Focusing (Differences in) Conversational Discourse Speech Acts

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2006 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Linguistik, Note: 1,7, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Index

I. Introduction

II. Clause as Exchange- The Nature of Dialogue

III. Discourse Analysis According to Michael Stubbs

IV. Surface Cohesion and Underlying Coherence

- Indirection in Speech Acts according to John R. Austin

4.1 Utterances as Actions

4.2 Discourse Acts and Speech Acts

4.3 Identifying Speech Acts

4.4 Speech Acts and Social Roles

V. Speech Act Analysis according to John R. Searle

VI. Conclusion

VII. Bibliography

I. Introduction

Discourse analysis is the general term for a number of approaches to analyze

written or spoken language. Discourse Analysis began to develop in the late

1960s and 1970s in most of the humanities and social sciences and in relation

with semiotics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics.

The object of discourse analysis is defined in terms coherent sequences of

sentences, propositions, speech acts or turns-at-talk. In opposite to traditional

linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use beyond the sentence

boundary, but also prefer to analyze naturally occurring language use, and not

invented examples.

Whereas earlier studies of discourse mainly focused on the abstract structures

of written texts, many contemporary approaches, especially those influenced

by the social sciences, favour a more dynamic study of spoken talk in

interaction.

Often a distinction is made between local structures of discourse, such as

relations between sentences, and global structures, such as the overall topics

and the schematic organization of the discourse or conversation as a whole.

This term paper will first of all deal with the nature of dialogue and show how

interaction functions. In my second chapter I will have a closer look on

discourse according to how Michael Stubbs, who teaches courses in general

and applied linguistics, lexicology, grammar; semantics and pragmatics, text

and corpus analysis, varieties of English, stylistics, sociolinguistics, the

sociology of language in Britain and language and thought, approaches it.

In the following chapter I will deal with the indirection in speech acts.

Regarding this I will focus on John Austin¿s theories of constantives and

performatives as well as his distinction between locutionary, illocutionary and

perlocutionary acts. Thereupon I will focus on John R. Searle¿s view which

contrasts Austin¿s characterization of speech acts. In my conclusion I will

summarize my chapters as well as compare Austin¿s and Searle¿s point of

views. [...]