a demand that you move; my question whether you can pass the salt is normally taken as a request that you do so. These are examples of so-called indirect speech acts (Searle 1975).

Indirect speech acts are less common than might first appear. In asking whether you are intending to quit smoking, I might be taken as well to be suggesting that you quit. However, while the embattled smoker might indeed jump to this interpretation, we do well to consider what evidence would mandate it. After all, while I probably would not have asked whether you intended to quit smoking unless I hoped you would quit, I can evince such a hope without suggesting anything. Similarly, the advertiser who tells us that Miracle Cream reversed hair loss in Bob, Mike, and Fred, also most likely hopes that I will believe it will reverse my own hair loss. That does not show that he is (indirectly) asserting that it will. Whether he is asserting this depends on whether he can be accused of being a liar if in fact he does not believe that Miracle Cream will staunch my hair loss.

Analysis of an indirect speech act

Searle’s approach:

- assume the existence of a dual illocutionary force: the non-literal/indirect force is primary; the literal/direct force is secondary

- Whether an utterance operates as an indirect speech act or not has to do with the relevant felicity conditions.

- Some kind of inference is necessary when an addressee understands an indirect speech act that a speaker performs.

- Apart from inference, there is a certain degree of conventionality about speech acts.

Theories of interpersonal communication

1. uncertainty reduction theory

2. message design logic

3. communication accommodation theory

4. expectation violation theory

Since the mid-twentieth century, the concept of information has been a strong foundation for communication research and the development of communication theory. Information exchange is a basic human function in which individuals request, provide, and exchange information with the goal of reducing uncertainty. Uncertainty Reduction theory (URT), accredited to Charles R. Berger and Richard J. Calabrese (1975), recognized that reducing uncertainty was a central motive of communication. Through the development of URT, these scholars pioneered the field of interpersonal communication by examining this significant relationship in uncertainty research.

Health and Bryant (2000) state: “One of the motivations underpinning interpersonal communication is the acquisition of information with which to reduce uncertainty” (p. 153). The study of information is basic to all fields of communication, but its relation to the study of uncertainty in particular advanced theoretical research in the field of interpersonal communication. URT places the role of communication into the central focus which was a key step in the development of the field of interpersonal communication. Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese (1975) note: “When communication researchers have conducted empirical research on the interpersonal communication process, they have tended to employ social psychological theories as starting points” (p. 99). The research underlying the theory and efforts made by other contemporaries marked the emergence of interpersonal communication research.