Page 88 - 6688

88

Literal and Nonliteral Locutionary Acts

A locutionary act can be either literal or nonliteral, depending upon whether the
speaker actually means what is said or not.for example a warning Cigarette smoking is
dangerous to your health means exactly what it says; thus, it constitutes a literal locutionary
act. On the other hand, the locution I could eat a horse is nonlitera. Nonliteral locutionary
acts are those for which a literal interpretation is either impossible or absurd within the
context of the utterance. Nonliteral locutionary acts can be analysed as flouting Grice’s
maxim of Quality as hey involve someone saying something that is blatanly false under the
circumstances. Consider some other examples that require nonliteral interpretation:
1. If you want your wheel clamped, park here.
2. Why don’t you shout so everyone can hear?
3. I am sure it will kill you to turn down the TV.

SPEECH EVENTS

We can treat an indirect request (for example, the utterances in [23]) as being a matter of
asking whether the necessary conditions for a request are in place. For example, a
preparatory condition is that the speaker assumes the hearer is able to, or CAN, perform
the action. A content condition concerns future action, that the hearer WILL perform the
action. This pattern is illustrated in [24].
[24] Indirect requests
a. Content condition Future act of hearer 'WILL you do X?'
(= hearer WILL doX)
b. Preparatory condition Hearer is able to perform 'CAN you do X?'
act (= hearer CAN doX)
c. Questioning a hearer-based condition for making a request results in an indirect request.
There is a definite difference between asking someone to do X and asking someone
if the preconditions for doing X are in place, as in
24c.]. Asking about preconditions technically doesn't count as making a request, but does
allow the hearer to react 'as if the request had been made. Because a request is an
imposition by the speaker on the hearer, it is better, in most social circumstances, for the
speaker to avoid a direct imposition via a direct request. When the speaker asks about
preconditions, no direct request is made.
The preceding discussion is essentially about one person trying to get another
person to do something without risking refusal or causing offense. However, this type of
situation does not consist of a single utterance. It is a social situation involving participants
who necessarily have a social relationship of some kind, and who, on a specific occasion,
may have particular goals.
We can look at the set of utterances produced in this kind of situation as a speech
event. A speech event is an activity in which participants interact via language in some
conventional way to arrive at some outcome. It may include an obvious central speech act,
such as 'I don't really like this', as in a speech event of 'complaining', but it will also include
other utterances leading up to and sub-sequently reacting to that central action. In most
cases, a 'request' is not made by means of a single speech act suddenly uttered.
Requesting is typically a speech event, as illustrated in [25].