Illocutionary Force Research Articles

CONTEXTUALIZED PRAGMATIC CHARACTERISTICS
 OF INVITATION SPEECH ACTS IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUАGE
 CULTURE

Due to methodological and theoretical variety in approaches as well as in contingences while investigating invitation speech acts, the findings concerning their pragmatic characteristics have turned out to be different. This paper is an attempt to determine sociocultural features, pragmatic implications and representation
 in the dialogue corpus of various types of invitations in Russian culture using contextual interpretation and pragmalinguistic analysis The findings demonstrate a frequent usage of addressee-oriented declaratives, followed by imperatives, questions and addresser-oriented declaratives with the meaning of a command. All these invitations are in fact direct obligatory impositives.
 However, within the context of Russian culture they reveal the use of positive politeness strategies. The speech act of invitation cannot function on its own – it is semantically
 and pragmatically connected to pre-invitation sequence, which makes it a complex speech act. The benefactive status of the addresser is enhanced due to the obligatory nature of the invitation which also ensures the speaker’s confidence about the successful outcome of the interaction, therefore there is no need for the inviter to resort to indirectness and negative politeness strategies. There are cases of self-invitations where an invitee takes the initiative, hereas an inviter has to perform a speech act with a weakened illocutionary force.

A Pragmatic Study of Image Restoration via Corporate Apology in Chinese Internet Corporations

With the booming of Chinese internet corporations, various wrongdoings have been frequently exposed to the public, which damages their corporate image. To face the challenge, these companies usually resort to apologies for image restoration. This study investigates how apology strategies are employed by Chinese internet corporations to restore image in the event of wrongdoings. Based on a self-built corpus and by means of textual analysis, we identified different apology strategies characterized by various linguistic features. The results show that “Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs)” and “damage repair” are two of the most frequently used move types which are normally marked by such key linguistic features as personal pronouns, modal verbs, performative verbs and intensifiers. It is also found that IFIDs, “giving account” and “admitting mistakes”, “offering repair” and “inviting further interaction” are often incorporated together to show the company’s sincere apologetic stance which contributes to the ultimate goal --- rebuilding corporate image and regaining the public’s trust. However, direct expressions of “asking for forgiveness” are seldom found in apologies crafted by Chinese internet corporations. This study on apologies in the domain of internet corporations is believed to shed light on research on corporate apology in particular and corporate image restoration in general.

Pragmalinguistic challenges for trainee interpreters in achieving accuracy

Abstract In cross-examination, questions are used by counsel as powerful tools to control witness testimonies. In bilingual courtrooms, conveying the subtlety in the use of questions from one language to another is crucial for all participants. However, achieving a high level of accuracy is extremely demanding due to the intricacy of courtroom discourse and the complexity of interpreting in such an institutional setting. Drawing on a moot court exercise at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, this study investigates the most common pragmalinguistic challenges for trainee interpreters in achieving accuracy when interpreting cross-examination questions from English to Mandarin. Findings show that it can be challenging to produce pragmatically accurate renditions: Mandarin interpretations have an overall weakened illocutionary force compared to the original English questions. In particular, declaratives, reported speech declaratives, modal interrogatives, and tag questions are found to be difficult to interpret into Mandarin. This paper also explores the way the illocutionary force of the interpreted questions deviates from the original and the possible causes for this shift. Findings point to the need to enhance pragmatic competence among trainee interpreters, which in turn will require specialised training for interpreters working in legal settings.

Accentuating Illocutionary Forces: Emoticons as Speech Act Realization Strategies in a Multicultural Online Communication Environment

The global acceptance of emoticons has acknowledged the development of digital symbols in a communication setting when language alone can become a barrier in expressing certain intentions and feelings. This paper discusses how emoticons help indicate the illocutionary forces in texts and serve as part of various conversation strategies in the online communication environment. To achieve the research objective, a documentation of naturally occurring conversations on Facebook was made over a 12-month period to compile daily updates and conversations posted by youngsters in Malaysia. 120 online users were identified using a purposive sampling technique. A corpus of 324 362 words was established and processed. This whole set of naturally occurring conversation was then analysed based on Searle’s (1976) five categorisations of illocutionary acts using Content Analysis and Wordsmith Tools 5.0. T he findings demonstrate some emoticons that accentuated illocutionary forces of speech acts in the online communication environment. Discussion of the findings also explores the purposes and functions of emoticons in Malaysian digital communication platform and the way users of a multicultural society employ emotion-symbols to achieve social cohesion and embrace cultural diversity. Keywords: emoticon; speech act; illocutionary force; online communication; indirectness; multicultural society

Towards a model of the syntax–discourse interface: a syntactic analysis ofplease

This article examines the syntax and semantics ofplease. Using a mainstream generative syntactic framework, I propose that syntactically integratedpleaseis a discourse marker that marks the clause in which it occurs as a request.Pleasemay appear clause-initially or clause-medially as determined by a number of factors, including clause type, modality, negation and the application of ellipsis. There is also a homophonous markerpleasethat occurs in clause-final position; clause-finalpleasedoes not mark requestsper sebut ‘bonds’ a speaker and addressee, reinforcing their relationship as requester and requestee. This analysis ofpleaseprovides support for syntactic approaches to speech act structure, particularly the claim that illocutionary force is part of narrow syntax rather than a solely pragmatic phenomenon. The article provides support for pursuing a model of the syntax–discourse interface in which interactions between discourse markers and clause-internal functional elements, such as mood and modality, form the interface between syntax and discourse.

“I hope you can let this go”/ “Ich hoffe, Sie können das fallen lassen”—Focus on the Perlocutionary in Contrastive Pragmatics

Abstract Pragmatics has focused predominantly on the locutionary form and illocutionary force of utterances but largely ignored their perlocutionary effects. A shift toward the perlocutionary would require much greater attention being given to the historical and political context in the production and reception of utterances, as well as to interpretation as a performative process. This paper takes as empirical data a press report on the performance of a particular speech act by Donald Trump and its perlocutionary effect both on his addressee and on the readers of the incident as reported in the online versions of the New York Times and Die Zeit. It shows the value of focusing on perlocution for the study of political discourse in these global times. It also shows what pedagogical purchase can be gained by discussing perlocutionary acts and effects in communicative language teaching, rather than focusing exclusively on illocutionary acts.

Phonopragmatic Manifestations in Iraqi Husseini Preachers’ Discourse: A Qualitative Auto-segmental Metrical Analysis

This study is concerned with phonopragmatics, as a phenomenon that is based on phonological factors to convey the speaker’s intentions in Husseini discourse. Husseini discourse is a genre which is mainly characterized by the use of eloquent religious styles. Specifically, the study aims to investigate the Husseini preachers’ use of prosodic patterns under the approach of phonopragmatics; that is, the pragmatic treatment of modifying the preachers’ intonation contours in their speeches. A workable model is designed for the analysis of the data, based on the exploitation of prosodic features. Twenty Husseini sermons are analyzed by means of the model. The most important findings of the analysis indicate that certain prosodic contours are pragmatically used by Husseini preachers in order to convey significant illocutionary forces and to highly affect their audience.

An Analysis of the Illocutionary Acts on Donald Trump's Presidential Candidacy Speech

ABSTRACTLearning language will also relate to speech act. When a speaker produce an utterance as well as utilize it to perform an action, it means that the speaker practices speech acts. In another hand, speech acts can be defined as an utterance used by speaker to perform an action. Speech acts are divided into three such as locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. One of them is illocutionary act. The illocutionary act refers to what someone does in saying something. In this act, illocutionary force is the speaker’s intent addressed to hearer. This research is aimed to find the types of illocutionary acts and identifying about how utterances in the Donald Trump’s speeches are able to be included into certain type of illocutionary acts be based on Searle’s theory. This research is designed in descriptive qualitative. The data is collected by documentation. The primary data are taken from two transcripts of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. While the secondary data are related theories obtained from literary books and journals. The procedure of analyzing the data starts by finding out the types of illocutionary acts in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches by using the illocutionary acts’ classifications proposed by Searle (1969). After that, the researcher also identifies about the different frequency of illocutionary acts appearances and the dominant illoctionary acts appeared in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. The finding shows that the type of illocutionary acts found in the Donald Trump’s speeches were assertive, commissive, expressive, and directive. Eventhough the types of illocutionary acts found in Donald Trump’s speeches were exactly the same, but they were different in the frequency of appearance. Donald Trump produced mostly assertive type of illocutionary acts and also asserting category of illocutionary type in both of the speeches. Moreover, some utterances are included into assertive type of illocutionary acts due to the fact that they have a suitability with the explanation of assertive type of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle.Keywords: Illocutionary Acts, Speech Acts, Presidential Candidacy Speeches.

Los verbos «llamarse» y «apellidarse»: una caracterización histórica y cognitiva

El propósito de este artículo es presentar una caracterización sintáctica y semántica de los verbos llamarse y apellidarse efectuada desde los presupuestos de la lingüística cognitivo-funcional. Nuestro objetivo es poner de manifiesto cómo funcionan estos verbos en español, cuáles son sus peculiaridades conceptuales (peculiaridades muy notables en el contexto de las lenguas europeas) y cuáles son las posibles razones -históricas y lingüísticas- por las que estas formas verbales pronominales y no otras se utilizan en español para expresar el nombre propio y el apellido. El trabajo ofrece reflexiones originales acerca de estos verbos e hipótesis novedosas sobre la relación entre los verbos de habla, la reflexividad, la representación de uno mismo y la fuerza ilocutiva del lenguaje. This article has as its purpose to offer a syntactic and semantic profile of the verbs llamarse and apellidarse carried out from the postulates of cognitive-functional linguistics. It i sour intention to: (a) show how these verbs work in Spanish; (b) identify their conceptual peculiarities (which are quite remarkable within the context of European languages); and (c) explain the possible -historical and linguistic- reasons why these pronominal verbs, and not others, are used to express the Christian name and the surname in Spanish. This work provides original and the illocutionary force of language.

Discourse particles in early English: Clause structure, pragmatics and discourse management

This article presents a case study on the shifting interaction between clause structure, information structure and discourse organisation in the history of English, as evidenced by the development from Old to Middle English of what we will call discourse particles: discourse-cohesive devices grammaticalised from adverbs. These include the Old English elements þa, þonne, nu, when used in a clause-internal position.We will show that these discourse particles have the following properties: 1) pragmatically: they express the response of the speaker to the context/common ground shared by speaker and hearer, and thus play a pivotal role in common ground management; 2) relation to clause type: the pragmatic meanings of discourse particles are co-determined by the illocutionary force of the clause types in which they occur, including main clause questions, imperatives, hwæt exclamatives, and correlative subclauses; 3) syntactically and information structurally: discourse particles occur in a fixed position in the clause that separates discourse-given from discourse-new information. Discourse particles thus form a subtle lynchpin between pragmatics, discourse management and clause structure.Some particles were lost in the transition to Middle English, but then and now continued to be attested in questions and imperatives, in the same clause-internal position as in OE. Towards the end of the ME period, we see a positional shift to clause-final position, though maintaining the discourse linking character of the particle. This change is due to a syntactic change tightening the use of strict SVO word order and narrowing the use of clause-medial material.

Hacer cosas sin palabras.El “silencio comunicativo” en contextos interculturales

This paper aims to understand “silence”,
 its illocutionary force, its effects on the perception of
 oneself, and on the construction of the discourse on the
 other in multi/intercultural contexts, from topics that
 have been elaborated in the philosophy of language,
 such as speech acts and conversational cooperative
 principles, including some interculturalism issues. From
 my doctoral research (2013), a record of ethnographic
 information in Tojolabal communities is presented,
 as well as a conversational and conceptual analysis
 intended to contribute to the sociology of language,
 mainly on communicative silence in intercultural
 contexts, as a way to discern the communicative and
 sociocultural force which the communicative silence
 and other factors of everyday life entail. A series of
 proposals to comprehend intercultural communication
 processes will be presented, based on the analysis of
 intercultural contexts, defined as such, not only by
 linguistic diversity, but also by ideology and context.

Фигуры контраста как средство иронической характеристики персонажей в романах И. Ильфа и Е. Петрова «Двенадцать стульев» и «Золотой теленок»

The present paper is aimed to analyse the figures of contrast used to ironically portray the characters in the novels written by I. Ilf and E. Petrov. It is worth noting that the contrast in both novels under consideration, i.e. “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf” acts both as a compositional principle for constructing a text, visual and expressive means, and as a semantic dominant of the work. It covers consistent and unequivocal speech images, the semantic and stylistic system of works, and it is reflected in numerous figures and tropes, which are organized here in two ways: opposites and contradictions. In the novels “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf”, relying on the principle of contrast, the author satirically depicts the soviet bureaucracy, people’s love of slogans and posters, the unstableness and the poverty, the pathological passion for free money, etc. The reader sees the rambling gallery where the people possess narrow interests and worthless values. It should be said that among the opposite figures, the antithesis stands out in the novels and lexical antonyms, converse terms and enantiosemy are the lexical means of its creation. Such figures of contrast as syncrisis (mukabala), paradiastole, diathesis, acrothesis, diaphora and ploka are widely used. A rather rare figure of opposition – alloise, emphasizing the dissimilarity in the similar is skillfully used by I. Ilf and E. Petrov. The authors also do not neglect the false oppositeness, when the final part of the statement seemingly contradicts the initial one in form, but in reality develops and strengthens it. Among the figures of contrast oxymoron, catachreza, antiphrasis, different types of paradox are the most common in I. Ilf and E. Petrov’s works. Paradox can be created by absurd comparisons, absurd hyperbole. The statements, in which the cause and effect relationships are violated, occur quite often, and as a result, the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The referential ambiguity of objects is based on the communicative-pragmatic paradox that relflects the discrepancy between the interlocutors’ illocutionary forces. The prospects of further research suggest the creation of a gallery of satirical linguistic portraits in the above-mentioned novels.

'Swartman' : racial descriptor or racial slur? Rustenburg Platinum Mine v SAEWA obo Bester [2018] ZACC 13; 2018 (5) SA 78 (CC)

This article uses speech theory to assess the harm constituted by the speech acts in two Constitutional Court cases, namely Rustenburg Platinum Mine v SAEWA obo Bester and Others and Duncanmec (Pty) Ltd v Gaylard NO and Others. I argue that racist speech should be treated as a subordinating and oppressive speech act, with illocutionary force, where the speaker enacts harm through the words used. In the context of the factual matrix in Rustenburg Platinum Mine and with reference to the racial descriptor, 'swartman', I show that such speech can perpetuate structural inequality, and has the capacity to perpetuate unjust social hierarchies. In comparison, the struggle song at issue in Duncanmec (Pty) Ltd Gaylard NO and Others, when assessed in context and with reference to the hierarchy of the actors involved, did not have the ability to enact subordination. The analysis demonstrates that an appreciation of the illocutionary force of racist speech and its capacity to enact identity-oppression enhances the balancing of the benefits of the promotion of free speech against the need to regulate and censor harmful speech.

A Pragmatic Study of Apologies Posted on Weibo by Chinese Celebrities

As we are living in the “Age of Apology” (Brooks, 1999), our ability to say “I’m sorry” does matter considerably, for an appropriate apology would not only express regret but also contribute to interpersonal relationship management and image restoration. Although apology as a social phenomenon has been extensively studied in the English-speaking world, Chinese apologies have not drawn due attention from linguists and management scientists. This paper investigates formal apologies made by Chinese celebrities between 2018 and 2019 in the context of social media by scrutinizing 30 cases collected from Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging site. Based on Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) and image repair strategies, it is found that (1) IFID (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device) is the most common strategy in apologies, followed by Explanation or Account, whereas Offer of Repair is the least; (2) In terms of image restoration, Chinese celebrities tend to employ Reduce Offensiveness and Mortification to offset negative impressions; (3) Being shamed or being embarrassed (“羞愧”) and self-examination (“反省”) are specific IFID types in Chinese, and some mitigation strategies distinct from those in other languages are found. The research has revealed the specific features of Chinese apologies on social media and will shed light on ways of image management for the ordinary Chinese in general and Chinese celebrities in particular.

Speech Acts in UN Treaties: A Pragmatic Perspective

This paper investigates the linguistic behavior, especially the illocutionary forces used in international conventions formulation discourses. It cuts across pragmatics and law—the illocutionary act and a particular register of legal text. Illocution is a dimension of speech act theory which stands for the intention inherent in spoken or written utterances. For extended analysis, a couple of other discursive variables are added. One is mood, a concept borrowed from Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics which maintains that there are basically three types of mood in English language: declarative for statement, imperative for command and interrogative for question. The other is speech act type. Based on Searle’s classification, there are assertive, commissive, representative, directive and expressive. The questions discussed are: 1) What types of illocutionary acts are found in the discourse of U.N. treaties? 2) To what extent are they used? 3) How do those types of illocutionary acts reflect the nature of discourse pattern of a treaty? The data reveal that there is not an exclusive use of a single speech act type. However, there is a higher frequency of constitutive and commissive categories whereas the directive is only used to a lesser extent. This high frequency of commissive and constitutive is understood as a reflection of the nature of a treaty that is not so much about a command as it is about commitment and clear definitions of the relative terms.

Análise de mecanismos de regulação da força ilocutória em textos de opinião produzidos por estudantes chineses de PLE de nível B1

In this work, carried out on a corpus of opinion texts produced by students of Portuguese as a Foreign Language, at level B1, whose theme focused on a comparative perspective between two cultures, native and host, we proceeded to a descriptive-qualitative analysis of of modifying mechanisms of illocutionary force, attenuation and reinforcement, which the students resorted to. The results allowed to observe that the students resort mainly to assertive and expressive acts in the production of opinion texts, regulating their illocutionary force using essentially lexical mechanisms, to the detriment of semantic or morphological mechanisms. In addition, the epistemic modality assumes a predominance in relation to other types, although, in most evidence, there is no validation of the predicative relationship. To support this analysis, we used guiding readings on illocutionary acts (Searle, 1969), on their modalization (Corbari, 2013; Soares, 1998) and, specifically, on attenuation and reinforcement phenomena (Briz & Albelda, 2013; Albelda , 2005) and how they relate to the issue of modality (Campos & Xavier, 1991; Oliveira e Mendes, 2013) and how all these issues are referenced, in terms of pedagogical and didactic approach in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ( 2001).

A Functional Approach to Translating Greek Conditionals

This paper proposes a paradigm shift in how the conditional clauses of the Greek New Testament are treated in Bible translation and Bible translation resources. The current resources do not provide enough information on the pragmatics of conditional constructions for translation teams to find the appropriate rendering in the receptor language. In order to translate these constructions in a clear, accurate, and natural way, translators should investigate the functional elements of each New Testament conditional, such as the illocutionary force, presented probability, and topicality.

El discurso político

Este artículo analiza en detalle algunas de las categorías semióticas más importantes para describir el discurso político. Modalidades como “puede”, “saber” y “debería” se integran en una perspectiva estratégica. Este tipo de discurso puede analizarse en una perspectiva textual, que debe incluir –en la teoría de Austin– los actos de habla, los actos de lingüística performativa y la fuerza ilocucionaria. Se muestra el desempeño y las competencias de los actores políticos. Los enunciados políticos son el resultado de una serie de interacciones semióticas, con el fin de manipular, seducir y convencer a la audiencia. La construcción de legitimidad y autoridad es el resultado de una compleja estrategia de discurso.

A Study of Intentional Ambiguity from the Perspective of Pragmatics

Intentional ambiguity refers to the linguistic phenomenon that the addresser consciously uses some indirect or ambiguous words to express illocutionary forces to the addressee in the specific context. By analyzing the intentional ambiguity from the perspective of pragmatic definition, pragmatic connotation, pragmatic theory and pragmatic value, it shows that the dynamic study of intentional ambiguity based on pragmatics is conducive to explain the phenomenon of intentional ambiguity in communication. As long as it is used skillfully in the specific context, intentional ambiguity can be an effective communicative strategy to help the communicators achieve their communication intention.

О псевдоидентификации в русском языке (на примере обозначений человека в русских литературных текстах)

There is no way to identify an animate object other than to describe its specific characteristics which necessarily look like deviations from the normal “average” pattern, named here paragon, in which the Axiological Standard of a human group is fixed. Of particular heuristic interest is, in this regard, the logical pattern, often used in Russian for describing such a deviation: (he/she is) not A, but B, in which a human creature is being denied the property of being human, but is assimilated to fire, flint, rag, chump, mouse, dough, etc. The variety of descriptions (pseudo-identifications) is explained by his or her need to focus attention on some remarkable feature of person’s character, incompatible with the paragon of accepted traits included in it as a result of the evaluation responses of his or her fellow countrymen. Although they have a greater illocutionary force than a simple statement of a deviant property, these identifications cannot be checked for “truth”, in particular, for compliance with the “real” state of things. They are pseudo-identifications which can only be verified for compliance with some kind of attitude, defining what properties should be used to qualify a person and what should be the ideal sample selected as an auxiliary object in an ideal scenario.