Download Talaktsteori ”The descriptive fallacy” Austin (I) Characteristics of

”The descriptive fallacy”
Talaktsteori
Pragmatik VT 07
Staffan Larsson
• Central doctrine of logical positivism (1930s)
• The only (philosophically interesting) function of
language is to make true or false statements
• Related to
– Wittgensteins ”picture theory” of language (Tractatus)
– Verificationism: Unless a sentence can, at least in principle, be
verified (i.e., tested for its truth or falsity), it is strictly speaking
meaningless
• Austins observations:
– Many ordinary language sentences are not emplyed to make
statements
• ”Good morning!”; ”Is she a vegeterian?”; ”Put the car in the garage,
please.”
– Some declarative sentences cannot be analysed as being true
or false, but rather they are used for doing things
• Yttranden är inte bara informationsbärande; de ändrar på saker och ting
• Yttranden är handlingar
• Wittgenstein: Filosofiska Undersökningar
(1958)
• Austin: How to do things with words (1962)
• Searle: Speech Acts
Austin (I)
Characteristics of performatives
• Konstativer vs. Performativer
• Konstativer: sanna eller falska om världen
– ”Jag heter Staffan”
•
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
• Performativer
–
–
–
–
–
–
”Härmed döper jag dig till Prinsessan Elizabeth”
”Härmed föklarar jag er man och hustru”
”Härmed dömer jag den åtalade till tio år i fängelse”
”Jag lovar att komma hem i tid”
”Jag ber om ursäkt för att jag kom försent”
”Jag beordrar dig att ge upp omedelbart!”
Not used intentionally to say anything (true or false)
about states of affairs in the external world
Their use constitutes an action
•
Christianing: ”Härmed döper jag dig till Prinsessan Elizabeth”
Marrying: ”Härmed föklarar jag er man och hustru”
Sentencing: ”Härmed dömer jag den åtalade till tio år i fängelse”
Promising: ”Jag lovar att komma hem i tid”
Apologising: ”Jag ber om ursäkt för att jag kom försent”
Ordering: ”Jag beordrar dig att ge upp omedelbart!”
Some performatives are part of a conventional or ritual
behaviour supported by institutional facts (1-3 above)
while others are not
1
Performativa verb
• ”The verb naming the action while performing it”
• döpa, lova, viga, döma, …
• Performativer fungerar tack vare konventioner
och institutioner (kyrkan, rättsväsendet,
interpersonella konventioner för löften etc.)
– instituionella performativer ställer vissa krav på
talaren, t ex att den som viger måste vara präst
Explicit & implicit performatives
• Explicit performatives
– Include the performative verb
• Implicit performatives
– Do not include the performative verb
• ”Ritual” performatives are explicit
– We cannot christen a ship without using the verb
”christen” or ”name”
• … but other performatives do not require the
performative verb
– ”Jag kommer hem i tid”
– ”Surrender immediately”
Syntactic & semantic properties of
explicit performatives
• They contain a performative verb
• The performative nature of such a verb can be
reinforced by adding the adverb hereby (sv.
härmed)
– ”Härmed lovar jag komma hem i tid”
– Non-performative verbs can report on actions but
cannot be used for performing them
• # ”Härmed kör jag bil”
• Performative verbs can be used descriptively
(non-performatively):
– ”I baptized John’s baby yesterday”
Performative hypothesis
• Idea: Underlying every sentence there is a
hidden ”matrix” performative clause of the form
– I (hereby) Vp you (that) S
– Vp: Performative verb
• Indicative mood
• Active voice
• Simple present tense
– S: complement clasue
• Vp makes speec act explicit
– ”Stand up” =
– ”I hereby request that you stand up”
Constraints, cont’d
• Syntactic constraints
– Subjekt:
• first-person singular or plural subject
– ”We suggest that you go to the embassy”
• OR Second-person singular or plural subject
– ”You are hereby warned that legal action will be taken”
• OR third-person singular or plural subject
– ”Passengers are hereby requested to wear a seat belt”
• OR null subject; no reference to speaker
– ”Notice is hereby given that the meeting will be held tomorrow”
– Verb:
• Active (”We suggest…”)
• OR passive (”you are hereby warned…”)
• OR present progressive
– ”You are being discharged on the grounds of unsuitability for the Royal
Navy”
One problem with performative
hypothesis
• Many implicit performatives do not have an
explicit performative version
– ”You’re a stupid cow”
– ? ”I hereby insult you that you are a stupid cow”
– But the relevant verb can be usde descriptively: ”John
insulted Mary by saying that she was a stupid cow.”
– (?”I hereby insult you by saying that you’re a stupid
cow”)
• For this and other reasons, the performativity
hypothesis has been abandoned
2
3 kinds of felicity conditions for
performatives
Felicity conditions on performatives
• Performatives are not true or false
• However, they can be successful /
felicitous (Sv. ”lyckade”)
• To be felicitous, they have to meet a set of
felicity conditions
– Conditions under which words can be used to
prperly perform actions
• Violation of any conditions will render the
utterance infelicitous
Misfires
A.
B.
C.
(i) There must be a conventional procedure having a
conventional effect
(ii) The circumstances and persons must be
appropriate, as specified in the procedure
The procedure must executed (i) correctly and (ii)
completely
Often,
(i) the persons must have the requisite thoughts,
feelings and intentions, as specified in the procedure,
and
(ii) if consequent conduct is specified, the the relevant
parties must so do
Misfires, cont’d
• Results if conditions A or B are not observed
• A (i): Conducting a marriage in an unauthorized
place
• A (ii): Baptizing a wrong baby
• B (i): Bridegroom saying the wrong words
• B (ii) Making a bet without the addressee
uttering ”You’re on” or something to that
effect (unsatisfactory uptake)
A.(i) There must be a conventional procedure
having a conventional effect
(ii) The circumstances and persons must be
appropriate, as specified in the procedure
B. The procedure must executed (i) correctly
and (ii) completely
Abuses
•
C (i): Promising something one does not intend to do;
congratulating someone for their exam when one
knows they have cheated
C (ii): Promising to do something, and then not doing it
•
–
C.
(contra Huang: Promising something while intending to break
it)
Often,
(i) the persons must have the requisite thoughts,
feelings and intentions, as specified in the procedure,
and
(ii) if consequent conduct is specified, the the relevant
parties must so do
Problems with the performative /
constative distinction
• Constatives are also subject to felicity conditions
– A lie is a constative which violates condition C (i)
• Some constatives do not have strict truth conditions; can
be more or less true
– France is hexagonal
– John is bald
– London is sixty miles from where I live
• Some utterances pass the hereby test, but are used to
state or assert
– I hereby state that John is a farmer
– I hereby tell you that the prime minister is not going to stand
down
• Conclusions: constatives are a class of performatives
• The strict distinction cannot be maintained
3
Austin (II)
• All utterances perform specific acts via the
specific communicative force of the
utterance
• I varje yttrande kan flera akter urskiljas
– Lokut
– Illokut
– Perlokut
• Vi är normal inte medvetna om dessa
Lokut akt
• att säga ngt med en viss betydelse
– Fonetisk: att producera vissa språkljud, eller skriva
vissa bokstäver
• fonetik/fonologi
– Fatisk: att yttra vissa ord, fraser och satser enligt
reglerna för ett givet språk
• morfologi/syntax
– Rhetisk/propositionell: att använda produkten av en
fatisk akt med en viss betydelse och referens
• semantik/pragmatik
– referens
– deixis
– disambiguering
Illokut akt
• Saying something with some purpouse in mind
• The type of function that an utterance is intended to fulfill by its
speaker
• Det man gör i det att yttrar U
– T ex påstå, fråga, lova, döpa
• Styrs av konventioner (sociala regler)
• Ofta används ”talakt” för ”illkout akt”
• Examples: Accusing, apologizing, blaming, congratulating, giving
permission, joking, nagging, naming, promising, ordering, refusing,
swearing, thanking
• Består av illokut kraft (illocutionary force)+ propositionellt innehåll
– ”Stäng fönstret!”
• illokut kraft: order
• innehåll: handlingen att stänga fönstret
• I ett yttrande kan flera illokuta akter utföras
– ”Kan du stänga fönstet” är både fråga och uppmaning
Hur indikeras illokut kraft?
• IFID: Illocutionary Force Indicating Device
• egenskaper hos yttrandet
– performativa verb
• kan ses som metalingvistiska yttranden som explicitgör illokut kraft
– syntaktisk form – deklarativ, interrogativ, imperativ
– intonation – frågeintonation etc.
– ”cue phrases” (Jurafsky), e.g. ”please”
• Properties of the context are also relevant
– ”Kan du öppna fönstret” kan vara en uppmaning
– Beror på (bl a) om det redan är känt (gemensam kunskap /
reflexiv tro) att den tilltalade har förmågan att öppna fönstret
– ”The gun is loaded” can be a threat, a warning or an explanation
Context and illocutionary force
• The same locutionary act can count as having
different illocutionary forces in different contexts
• The same illocutionary force can be realized by
means of different locutionary acts
–
–
–
–
requesting:
A day ticket to Oxford, please
Can I have a day ticket to Oxford, please?
I’d like a day ticket to Oxford
• dessa måste vägas samman
4
”Illocutionary Act Potential”
• Alston (1994)
• The meaning of a sentence consists in its having
a certain Illocutionary Act Potential (IAP)
• IAP is closely and conventionally associated with
sentence form
• To know what a sentence means is to know the
range of illocautionary acts it can conventionally
be used to perform
• Cf. ”meaning is use” (later Wittgenstein)
• Cf. meaning potentials
Perlokut akt
• A perlocution is the act by which the illocution
produces a certain effect (the perlocutionary
effect) in the addressee
• Det man gör genom att yttra U
• Icke-nödvändiga effekter; beror av kontexten
snarare än av språkliga konventioner
• Perlokuta verb:
– skrämma, övertyga, överraska
• Fungerar ej med ”härmed”
– # ”härmed skrämmer jag dig”
Differences illocution - perlocution
• Intention
– Illocutionary act is always intentional
– Perlocutionary act are not always intentional
• Control
– Illocutionary act are under the speaker’s control
– Perlocutionary acts are not under the speaker’s full control
Searle
• Evidentiality
– Illocutionary act become evident as the utterance is made
– Perlocutionary acts are not usually evident until after the utterance is
made
• Determinate?
– It is usually clear which illocutionary act has been performed
– It is often unclear which perlocutioary act has been performed
• Conventionality
– Illocutionary acts are more conventionally bound to linguistic forms
– Perlocutionary acts are less conventionally bound to linguistic forms
Nödvändiga och tillräckliga villkor på
utförandet av för illokuta akter (Searle)
• Austin put forward felicity conditions on speech acts,
corresponding to truth conditions for declarative
sentences
• Searle: felicity conditions are constitutive rules – rules
which create the activity itself – of speech acts
• To perform a speech act is to obey certain conventional
rules which are constitutive for that type of speech act
• Replaced Austins conditions A-C with four basic
categories
–
–
–
–
(i) Propositional content
(ii) Preparatory condition
(iii) Sincerity condition
(iv) essential condition
• Exempel: Genom att yttra U, begär (request) S en
handling A from H
• Villkor på propositionellt innehåll
– A är en framtida handling utförd av H
• Förberedande villkor, som måste vara sanna för att
handlingen ska vara meningsfull
– S tror att H kan utföra A
• Ärlighetsvillkor, som kopplar talarens attityder till de
attityder som uttrycks
– S vill att H ska utföra A
• Essentiellt villkor, som involverar talarens intention i
utförandet av akten; vad talaren försöker göra
– U räknas som ett försök att få H att utföra A
5
Searle’s felicity conditions
• Searle’s felicity conditions for promising
• (i) Propositional content: future act A by S
• (ii) Preparatory
– (a) H would prefer S’s doing A to his not doing A, and
S so believes
– (b) it is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in
the normal course of events
• (i) Propositional content condition
– specifies restrictions on propositional content of
utterance
• promise: future act A of speaker (S)
• request: future act A of addressee (H)
• (ii) Preparatory
– ”Real-world” prerequisites
• promise: it is clear to S and A that
– H prefers A to be accomplished
– A will not occur in the normal course of action
• (iii) Sincerity: S intends to do A
• (iv) essential: the utterance of U counts as an
undertaking to do A
• request: S thinks that
– H can carry out A
– H will not carry out A unless asked
Austins taxonomy of illocutionary
acts
• (iii) Sincerity
– must be satisfied if the speech act is to be carried out sincerely
(if it is not fulfulled, it will be a case of ”abuse”)
• promise: S intends to carry out A
• request: S wants H to carry out A
• (iv) Essential
– S intends U to count as the speech act in question, and H
recognizes this
• promise: S intends for U to create an obligation on S to do A
• request: S intends for U to count as an attempt to get H to do A
(alternatively, S intends for U to create an obligation on H to do A)
– If the essential condition is not fulfilled, the speech act has not
been carried out
• veridictives
– giving a verdict
• exercitives
– exercising power, rights, or influence
• commissives
– promising or otherwise undertaking
• behabitatives
– showing attitudes and social behaviour
• expositives
– fitting the utterance into the course of an argument or
conversation
Typer av talakter (Searle)
Flerdimensionell analys av talakter
(i)
illocutionary point
•
•
speech act type
talaktens poäng = essentiellt villkor
•
t ex att få H att göra A
(ii) ”direction of fit” mellan ord och värld
–
–
ord -> värld: att köpa mat efter en lista
värld -> ord: att beskriva vad man köpt
(iii) expressed psychological state
–
för uppmaning: avsikt att H ska utföra A
•
•
•
•
•
Representatives
Directives
Commissives
Expressives
Declarations
(iv) propositional content
(v) strength
–
–
styrkan hos poängen
t ex föreslå, uppmana, beordra
6
Representatives
• Point: commits (sv. ”förbinder”) S to the truth of a
proposition
• Fit:make words fit the world
• State: S’s beliefs
• Content: proposition
• (correspond to Austins original constatives)
• Verbs: assert, claim, conclude, report, state
• Examples
Directives
• Point: attempt by S to get H to do some future
action A
• Fit: make the world fit the words
• State: S’s desire/wish for H to do A
• Content: future action A by H
• Verbs: advice, command, order, question,
request
• Examples
– Turn the TV down
– Don’t use my electric shaver
– Could you please get that lid off for me?
– Chinese characters were borrowed to write other
languages
– Crick and Watson discovered the structure of DNA
Commissives
•
•
•
•
•
•
Point: commit S to some future action A
Fit: make the world fit the words
State: S’s intention to do A
Content: future action A by S
Verbs: offer, pledge, promise, refuse, threat
Examples
– I’ll be back in five minutes
– We’ll be launching a new policing unit soon
– I’ll never buy you another computer game
Expressives
•
•
•
•
•
Point: express psychological state of S
Fit: none (make words fit world?)
State: variable; E.g. joy, sorrow, likes, dislikes
Content: state of S
Verbs: apologizing, blaming, congratulating,
praising, thanking
• Examples
–
–
–
–
Well done, Elizabeth!
I’m so happy
Wow, great!
Ouch!
Declarations (declaratives)
•
•
•
•
•
Point: effect changes in some immediate state of affairs
Fit: make the world fit words + make words fit the world
State: none
Content: proposition
Verbs: bidding (e.g. in bridge), declaring war,
excommunicating, firing from employment, marrying
• (Correspond to Austins institutionalised / ritualised
performatives)
• Examples
• Det finns ingen nödvändig korrespondens
mellan illokuta akter och ett språks
uppsättning illokuta (performativa) verb
– President: I declare a state of emergency
– Chairman: The meeting is adjourned
– Jury foreman: We find the defendant not guilty
7
Basic sentence types
• Basic sentence types
Indirect speech acts
– Declarative
– Interrogative
– Imperative
• These are morphologically and/or syntacically
distinguished in many languages
• They are typically associated with three basic
illocutionary forces:
– Declarative – asserting/stating
– Interrogative: asking/questioning
– Imperative – ordering/requesting
• Direct speech act
– match between sentence type and illocutionary force
• Pass the salt
– explicit performatives (in declarative form)
• I request you to pass the salt
• Indirect speech act
– no direct relationship between sentence type and
illocutionary force
• Can you pass the salt?
• ”Jag kommer att sitta längst fram” kan vara ett påstående
eller ett löfte
• ”Kan du öppna fönstret?” kan vara en uppmaning, eller en
fråga
• Talakten är en ofta annan än den som
indikeras av satstyp + kompositionellt
innehåll
– ”Jag kommer att sitta längst fram” kan vara ett
påstående eller ett löfte
– ”Kan du öppna fönstret?” kan vara en
uppmaning, eller en fråga
Literal force hypothesis
• The validity of the distinction between direct and indirect
speech acts presupposes the literal force hypothesis:
– there is a direct structure – function correlation in speech acts
– sentence forms are by default direct reflexes of their underlying
illocutionary forces
• Problems
How is an indirect speech act
analysed?
– cases where the direct link between performative verbs and
illocutionary force breaks down
• I promise to sack you if you don’t finish the job by this weekend
– most usages are indirect; requesting typically done by
interrogative in English; very rarely by imperative
8
Dual illocutionary force
• Searles (1975) analysis: indirect speech acts have two illocutionary
forces
– one literal/direct
– one non-literal/indirect
• The existence of an indirect speech act depends on relation
between utterance and speech act felicity conditions
– ”Can you pass the salt”
– Violates felicity condition on questioning (direct act)
• S already knows whether H can do A
– Queries felicit condition for requesting (indirect act)
• Whether H can do A (preparatory conditions)
• Performing and understanding indirect speech acts involves
inference
– According to Searle, along the lines of Grices Cooperative Principle
– Speech acts and implicature appear closely linked
Short-circuited implicature
• However, indirect speech acts are frequently conventionalised
– Can you pass the salt
– Are you able to pass the salt?
– Do you have the ability to pass the salt?
• Indirect speech acts are short-circuited implicatures (Morgan 1978)
– in principle calculable, but not in practice calculated
• Test for conventionality of indirect request: try inserting please
– Can you please pass the salt?
– ? Are you able to please pass the salt?
– ? Do you have the ability to please pass the salt?
• Similar idea (Gordon & Lakoff 1975): Conversational postulates are
inference rules which reduce the amount of inference needed to
interpret a speech act
• Indirect speech acts involve both inference and convention
Alternative: idiom model of indirect
speech acts
• Indirect speech acts are semantically ambiguous
– (1) ”Can you pass the salt”
• Interpretation involves no inference at all
• (1) is simply recognised as a request with no question
being percieved
• Problems:
Politeness
– Fails to capture the fact that the meaning of a speech act can
frequently be derived from the meaning of its components
(compositionality)
– Idioms should be quite arbitrary, but indirect speech acts are
quite comparable cross-linguistically
– An interpretation which takes into account the literal meaning of
an indirect speech act is not allowed
• A: Can you pass the salt
• B: Yes, I can. [passes the salt]
Politeness and speech acts
• Why are indirect speech acts used?
• One answer: politeness
– The more indirect, the more polite
• Theoretical models of politeness
– ”social norm” model
– ”conversational maxim” model
– ”face-saving” model (Brown and Levinson
1987)
– ”conversational contract” model
Face-saving
• Face
– Sociological notion (Goffman, 1967)
– The public self-image that every member (of a social community)
wants to claim for himself
• Positive face
– the individual’s desire to be accepted and liked by others
• Positive politeness
– Oriented towards preserving the positive face of others
• Strategy for positive politeness: emphasise solidarity
with addressee
– Claiming common ground
– Conveying that speaker and addressee are cooperating
– Satisfying the addressee’s wants
9
Face-threatening acts
• Negative face
– An individuals right to freedom of action and his or her
need not to be imposed on by others
•
•
–
–
–
–
–
• Negative politness
– Aimed towards maintaining the negative face of
others
•
Strategies for avoiding / weakening
an FTA
• Choices
– Do the FTA
• on record
– 1. without redressive action; baldly: ”Lend me your lecture
notes”
– with redressive action
» 2. positive politness: ”How about lending me you lecture
notes?”
» 3. negative politeness: ”Could you please lend me your
lecture notes?”
• 4. off record (hint): ”I didn’t take any notes for the last lecture”
– 5. Don’t do the FTA: [silently looks at lecture notes]
•
expressions of disapproval
accusations
criticisms
disagreements
insults
FTAs threatening negative face
–
–
–
–
• Strategy for negative politeness: emphasise
one’s deference to addressee
– conventional indirectness (indirect speech acts)
– hedges on illocutionary forces (”I don’t mean to
impose, but...”)
– apologies (”Sorry, could you ...”)
FTAs = Face-threatening acts
FTAs threatening positive face:
orders
requests
suggestions
warnings
FTAs that threaten both positive and negative face
– complaints
– interruptions
– threats
Uppgift
• Besvara tre av frågorna 12-18 ’i kapitel 4 i
Huang
• Higher number = more polite
10