INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS: FORM VERSUS FUNCTION

1.  INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS: FORM VERSUS FUNCTION

“Communication is successful not when

hearers recognize the linguistic meaning of the

utterance, but when they infer the speaker's

meaning from it.”

Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson

Most of what human beings say is aimed at success of perlocutionary acts, but because perlocutionary effects are behavioural, cognitive, or emotional responses they are not linguistic objects. What linguists can properly look at, however, are the intentions of speakers to bring about certain perlocutionary effects which are called illocutionary intentions.

The basis of a speech act is the speaker’s intention to influence the hearer in a desired way. The intention can be manifested and latent. According to O.G. Pocheptsov [13,74], latent intentions cannot be linguistically analyzed while manifested intentions can be divided into evident and inferable. The illocutinary intention of indirect speech acts is inferable.

 Three broad illocutionary categories are normally identified – a statement, a question and a command/request - having typical realisations in declarative, interrogative and imperative verb forms. But sometimes the syntactic form of a sentence is not a good guide to the act it is performing. In indirect speech acts the agreement between the intended function and the realised form breaks down, and the outward (locutionary) form of an utterance does not correspond with the intended illocutionary force of the speech act which it performs [37, 263]. In indirection a single utterance is the performance of one illocutionary act by way of performing another. Indirect speech acts have two illocutionary forces [45, 195].

Searle’s classical example of an indirect speech act is the utterance “Can you pass the salt?” Without breaking any linguistic norms we can regard it as a general question and give a yes/no answer. But most often hearers interpret it as a request. Likewise, the utterance “There's a fly in your soup” may be a simple assertion but, in a context, a warning not to drink the soup. The question “What's the time?” might, when one is looking for an excuse to get rid of an unwelcome guest, be intended as a suggestion that the guest should leave. Analogously, the statement “I wouldn't do this if I were you” has the congruent force of an imperative: “Don't do it!”

In his works Searle gives other interesting examples of indirect speech acts: Why don’t you be quiet? It would be a good idea if you gave me the money now. How many times have I told you (must I tell you) not to eat with your fingers? I would appreciate it if you could make less noise. In some contexts these utterances combine two illocutionary forces and sound idiomatic, even though they are not idioms in the proper sense of the term. Each utterance contains an imperative (secondary illocution) realized by means of a question or a statement (primary illocution).  

Paul Grice illustrates indirectness by the following utterances [4, 22]: “There is a garage around the corner” used to tell someone where to get petrol, and “Mr. X's command of English is excellent, and his attendance has been regular”, giving the high points in a letter of recommendation. A simple example of an indirect speech act gives B.Russel: “When parents say ‘Puddle!’ to their child, what they mean is ‘Don’t step into it!’ [41, 195]. These are examples in which what is meant is not determined by what is said.

 We can make a request or give permission by way of making a statement, e.g. by uttering “I am getting thirsty.” or “It doesn't matter to me.” We can make a statement or give an order by way of asking a question, such as “Will the sun rise tomorrow?” or “Can you clean up your room?” When an illocutionary act is performed indirectly, it is performed by way of performing some other one directly.

It has been found that indirect expressives, directives and representatives compose the most numerous group of indirect speech acts [11, 23].

The study of indirect speech acts has mostly dealt with requests in various guises. Jerrold M. Sadock identified some exotic species: “whimperatives” - indirect requests in the form of a question, e.g. “Can't you (please) do something?” and “Do something, will you?”; “queclaratives” - the speaker directly questions and indirectly makes an assertion: “Does anyone do A any more?” meaning "Nobody does A any more"; “requestions” are quiz questions to which the speaker knows the answer, e.g. Columbus discovered America in ...? [42, 168].

Summarizing, we can say that indirection is the main way in which the semantic content of a sentence can fail to determine the full force and content of the illocutionary act being performed in using the sentence.

2.  WHY DO SPEAKERS HAVE TO BE INDIRECT?

“Everything that is worded too directly nowadays

 runs the risk of being socially condemned.”  

Ye. Klyuev