pragmatics is a study of contextual meaning which involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how the context influences what is said.
Being more detail, Griffiths 2006:1 states that pragmatics is concerned with the “toolkit” for meaning: knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and
in its patterns for building more elaborate meanings in meaningful communication. In other words, pragmatics is about the interaction of semantic knowledge related to the
world, as well as contexts of use. Meanwhile, according to Leech 1983:10, pragmatics can be defined as the study of how utterances have meanings in situation.
Regarding the definitions and concept of pragmatics as mentioned above, pragmatics studies the meaning of utterances in relation to the context of language
which involves how speakers can produce the best utterance to deliver their intention of the speaker`s utterances.
2. Speech Acts
a. The Definition of Speech Act
Pragmatically, an action that is done through language can be studied under the labels of speech act. Yule 1996:47 uses the term speech act to refer to the actions,
which are performed via utterances. For example, when a boss says, “You are fired”,
hisher words constitute the act of firing an employee. In this example, the boss is performing an act via utterance. It means the words can change someone`s status
Mey, 1994:112.
Language is also full of implicit meanings. Sometimes when a speaker utters something, heshe does not just utter the utterance, but the speaker means something
behind it. One can perform three speech acts simultaneously such as locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. Locutionary act has to do with the utterance
of a sentence which determine sense and reference. Illocutionary act deals with the naming of statement, offers, promises, etc. Then, perlocutionary act deals with the
bringing about of effects on the audience by uttering the sentence Levinson, 1983:236.
The idea proposed by Levinson is also in line with Griffith. Griffith 2006: 17 states that speech act does not refer simply to the act of speaking, but to the whole
communicative situation, including context of the utterance including the situation in which the discourse occurs, the participants and any preceding verbal or physical
interaction and paralinguistic features which may contribute to the meaning of the interaction. Therefore, in order for a speech act to be well formed, certain
circumstances must be obtained. These circumstances are known as felicity or appropriacy conditions. Austin via Cutting 2002: 18 argues that felicity conditions
are the context and roles of participants, which must be recognized by all parties. Moreover, the action must be carried out completely and the persons must have the
right intentions, for example, “I sentence you to five months in prison.” In this sentence, the performance will be infelicitous or inappropriate if the speaker is not a
specific person in a special context in this case, a judge in a courtroom.
