间接言语行为理论.ppt

Introduction Austins Speech Act Theory Searles Indirect Speech Act Theory --Classification of Indirect Speech Acts Its Relations with Other Pragmatic Theories Introduction The theory of indirect speech acts was put forward by the American philosopher of language John Searle. It originated from Austins theory, but made some revisions. One of Searles contributions lies in his understanding of the importance of speech acts. He regards a speech act as a basic unit in social communication, yet not a word or a sentence. This means that his theory pays much attention to the functions rather than the forms of languages. Austins Speech Act Theory It all begins with Austins) distinction between two kinds of sentences: performatives(施为句) and constatives（叙事句）. Austin argues that the uttering of a performative sentence is actually doing an action. I nominate John to be President, “I sentence you to ten years’imprisionment, I promise to pay you back. In these typical, rather explicit cases of performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating,sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself. Later, when Austin tries to separate performatives from constatives, he realizes the difficulty in distinguishing them from apart. In fact, all sentences can be used to perform speech acts. In order to explain in what sense to say something is to do something, Austin classifies three kinds of speech acts: 1)locutionary act（言内行为） – the movement of vocal organs to produce a stretch of meaningful sounds, 2) illocutionary act（言外行为） - the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. to fulfill the purpose of speaking. (3) perlocutionary act（言后行为） – the effects left on the audiences. The second speech act, i.e. illocutionary act, is the focus of Austins research, because the illocution of an utterance is the speakers communicative intention or the function it is