Speech Acts Typologies Speech Acts
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of the words, the specific purpose that the speakers have in mind ”. Respectively,
Austin 1962:150 classifies illocutionary forces into five categories: 1 Verdictives which function to give verdict like estimating, reckoning, and
appraising, besides, it is essential to give a finding to something, both fact or qualities, which is for different reason hard to be certain about and usually done by
jury, arbitrator or umpire; 2 Exercitives or the exercise of the power, right or influence like appointing, voting, ordering, urging, advising, etc.; 3 Commisives
or typified by promising or otherwise undertaking which commit the hearer to do something, but also covers the declaration or the announcement that cost for
attention; 4 Behabitives which are very miscellaneous and have something to do with attitudes and social behavior like apologizing, congratulating, cursing, etc.; 5
Expositives that quite hard to define literally and describe how the utterances fit the course of an argument or conversation, or expository in general, like I reply, I
conclude, I assume, I postulate, etc. Furthermore, following Austin theory on Speech Acts, Searle in Levinson 1983:240 develops the theories and proposes
new theory on five taxonomies of speech acts, they are: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations.
The first type of speech acts are representative. These speech acts are assertions about a state of affairs in the world hence they are also called
‘assertives’ Leech, 1983:128. Thus, these kind of speech acts carry the values of ‘true’ and ‘false’ where their ‘point’ as to ‘fit’ and should match the world in order
to be true Mey, 2001:120. Further, Cutting 2002:17 argues that representative acts are the acts in which the words state what the speaker believes to be the case.
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Simply, dealing with representatives acts, the function of these acts are committing the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. Some of the examples are
concluding, describing, claiming, hypothesizing, insisting, predicting, etc. The second type of speech acts are directives. Mey 2001:120 mentions as
the name says, these speech acts embody an effort on the part of the speaker to get the hearer to do something or to ‘direct’ him or her towards some goal of the
speaker’s, mostly. He adds as to ‘fit’ that these speech acts represent, there is also a clear ‘direction’ in the technical sense of this term from world to words the world
is adapted to the uttered words. On the other hand, the directives differ in force: from pious wish to peremptory, harsh order 121. In a more simple explanation,
directives speech acts can be used to express attempts of speaker to get the addressee to do something based on speaker’s intention or desire. For instance:
requesting, ordering, suggesting, forbidding, begging, etc. The third type of speech acts are commissives. Just like directives,
commisives operate a change in the world by means of creating an obligation, however, this obligation is created in the speaker, not the hearer like in directives
Mey, 2001:121. Therefore, the commisives acts create a promise in which the speaker commit himselfherself to do some future course of action such as
promising, swearing, threatening, offering, etc. The fourth type of speech acts are expressives. According to Mey
2001:121, these speech acts express an inner state of speaker where the expression is essentially subjective and tells us nothing about the world. Salgado 2011:10
suggests expressives acts as the acts where the speaker expresses hisher PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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psychological state in relation to a particular state or affairs. In short, we may see that these kind of speech acts are acts that state or express what the speaker feels
like apologizing, praising, congratulating, regretting, thanking, condoling, greeting, and so forth.
The fifth one are declarations. Searle 1979:37 sees declarations bring about some alternation in the status or condition of the referred to object or objects
solely by virtue of the fact that the declaration has been successfully performed. Besides, Cutting 2002:17 gives his idea that declarations are words and
expressions that change the world by their very utterances. One important thing is that after the declaration is made, there is a state of change to objects because of the
speaker’s utterances. For example: marrying, declaring war, christening, firing, arresting, blessing, etc.
Furthermore, based on the elaboration above, it can be inferred that speech acts enable the structure to convey function to carry the meaning of the utterances.
One of the easiest approaches in distinguishing types of speech acts is by made on the basis of the relationship between the structure and the function. Referring to
Searle’s taxonomies, the request acts belongs to directive act where the main function of this act is to
express the speaker’s desire or intention to get the hearer or the interpreter to do or not to do something. In fact, dealing with the directive
function, the ability to perform speech acts appropriately in social contexts demonstrates the speaker’s communicative competence. Thus, to minimize the
face-threatening effects on the addressee, the speaker sometimes benefits some modifications and strategies to create a more positive feedback.
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