An Analysis of Speech Acts in Caprio’s Speech in American First Instance Court Pleadings

Abstract

The current study deals with the analysis of speech acts utilized by Judge Frank Caprio in American first instance court pleading. The study attempts to determine the types of speech acts used in the selected data by the judge Caprio. It also aims to is to identify the most frequent major functions of illocutionary acts, as well as determining the level of directness (direct or indirect speech). Searle’s (1976) classification of speech acts is used as a model to analyze the utterances. The results indicate that the judge Caprio employs the four types of speech acts based on Searle’s theory, including directive, assertive, expressive, and declarative. Asking and stating are the most frequent functions used in the judge Caprio’s speech. Finally, the study concludes that direct speech act represents the majority of Judge Caprio's speech which indicates the high value of clarity in his utterances.