Speech Art Theory

The sample essay on Speech Art Theory deals with a framework of research-based facts, approaches, and arguments concerning this theme. To see the essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion, read on.

In history, language was used to make certain assertions and the uses of language were highly unnoticed. There were several writers who had clarified about speech act; these include, Adolph Reinach, in 1913 had written an article describing once actions being related to their words, and unfortunately he never lived long enough to clarify his argument.

In 1933, writers like Karl Buhler in his book (Sprachtheorie), and study had already talked about speech act; however very few people paid attention to his work.However, the work J.L.Austin made philosophers pay more attention to the uses of language. He tried to describe the way people do things using words. For instance, he said that words are usually followed by a certain action. He tried to clarify the difference between illocutionary and prelocutionary communication acts.

He argued that the best examples of illocutionary speeches are clearly observed in performative sentences like “I promise to visit you the day after tomorrow”. The act of promising is done in saying or words. All the same, the study of speech acts is closely related pragmatics, which is part of linguistics, and it is categorized as an aspect of philosophical values or virtues.ILLOCUTIONARY ACTIs a complete communication act in a typical expression or utterance and, it is made up of statements that have intended action in them.

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The idea of the communication act is linked to Searle’s understanding of the act. He argued that it is a description of a proposition related to the reason behind doing something else.According to Austin, the prelocutionary acts solicit for answers and they are performed by saying something. A per locution act is followed by both locution and illocution. For instance, there are cases where the purpose of the utterance differs from actual meaning. For example, if a husband asks the wife to make the bed, and the wife responds by making it. Instead of giving the answer first of either responding “yes”. This in our case was the intended answer of the speaker.DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECHIn most cases, in our speeches we normally communicate with each other directly i.e. the content of the utterance may be similar with the content intended to be communicated. This forms a direct speech act.  For instance, Mary tells Tom, “can we go home it’s getting late,” The message is open and vivid to the point and we expect a direct answer.In the course of communication we normally communicate with each other, but the meaning of the linguistic approach used may differ from the message intended to be communicated, or may be communicated non verbally. For instance, Mary asks tom, “can you take me out on Friday?” .Thereby, asking tom whether he can take her out, and at the same time, to do so if he can. In this case, the utterance made indicates one performance act requiring one to perform this act, and an additional speech act which is not indicated in the utterances. Hence the request is made indirectly. This is one way of using indirect speech acts.Secondly, they are normally used to turn down or reject proposal and make suggestions. For instance, if John asks Alex, “can we go to the library”, and Alex replies, “I will be study in my room”. In this case, Alex turned down the proposal, but indirectly as the actual meaning is not portrayed in the reply. This makes the utterance an indirect speech act.However, this poses an enormous problem to linguists as it is complicated to understand how the person who proposed knows that his/ her has been turned down. According Searle, we are able to get the definite meaning from the indirect speech through supportive process out of which we are to get compound illocutions, but the proposed processes didn’t actually solve the problem.Searle argued in indirect speech acts we have the primary and the secondary illocutions. For instance, if tom tells Mary, “Let’s go home now” and Mary responds, “I have to see my friend first”. The primary illocution is Mary’s rejection to leave now and, the secondary illocution is the actual meaning of the statement where she says she has to see her friend first. Therefore, in indirect speech, the speaker responds by a single statement, which has a hidden and the actual meaning. He assumed that the speakers are cooperative and understand each other.Searle (pg 178) says, “In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.” Thereby, providing a prove supporting his argument through a number of observations. This include: indirect speech should not be taken as imperatives, and that they give directions.In pg 180, he says “Indirect speech act are not ambiguous as between an imperative illocutionary force and a non imperative illocutionary force”. The acts should be translated without loosing their actual meaning and that they are idiomatic as they have a primary meaning. He observed that indirect speech act have a secondary illocution when their meaning is taken literally and do not have any hidden meaning. Similarly, (pg 180-183) he observed that when request is made through indirect speech act whose actual impression is similar to the request, the speaker has to grasp the meaning so as to respond accordingly. At the same time, the speaker has to respond to both primary and secondary illocution by first attending to primary illocution.Searle (pg 184) proposed a process by which we can distinguish between the primary and the secondary illocutions. One has to assume the speakers are cooperating, and know the background information surrounding their conversation. Similarly, understand the fact of their conversation and assume that the hearer has the capability respond to the request of the speaker.CLASSIFICATION OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACTIn 1975, Searle proposed the following classification of the illocutionary speech acts. These include: Expressive-these are communication acts that attempt to express the speaker’s emotions and attitude towards the proposal made. Expressions like thanks, appreciations and excuses. Directives- these are speech acts meant to give directions to the hearer or make them take a given action .These are suggestion, command and requests.Assertive: these are speech acts that assign a speaker to the actual meaning of the proposal. Commissives are speech acts that commend the speaker to some later deed. Examples are promises vows, and oaths. Declaratives are speech acts that transform the truth in accordance with the suggestion of the pronouncement. Examples are pronouncing a husband and wife, baptizing someone and pronouncing one innocent.FELICITY CONDITIONSThis refers to acknowledged predictable criteria having a predictable outcome. These procedures involve saying of certain words by a particular person under certain circumstances, and the person and the circumstances in consideration in the given situation must be accommodate the execution a particular procedure. The process should be carried out by all speakers correctly and completely. However, the procedure is intended for application by people having certain opinion and emotions or launch of a particular significant performance on the part of any participant.CRITICISMS OF THE SPEECH ACT THEORYTheory assumes any literal meaning should be compared against the non literal meaning because the linguistic meaning is supposedly sufficient for the hearer to understand the utterance, but the non linguistic meaning is also important .Implying that the expression of any statement triggers two procedures .i.e. the development of the rational outline of the utterances and the intended conclusions. Hence, there is need to consider the non linguistic meaning of any utterances, which the theory ignored.Similarly, the implicated conclusions or implicatures do not follow the use or the exploitation of maxims of conversation i.e. it has the background meaning gotten from an inferential procedure and logical nature of the speech. This implies that if the speaker and the hearer do not understand each other, it is difficult to get the intended implications of the utterance or the primary illocution, which to Searle was a bit hidden.