In the present research, the researcher will examine 13 main points, each of which will be followed by other subtitles. Throughout these headlines and subtitles, speech acts are going to be investigated in terms of three main stages. The first stage is about Austin's first dichotomy which distinguishes between the constatives and the performatives. The second stage tackles Austin's classification of speech acts into locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. The third stage concerns Searle's dichotomy in which he adds the propositional acts to Austin's classification. The research also accounts for how males and females use speech acts in different situations through a linguistic analysis to Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.
In his lecture, 'How to do things with words', Austin says that most philosophers were obsessed by the word "good", and tried to find the way it is used within a certain context. In other words, they tried to find out how the speaker uses it to make the other party perform a certain action in a certain situation. They found that it is almost always used to reflect "approval", "commendation", or "grading". However we would not be able to realize the real intention behind using this word unless we sort those illocutionary acts related to "commending" and "grading". Springing from here, Austin has begun to work on the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts to form an overall theory that is known as the 'Speech Act theory'. This theory is rooted in Pragmatics, which in its turn, seeks the real intention behind uttered words (Parkinson 166). Thus, Austin was the first linguist to investigate the way we do things by the use of words. His theory has found its way through the whole world of linguistics. Linguists started to speak out either in agreement or opposition to his theory. Sometimes, they add certain details to it, or argued against his use of other details. One of those linguists was John R. Searle.
[...] 14) Indirect Speech Acts Speech acts can be performed directly or indirectly, literally or nonliterally, explicitly or inexplicitly. When someone says: the window is open; the illocutionary act for the listener is a request. The speaker is requesting or ordering the hearer to close the window for him. The interlocutor is requesting the other party indirectly to close the window for him. That illocutionary act should not be taken from the direct meaning of the words. The hearer should pay attention in that case for both the intention of the speaker, and the context in which the utterance is said. [...]
[...] Thus, Austin shifts to another classification, as he differentiates between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary actions (Lyons 730) Levels of Speech Acts a. Locutionary Acts locutionary act is an act of saying something, and to perform an act of saying something involves uttering noises . of certain types belonging to and as belonging to a certain vocabulary," (Schiffer 88). The locutionary act intended by some person is usually interpreted by the words he uses in a certain utterance. In other words, it is the performative words said by the interlocutors to direct the other party to perform an action for him. [...]
[...] 126) Types of speech acts Speech acts can be classified according to their function into five different categories. In fact, this classification may be attributed to the illocutionary act, but so long as the theory is based mainly on the illocutionary acts, it is not wrong to mention this category as a main branch in the theory. Those five divisions focus on the function of the utterance rather than anything else. The five divisions are the representatives, the directives, the expressives, the commissives, and the declaratives (Jaworowska: par. [...]
[...] Springing from here, Austin has begun to work on the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts to form an overall theory that is known as the theory of speech acts .This theory is rooted in Pragmatics which, in its turn, seeks the real intention behind uttered words (Parkinson 166). Thus Austin was the first linguist to investigate the way we do things by the use of bits of words. His theory has found its way through the whole world of linguistics. [...]
[...] Redundancy The speech of women is full of redundancy. They tend to repeat what they have just said. On the other side, men are more likely to omit 'non- essential' utterances more than women. For example: Male:" I'm employed with . Aah been there over nine months". Female: "My name is Sophia . I've been employed " In those two examples, it is clear that the male prefers to omit what would be understood by his hearer. On the contrary, Sophia repeats every single detail in her utterances. [...]
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