XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

A speech act is a minimal unit of speech activity that is distinguished and studied in the theory of speech acts-the teaching that is the most important component of linguistic pragmatics.

Since a speech act is a type of action, its analysis uses essentially the same categories that are necessary to characterize and evaluate any action: subject, purpose, method, tool, means, result, conditions, success, etc. The subject of a speech act - the speaker makes a statement, as a rule, designed for the perception of its addressee - the listener. The utterance acts both as a product of a speech act and as a tool for achieving a certain goal. Depending on the circumstances or conditions in which the speech act is performed, it may either achieve the goal and thus be successful, or it may not achieve it. To be successful, the speech act must at least be appropriate. Otherwise, the speaker is waiting for a communicative failure, or a communicative failure.

The theory of speech acts arose and was formed within the framework of linguistic philosophy, primarily in the works of representatives of the Oxford school (J. Austin, P. Strawson) and close philosophers (J. Searle and others). The creator of the theory of speech acts was the English philosopher J. R. R. Tolkien. Austin. He presented the main ideas of the new theory in lectures given at Harvard University in 1955. In 1962, they were published in a separate book called "How to do things with words" (Oxford; in Russian translation "Word as Action"). Drawing attention to a very specific phenomenon, which he called a performative utterance, Austin identified the property of performativity and further generalized it for all utterances. He considered the concept of speech act and divided it into three entities: locative, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Austin and his followers focused on the illocutionary act.

The purpose of this work is to study the classical theory of speech acts, as well as to consider the problems, opportunities and prospects of its development.

Basic concepts of the classical theory of speech acts

In TRA, the minimum unit of speech activity is the speech act. The speech act is both locative, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. J. Austin introduces a distinction between three levels of speech acts. Locative is any speech act. An illocutionary act is a speech act that is performed with some intention. A perlocutionary act is a speech act in which the listener understands the speaker's intentions and responds correctly.

When speaking, the speaker performs a locative act: he combines words and sounds that are associated with a certain semantic content. An illocutionary act is also performed: the speaker asks a question in order for the addressee to understand his intentions. And, finally, if this statement does not contain any hidden intentions, and the addressee catches these intentions and reacts accordingly, in this case, a perlocutionary act is committed. In other words, subject B tells subject A to go close the door. Illocutionary act of the order will have perlocutionary effect if And will overpower yourself and go to close the door. The perlocutionary effect is usually accompanied by various psychilogical and cognitive effects (feelings of humiliation, irritation, or satisfaction).

One of the problems of TRA is the problem of classification of illocutionary acts. J. Serle divides illocutionary acts into 5 groups:

Directives. They are aimed at the fact that the speaker wants to force the listener to do something (order, request, order).

Commissaries. These are speech acts in which the speaker undertakes to take any action in the future, to comply with certain limits of behavior (letter of guarantee, contract, oath, promise, bet).

Representatives. Their function is to represent some (true or false, correct or incorrect) state of affairs (diagnosis, statement, description, prediction, message, statement).

Expressives. Their purpose is to express the speaker's mental state (discontent, admiration, agreement, gratitude, apology).

Declaratives. They make changes to the status of the specified objects already due to the success of the declaration. For example: "You're fired!"

In order for an illocutionary act to be executed, certain success conditions are necessary. For example, consider the case of the illocutionary act of a sentence. According to J. Searle, to offer something, you need to have it at your disposal. If this condition is not met, we are dealing with the so-called "Gascon Proposal". An example of this phenomenon is seen in one of the scenes of L. Carroll's work " Alice in Wonderland»:

"Wine, maybe?" The March Rabbit kindly offered.

Alice looked around the table, but saw nothing on it but tea.

"I don't see any wine," she said.

- And he's not here, ' replied the Rabbit.

"In that case, it wasn't very polite to offer it to me," Alice said indignantly.

In the example, an act of suggestion was made, but it had no chance of getting a positive result. The reason for this was the failure to comply with the so-called "success conditions" of the speech act. Compliance with these conditions is also mandatory in order for an illocutionary act to have a chance of becoming perlocutionary.

J. Searle highlights the general conditions for the success of all speech acts. These include:

the speaker and listener are proficient in the given language;

both act consciously;

the speaker does not act under duress or threat;

both have no physical barriers to communication, such as deafness, aphasia, or laryngitis;

both do not play a role in the play and do not speak in jest.

At the same time, it is noted that there are "success conditions" that are relevant only in relation to certain types of illocutionary acts. In order to successfully perform speech acts, such as asserting, ordering, responding, or apologizing, it is necessary that the speaker's speech has sufficient persuasiveness and power. In addition, it is necessary that the speaker has the "right" to order or respond. These commonly accepted conditions apply to both the "dominant" and the one being dominated. For example, the warden in a prison has sufficient authority over the prisoner not to ask permission to enter, and the prisoner, in turn, does not have the right to give an order to the warden.

Another condition for the success of a speech act is the condition of sincerity. You can sincerely affirm and promise, order (the person giving the order sincerely wants to see it executed); the question can also be sincere (the questioner sincerely wants to have the information he is asking about). This condition does not mean that the listener always thinks about the truth of his statement, or that he always intends to keep his promises.

So, in TSA, a speech act is a statement that represents an act of a corresponding action (to offer, promise, order, etc.). A speech act in TSA is represented as a simultaneous locative, illocutionary, and perlocutionary act. In order for a speech act to take place, a number of conditions are necessary. The founders of TRA identified the conditions of success common to all illocutionary acts.

Critique of Speech Act Theory by Michel Rosaldo

Representatives of linguistic anthropology have noticed that TRArpe is essentially based on examples from the English-speaking cultural tradition, which is assigned a universal status. One of the most significant critics of the theory of Austin and Serle was the famous French anthropologist Michel Rosaldo, who conducted research in the Philippines, observing the Ha Ilongot tribe. She argued that with the help of language, people demonstrate an understanding of their own unique way of being in the world, and its use in communication expresses the meaning of a particular social system. This means that any classification of speech acts in society should consider them as part of cultural practices that create a certain type of social order. Any analysis of speech acts must be based on information about people's feelings, thoughts, and beliefs about how their world is organized.

Three main postulates of the TSA are criticized:

* emphasis on "truth" and" verification " expressed in the formulation of the conditions of sincerity;

* special attention to the speaker's intentions in the process of communication when interpreting speech acts;

* The theory of personality implicitly contained in the Austin and Searle model.

Serle argues that the most important condition for the success of numerous speech acts (congratulations, affirmations, promises, etc.) is the sincerity of the person who utters it. Rozal'do shows that such sincerity is not peculiar to elongatum. For example, in the Ilongot language, correspondences to assertive verbs of the English language (saying, speaking, giving news) are found in rhetorical forms of oratory during debates. However, they are related to the establishment of social relations, and not to the experience of the truth of any statements. Rosaldo notes: "The Ilongots use negation and affirmation in discourse as a means of establishing role interaction." Among the Ilongots, at the time of the promise, the willingness to perform an action in the future is separated from the intention to actually perform it. For example, there are ritual dances in which participants swear a promise to fight their opponents in the future with no guarantees of its fulfillment.

Also, the French anthropologist believes that TSA practically does not consider the context of interpersonal interaction. For Ilongots, social relationships are a more important part of communication than individual intentions. They are more concerned with ways to maintain social interactions than with the realization of any psychological motives and personal desires. When Michelle was angry with people who had promised and subsequently refused to work with her, they were not going to apologize to her or show any regret for what had happened. They gave the woman gifts that would soften her anger. The Ilongots did not think at all about the psychological state of the participants in the described situation. All they wanted at this point was to establish control over the possible consequences of the situation caused by the anthropologist's reaction. They do not blame themselves for what happened, but external spirits, they do not have a developed sense of personal responsibility. According to Rosaldo, the Ilongots have a completely different theory of personality.

The French anthropologist argues that the concept of "social factor" is culturally conditioned, not universal. She believes that Searle's sincerity and intentionality correspond to the Western ideal of human activity, which focuses on the psychological state, and on the social sphere. The main assumption of Western TRA is that the "inner Self is continuous over time" and is a fluid flow of experiences in which there are causal relationships between experiences, in which one experience motivates the others. Only by accepting such a premise can we, in relation to the speaker, reason about his sincerity, responsibility and intentionality.

Prospects and possibilities of applying the theory of speech acts (on the example of forensic linguistics expertise)

One of the most important requirements in the theory and practice of legal proceedings to the linguistic expert opinion is scientific validity, which "assumes scientific, logical and methodological literacy of the conducted research and presentation of its results". Scientific validity, in turn, is largely determined by the adequacy of the methods and techniques used, based on certain theoretical provisions of linguistic science. Is it often the "right" choice of linguistic theory as a methodological one? the basics of the study gives the desired results? result.

So, among the most popular categories of requests for conducting linguistic research? examination are queries about the protection of honor and dignity of the client, including the qualification of such concepts as "negative information", "insult", "negative evaluation", "developing a negative image"; about the presence of pronounced verbal signs of extremist activity, including skills such terms as "inciting enmity or hatred or call for violent some steps"; according to the forms of expression which information - "statement", "opinion", "a value judgment".

Indeed, the linguist does not analyze the semantics of words, but the actions that are performed with the help of words. And it is actions (whether it is belittling honor and dignity, insult, slander), and not words themselves, that are subject to the jurisdiction of the court.

Does the theory of speech acts help to classify verbal acts differences in the target setting, intentionality.

This theory reasonably and consistently reveals the signs, reveals the essence of such speech categories as statement, assessment, promise, appeal, opinion, as well as tort ("language of enmity"). The allocation of this type of speech acts allows us to use the classification of J. Searle in the judicial linguistic expertise in cases of protection of honor, dignity, business? reputation, insult, slander, etc.

Based on the structure of the speech act, derived by J. In a controversial statement presented to a linguist-expert, it is possible to distinguish the intention of the statement and the explicit and hidden goals of the addressee.

The theory of speech acts makes it possible to distinguish between factual judgments and assessments, which is necessary in jurisprudence to clarify the category of truth / falsity. Fair adjudication also depends on this.

Conclusion

The theory of speech acts arose and was formed within the framework of linguistic philosophy, primarily in the works of representatives of the Oxford school (J. Austin, P. Strawson) and close philosophers (J. Searle and others). The creator of the theory of speech acts was the English philosopher J. R. R. Tolkien. Austin. He presented the main ideas of the new theory in lectures given at Harvard University in 1955. In 1962, they were published in a separate book called "How to do things with words" (Oxford; in Russian translation "Word as Action"). Drawing attention to a very specific phenomenon, which he called a performative utterance, Austin identified the property of performativity and further generalized it for all utterances. He considered the concept of speech act and divided it into three entities: locative, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Austin and his followers focused on the illocutionary act.

In TRA, a speech act is a statement that presupposes the act of a corresponding action (to offer, promise, order, etc.). A speech act in TRA is represented as a simultaneous locative, illocutionary, and perlocutionary act. In order for a speech act to take place, a number of conditions are necessary. The founders of TRA identified the conditions of success common to all illocutionary acts.

In the 1980s, TRA was criticized by the French anthropologist Michel Rosaldo. The critical analysis of TRA by linguistic anthropology clearly demonstrates the difference in paradigms, it opens the way to a productive dialogue of various approaches to the problem of "language as an action". The involvement of TRA in such a dialogue allows us to compare popular philosophical theory with alternative positions and points of view. Despite the difference in approaches, all of them, taken together, make it possible to significantly advance in the study of language as a product of a cultural tool. The ethnographic program is based on ideas induced by empirical studies of individual cultural communities, and the methodology of conversationalism is focused on the analysis of sequences of everyday spontaneous conversation between people.

Critical reinterpretation and refinement of the TRA further reveals the complexity of the problem of interpreting human speech behavior. However, the realization and acceptance of the complexity and complexity of the issue does not entail the loss of hope for its deeper understanding.

Despite this, TRA has opportunities and prospects for development and application in various professional fields. An example of such a field can serve as a forensic linguistic examination. The theory of speech acts makes it possible to distinguish between factual judgments and assessments, which is necessary in jurisprudence to clarify the category of truth / falsity.

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