SlideShare ist ein Scribd-Unternehmen logo
1 von 17
Downloaden Sie, um offline zu lesen
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008




                              Speech Act Theory:

          Benefits and Insights in English
                              Language Teaching


Table of Contents

Introduction                                                                                                         2
  A Brief Description of Speech Act Theory                                                                           3
     The Cross-Cultural Question                                                                                     4
  Putting Theory into Practice                                                                                       6
  Appropriateness                                                                                                    8

Possible Realisations and Applications within English Language Teaching                                              9
  Teaching Materials & Strategies                                                                                    9

Conclusion                                                                                                          11
     Bibliography                                                                                                   12




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 1
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008



Introduction


We have learned a great deal about the way we use and acquire language, particularly
over the past fifty years or so. Much of this knowledge of language and the implications
for L2 learning has been advanced through research based on pragmatic theories. One
such example is speech act theory, which is of great importance and has developed a
strong bank of research and literature. The implications for English Language Teaching
have been debated over and looked into by experts from a variety of fields, from cultural
anthropologists to applied linguists and SLA researchers (Blum-Kulka, House and
Kasper 1989: 2). This essay will examine the classroom applications of the theory by first
exploring the key concepts and how they might facilitate English learning. I will look
closely at the benefits and limitations of speech act theory in relation to ELT pedagogy
and attempt to clarify speech acts as they are discussed in empirical research and how this
is connected with speech act theory.


First I will give a brief explanation and description of speech act theory, and in doing so
attempt to clarify what is by now rather a dispersed set of ideas. Speech acts have been
approached from many angles within the study of language and the terminology adapted
for various author’s purposes. Kasper and Blum-Kulka refer to “thanking, apologizing,
complaining, requesting and correcting” (1993: 59) as speech acts, but there are “There
are literally hundreds of speech acts” (Bardovi-Harlig et al 1989). For this reason it is
important to clearly explain what we mean by speech acts in reference to ELT. My
description will necessarily be brief as defining speech acts has been the topic of many
entire books (for example Searle’s Speech Acts 1969). During this description we will
see that speech acts are closely linked with sociolinguistics. We will examine this idea
further and the implications for ELT in the second part of the essay.


Following the brief description we will look at the empirical research into cross-cultural
speech acts and how instruction could aid learners to become more successful speakers of
English. At the same time we will briefly examine one of the major problems with this


Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 2
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

idea; the use of the term “appropriateness” when looking at student responses and
deciding how we define the term and against what existing models.


In the second part I will examine some recent EFL materials and strategies in relation to
the presentation of speech acts. Here we will examine again the connection with
sociolinguistics. We will also review the research mentioned in the first section and see if
the current trend in materials is in line with the research findings.



A Brief Description of Speech Act Theory


Speech act theory was developed from a notion first put forward by J.L Austin in his
posthumous paper How to Do Things with Words (1962).                                        Austin was a language
philosopher and there were obvious connections between his work and the field of
linguistics. Later John Searle1 further expanded on the theory, most significantly with
Speech Acts: An Essay In The Philosophy Of Language (1969) and A Classification Of
Illocutionary Acts (1976). Subsequently speech act theory was eagerly taken up by
applied linguists because of the insights it provided into the way we use language for
every-day purposes. The implications for ELT have been developed further by
researchers and teachers such as Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, Blum-Kulka & Kasper,
Olshtain & Cohen, Schmidt & Richards and Wolfson.


There are many areas to speech act theory, but a succinct explanation is provided by
Cohen. He approaches Speech act theory from the context of Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) and states that “[according to Austin] utterances have three kinds of
meaning” (Cohen 1996: 384) those being Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary.


1
  Searle’s contribution was to further define speech acts and to categorise them. His five classifications
were Representatives, Directives, Commisives, Expressives and Declaratives. (Searle, 1976 cited in
Schmidt, R. & Richards, C. (1980) Speech Acts and Second Language Learning in Journal of Applied
Linguistics 1980 I(2):129-157; doi:10.1093/applin/I.2.129). There have been additions to this list and many
other insights. The focus of this essay is on the way meaning is passed from speaker to hearer and how
speech acts are interpreted, so it is beyond the scope of this essay to further explain in detail such ideas as
“performative” verbs (Austin 1962:65) and I will not go into the classification of different types of speech
acts. For the purposes of this essay I will focus purely on the three types of meaning an utterance has.

Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 3
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

Very simply, locutionary meaning is the actual or literal meaning of the words uttered.
For example, in saying “It’s raining” I am commenting on the weather and stating that
water is falling from (clouds in) the sky. Illocutionary meaning is the “social function”
(Ibid) of the words or the way they are intended to be understood. For example “It’s
raining” may actually be a round-about way of saying “I don’t feel like going to the zoo
today.” or I may intend to invite you to consider changing your plans about going out. If
this is my intention I am performing an Indirect Speech Act (Austin 1962 & Searle 1975)
because what I mean and what I say are reliant on the hearer interpreting what I wish to
communicate. The Perlocutionary meaning or Perlocutionary Force (Austin 1962) is the
effect or the aim of the utterance. To continue the example above the Perlocutionary
force of the utterance would possibly be that we decide to stay in and drink hot chocolate
rather than going out in the rain. If doing so was my intended or desired outcome from
the words the perlocutionary force (result or aim) matches the illocutionary meaning
(intention). This may not always be the case, which has been termed as Perlocutionary
failure (Leech, 1983: 204–5)



The Cross-Cultural Question


Speech acts are a good example of a language theory with very practical applications for
language teaching, not to mention a large bank of empirical research examining this.
However, speech act theory and language teaching becomes more challenging when we
look at cross-cultural pragmatics. The Cross Cultural Speech Act Research Project
(CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989) was one of the first and best known
studies which focused on L1 and L2 speakers of seven languages and the disparity of
responses when performing the speech acts of requests and apologies (1989: 11). The
study looked at variables such as social distance and dominance (Wolfson, Marmor and
Jones, 1989: 191). The findings were conclusive that even advanced speakers of a
language can make sociolinguistic errors and that L2 speakers responses are often quite
different from those of L1 speakers. In addition to this there is general agreement that
“sociolinguistic errors are typically treated as breaches of etiquette” (Boxer & Pickering


Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 4
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

1993: 56). This is made more acute if the speaker has an advanced level of grammar or
vocabulary but not of, what Bachman (1990) terms, “sociolinguistic competence” as part
of “communicative competence.” These errors are potentially more serious than
grammatical errors (Crandall & Basturkmen 2004: 38)


From this it has been noted that the explicit teaching of pragmatics would be of great
benefit to language learners because they often do not simply acquire sociolinguistic
competence subliminally by being around the target language, or even being in the target
culture. (Schmidt, 1993: 25-6) This has particular implications for EFL where students
may be quite distant from the target culture. Schmidt (Ibid) notes that there is no
conclusive evidence for subliminal language learning. Cohen also argues the need for
explicit teaching and notes from his own research that learners can apply the knowledge
from speech act training very quickly. He makes the point that research should be
conducted in order to address what contribution to learners’ competence we are making
“by explicitly teaching [students] some of the finely tuned speech act behaviour that is
not simply acquired over time... [L]earners do not necessarily have an adequate
awareness of what is involved in complex speech behaviour.”


While the research findings of the CCSARP and other cross-cultural studies are very
interesting, the focus of this essay is specific to ELT and thus such differences serve only
to highlight the need for explicit sociolinguistic speech act instruction in English. Since
there is a disparity between the responses of L1 and L2 speakers of English the explicit
teaching of illocutionary meaning and the norms for conducting certain types of speech
acts has value for students. This is, of course, if we assume the learners wish to fit in and
to be accepted within the target culture. This does, however, bring us to a limitation with
the theory. Often cultural disparities exist between L1 speakers where the target culture is
not the same. An obvious example is British and American English. For example, a study
by Creese (1991) discovered disparities between American and British speakers of
English in dealing with compliments. In addition the work of Gumperz (1982) looked at
disparities between British-English and Indian-English speakers when performing speech
acts in institutional settings. This has huge implications not just for TESOL but also


Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 5
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

English as a Global Language and brings us again to the limitations of “appropriateness”
which we will discuss later in this essay.


In the next section I will look at the way speech act theory has been interpreted into
pedagogy and how materials writers and applied linguists view the usefulness of an
understanding of what they call speech acts.




Putting Theory into Practice




Wolfson (1989: 56-8) writes about “the philosophic tradition” in her book Perspectives
and discusses the implications of speech act theory for teaching sociolinguistics within
TESOL. Wolfson seems to dismiss the usefulness of such pragmatic theory. She quotes
Cicourel (1980) and lists his “four2 major limitations of speech act theory, apart from its
inability to account for data from other cultures” (Wolfson, 1989: 58). She attacks the
universality of the theory by listing two tightly contained languages with apparently very
different rules of speaking to English. She quotes Keenan, a linguistic anthropologist, on
Malagasy and “the Indians of the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon” (attributed to the
research of Hymes, 1975). These differences in cultural norms may reduce speech act
theory’s standing as a universally applicable theory to language, but in my view they
certainly strengthen the position for teaching them within EFL or ESOL. Wolfson fails to
point this out in this essay, however, her research into speech acts has certainly helped to


2
  The limitations are that analysis is conducted from small fragments or exchanges, they are frequently out
of context, that more than one message might be present within any given speech act and that they “rely on
idealized conditions” (Cicourel 1980:9-10 in Wolfson, N (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL.
New York: Newbury House Publishers). I would argue that Even when a given speech act may fall into two
categories this is surely part of the illocutionary meaning of the act. For example if I say “It’s raining” and
wish to stay indoors I have not performed two speech acts. I have made a declarative about the weather
with the illocutionary meaning of expressing reluctance to go out or giving the hearer the chance to re-
adjust our plans.

Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 6
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

progress the field in ELT (see for example Rules of Speaking 19833). Wolfson clearly
wishes to make a distinction between speech act theory and the teaching of speech acts.


Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford point out that theories concerned with teaching and learning
are “of necessity culturally formed and hence unlikely to be shared when teacher and
students have different backgrounds” (1997: 129) Again, while this takes credibility away
from the universality of speech act theory it lends usefulness to the explicit teaching of
speech acts and illocutionary meaning within ELT.


If learners are to be successful in acquiring a language they must have a certain degree of
sociolinguistic competence (Bachman 1990) or they are unlikely to be able to use the
language (in this case English) to great effect as they will be unable to communicate their
real intentions (perlocutionary force) without involving a loss of face.


In support of overtly teaching illocutionary force and meaning Schmidt (1993: 25-26)
discusses the importance of making learners overtly aware of the meaning or of the
functions of certain speech acts. He talks of “consciousness perception” and later lists
examples from his own well documented acquisition of Portuguese in which he observed
or was told how to end a phone. After instruction he was able to directly utilise this
knowledge to help him in situations where he had previously felt inadequately equipped
to do so (Ibid: 29). Cohen (1996: 411) restates the conclusions of empirical research into
speech acts:


          [F]ormal classroom instruction concerning the social rules of a language can assist learners in
          communicating more appropriately with native speakers outside the classroom.



For these reasons I agree wholeheartedly with Widdowson (2003: 04) that theory and
pedagogic application in ELT should not be separated too much. Students may not need
to know details of the theory, but that does not mean the theory is to be separated from
the methodology. This is merely a very short overview of some of the well known

3
 Wolfson, N. (1983) Rules of Speaking In Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983) Language and
Communication New York: Longman Publishing

Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 7
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

research and literature and there are many more detailed discussions on the topic. I agree
with Cohen and Schmidt that speech acts and especially the illocutionary meaning behind
them, can greatly assist language learners in becoming more adept as speakers and avoid
them losing face. Within ELT this will contribute to the students’ confidence which I
believe will enable them to further improve as speakers in English.

Appropriateness


In this essay I am looking at ELT pedagogy and thus a discussion around non-native
institutionalized varies (NNIVE) of English is important. In this context I agree that
“appropriate speech behaviour will rely heavily on those societies' own rules.” (Boxer &
Pickering 1993: 45) When we talk about fitting in or being accepted in a culture, to
whom are we giving the ultimate right to choose “appropriateness 4” in English? Are we
assuming that teachers (or native speakers) are correct in their use of speech acts when
performing locutionary and illocutionary acts? Doing so is dangerous because
“[s]ociolinguistic research has repeatedly demonstrated the inadequacy of native speaker
intuitions.” (Wolfson, Marmor & Jones 1989: 181) While I am not denying the
limitations of speech act theory I would still point out that there needs to be a baseline
from which to approach the subject in the EFL or ESOL classroom. However, problems
occur in defining such a baseline and there is still a need for research into this area. While
it is important to be aware of this limitation we can sidestep the issue by alerting learners
to these issues and encouraging them to make their own observations. The idea of
“learner as researcher” (Ellis 1998) is very useful here.


          Students may be asked to focus on specific speech acts by gathering examples themselves.
          (Bardovi-Hartlig et al 1989: 13)



Thus we ask students to learn to make their own choices based on observations of what is
“appropriate.”

4
 Canale presents a framework for communicative objectives which draws on the work of Munby (1978)
and Canale & Swain (1979) which was created for the Ontario Ministry of Education for French as a
Second Language at elementary and secondary schools. Twice under the heading of Sociolinguistic
competence the word “appropriate” is used with no further expansion.

Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 8
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

Possible Realisations and Applications within English Language
Teaching


As teachers we merely wish to facilitate in our learners the ability to be understood in
English and to use it to achieve their desired aims. We want them to be aware that there
are levels of meaning and to encourage and facilitate them to get a deeper knowledge of
the language. In teaching speech acts we are preparing our students for situations which
commonly occur and providing them with the functional language and sociolinguistic
skills to do so effectively and without a loss of face.

Teaching Materials & Strategies


McConachy (2007) has noted several major EFL course books and their limitations in the
presentation of dialogues which contain speech acts. For example, in New Interchange
(Richards, Hull & Proctor 1998) there is a dialogue between two friends which has no
contextual information and sociolinguistic analysis. (see appendix one for sample
dialogue) The dialogue presents the speech act of suggesting but without any contextual
information. McConachy presents ways that the teachers themselves might add to such
dialogues by simply asking questions about the speakers’ relation to each other and
asking students to guess at any illocutionary information. In doing so we invite the
students to come to their own conclusions and ignite in them an awareness of
illocutionary meaning.


Boxer and Pickering (1993) reviewed seven textbooks (four US English and three UK)
and concluded that “with few exceptions” (Ibid: 46) the books deal with direct speech
acts (in this case complaints) rather than indirect. From this we can deduce a lack of
focus on illocutionary meaning and with it a failure to incorporate sociolinguistic
competence within the texts.


For my own research I looked at New English File (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C
2008) because it has “real life” situations called Practical English and Social English.


Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 9
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

The situational context between characters is explicit and the characters are the same
throughout the level. Their relationship builds on each previous exchange, thus there is an
idea of development. Although these dialogues are not real or based on real data the
sociocultural development is a step forward in terms of speech acts and the representation
of sociolinguistic information. Furthermore, the exercises do make some attempt to take
advantage of this (see appendix two). There is also an accompanying website, however
here there is no contextual information to language presentation. The focus is on syntactic
relations between words and structures and when we look under a section such as
Colloquial English there is no organizing principle related to speech act presentation.


I did find some useful materials on onestopenglish.com which focus on speech acts and
appropriate responses (appendix three). Here students are asked to choose the most
appropriate response following a lesson on “Language Functions.” This worksheet is one
of the few I have come across that could be said to explicitly attempt to teach speech acts.


Following on from this, Boxer and Pickering (1993: 53-6) also prepared some of their
own materials (appendix four) which present speech acts within a sociolinguistic context.
There is contextual information followed by a dialogue and finally an explanation of the
illocutionary meaning or sometimes the intention or reason for the dialogue. However,
this level of details would not be suitable across all levels, particularly lower level
learners. On this front I agree with McConachy (2007: 9) when he suggests that teachers
will need to develop their own sociocultural awareness in order to facilitate learners.


From a review of the literature and classroom materials it seems that speech acts are
slowly finding their way into classroom materials, but much is still left in the hands of the
teachers to exploit the potential of presented speech acts and dialogues. Again the idea is
to encourage the “learner as researcher” (Bardovi-Harlig et al, 1989) approach and
facilitate students to make their own observations.




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 10
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008




Conclusion


The most practical implications of speech act theory are to be found in teaching the idea
that what we mean and what we say may not always be the same. A very common
example is the idea that an utterance such as “Could you pass the salt?5” is a request
rather than an interrogative about ability. (Fraser 1983: 29) In the same way, when we
say “Must you be so insensitive?” this is more likely to be seen as a rebuke rather than a
question regarding obligation as it would appear from a purely bottom-up, syntactic view.
Additionally, “Do you like hospital food?” is actually a threat rather than a question.


In Cohen’s (and my own) understanding of speech acts they boil down to communicative
intentions in a language that are proven to be of use to EFL or ESL learners because they
provide an easy to follow insight into pragmatics and also because they can be utilised
when learners are required to negotiate meaning in a certain context. Learners often
express difficulty when closing a conversation. (Schmidt 1993: 29) and it is often useful
for them to know how to wind-down or close a discussion by using devices such as
“well…” to indicate to the other participant that they wish to leave. Another useful device
would be using a phrase like “I’d better let you get back” for saving face of both parties.
In teaching an utterance like the aforementioned we are teaching speech acts. Speech act
theory needs to be broken down into simple terms again in order to be of use to language
learners and that has been the current trend, but this does not mean it is to be separated
from the theory.


Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford (1997: 114) note that the difference between speech acts and
language functions is “not always observed in language pedagogy” although the two have
a “distinct difference.” They do not however explicitly explain the difference. I would
disagree with that point because I cannot see a “distinct difference” between speech acts
and language functions. The study of speech acts originates from the idea that “minimal

5
    This is also Searle’s famous example (1969)

Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 11
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

units of human communication ...[are the] performance of certain kinds of acts, such as
making statements, asking questions, giving directions, apologizing, thanking and so on.”
(Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989: 2) In my understanding those are functions within a
language. So then, speech act theory has lead to the idea of teaching speech acts or
functional units of language to students with the background idea of an understanding of
possible indirect or illocutionary meaning ever present and requiring overt instruction.


While current materials do not always reflect this there is a growing trend towards
presenting speech acts with contextual information about social status or the relationship
between the participants of a dialogue. It is then for the teacher to explain or preferably
facilitate the noticing of speech acts and the sociolinguistic norms surrounding them. The
best way to teach speech acts in my view is to make our students more aware of such
pragmatic variables and to provide them with the information they need to make their
own observations. In doing so we can escape the limitations of “appropriateness” and
allow our learners to work out for themselves the best way to perform a speech act in any
given situation.


                                                                                                      (3,456 Words)

Bibliography


Austin, J.L (1962) How To Do Things With Words in Jarworski, A. and Coupland, N.
(eds.) 1999 The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge


Bachman, Lyle F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing Oxford Applied
Linguistics Series: Oxford University Press


Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Hartford, B. (eds.) (1997) Beyond Methods: Components of Second
Language Teacher Education McGraw Hill




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 12
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

Bardovi-Harlig, K. Hartford, B.A.S, Mahan-Taylor, R. Morgan, M.J. & Reynolds, D.W.
(1989) Developing Pragmatic Awareness: Closing the Conversation in ELT Journal 45/1
January 1991. Oxford University Press


Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper (eds.) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and
Apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp


Boxer, D. & Pickering, L. (1993) Problems in the Presentation of Speech Acts in ELT
Materials: The Case for Complaints in ELT Journal 49/1 January 1995. Oxford
University Press


Canale, M. (1983) From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language
Pedagogy in Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983) Language and Communication
New York: Longman Publishing


Cohen, A.D. (1996) Speech Acts in McKay S.L. and Hornberger (eds.) (1996)
Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching Cambridge University Press


Crandall, E. & Basturkmen, H. (2004) Evaluating Pragmatics-Focused Materials in ELT
Journal 58/1 Oxford University Press


Creese, A. (1991) Speech Act Variation in British and American English in Working
Papers in Educational Linguistics Vol. 7 No. 2 http://www.wpel.net/v7/v7n2Creese1.pdf


Fraser, B. (1983) The Domain of Pragmatics in Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983)
Language and Communication New York: Longman Publishing


Jupp, T., Roberts, C., & Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982) Language and Disadvantage: The
Hidden Process in Gumperz, J. Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University
Press




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 13
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

Leech, G. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.


McConachy, T. (2008) Raising Sociocultural Awareness Through Contextual Analysis:
Some Tools for Teachers in ELT Journal doi:10.1093/elt/ccn018 Oxford University Press
Schmidt, R. (1993) Consciousness, Learning and Interlanguage Pragmatics in Blum-
Kulka, S. & Kasper, G. (eds.) (1993) Interlanguage Pragmatics New York: Oxford
University Press


Schmidt, R. & Richards, C. (1980) Speech Acts and Second Language Learning in
Journal of Applied Linguistics 1980 I(2):129-157; doi:10.1093/applin/I.2.129


Searle, J. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press


Taguchi, N. (2007) Task Difficulty in Oral Speech Act Production in Oxford Journal of
Applied Linguistics 28/1 113-135 Oxford University Publishing


Widdowson, H.G. (2003) Defining Issues In English Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press


Wolfson, N (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York: Newbury
House Publishers


Wolfson, N. Marmour, T. & Jones, S. Problems in the Comparison of Speech Acts Across
Cultures in Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper (eds.) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics:
Requests and Apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 14
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008


Appendix

One)

James This has got to stop! Another Friday night without a date! What
can I do?

Mike What about looking through the personal ads in the newspaper?

James Actually, I’ve tried that. But the people you meet are always
different from what you expect.

Mike Well,why don’t you join a dating service?Afriend ofminemet his
wife that way.

James That’s not a bad idea.

Mike Also, it might be a good idea to check out singles’ night at the
bookstore.

James Yeah. If I don’t find a date, at least I might find a good book!

(Taken from New Interchange (1998b), Student’s Book 3: 57)

Two)

New English File Elementary (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C (2008)




Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 15
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                        RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                            20/11/2008

Two)

New English File Elementary (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C (2008)




Three)

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=147351 (Staff Room Access required)

Teaching Functions

By Alex N Miho
© Macmillan Publisher 2005



Richard Pinner                                                                                                            Page 16
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Richard S Pinner                                                                         RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx
                                                                                                             20/11/2008




Four)

b) Advice sometimes occurs as an IC response, but occasionally it serves
as encouragement to the speaker:

Two female strangers, status equals, are talking to each other at a
swimming-pool. The speaker is about to enter the water in which the
addressee has already been swimming:

A Ow it's cold! You're brave.
B Just take the plunge. It feels good once you get in.

Explanation: The advice served to encourage the speaker to start
swimming. This short exchange functioned as a conversational opener
that led to subsequent conversation between the two women. They
continued their talk in spurts while in the pool, discussing health-related
issues. The simple conversational opener here functioned to initiate a
sequence of further talk which led naturally to a series of self-disclosures.

Boxer, D. & Pickering, L. (1993) Problems in the Presentation of Speech Acts in ELT Materials: The Case for Complaints in ELT
Journal 49/1 January 1995. Oxford University Press




Richard Pinner                                                                                                                  Page 17
Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Implicature
ImplicatureImplicature
Implicature
 
Language and social class
Language and social classLanguage and social class
Language and social class
 
Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics
Discourse Analysis and PragmaticsDiscourse Analysis and Pragmatics
Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics
 
Semantic vs Pragmatics
Semantic vs PragmaticsSemantic vs Pragmatics
Semantic vs Pragmatics
 
Discourse Analysis
Discourse AnalysisDiscourse Analysis
Discourse Analysis
 
APPROACHES AND METHOD IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
APPROACHES AND METHOD IN LANGUAGE TEACHINGAPPROACHES AND METHOD IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
APPROACHES AND METHOD IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
 
POLITENESS
POLITENESSPOLITENESS
POLITENESS
 
GTM method
GTM method GTM method
GTM method
 
Critical Language Awareness
Critical Language AwarenessCritical Language Awareness
Critical Language Awareness
 
Linguistics relativity
Linguistics relativityLinguistics relativity
Linguistics relativity
 
Sociolinguistic terms
Sociolinguistic termsSociolinguistic terms
Sociolinguistic terms
 
LEECH'S SEVEN TYPES OF MEANING
LEECH'S SEVEN TYPES OF MEANINGLEECH'S SEVEN TYPES OF MEANING
LEECH'S SEVEN TYPES OF MEANING
 
Introducing Pragmatics
Introducing PragmaticsIntroducing Pragmatics
Introducing Pragmatics
 
Lecture 3 implicature
Lecture  3 implicatureLecture  3 implicature
Lecture 3 implicature
 
The Role of context (Discourse Analysis)
The Role of context (Discourse Analysis)The Role of context (Discourse Analysis)
The Role of context (Discourse Analysis)
 
Research in translation studies
Research in translation studiesResearch in translation studies
Research in translation studies
 
Phatic tokens
Phatic tokensPhatic tokens
Phatic tokens
 
Semantic Fild and collocation
Semantic Fild and collocationSemantic Fild and collocation
Semantic Fild and collocation
 
Trasnlation shift
Trasnlation shiftTrasnlation shift
Trasnlation shift
 
Politeness (1)
Politeness (1)Politeness (1)
Politeness (1)
 

Ähnlich wie Speech act theory for language teaching

Pragmatics and College English Teaching in China
Pragmatics and College English Teaching in ChinaPragmatics and College English Teaching in China
Pragmatics and College English Teaching in Chinainventionjournals
 
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learningTask based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learningRichard Pinner
 
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]rachelitaud
 
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English Teaching
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English TeachingLinguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English Teaching
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English TeachingKing Saud University
 
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaCopy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDr. Cupid Lucid
 
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDiscourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDr. Cupid Lucid
 
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaCopy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDr. Cupid Lucid
 
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDiscourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDr. Cupid Lucid
 
Spoken American English Idioms
Spoken American English IdiomsSpoken American English Idioms
Spoken American English IdiomsCompany
 
Listening comprehension in efl teaching
Listening comprehension in efl teachingListening comprehension in efl teaching
Listening comprehension in efl teachingmora-deyanira
 
Listening Comprehension in EFL Teaching
Listening Comprehension in EFL TeachingListening Comprehension in EFL Teaching
Listening Comprehension in EFL Teachingmora-deyanira
 
Seminar applied linguistics
Seminar applied linguisticsSeminar applied linguistics
Seminar applied linguisticsHani Shakir
 
Applied linguistics: overview
Applied linguistics: overviewApplied linguistics: overview
Applied linguistics: overviewAsma Almashad
 
Proposal semantics hyponim
Proposal semantics hyponimProposal semantics hyponim
Proposal semantics hyponimAni Istiana
 
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...Tiffany Sandoval
 
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysisDiscourse analysis
Discourse analysisVivaAs
 

Ähnlich wie Speech act theory for language teaching (20)

Pragmatics and College English Teaching in China
Pragmatics and College English Teaching in ChinaPragmatics and College English Teaching in China
Pragmatics and College English Teaching in China
 
Language
LanguageLanguage
Language
 
SLA
SLASLA
SLA
 
Teacher3
Teacher3Teacher3
Teacher3
 
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learningTask based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning
Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning
 
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]
Richards teaching-listening-speaking[1]
 
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English Teaching
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English TeachingLinguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English Teaching
Linguistic and Applied linguistic contribution to English Teaching
 
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaCopy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
 
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDiscourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
 
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaCopy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Copy Of Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
 
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss RabiaDiscourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
Discourse Analysis Presented To Miss Rabia
 
Spoken American English Idioms
Spoken American English IdiomsSpoken American English Idioms
Spoken American English Idioms
 
Listening comprehension in efl teaching
Listening comprehension in efl teachingListening comprehension in efl teaching
Listening comprehension in efl teaching
 
Listening Comprehension in EFL Teaching
Listening Comprehension in EFL TeachingListening Comprehension in EFL Teaching
Listening Comprehension in EFL Teaching
 
Seminar applied linguistics
Seminar applied linguisticsSeminar applied linguistics
Seminar applied linguistics
 
Applied linguistics: overview
Applied linguistics: overviewApplied linguistics: overview
Applied linguistics: overview
 
Proposal semantics hyponim
Proposal semantics hyponimProposal semantics hyponim
Proposal semantics hyponim
 
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...
The Input Learner Learners Forward Throughout...
 
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysisDiscourse analysis
Discourse analysis
 
Discourse Analysis
Discourse AnalysisDiscourse Analysis
Discourse Analysis
 

Mehr von Richard Pinner

Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory culture
Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory cultureMe and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory culture
Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory cultureRichard Pinner
 
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 Handout
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 HandoutUsing & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 Handout
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 HandoutRichard Pinner
 
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021Richard Pinner
 
Authenticity and Metacognition
Authenticity and MetacognitionAuthenticity and Metacognition
Authenticity and MetacognitionRichard Pinner
 
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate studentsUsing and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate studentsRichard Pinner
 
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate Students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate StudentsUsing and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate Students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate StudentsRichard Pinner
 
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and Examples
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and ExamplesHow to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and Examples
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and ExamplesRichard Pinner
 
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLILRichard Pinner
 
Prof. barbara seidlhofer
Prof. barbara seidlhoferProf. barbara seidlhofer
Prof. barbara seidlhoferRichard Pinner
 
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguaging
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguagingThe maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguaging
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguagingRichard Pinner
 
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementations
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementationsCLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementations
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementationsRichard Pinner
 
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...Richard Pinner
 
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...Richard Pinner
 
Context and Language Integrated Learning?
Context and Language Integrated Learning?Context and Language Integrated Learning?
Context and Language Integrated Learning?Richard Pinner
 
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?Richard Pinner
 
CLIL Workshop with Rosie Tanner
CLIL Workshop with Rosie TannerCLIL Workshop with Rosie Tanner
CLIL Workshop with Rosie TannerRichard Pinner
 
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017Richard Pinner
 

Mehr von Richard Pinner (20)

Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory culture
Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory cultureMe and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory culture
Me and My Memes: EFL students’ memes and their role in participatory culture
 
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 Handout
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 HandoutUsing & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 Handout
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021 Handout
 
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021
Using & Adapting Authentic Materials To Help Motivate Students 2021
 
Authenticity and Metacognition
Authenticity and MetacognitionAuthenticity and Metacognition
Authenticity and Metacognition
 
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate studentsUsing and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to help motivate students
 
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate Students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate StudentsUsing and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate Students
Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Motivate Students
 
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and Examples
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and ExamplesHow to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and Examples
How to Integrate Content and Language in CLIL Pedagogy Theories and Examples
 
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL
‘Concept+Language Mapping’ (CLM) as an Innovative Approach to CLIL
 
Prof. barbara seidlhofer
Prof. barbara seidlhoferProf. barbara seidlhofer
Prof. barbara seidlhofer
 
Prof. henry widdowson
Prof. henry widdowsonProf. henry widdowson
Prof. henry widdowson
 
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguaging
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguagingThe maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguaging
The maximisation of learning in CLIL by transregister and translanguaging
 
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementations
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementationsCLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementations
CLIL in general and CLIL in Japan Principles, types and implementations
 
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...
‘CLIL and EMI in the Japanese context –Is clear demarcation possible?: an ELF...
 
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...
The Meaning of 'Standard English' in Japan's English Education and its Role i...
 
Context and Language Integrated Learning?
Context and Language Integrated Learning?Context and Language Integrated Learning?
Context and Language Integrated Learning?
 
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?
EMI and CLIL and ELF: how do they relate?
 
CLIL Workshop with Rosie Tanner
CLIL Workshop with Rosie TannerCLIL Workshop with Rosie Tanner
CLIL Workshop with Rosie Tanner
 
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017
言語政策と語学教育 Clil lecture jan 2017
 
初習言語Clil
初習言語Clil初習言語Clil
初習言語Clil
 
English demo
English demoEnglish demo
English demo
 

Speech act theory for language teaching

  • 1. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Speech Act Theory: Benefits and Insights in English Language Teaching Table of Contents Introduction 2 A Brief Description of Speech Act Theory 3 The Cross-Cultural Question 4 Putting Theory into Practice 6 Appropriateness 8 Possible Realisations and Applications within English Language Teaching 9 Teaching Materials & Strategies 9 Conclusion 11 Bibliography 12 Richard Pinner Page 1 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 2. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Introduction We have learned a great deal about the way we use and acquire language, particularly over the past fifty years or so. Much of this knowledge of language and the implications for L2 learning has been advanced through research based on pragmatic theories. One such example is speech act theory, which is of great importance and has developed a strong bank of research and literature. The implications for English Language Teaching have been debated over and looked into by experts from a variety of fields, from cultural anthropologists to applied linguists and SLA researchers (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989: 2). This essay will examine the classroom applications of the theory by first exploring the key concepts and how they might facilitate English learning. I will look closely at the benefits and limitations of speech act theory in relation to ELT pedagogy and attempt to clarify speech acts as they are discussed in empirical research and how this is connected with speech act theory. First I will give a brief explanation and description of speech act theory, and in doing so attempt to clarify what is by now rather a dispersed set of ideas. Speech acts have been approached from many angles within the study of language and the terminology adapted for various author’s purposes. Kasper and Blum-Kulka refer to “thanking, apologizing, complaining, requesting and correcting” (1993: 59) as speech acts, but there are “There are literally hundreds of speech acts” (Bardovi-Harlig et al 1989). For this reason it is important to clearly explain what we mean by speech acts in reference to ELT. My description will necessarily be brief as defining speech acts has been the topic of many entire books (for example Searle’s Speech Acts 1969). During this description we will see that speech acts are closely linked with sociolinguistics. We will examine this idea further and the implications for ELT in the second part of the essay. Following the brief description we will look at the empirical research into cross-cultural speech acts and how instruction could aid learners to become more successful speakers of English. At the same time we will briefly examine one of the major problems with this Richard Pinner Page 2 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 3. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 idea; the use of the term “appropriateness” when looking at student responses and deciding how we define the term and against what existing models. In the second part I will examine some recent EFL materials and strategies in relation to the presentation of speech acts. Here we will examine again the connection with sociolinguistics. We will also review the research mentioned in the first section and see if the current trend in materials is in line with the research findings. A Brief Description of Speech Act Theory Speech act theory was developed from a notion first put forward by J.L Austin in his posthumous paper How to Do Things with Words (1962). Austin was a language philosopher and there were obvious connections between his work and the field of linguistics. Later John Searle1 further expanded on the theory, most significantly with Speech Acts: An Essay In The Philosophy Of Language (1969) and A Classification Of Illocutionary Acts (1976). Subsequently speech act theory was eagerly taken up by applied linguists because of the insights it provided into the way we use language for every-day purposes. The implications for ELT have been developed further by researchers and teachers such as Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, Blum-Kulka & Kasper, Olshtain & Cohen, Schmidt & Richards and Wolfson. There are many areas to speech act theory, but a succinct explanation is provided by Cohen. He approaches Speech act theory from the context of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and states that “[according to Austin] utterances have three kinds of meaning” (Cohen 1996: 384) those being Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary. 1 Searle’s contribution was to further define speech acts and to categorise them. His five classifications were Representatives, Directives, Commisives, Expressives and Declaratives. (Searle, 1976 cited in Schmidt, R. & Richards, C. (1980) Speech Acts and Second Language Learning in Journal of Applied Linguistics 1980 I(2):129-157; doi:10.1093/applin/I.2.129). There have been additions to this list and many other insights. The focus of this essay is on the way meaning is passed from speaker to hearer and how speech acts are interpreted, so it is beyond the scope of this essay to further explain in detail such ideas as “performative” verbs (Austin 1962:65) and I will not go into the classification of different types of speech acts. For the purposes of this essay I will focus purely on the three types of meaning an utterance has. Richard Pinner Page 3 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 4. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Very simply, locutionary meaning is the actual or literal meaning of the words uttered. For example, in saying “It’s raining” I am commenting on the weather and stating that water is falling from (clouds in) the sky. Illocutionary meaning is the “social function” (Ibid) of the words or the way they are intended to be understood. For example “It’s raining” may actually be a round-about way of saying “I don’t feel like going to the zoo today.” or I may intend to invite you to consider changing your plans about going out. If this is my intention I am performing an Indirect Speech Act (Austin 1962 & Searle 1975) because what I mean and what I say are reliant on the hearer interpreting what I wish to communicate. The Perlocutionary meaning or Perlocutionary Force (Austin 1962) is the effect or the aim of the utterance. To continue the example above the Perlocutionary force of the utterance would possibly be that we decide to stay in and drink hot chocolate rather than going out in the rain. If doing so was my intended or desired outcome from the words the perlocutionary force (result or aim) matches the illocutionary meaning (intention). This may not always be the case, which has been termed as Perlocutionary failure (Leech, 1983: 204–5) The Cross-Cultural Question Speech acts are a good example of a language theory with very practical applications for language teaching, not to mention a large bank of empirical research examining this. However, speech act theory and language teaching becomes more challenging when we look at cross-cultural pragmatics. The Cross Cultural Speech Act Research Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989) was one of the first and best known studies which focused on L1 and L2 speakers of seven languages and the disparity of responses when performing the speech acts of requests and apologies (1989: 11). The study looked at variables such as social distance and dominance (Wolfson, Marmor and Jones, 1989: 191). The findings were conclusive that even advanced speakers of a language can make sociolinguistic errors and that L2 speakers responses are often quite different from those of L1 speakers. In addition to this there is general agreement that “sociolinguistic errors are typically treated as breaches of etiquette” (Boxer & Pickering Richard Pinner Page 4 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 5. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 1993: 56). This is made more acute if the speaker has an advanced level of grammar or vocabulary but not of, what Bachman (1990) terms, “sociolinguistic competence” as part of “communicative competence.” These errors are potentially more serious than grammatical errors (Crandall & Basturkmen 2004: 38) From this it has been noted that the explicit teaching of pragmatics would be of great benefit to language learners because they often do not simply acquire sociolinguistic competence subliminally by being around the target language, or even being in the target culture. (Schmidt, 1993: 25-6) This has particular implications for EFL where students may be quite distant from the target culture. Schmidt (Ibid) notes that there is no conclusive evidence for subliminal language learning. Cohen also argues the need for explicit teaching and notes from his own research that learners can apply the knowledge from speech act training very quickly. He makes the point that research should be conducted in order to address what contribution to learners’ competence we are making “by explicitly teaching [students] some of the finely tuned speech act behaviour that is not simply acquired over time... [L]earners do not necessarily have an adequate awareness of what is involved in complex speech behaviour.” While the research findings of the CCSARP and other cross-cultural studies are very interesting, the focus of this essay is specific to ELT and thus such differences serve only to highlight the need for explicit sociolinguistic speech act instruction in English. Since there is a disparity between the responses of L1 and L2 speakers of English the explicit teaching of illocutionary meaning and the norms for conducting certain types of speech acts has value for students. This is, of course, if we assume the learners wish to fit in and to be accepted within the target culture. This does, however, bring us to a limitation with the theory. Often cultural disparities exist between L1 speakers where the target culture is not the same. An obvious example is British and American English. For example, a study by Creese (1991) discovered disparities between American and British speakers of English in dealing with compliments. In addition the work of Gumperz (1982) looked at disparities between British-English and Indian-English speakers when performing speech acts in institutional settings. This has huge implications not just for TESOL but also Richard Pinner Page 5 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 6. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 English as a Global Language and brings us again to the limitations of “appropriateness” which we will discuss later in this essay. In the next section I will look at the way speech act theory has been interpreted into pedagogy and how materials writers and applied linguists view the usefulness of an understanding of what they call speech acts. Putting Theory into Practice Wolfson (1989: 56-8) writes about “the philosophic tradition” in her book Perspectives and discusses the implications of speech act theory for teaching sociolinguistics within TESOL. Wolfson seems to dismiss the usefulness of such pragmatic theory. She quotes Cicourel (1980) and lists his “four2 major limitations of speech act theory, apart from its inability to account for data from other cultures” (Wolfson, 1989: 58). She attacks the universality of the theory by listing two tightly contained languages with apparently very different rules of speaking to English. She quotes Keenan, a linguistic anthropologist, on Malagasy and “the Indians of the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon” (attributed to the research of Hymes, 1975). These differences in cultural norms may reduce speech act theory’s standing as a universally applicable theory to language, but in my view they certainly strengthen the position for teaching them within EFL or ESOL. Wolfson fails to point this out in this essay, however, her research into speech acts has certainly helped to 2 The limitations are that analysis is conducted from small fragments or exchanges, they are frequently out of context, that more than one message might be present within any given speech act and that they “rely on idealized conditions” (Cicourel 1980:9-10 in Wolfson, N (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York: Newbury House Publishers). I would argue that Even when a given speech act may fall into two categories this is surely part of the illocutionary meaning of the act. For example if I say “It’s raining” and wish to stay indoors I have not performed two speech acts. I have made a declarative about the weather with the illocutionary meaning of expressing reluctance to go out or giving the hearer the chance to re- adjust our plans. Richard Pinner Page 6 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 7. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 progress the field in ELT (see for example Rules of Speaking 19833). Wolfson clearly wishes to make a distinction between speech act theory and the teaching of speech acts. Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford point out that theories concerned with teaching and learning are “of necessity culturally formed and hence unlikely to be shared when teacher and students have different backgrounds” (1997: 129) Again, while this takes credibility away from the universality of speech act theory it lends usefulness to the explicit teaching of speech acts and illocutionary meaning within ELT. If learners are to be successful in acquiring a language they must have a certain degree of sociolinguistic competence (Bachman 1990) or they are unlikely to be able to use the language (in this case English) to great effect as they will be unable to communicate their real intentions (perlocutionary force) without involving a loss of face. In support of overtly teaching illocutionary force and meaning Schmidt (1993: 25-26) discusses the importance of making learners overtly aware of the meaning or of the functions of certain speech acts. He talks of “consciousness perception” and later lists examples from his own well documented acquisition of Portuguese in which he observed or was told how to end a phone. After instruction he was able to directly utilise this knowledge to help him in situations where he had previously felt inadequately equipped to do so (Ibid: 29). Cohen (1996: 411) restates the conclusions of empirical research into speech acts: [F]ormal classroom instruction concerning the social rules of a language can assist learners in communicating more appropriately with native speakers outside the classroom. For these reasons I agree wholeheartedly with Widdowson (2003: 04) that theory and pedagogic application in ELT should not be separated too much. Students may not need to know details of the theory, but that does not mean the theory is to be separated from the methodology. This is merely a very short overview of some of the well known 3 Wolfson, N. (1983) Rules of Speaking In Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983) Language and Communication New York: Longman Publishing Richard Pinner Page 7 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 8. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 research and literature and there are many more detailed discussions on the topic. I agree with Cohen and Schmidt that speech acts and especially the illocutionary meaning behind them, can greatly assist language learners in becoming more adept as speakers and avoid them losing face. Within ELT this will contribute to the students’ confidence which I believe will enable them to further improve as speakers in English. Appropriateness In this essay I am looking at ELT pedagogy and thus a discussion around non-native institutionalized varies (NNIVE) of English is important. In this context I agree that “appropriate speech behaviour will rely heavily on those societies' own rules.” (Boxer & Pickering 1993: 45) When we talk about fitting in or being accepted in a culture, to whom are we giving the ultimate right to choose “appropriateness 4” in English? Are we assuming that teachers (or native speakers) are correct in their use of speech acts when performing locutionary and illocutionary acts? Doing so is dangerous because “[s]ociolinguistic research has repeatedly demonstrated the inadequacy of native speaker intuitions.” (Wolfson, Marmor & Jones 1989: 181) While I am not denying the limitations of speech act theory I would still point out that there needs to be a baseline from which to approach the subject in the EFL or ESOL classroom. However, problems occur in defining such a baseline and there is still a need for research into this area. While it is important to be aware of this limitation we can sidestep the issue by alerting learners to these issues and encouraging them to make their own observations. The idea of “learner as researcher” (Ellis 1998) is very useful here. Students may be asked to focus on specific speech acts by gathering examples themselves. (Bardovi-Hartlig et al 1989: 13) Thus we ask students to learn to make their own choices based on observations of what is “appropriate.” 4 Canale presents a framework for communicative objectives which draws on the work of Munby (1978) and Canale & Swain (1979) which was created for the Ontario Ministry of Education for French as a Second Language at elementary and secondary schools. Twice under the heading of Sociolinguistic competence the word “appropriate” is used with no further expansion. Richard Pinner Page 8 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 9. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Possible Realisations and Applications within English Language Teaching As teachers we merely wish to facilitate in our learners the ability to be understood in English and to use it to achieve their desired aims. We want them to be aware that there are levels of meaning and to encourage and facilitate them to get a deeper knowledge of the language. In teaching speech acts we are preparing our students for situations which commonly occur and providing them with the functional language and sociolinguistic skills to do so effectively and without a loss of face. Teaching Materials & Strategies McConachy (2007) has noted several major EFL course books and their limitations in the presentation of dialogues which contain speech acts. For example, in New Interchange (Richards, Hull & Proctor 1998) there is a dialogue between two friends which has no contextual information and sociolinguistic analysis. (see appendix one for sample dialogue) The dialogue presents the speech act of suggesting but without any contextual information. McConachy presents ways that the teachers themselves might add to such dialogues by simply asking questions about the speakers’ relation to each other and asking students to guess at any illocutionary information. In doing so we invite the students to come to their own conclusions and ignite in them an awareness of illocutionary meaning. Boxer and Pickering (1993) reviewed seven textbooks (four US English and three UK) and concluded that “with few exceptions” (Ibid: 46) the books deal with direct speech acts (in this case complaints) rather than indirect. From this we can deduce a lack of focus on illocutionary meaning and with it a failure to incorporate sociolinguistic competence within the texts. For my own research I looked at New English File (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C 2008) because it has “real life” situations called Practical English and Social English. Richard Pinner Page 9 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 10. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 The situational context between characters is explicit and the characters are the same throughout the level. Their relationship builds on each previous exchange, thus there is an idea of development. Although these dialogues are not real or based on real data the sociocultural development is a step forward in terms of speech acts and the representation of sociolinguistic information. Furthermore, the exercises do make some attempt to take advantage of this (see appendix two). There is also an accompanying website, however here there is no contextual information to language presentation. The focus is on syntactic relations between words and structures and when we look under a section such as Colloquial English there is no organizing principle related to speech act presentation. I did find some useful materials on onestopenglish.com which focus on speech acts and appropriate responses (appendix three). Here students are asked to choose the most appropriate response following a lesson on “Language Functions.” This worksheet is one of the few I have come across that could be said to explicitly attempt to teach speech acts. Following on from this, Boxer and Pickering (1993: 53-6) also prepared some of their own materials (appendix four) which present speech acts within a sociolinguistic context. There is contextual information followed by a dialogue and finally an explanation of the illocutionary meaning or sometimes the intention or reason for the dialogue. However, this level of details would not be suitable across all levels, particularly lower level learners. On this front I agree with McConachy (2007: 9) when he suggests that teachers will need to develop their own sociocultural awareness in order to facilitate learners. From a review of the literature and classroom materials it seems that speech acts are slowly finding their way into classroom materials, but much is still left in the hands of the teachers to exploit the potential of presented speech acts and dialogues. Again the idea is to encourage the “learner as researcher” (Bardovi-Harlig et al, 1989) approach and facilitate students to make their own observations. Richard Pinner Page 10 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 11. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Conclusion The most practical implications of speech act theory are to be found in teaching the idea that what we mean and what we say may not always be the same. A very common example is the idea that an utterance such as “Could you pass the salt?5” is a request rather than an interrogative about ability. (Fraser 1983: 29) In the same way, when we say “Must you be so insensitive?” this is more likely to be seen as a rebuke rather than a question regarding obligation as it would appear from a purely bottom-up, syntactic view. Additionally, “Do you like hospital food?” is actually a threat rather than a question. In Cohen’s (and my own) understanding of speech acts they boil down to communicative intentions in a language that are proven to be of use to EFL or ESL learners because they provide an easy to follow insight into pragmatics and also because they can be utilised when learners are required to negotiate meaning in a certain context. Learners often express difficulty when closing a conversation. (Schmidt 1993: 29) and it is often useful for them to know how to wind-down or close a discussion by using devices such as “well…” to indicate to the other participant that they wish to leave. Another useful device would be using a phrase like “I’d better let you get back” for saving face of both parties. In teaching an utterance like the aforementioned we are teaching speech acts. Speech act theory needs to be broken down into simple terms again in order to be of use to language learners and that has been the current trend, but this does not mean it is to be separated from the theory. Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford (1997: 114) note that the difference between speech acts and language functions is “not always observed in language pedagogy” although the two have a “distinct difference.” They do not however explicitly explain the difference. I would disagree with that point because I cannot see a “distinct difference” between speech acts and language functions. The study of speech acts originates from the idea that “minimal 5 This is also Searle’s famous example (1969) Richard Pinner Page 11 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 12. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 units of human communication ...[are the] performance of certain kinds of acts, such as making statements, asking questions, giving directions, apologizing, thanking and so on.” (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989: 2) In my understanding those are functions within a language. So then, speech act theory has lead to the idea of teaching speech acts or functional units of language to students with the background idea of an understanding of possible indirect or illocutionary meaning ever present and requiring overt instruction. While current materials do not always reflect this there is a growing trend towards presenting speech acts with contextual information about social status or the relationship between the participants of a dialogue. It is then for the teacher to explain or preferably facilitate the noticing of speech acts and the sociolinguistic norms surrounding them. The best way to teach speech acts in my view is to make our students more aware of such pragmatic variables and to provide them with the information they need to make their own observations. In doing so we can escape the limitations of “appropriateness” and allow our learners to work out for themselves the best way to perform a speech act in any given situation. (3,456 Words) Bibliography Austin, J.L (1962) How To Do Things With Words in Jarworski, A. and Coupland, N. (eds.) 1999 The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge Bachman, Lyle F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing Oxford Applied Linguistics Series: Oxford University Press Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Hartford, B. (eds.) (1997) Beyond Methods: Components of Second Language Teacher Education McGraw Hill Richard Pinner Page 12 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 13. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Bardovi-Harlig, K. Hartford, B.A.S, Mahan-Taylor, R. Morgan, M.J. & Reynolds, D.W. (1989) Developing Pragmatic Awareness: Closing the Conversation in ELT Journal 45/1 January 1991. Oxford University Press Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper (eds.) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp Boxer, D. & Pickering, L. (1993) Problems in the Presentation of Speech Acts in ELT Materials: The Case for Complaints in ELT Journal 49/1 January 1995. Oxford University Press Canale, M. (1983) From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy in Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983) Language and Communication New York: Longman Publishing Cohen, A.D. (1996) Speech Acts in McKay S.L. and Hornberger (eds.) (1996) Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching Cambridge University Press Crandall, E. & Basturkmen, H. (2004) Evaluating Pragmatics-Focused Materials in ELT Journal 58/1 Oxford University Press Creese, A. (1991) Speech Act Variation in British and American English in Working Papers in Educational Linguistics Vol. 7 No. 2 http://www.wpel.net/v7/v7n2Creese1.pdf Fraser, B. (1983) The Domain of Pragmatics in Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (eds.) (1983) Language and Communication New York: Longman Publishing Jupp, T., Roberts, C., & Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982) Language and Disadvantage: The Hidden Process in Gumperz, J. Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University Press Richard Pinner Page 13 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 14. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Leech, G. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. McConachy, T. (2008) Raising Sociocultural Awareness Through Contextual Analysis: Some Tools for Teachers in ELT Journal doi:10.1093/elt/ccn018 Oxford University Press Schmidt, R. (1993) Consciousness, Learning and Interlanguage Pragmatics in Blum- Kulka, S. & Kasper, G. (eds.) (1993) Interlanguage Pragmatics New York: Oxford University Press Schmidt, R. & Richards, C. (1980) Speech Acts and Second Language Learning in Journal of Applied Linguistics 1980 I(2):129-157; doi:10.1093/applin/I.2.129 Searle, J. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Taguchi, N. (2007) Task Difficulty in Oral Speech Act Production in Oxford Journal of Applied Linguistics 28/1 113-135 Oxford University Publishing Widdowson, H.G. (2003) Defining Issues In English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press Wolfson, N (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York: Newbury House Publishers Wolfson, N. Marmour, T. & Jones, S. Problems in the Comparison of Speech Acts Across Cultures in Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper (eds.) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp Richard Pinner Page 14 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 15. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Appendix One) James This has got to stop! Another Friday night without a date! What can I do? Mike What about looking through the personal ads in the newspaper? James Actually, I’ve tried that. But the people you meet are always different from what you expect. Mike Well,why don’t you join a dating service?Afriend ofminemet his wife that way. James That’s not a bad idea. Mike Also, it might be a good idea to check out singles’ night at the bookstore. James Yeah. If I don’t find a date, at least I might find a good book! (Taken from New Interchange (1998b), Student’s Book 3: 57) Two) New English File Elementary (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C (2008) Richard Pinner Page 15 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 16. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Two) New English File Elementary (Oxenden, C & Latham-Koenig, C (2008) Three) http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=147351 (Staff Room Access required) Teaching Functions By Alex N Miho © Macmillan Publisher 2005 Richard Pinner Page 16 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
  • 17. Richard S Pinner RPinner Discourse Analysis.docx 20/11/2008 Four) b) Advice sometimes occurs as an IC response, but occasionally it serves as encouragement to the speaker: Two female strangers, status equals, are talking to each other at a swimming-pool. The speaker is about to enter the water in which the addressee has already been swimming: A Ow it's cold! You're brave. B Just take the plunge. It feels good once you get in. Explanation: The advice served to encourage the speaker to start swimming. This short exchange functioned as a conversational opener that led to subsequent conversation between the two women. They continued their talk in spurts while in the pool, discussing health-related issues. The simple conversational opener here functioned to initiate a sequence of further talk which led naturally to a series of self-disclosures. Boxer, D. & Pickering, L. (1993) Problems in the Presentation of Speech Acts in ELT Materials: The Case for Complaints in ELT Journal 49/1 January 1995. Oxford University Press Richard Pinner Page 17 Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT