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2.6.1 The Four Basic Speech Functions
The four basic speech functions can be shown as in the following: 1.
Offer The speaker gives the hearer some goods or some services and the speaker
inherently inviting the hearer to receive those goods and services. Example:
“Would you like to help me?”
2. Command
The speaker demands the hearer some goods or some services and the hearer are thereby invited to give that service or provide the goods.
Example:
“Go ahead”
3. Statement
The speaker gives information to hearer, and invites the hearer to receive that information.
Example
: “You have not ever done before on TV”.
4. Question
The speaker demands the hearer some information and the hearer are thereby invited to give that service or provide the goods.
A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information
, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This
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information is provided with an answer
. Questions are normally put or asked using interrogative
sentences .
Example:
“Do you know what I mean?”
By cross- classifying thee two dimensions of “speech role” and
“commodity”, we can come up with the four basic “moves” we can make to get a dialogue see table 2.1.
Table 2.2 Speech Roles and Commodities Exchanged Speech role
Commodity Exchanged Information
Goods and services
Giving Statement
Offer Demanding
Question Command
Source: Halliday 1985: 69 Halliday in Thompson 1997:40 says that we need to include
„commodity‟ that is being exchanged: what he calls „good-and-service‟ and „information‟. We then end up with four basic speech roles: giving
information, demanding information, giving good-and-service and demanding good-and-service. We use the functions are: statement, question, offer, and
command. In addition, Halliday in Egins 1997: 182 captures this
interactivity by pairing each of the four basic initiating speech functions with some expected responses, which may or may not be verbalized.
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2.6.2 The Speech Function Responses
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