Appunti modulo teorico inglese III

CONTEX OUTSIDE, EXOPHORA

The first mention of the EXOPHORIC REFERENCE refers to entities which have been mentioned in a previous INTERTEXTUALITY conversation or text

CONTEXT INSIDE, COHESION

GRAMMATICAL COHESION

• (ENDOPHORIC) REFERENCE (ENDOPHORA)
• Anaphora
• Cataphora
• Presuppositional pool
• Associative Endophora
• SUBSTITUTION (tend to be endophoric)
• ELIPSIS

LEXICAL COHESION

• REPETITION
• SYNONYMS
• SUPERORDINATES
• GENERAL WORDS

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REFERRING ESPRESSIONS

• Reference
• I went with Francesca and David.
• Deixis
• Person
• They were like this.
• Place
• They were like this.
• Time
• Next day, now look, the picture shows.
• COHESION GRAMMATICAL
• Reference
• Exophora
• I went with Francesca and David.
• Endophora
• Anaphora
• My sister made a cake.
• Cataphora
• They're coming: your relatives will be here for...
• Associative

Endophora Youtube is a popular video sharing website.

Substitution Boy are not born more confident than (endophoric) girls. Society makes them so because…

Ellipsis “He’s afraid you’re going to die of pneumonia” “I will, too..” (die of pneumonia)

LEXICAL Repetition It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born…

Synonyms When 80 mice escaped… …. The rodents had escaped from…

Superordinates Flowers = Tulips, roses… General words Thing, stuff, place, person, woman.

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3 Conditions for each macro-class of illocutionary forces and Austin’s conditions.

There is quite no difference between Searle What are the conditions for each macro class?

3.1 Searle’s macro-classes of illocutionary forces (and related performative verbs)

1. Declarations: expressions which change the world by their very utterance (I declare, I resign, etc.)
2. Representatives

(Assertives): state what the speaker believes to be the case, what thinks it's true (describe, state, hypothesize etc.)

(Commissives): commit the speaker to future action (promise, vow, volunteer etc.)

(Directives): aimed at making the hearer do something (command, request, forbid etc.)

(Expressives): state what the speaker feels (apologize, regret etc.)

Example: I apologize, I regret, I'm sorry, I want help, I need help.

MODALITY: Depends on the modal verb

SHALL: Deontic, non-epistemic usually

3.2 Preparatory/essential/sincerity conditions (Searle) - they "prepare the ground" for the speech act to take

1) Preparatory conditions - if they not hold, the act has not been carried out, it is null and void - (Austin's place; condition 1; declaratives/directives are "prepared" by authority; commissives are "prepared" by the ability to perform the act predicated in the propositional content of the act)

2) Essential conditions (e.g.

To speak the same language, role relationship recognized, etc.), which constitute an integral part of the speech act (viz. You cannot changing these conditions as well) → (Austin’s condition change the context without 2; if not respected, the act has not been carried out) → (one must have the intention to be truthful) → (Austin’s 3) Sincerity conditions condition 3) → the communicative exchange will be

N.B. If the conditions are satisfied what happens? → the hearer will be able successful/felicitous to understand the illocutionary force (implied intended meaning) and not only the illocutionary act (propositional meaning)

Speakers will be able to employ indirect speech acts and hearer will understand the INTENDED illocutionary force of utterances, so that they can perform the INTENDED perlocutionary effect.

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Directive Commissive (request) (promise)

H is able to perform S is able to perform

Preparatory Condition A A. H

Zurru: Can you please be quiet? This utterance has the right to be performed (= the speaker believes it is possible for the hearer to carry out the action and/or the act is in the hearer's best interest), so it will see its intended perlocutionary effect fulfilled.

Prof. Zurru: Jump out of the window! Has not the right to be performed, but with a different context it does:

Fire-fighter (during a wildfire): Jump out of the window!

How do we communicate if we say Z and we mean Y?

• Therefore, felicity (preparatory/essential/sincerity) conditions represent one of the answers, together with presuppositions, modern pragmatics gives to this question.
• Both felicity/preparatory/essential/sincerity conditions and presuppositions have non-linguistic and communicative significance and constitute part of the background knowledge which can be relied on to grasp the intended meaning of an utterance.
• Furthermore, they create EXPECTATIONS, which we constantly rely on when communicating.

(or living, in general)

• Violation of expectations is what, more than many other communicative devices, creates a "striking" effect which is an extra-communicative effect (e.g. humour, fear, terror)

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EX A) Can you do me a favour?

B) Sure.

A) Go to hell. And stay there. Never come back.

This utterance is indirect, because it's metaphoric: the preparative condition cannot be satisfied.

The illocutionary force, or proposition is criticism.

If the illocutionary act is an insult, the illocutionary force will be offense.

who believes in hell says: "If you do this, there is But, if someone you will go to hell" directness, because he really believes in it.

NB: Meaning-making consists in part in the intention to produce understanding in the the speaker's intention (= their illocutionary act!) hearer, by getting the hearer to recognize

3.3 Social dimension

Many situations (not all) require indirectness as a sign of politeness.

• The use of speech acts vary according to social factors:
• Indirectness is a sign of politeness in many languages/cultures: directives are more often expressed as interrogatives than imperatives.
• EX. Could you please open the window? This addiction marks the illocutionary force of the utterance as directive- ruling out that it is a question about ability, hence ruling out that there may be overlaps between the grammatic function and the communicative function even though the literal meaning of the rest of the sentence is not directive.
• But, in the right context, there may be an overlap between GF and CF: Can you open the window? = Are you able to do it? Everything can be polite (even insults!) and everything can be impolite.
• Indirectness is also used on account of the formality of the context or social distance (lack of familiarity, differences of status, age, gender, education, occupation, etc.): those who are in a

more powerful social position (can) use directness, while those who are in a less powerful social position tend to use indirectness.

• Indirect speech acts are more common than direct ones: their illocutionary force is not there while in the second one it is! So indirectness allows for reparation, you can repair it with “That’s not what I said”

EX: An indirect accusation can always be repaired

3.4 Cultural dimension

The way of expressing speech acts is highly culture-bound:

• EX 1: “How fat you are!” → praising, congratulating
• India: speech act
• Britain: speech act → deploring, criticizing → Greeting
• EX 2: Speech act
• Britain: “Hi, a bit cold today eh”? It’s a typical way to start a phatic channel, to start communication (= I’m here, we can talk, or hello)
• Hong Kong: “Hi, have you had lunch?” Is a way to start a communicative exchange, while in Britain or in Italy the