1. Speech acts
Andrew D. Cohen
Anita Wu
9659503
Institute of TESOL

2. Focus of the chapter
• Definition of speech acts
• Historical overview of the field
• Examination of research methodologies
• Studies on the teaching of speech acts

3. Definition of speech acts
• A speech act is a functional unit in
communication (Cohen, A.D.)
• It’s an act that a speaker performs when making
an utterance (def. from LinguaLink website)
According to Austin’s theory of speech acts (1962), utterances have
three kinds of meaning.
1. Propositional/locutionary: literal meaning of an utterance
2. Illocutionary meaning: particular intention in making the utterance
3. Perlocutionary force: production of a particular effect in the addressee

4. Speech acts categories:
• Representatives: speakers assert a proposition to be true, using
such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report.
• Directives: speaker try to make the hearer do something, with such
words as: ask, beg, challenge, command, dare, invite, insist,
request.
• Commissives: the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future)
course of action, with verbs such as: guarantee, pledge, promise,
swear, vow, undertake, warrant.
• Expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state
of affairs, using such verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate,
deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome.
• Declarations speakers alter the external status or condition of an
object or situation, solely by making the utterance: I now pronounce
you man and wife, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until
you be dead, I name this ship...

5. Speech act quiz
Decide which type of speech act is represented by each of these
statements. A) Propositional b) Illocutionary C) Perlocutionary
1. Your teacher says, "For class tomorrow, please read pages
twenty-one through forty-seven."
2. While talking to a group of friends, you mention that you
recently went to hear your favorite band play at a local club.
3. You and a friend are talking about a television show that you
both watched the night before. You say, "what did you think
about Luke's reaction to Laura's news?"
4. When you discover that the grade you got on your math exam is
a "B", you let out a sigh of relief.
Resources:
http://www.rdillman.com/HFCL/TUTOR/Relation/rel.ex.speechact.html

6. Empirical validation of speech act sets
• First concern of the SLA researchers is to
investigate the set of realization patterns and
strategies typically used by native speakers in
appropriate contexts.
• The precondition and interactional goal as well
as performative and semantic formulas for
realization the goals need to be determined.

7. Speech act sets (i.e. apology)
1. An expression that speakers use contain a performative verb (e.g.
apologize, excuse, be sorry)
2. The speaker indirectly commit the offence with use of an
explanation/account of the situation.
3. Acknowledgement of responsibility.
4. An offer of repair. (i.e. bid to take an action; provide payment)
5. A promise of nonrecurrence.

8. Sociocultural and sociolinguistic abilities
• Sociocultural ability refers to the respondents’ skill at
selecting speech act strategies which are appropriate
given (1)the culture involved, (2) the age and the sex of
the speaker, (3) their social class and occupations, and (4)
their roles and status in the interaction.
• Sociolinguistic ability refers to the respondents’ skill at
selecting appropriate linguistic forms (i.e. register) in
order to express the particular strategy used to realize the
speech act.

9. Selecting the appropriate speech act strategy
and the forms for realizing it
Social
status
• The process is
complex since it is
conditioned by social,
Selection cultural, situational
age factors Social and personal factors.
distance
culture

10. Methods for collecting speech act data
• Production of speech acts:
E.g. observation, naturally occurring data, role play,
discourse completion tasks, verbal report interview
• Perception of speech acts:
• Recent studies have looked at group reaction to
videotaped role play or screen play using
questionnaire and verbal report interviews based
on review of naturally occurring data.

11. Methods for collecting speech act data (cont’d)
• Multimethod approach:
Verbal report
Observation
interview
Perception Role play
Questionnaire
Discourse
completion task
Ideal cycle of data collection

12. Naturally occurring data
• Advantages:
1. Spontaneous
2. The data reflect what spkers say rather than what they think
they would say
3. The pskers are reacting to a natural situation
4. Real-world consequences
• Disadvantages :
1. May not occur often
2. Proficiency and gender are not easy to control
3. Time-consuming
4. Recording may be intrusive; note-taking rely on memory

13. Naturally occurring data versus discourse
completion task
• Hartford and Bardovi-Harlig (1992) study
compared data of the two from NS and NNS on
rejections of advice.
• Results indicate that DCT elicited a narrower
range of semantic formulas, fewer status-
provoking strategies, and none of the extended
negotiations found in the natural data.

14. Verbal report interview
• The production of speech • The perception of speech
acts: act:
1. interview on DCT answers (Motti, 1. Creese (1991) and Zuskin
1987) (1993) studies used prompt from
2. record think aloud process and naturally occurring data or
then interview (Robinson, 1991) videotaped materials for NNS
and NS to interpret
3. Cohen and Olshtain (1993)
recorded fifteen advanced EFL 2. Most studies aimed to find the
lrners’ role play with NS in six given cross cultural differences on
speech act situations followed by speech act perceptions
an interview.

15. Review of empirical studies: Apologies
• Research on production:
• Frescura (1993) coded data from role plays according
to a taxonomy comprising semantic formulas in 2
categories: hearer-supportive formulas and self-
supportive formulas.
Complianee choose to
Complainees choose to save their own face
support the face of the by…
complainer by …
1. Deny guilt
1. Admit their own guilt
2. Appeal to others’
2. Recognize others rights leniency
3. Offer compensation 3. Provide an explanation

16. Apologies (cont’d)
• Research on perception of apologies:
• Edmundson (1992) looked at the semantic formulas in
apologies, including the ways of interpretation, the cues
being used and the rules needed to interpretation.
Subjects use mostly prosodic cues (i.e. intonation and
findings word stress) to judge the sincerity of an apology. And
appropriateness of apologies was rated according to its
level of sincerity.
Women rely more on lexical cues to judge the sincerity; men
rely on both lexical, paralinguistic (nonverbal) and
prosodic cues equally.

17. Refusals
• Three follow-up studies (1987, 1990 &1991) investigated the refusals by NS
and Japanese ESL and EFL learners.
• Results indicated the (negative) transfer existed in both ESL and EFL
contexts.
• Excuses are common for both language, but American ones in English were
more specific.
• Verbal report in Robinson(1991) study showed how sociocultural factors
constraint Japanese women to say no since they are brought up to say yes.

18. Situation: Concert Ticket
Your classmate, Tony, plays in a jazz band. He
is going to have a concert soon and he asks you
to buy a ticket to it. You really do not want to go
because it will cost you $23 and you feel this is
too expensive.
• What are the appropriate refusals you would
say to your friend?

19. Rejections
• Hartford and Bardovi-Harling (1991, 1992, 1993)
conducted a series of studies on rejections of
advice and found that…
☺ NS are able to reject an adviser’s suggestion while maintaining
the status balance, while NNS are less predictably to do so.
☺ NNS used more semantic formulas to realize each rejection and
made more rejections; NS made more than twice as often as they
rejected advice.
1. Explanations
2. Alternatives
3. Rejections

20. Compliments
• Olshtain and Weinbach (1988) looked at 330 Israeli & 330 American
responses on DCT and found five forms of response:
1. reinforcing the compliment
2. simply thanking the complimenter
3. agree with it
4. justify it
5. express surprise
• Israelis accepted a compliment with greater difficulty than Americans.

21. Complaints
Strategies Remarks
combination
Indirect complaint •It’s ok. Don’t worry about it.
•It’s ok. Accidents happen.
•It’s ok. It’s not like you meant to do it.
Request for repair •Do/ Don’t do X
•Can (Could) I/you X…
•I’d like to X…
•I was wondering if I/you can (could) X…
• DeCapua (1988) study showed ♀made more requests for repairs
than♂
• Boxer (1993) study indicated that ♀ mostly commiserated with
indirect complaints; ♂were prone to contradict or to give advice.

22. Requests
• Fukushima and Iwata(1987) compared
strategies used in requesting and found
similar formulas in Japanese and English:
1.apology reason request,
2.address term request reason,
3.address term and/or apology reason
• Can you think of any examples?
• Are these orders similar to our way of requesting?

23. The acquisition of speech acts
• The classroom lacked
the conditions for the
whole range of
sociolinguistic needs
even though it
fostered interpersonal
and expressive
needs.

24. The teaching of speech acts
• The findings from a cross-cultural study by Cohen,
Olshtain, and Rosenstein (1986) showed that NNS
lacked sensitivity to certain sociolinguistic distinction
that NS make….
For example:
excuse me vs. sorry
really sorry vs. very sorry
• Acquisition of nativelike production by nonnative
speakers may take many years.

25. Implication for language teacher, the learner, and the
language classroom
1. Diagnostic assessment is often the first step which helps the
teacher determine the students’ level of awareness of speech
acts in general.
2. Model dialogues are a useful way to present students with
examples of the speech act in use.
3. The evaluation of a situation is a useful technique to further
reinforce the learners’ awareness of the factors affecting the
choice of semantic formulas.
4. Role-play activities are particularly suitable for practicing the use
of speech acts.
5. Feedback and discussion are useful activities for speech act
teaching because students need to talk about their perceptions &
awareness.

26. Quiz answer
1. PERLOCUTIONARY The teacher intends to affect your behavior.
Speech by which the speaker attempts to get someone else to do
something is a perlocutionary act.
2.PROPOSITIONAL You are making a reference to the band and its
performance at the club. Speech by which the speaker points out
the existence of something is a propositional act.
3. ILLOCUTIONARY You are inviting your friend to respond to your
question. Speech by which the speaker attempts to interact with
someone else is an illocutionary act.
4. UTTERANCE You are not trying to communicate anything to
anyone. When people make sounds without intending to convey
meaning, they engage in utterance.