Speech.Acts.英语语用学.ppt

Contact me Yanling Tang Foreign Studies College Hunan Normal University 36 Lushan Road, Changsha City, Hunan 410081 The People’s Republic of China(CHINA) Cellphone E-mail: 1596604813@ Speech Acts Main contents 1. Performatives 2. Three Types of Acts 3. Classification of Illocutionary Acts 4. Indirect Speech Act Theory Part One: Performatives 1) Backgrounds for the proposing of the performative theory 2) Constative vs. Performative 3) Performative verbs 4) Characteristics of performatives 5) How to distinguish performatives and constatives 1) Backgrounds for the proposing of the performative theory In the 40’s and 50’s, it was commonly held that the study of language should be concerned only with the truth-conditional meaning of the proposition, and not with the situations of the utterance. However, it had been observed that sometimes people are using words to do things. And in such cases, what is of more importance is not the truth conditional-meaning, but the action of doing things. Austin made the primary distinction between two types of utterances: Constative:表述句 Performative：施为句 2) Constative vs. Performative Constatives : describing a portion of some facts or states of affairs; aiming at referring something or expressing something. (True or False) e.g. I go to the park every Sunday. Performatives: saying itself accomplishing a certain action, affecting, or changing the world in some way; to do sth. e.g. I name this ship Queen Elizabeth.  Performatives are sentences used to perform such functions as promising, naming, warning, inviting, requesting, ordering and asking etc. More examples on performatives: “I declare the meeting open.” ---as uttered in an open ceremony. Teacher: Class begins! Boss: You are fired!  I name this tiger ‘George Bush’. “ I give and bequeath the ship to my brother.” --- as occurring in a will. “ I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow