Semantics Session Interpersonal meaning Speech Acts

1. Department of English Language and Literature
Major: English Language and Literature
Semantics Session 12
Interpersonal meaning : Speech Acts
Dr. Badriya Al Mamari
Academic year 2021/2022

2. A speech act
In linguistics, a speech act is an utterance defined
in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect it
has on a listener. Essentially, it is the action that
the speaker hopes to provoke in his or her
audience.
Speech acts might be requests, warnings,
promises, apologies, greetings, or any number of
declarations.

3. An Act of Assertation
An ACT of ASSERTION is carried out when a speaker utters a
declarative sentence (which can be either true or false), and
undertakes a certain responsibility, or commitment, to the
hearer, that a particular state of affairs, or situation, exists in the
world.

4. Example:
‘Simon is in the kitchen’,
I assert to my hearer that in the real world a situation exists in
which a person named Simon is in a room identified by the referring
expression the kitchen.
• According to semanticists there was not much more to the
meanings of sentences (and utterances) than this kind of
correspondence between sentences (and utterances) and the
world. This view has been called the Descriptive Fallacy.
• The DESCRIPTIVE FALLACY is the view that the sole purpose of
making assertions is to DESCRIBE some state of affairs.

5. • Examples:
Are the following assertions describing some existing state of
affairs in the world??
1.There is a wasp in your left ear’
2.‘Someone has broken the space-bar on my laptop’
3.‘This gun is loaded’
4.‘You are a fool’
5.‘I love you’

6. • Answers:
1.To warn the hearer of danger of being stung by an insect or
being shocked…
2. To complain about the damage, or to apologize for breaking
the space bar of the laptop , etc.
3. To warn during an armed robbery, or during a weapon-
training lesson, etc.
4.To insult the hearer, or to tease him, etc.
5.To please the hearer or make them feel better…

7. • Warning, shocking, complaining, apologizing, insulting,
reassuring, etc. are all acts.
• They are all things that we DO, using language.
• An important part of the meaning of utterances is what
speakers DO by uttering them.
• Acts such as teasing, insulting, etc. are aspects of utterance
meaning and not of sentence meaning.

8. Example:
What does the following utterance mean?
• There’s a piece of fish on the table.

9. • (1) Could this sentence be uttered as a means of complaining to a
waiter in a restaurant that a table had not been cleared properly?
• (2) Could it, in other circumstances, be uttered to warn one’s
husband or wife not to let the cat in the kitchen?
• (3) Could it, in still other circumstances, be uttered to reassure
one’s husband or wife that his or her lunch has not been
forgotten?
• (4) Could it, in a different situation, be used to incriminate a child
who had raided the refrigerator?
• One sentence can generally be uttered to perform a wide variety
of different acts, depending on who utters it and where, when,
and why it is uttered.

10. Performed utterance
Examples:
• (1) Can you congratulate someone by a pat on the back, or a hug?
• (2) Can you congratulate someone by uttering ‘Well done’?
• (3) Can you bid at an auction by nodding?
• (4) Can you bid at an auction by saying ‘Eleven pounds’?
• (5) Can you promise someone something by a nod?
• (6) Can you promise someone something with an utterance
beginning ‘I promise . . .’?

11. • A large number of acts, then, can be performed either by
means of an utterance or by some other means such as
gesture, or by making an appropriate utterance (hug…
nodding…. I promise…11 pounds….etc.)

12. A performative utterance
vs
Constative utterance
• a performative utterance is one that actually describes the act that it
performs, i.e. it performs some act and simultaneously describes that act.
• a constative utterance is one which makes an assertion (i.e. it is often the
utterance of a declarative sentence) but is not performative.

13. • Example:
1.“I promise to repay you tomorrow”.
2.‘John promised to repay me tomorrow’.

14. • 1.‘I promise to repay you tomorrow’
..is performative because in saying it the speaker actually does
what the utterance describes, i.e. he promises to repay the hearer
the next day. That is, the utterance both describes and is a
promise.
• 2.‘John promised to repay me tomorrow’
Although it describes a promise, is not itself a promise. So this
utterance does not simultaneously do what it describes, and is
therefore not a performative.

15. • Examples: (act or performative):
• 1.“I warn you not to come any closer”
(act of warning / performative utterance)
• 2.I admit that I took 50p from the coffee money
(act of admitting that he took the money/performative)
• 3.I’m trying to get this box open with a screwdriver’
(act of trying to open a box with a screwdriver /Performative)

16. Example:
• ‘I’m trying to get this box open with a screwdriver’
A constative utterance, because it makes an assertion about a
particular state of affairs, but is not performative, i.e. the
utterance does not simultaneously describe and perform the
same act.

17. Performative (P) Vs Constative (C)?
• (1) ‘I name this ship Sohar’
• (2) ‘I believe in the importance of learning a new foreign
language at early childhood stages’
• (3) ‘I admit I was driving fast’
• (4) ‘I think I was wrong’
• (5) ‘I hereby inform you that you are chosen for giving a
presentation next week’
• (6) ‘I write your homework every day’

18. A performative verb
• A performative verb is one which, when used in a simple
positive present tense sentence, with a 1st person singular
subject, can make the utterance of that sentence performative.
• Example:
• I promise . . .’, ‘I admit . . .’, ‘I congratulate . . .’, etc.

19. • Example:
• Sentence is a performative verb because, for example, ‘I
sentence you to be hanged by the neck’ is a performative
utterance.
• Punish is not a performative verb because, for example, ‘I
punish you’ is not a performative utterance.
• Note that although some verbs describe acts carried out in
speech, they are not therefore necessarily performative
(argue / warn)

20. • Performative utterances contain a performative verb, and
many have 1st person singular subjects and are in the present
tense. But there are exceptions to this pattern.
Examples:
• 1.‘You are hereby forbidden to leave this room’
• 2.‘All passengers on flight number forty-seven are requested
to proceed to gate ten’
• 3. ‘We thank you for the compliment you have paid us’.

21. • The most reliable test to determine whether an utterance is
performative is to insert the adverbial word hereby
immediately before the verb and see if the modified utterance
is acceptable. If a sentence can be accompanied by hereby
without seeming odd, then the utterance of that sentence (in
normal circumstances) constitutes a performative utterance.
Examples:
• 1.‘I (……… ) give notice that I will lock these doors in sixty
seconds’
• 2. ‘Hayyak users are (………. ) reminded that their subscription
expires on April 4th’
• 3.‘I (……….. ) warn you not to talk to my sister again’

22. Activity: Indicate whether the following sentences are (odd / not
odd):
• (1) I hereby warn you that you will fail
• (2) They hereby warn her that she will fail
• (3) I hereby promised him that I would be at the station at three
o’clock
• (4) The management hereby warn customers that mistakes in
change cannot be rectified once the customer has left the counter
• (5) Spitting is hereby forbidden
• (6) I hereby sing

23. References:
Hurford, J. R., Heasley, B., & Smith, M. B. (2007). Semantics: a
coursebook. Cambridge university press.