Farghal: Lecture on Speech Acts

Good morning, everyone. This is Proximate Parallel. Today, I'm going to talk about speech act theory.

Speech act theory was put forward by John Austin back in 1962, and it was spelled out after he died by some of his students who compiled the series of lectures at Oxford. He was a language philosopher, Oxford University, and in his series of lectures, he shifted interest from logical positivism—interest in verifying statements and this kind of thing, a digital kind of semantics—to ordinary language. He saw that ordinary language is different from what they concentrated on, focusing on whether a statement is true or false and discouraging analytical sentences and synthetic sentences that can be verified. Instead, he wanted to examine what utterances are produced by people; in other words, he was more interested in ordinary language. It was a shift from logical positivism to ordinary language.

In order to understand this theory, we have to look at the main concepts first. I'll be looking at the concept of force, then the concept of performative verbs, next the types of speech acts—a typology of speech acts—then we'll be looking at felicity conditions, and finally, I'll have a word about direct versus indirect speech acts.

First, let's look at the concept of force in this theory. According to Austin, every utterance we produce in the course of communication has three levels of force. First, we have the locutionary force; second, we have illocutionary force; and finally, we have perlocutionary force. The locutionary force refers to the words that are produced in the utterance and what they mean; in other words, the reference here is the literal meaning of what is said. This may contrast with illocutionary force, which refers to the intended meaning of what is said—what the speaker had on his mind when he says something rather than what the words in his utterance literally mean. The perlocutionary force is the third level of force, which refers to the fact that whatever utterance we produce has to cause some consequences in the outside world, and these consequences can be either physical or psychological: physical—pulling down someone, running away—psychological—someone blushing or feeling depressed having said something. Okay, these are referred to as the perlocutionary force.

Oh, and so if we want to give some examples, okay, and others that can be an example. For example, if I say, "Can you please open the door," literally this comes in the form of a question, but it is not interpreted as a question. For example, if the addressee responds by saying, "Certainly," without making a move to go to the door, this would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Why? Because in order for this utterance to succeed, the addressee has to get up, go to the door, and open it. Why? Because this utterance should be interpreted as a request rather than as a question. So here we have the illocutionary force of requesting rather than the illocutionary force of just a question. And in terms of perlocutionary force, alright, the physical act here is an immediate consequence of the utterance, which belongs to the perlocutionary force—the fact that that person gets up, walks to the door, and opens it. Okay, all this is something that involves physical acts. One could also imagine a psychological kind of perlocutionary force. For example, the way that he looks is easily compatible with various things. Some people may not be comfortable with when asked to open doors and things like that, so this might show in the way he looks. And so this is something like psychological rather than physical.

Another example: assuming that you're giving a test, you're watching over your students, you're giving this, and you have just spotted a student looking at his notes or something, then you go to him, "You can't do that. You can't do that." This utterance has the illocutionary force of ordering; you are ordering him to not do something. And this is in terms of a lecture at the smart board. You might want to take possession of the piece of paper from him, take it from his hand, or what have you. And what about him? He would probably, okay, feel depressed; he might leave the room; he might start crying—whatever the case is, alright, there must be some physical consequences, and all this stuff belongs to the perlocutionary force. So the perlocutionary force involves the world—both physical action as well as psychological kinds of things happening—both in speaker and addressee.

So, according to Austin, we have to look at utterances in terms of three levels of force, and it goes without saying that the most important level, according to him, is the illocutionary force. Why? Because this would indicate the illocution of the utterance, and that's where the term speech act comes from. Speech act theory refers to the second level of force—the fact that we have locutions in language, and these locutions are expressed either explicitly or implicitly in the course of communication. And this brings us to his second distinction between performative utterances and constative utterances. He started with this key distinction in this theory, but in fact, he was playing cunning, why? Because later on he abandoned this and he came to the conclusion that every utterance we produce in the course of communication, regardless what it is, if it makes sense, if it is not only noise—it belongs to a human language—then this utterance is performative; it performs some illocution. And the illocutionary force is either performed explicitly by a performative verb or implicitly by not using the performative verbs.

What's the difference between a performative verb and a non-performative verb? Yeah, this is a major concept in this theory. A performative verb is a verb that performs directly—performs the illocution of the utterance. This class of verbs is rather closed; in other words, we have probably tens of them in a human language. So we have a closed class compared to non-performative verbs, which belong to an open class. Performative verbs are verbs like warn, request, questions, condemn, congratulate, promise, apologize—all these are performative verbs. Why? Because when we use them, we perform the relevant illocution. Non-performative verbs include lots of verbs like said, sleep, open, walk, from, satyr, and so forth. So all these, right, all these are non-performative, why? Because they do not represent illocutions the way, for example, promising represents an illocution, a language function, or condemning representing a language function, or warning representing a language function.

We can test whether a verb is performative or not. There are three conditions. A performative verb must be in the present simple; can be performative only when it's used in the present simple. If it's used in the past tense or in the future tense, it cannot be performative. That's why, for example, request is a performative. So, "I request you to please open the door"—I am using the verb "request" here performatively. "Deny" is a performative verb. "I deny I haven't started the fire"—I am using the verb "deny" performatively. But if I report to someone denying having started the fire, then the verb "deny" would not be performative. If I said, "John denied having started the fire," here the verb "deny" is not performative; it is used to report rather than to perform. Okay, so performative verbs perform illocutions explicitly, but this doesn't mean that we, in the course of communication, will perform illocutions explicitly. In fact, this is the exception rather than the rule. In most cases, we perform illocutions implicitly rather than explicitly. Okay, let me go back to the conditions on the performative verb. So the first condition: must be in the present simple. The second condition: must be alright, you must have it; it must be in the first person—either first person singular or first person plural. Also, can alive. This is not completely exclusive, why? Because it's possible to use to use a verb performatively when you are referring to an institution and the third person singular. So the third person may be used; may be used with a performative verb. For example, saying, "Your MOOC University hereby promises students," or "hereby guarantees"—this is quite possible. Cells when the third person singular stands for an institution or a certain body of excess, then it would be possible to use it; use it with a performative verb. And the third condition is the use of "hereby." So all performative verbs accept the use of "hereby," but non-performative verbs cannot accept it; it would be kind of odd to use it with a non-performative verb. That's why I can say, "I hereby promise to come to your party," but I cannot—it's not correct to say, "I hereby write a letter to my friend"—why? Because "write" is not a performative verb, but "promise" is a performative verb. So in order for a verb to be performative, it must be in the present simple, must be used with the first person singular or plural, or the third person singular when it refers to a certain body or a certain institution.

Now these, as I briefly mentioned, these performative verbs, the use of them in the course of communication is not as common as the use of non-performative verbs to perform acts—to perform illocutions. Distantly means that most of the illocutions we perform in the course of communication—day-to-day communication—embrace utterances that do not feature performative verbs. For example, if we look at the illocution of requesting, alright, in very—in a very formal situation, and I may use a performative verb to perform this in a huge budget: "I request you to please keep quiet," assuming that I am kind of in a classroom. One can do this. One can have been asking—you just keep quiet—but I may end up even ordering: "Look, I hereby order you to keep quiet." Okay? Says "order," and it was from, okay, "promise," and I think like that may be used in formal situations or in emotionally heightened situations, but in principle, we don't use them that frequently in the course of communication. That's why when we—when we perform the illocution of requesting, we would use the interrogative form rather than using the verb "request" performatively: "Can you please open the door? Open the door. Kids, the door, please. Will you please open the door?" All these perform the illocution of requesting without using the performative verb. So the rule, or commonly, in the course of communication, we use implicitly performative sentences. Only in formal situations and emotionally heightened kinds of situations may we opt for using explicit performative utterances—utterances that feature performative verbs. Okay.

What types of speech acts do we find in language? There are several typologies of speech acts, but the one that I feel is good enough to capture most illocutions talks about five types of speech acts. The first type is the representative. The representative is a statement in which the speaker commits himself to the truth of what he's saying. So when I say, for example, "John is a millionaire," I commit myself to the truth of what I'm saying, and my statement here—my representative—is verifiable. If John is indeed a millionaire, then my statement is true; if not, then my statement is false. So such representatives are verifiable. Of course, we have, alright, under representative, we have many illocutions, and the most obvious is stating. When you state something, you're describing; saying something, you're describing; stating the illocution of predicting—we will predict something; the illocution of assuming; the illocution of describing—all these produce representatives. And representatives, just like others, we just can be either explicitly performative or implicitly performative. For example, "John is a millionaire" is implicitly performative—is representative—and "I hereby state that John is a millionaire," for example, is an explicitly performative representative. So representatives correspond to what we call an assertive, an Arabic resume al-khabiri. When you state something, you commit yourself to the truth of what you're saying. We're not talking about whether you are lying or not, okay, alright; we are just interested in what you're saying and the fact that it is verifiable—verifiable, can be examined outside—read in order to prove whether the utterance is true or false. And in fact, this turns out to be the only type of speech act that can be gauged by the truth conditions; this means you can prove whether it's true or false.

Let's move on to the second type of speech acts: directives. Directives involve giving directives to the addressee to behave in a certain way—to act in a certain way. That's why they are called directives. And the most obvious illocution here is requesting. When you request someone, you want them to do something for you. Questioning: when you ask someone a question, you want some answers. Warning: when you warn someone, you want them to be aware of some danger. All these—ordering, suggesting—all these involve giving directives to the addressee to act in a certain way. Inviting: you invited them to act in a certain way. Suggesting: you are again, you think that it's possible for them to act in a certain way. All these illocutions come under what we call directives.

The next involves utterances in which we commit ourselves to performing something in the future. You commit yourself to a future act, and they are called commissives. And the most familiar example here or the most familiar illocution is promising. When you promise to do something, what do you do when you promise to do something? You commit yourself to some future act. Pledging, betting—when you bet, again, you commit yourself to some future act. "I give you $100 if it changes tomorrow"—I have committed myself to some future act.

And the next type of speech act is the expressive. Expressives are so familiar in human language. Congratulating: when you congratulate someone; condemning them: when you condemn something; praising: when you praise something; complementing—all these come under expressives. And explicitly, you just express your own feelings towards something; that's why they are called expressions. The fourth type of speech act—okay, so so far we have representatives, directives, expressives, and commissives—and so the fifth type here is the declarative, and the term is self-explanatory. The declarative involves declaring something. When you announce something, announcing, declaring, naming, christening, pronouncing some two people husband and wife—pronouncing—all these involve what we call declaratives. So a declarative must involve an act of announcing something. So okay, we have these five types of speech acts, which I think cover most utterances in human language. Note that these illocutions are supposed to be universal. This: you cannot imagine a language where someone cannot want another of something, or someone cannot promise another of something. So promising, warning, denying, congratulating—one would assume that these illocutions are universal, but not that the performative verbs themselves may not be universal. This simply means that in some languages, it is possible that the illocution of denying can only be performed implicitly, but not explicitly, simply because the language does not have a verb corresponding to the verb "deny" in English or "Jonker" in Arabic. This doesn't mean that the speakers of that language cannot deny things; they can deny things, but without using a performative verb. I say to you, "I did not do it"—this is a denial; you are denying something. In Arabic and English, they are highly lexicalized; they're highly oxidized. This means we have many performative verbs that may be used to perform such illocutions—informal and emotionally charged situations—but the existence of the performative verb is not universal, but the illocution itself is supposed to be universal.

I have one interesting example about Arabic where we have, for example, usually was performative. What's a performative verb in one language is also a performative verb in another language. For example, if we have—if the language has a verb for "deny," then then I must be performative. If we look at Arabic and English, as a verb like "divorce" in English—"divorce" is not performative, simply because it really does not make sense for someone to kill his wife. Done—I'm divorcing you; I hereby divorce you. Yeah, this is quite ridiculous. Even if you said it, it would not take; it would not be successful; the illocution would not succeed. But in Arabic, the verbal use of the verb corresponding to "divorce" is performative. So the verbal act—"Oh, the verbal act. Father, I'm people upon favela, and people from the fella, alright, she no longer be his wife"—so the verbal act is good enough for the illocution to be successful. This simply means that the very performative—in Arabic, the sorry, the verb "divorce," or the verb you find that—all the verbal acts in Arabic is performative, whereas the English word "divorce" is not. People might say that this is the exception rather than the rule. Oh, I can—we find other examples? And I guess the answer is no; we cannot find an example where simply between English and Arabic where both of them are highly lexicalized. For example, promising, promise, yeah, I dismiss these, alright, these verbs are performative in both English and Arabic. And here the verb "divorce" and its counterpart in Arabic are the exception. Okay, let's move on to the concept of felicity conditions.

In this theory, I have said that only within—that I followed you—all speech acts, only representatives can be judged by truth conditions. But what about the other types of speech acts? What about directives? What about expressives? What about commissives? What about declaratives? How do we judge them? The answer is that we judge them in terms of felicity conditions. If they meet the felicity conditions, the illocution means, or the participation, then it is felicitous or it is appropriate. So felicity conditions are appropriateness conditions, and they refer to the surrounding circumstances of the utterance. In order for the illocution to be successful, it has to be appropriate within the surrounding circumstances. For example, if we look at the illocution of requesting, in order for this illocution to be successful, it has to meet all the felicity conditions. For example, can you, alright, one felicity condition is that the requested act is not in Cairo. Can you request someone to open the door, for example, if the door is already closed? That would be ridiculous. A second felicity condition: the requested act should be within, at least, and so far, the speaker, but it should be within the capability of the addressee. You would not ask your mother, assuming that your mother can hardly read or write—you cannot ask her about what's meant by felicity conditions. Would you do that? Well, then you go home; you're—you've done speech acts at college, and you go home. So is it possible for you to ask your mother about that? That would be crazy. Why? Because when you request something, then you have the belief that the addressee may be able to fulfill your request, or to meet with us. You would not request something as a matter of course. If something is a matter of course, no need for requesting it. If you know that your friend is going to lend you money, would you ask him? Would you ask him to lend you money? Why lose faith and ask, alright? Because he's going to do this anyway. Said this is if it's a matter of course something, alright, one would not be—one would not request something. The requested act should be beneficial for the requester. Would you request someone to cut your finger? That would be crazy, unless, of course, you've been bitten by a snake, and you want him to suck the poison out of your finger. In that case, missus, alright, this is appropriate, why? Because sucking out the poison out of your finger is something that's beneficial to you. So this is a motivated—motivated use. And if we look at other illocutions, we find every illocution governed by a set of felicity conditions. For example, pronouncing—the declarative—pronouncing X and Y husband and wife. Can you grab two people in the corridor and pronounce them husband and wife? That would be crazy, alright; it would not take effect. Why? Because the authority—the person who performs the illocution must have the authority to do so. Can you do this in the corridor, assuming that it's a priest doing this? Can the priest grab two people in the corridor and pronounce them husband and wife? And the answer is no. Why? Because the location is also a felicity condition; this must be done at the church rather than in the corridor. The verbal act performed is a felicity condition for "yahoo." Can the bridegroom respond to the priest's question—"Will you now take me, and blah, blah, blah?"—can he respond by saying, "Yeah, why not?" Is that—would that be felicitous? The answer: you know, he has to respond by "I will" or "I do," in American English nowadays. So these are felicity conditions on the illocution of pronouncing X and Y husband and wife. So felicity conditions govern such illocutions—illocutions other than representatives. It's only representatives that can be governed or can be judged by truth and falsity. The other four types of speech acts are governed by felicity conditions. If a felicity condition is violated, then the illocution would not be successful—as simple as that.

Finally, let me have a word about something you may come across in the literature on speech acts: direct versus indirect speech acts. This dichotomy refers to the difference between form and function, and in fact, goes back to the fact that in natural language—all human languages—we have three moods: we have the indicative mood, we have the interrogative mood, and we have the imperative mood. These three moods are common in all human languages. You cannot find a language where someone cannot state using the indicative mood, or cannot order using the imperative mood, or cannot question using the interrogative mood, or can't state using the indicative mood. So here this distinction has to do with whether the illocution is performed using the indicative mood and the relative mood, or the imperative mood. If, for example, if you are ordering and you are using the indicative mood, then you are fairly alright; you have an indirect speech act. "I want you out of this room immediately"—I am using the indicative mood, but am I stating? The answer is no; I'm not stating; I am ordering. So "I want you out of this room immediately" here performs the illocution of ordering, and it is an indirect speech act. By contrast, if I use the imperative mood, then I would be performing the same illocution directly: "Get out of here!" Here I am using the imperative mood, and I am performing the illocution of ordering directly rather than indirectly. So this distinction has to do with the correspondence between form and function. If there's correspondence between form and function—the form would convey and the way it functions—then it is a direct speech act. If there is no correspondence between them—if the form is one thing and the function or illocution is another—then we have an indirect speech act. For example, then requesting: "Can you please open the door?" This is an indirect speech act, why? Because I am using the interrogative form to perform the illocution of requesting. But if I am using the imperative form, then I am performing the illocution directly, and I produce a direct speech act. "Open the door, please"—is a direct speech act, whereas "Can you please open the door?" is an indirect speech act.

Okay, I think I have covered five basic concepts which are necessary for understanding speech act theory. Without understanding these concepts, one cannot, in fact, conceptualize this theory: the concept of force—the fact that every utterance has three levels of force—the locutionary force, illocutionary force, and perlocutionary force; the fact that we have performative verbs and non-performative verbs is a key concept in this theory; types of speech acts—the fact that we have five types of speech acts; only one of them—representative—can be gauged by truth conditions; the others must be judged in terms of felicity conditions; then we have felicity conditions, which refer to the surrounding circumstances of an utterance. In order for the utterance to be successful, in order for the—but for the illocution to be successful, it must meet all the felicity conditions; and finally, we have looked at direct versus indirect speech acts, which can be traced back to the distinction between three moods in human language: the indicative mood, the interrogative mood, and the imperative mood. That's it for today. Thank you very much. And with…