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Speech Act Theory, Discourse Structure and Indirect Speech Acts

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Speech Act Theory, Discourse Structure and Indirect Speech Acts Speech Act Theory, Discourse Structure and Indirect Speech Acts Peter Wilfred Hesling Smith Submitted in Accordance with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds Department of Philosophy September 1991 The Candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own work and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. Abstract Speech Act Theory is concerned with the ways in which language can be used. It originated with Austin, but was developed by Searle. The theories of Austin and Searle are described and several problem areas are identified. If it is to be a viable theory of language usage, speech act theory must be able to integrate with a theory of discourse structure, because if speech acts are identifiable as units of language, then it must be possible include them in a model of discourse. The second chapter examines discourse structure, examining two rival theories: the discourse analysis approach and the conversational analysis approach. Discourse analysis is broadly sympathetic to speech act theory, whereas, conversational analysis is not. The claims of conversational analysis are examined and are found to be wanting in several respects. Speech Act Theory is then discussed with a particular emphasis on the problem of relating speech acts to each other within a larger unit of discourse. It is noted that Austin, by including the expositive class of speech acts, allows for the possibility of relations between speech acts, whereas Searle's description of speech acts effectively rules out any relations between speech acts. The third chapter develops speech acts in terms of a schematic model consisting of cognitive states, a presumed effect of the speech act and an action. The cognitive states are represented using modal and deontic operators on the proposition within epistemic logic. This idea of the description of a speech act in terms of cognitive states is developed in Chapter Four. In Chapter Four, speech acts are related using a communicated cognitive state to pair two speech acts together into a primary and secondary speech act. It is noted that the idea of a primary and secondary speech act is present within the discourse analysis model of discourse (in the form of the initiation-response cycle of exchanges) and also in the conversational analysis approach to discourse (in the form of the adjacency pair). The conclusion from this is that the two approaches are perhaps not so incompatible as might first appear. Chapter Five deals with grammatical sentence types and their possible use in communicating cognitive states. It also examines modal auxiliary verbs and their possible relationship to the modal and deontic operators used in the cognitive state model. In Chapter Six, theories of indirect speech acts are described. An explanation of indirect speech acts is developed using pragmatic maxims and cognitive states to explain why certain indirect forms are chosen. This leads to a theory of linguistic politeness and a use model of speech acts. Contents 1. Speech Act Theory 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 The Seminal Work of Austin 2 1.3 Searle's Theory of Speech Acts 3 1.4 The Formal Theory of Speech Acts 8 1.5 Indirect Speech Acts 19 1.6 A Critique of Searle's Theory of Speech Acts 23 1.7 Sadock's Linguistic Approach to Speech Acts 25 1.8 The Inferential Approach to Speech Act Theory 27 1.9 Some Criticisms of Speech Act Theory 31 1.10 Computational Models of Speech Acts 35 2. Discourse Structure 41 2.1 Introduction 41 2.2 Linguistic Approaches to Discourse Structure 45 Discourse Analysis 45 Conversational Analysis 48 2.3 Computational Models of Discourse Structure 54 2.4 Other Artificial Intelligence Approaches to Discourse Structure 56 2.5 Issues in Discourse Analysis 60 3. The Deconstruction of Speech Act Verbs 69 3.1 Introduction 69 3.2 Speech Acts as Schemas 79 3.3 A Description of Assertive Speech Acts 87 3.3.1 Claim 87 3.3.2 Assure 88 3.3.3 Argue 90 3.3.4 Inform 91 3.3.5 Conjecture 93 3.3.6 Swear 94 3.4 Commissive Speech Act Verbs 95 3.4.1 Promise 95 3.4.2 Consent 97 3.4.3 Refuse 98 3.5 Directive Speech Act Verbs 100 3.5.1 Request 100 3.5.2 Tell 102 3.5.3 Require 104 3.5.4 Permit 105 3.6 Declarative and Expressive Speech Act Verbs 106 3.7 Evidence to Support the Cognitive Thesis in Child Language 107 3.8 What is the Cognitive State Hypothesis? 110 3.9 Formal Speech Acts and Expressives 117 3.10 Conclusions 119 4. Speech Acts and Discourse Structure 120 4.1 Introduction 120 4.2 Cognitive States and Context 125 4.3 Speech Act Schemas and Logical Schemas 129 4.4 Discourse Pairs and Cognitive States 146 4.5 The Thesis Restated 152 5. From Speech Act to Utterance 156 5.1 Introduction 156 5.2 The Four Basic Sentence Types 159 5.3 Speech Acts and Sentential Structure 162 5.4 Modal Auxiliaries and Cognitive States 166 Will 166 Can 170 May 170 Shall 172 Should, Ought and Must 173 5.5 The Logical and Pragmatic Use of Modal Auxiliaries 173 5.6 Speech Acts and Discourse Markers 177 5.7 On a Taxonomy for Speech Acts 180 5.8 Summary and Formal Model of Utterance Generation 181 6. Indirect Speech Acts 185 6.1 Introduction 185 6.2 Searle's Theory of Indirect Speech Acts 187 6.3 A New Theory of Indirect Speech Acts 193 6.3.1 Introduction 193 6.3.2 Indirect Speech Acts and Authority 195 6.3.3 Pragmatic Maxims, Politeness and Indirect Speech Acts 196 6.4 Politeness and Face 197 6.5 Strategies for Indirectness Based on Cognitive States 202 6.6 Indirect Speech Acts and Pragmatic Maxims 213 6.7 A Schematic Model of the Speech Act "Request" 217 6.8 Summary 224 References 226 Appendix 1 233 Figures and Tables Figure 1.1 The Semantic Tableau for Assertives 13 Figure 1.2 The Semantic Tableau for Commissives 14 Figure 1.3 The Semantic Tableau for Directives 15 Figure 4.1 The Basic Conversation for Action 126 Table 4.1 The Structural Relationships of ASSERT/STATE(P) 137 Table 4.2 The Structural Relationships for SUGGEST(P) 140 Table 4.3 The Structural Relationships for FORBID(P) 140 Table 4.4 The Structural Relationships of the State bel(S pP) 144 Table 4.5 Possible Hearer Responses to want(S do(H P)) 144 Acknowledgements I started work on my Ph. D. thesis in October 1985, little realising how long it would take or how much effort would have to be put into it. I started out with some vague notions of Natural Language Processing and only slowly moved into the area of speech act theory. There were two major changes to my life that took place during my work on the thesis. The first of these was a move away from Leeds Polytechnic to City University. This proved immediately beneficial, as I was allowed much more time to develop my thoughts and there were no real problems with being located so far from Leeds University. Indeed the train journeys were often very valuable as they allowed me time to think about certain ideas. However, I will not be sorry if I don't have to wait at Doncaster station again. The second change in my life was the birth of my son Christopher, this took place in December 1988, and although a joyous event, posed a major threat to the completion of the thesis. Christopher never slept through one single night during his first year of life and this frequently left me too exhausted to do anything on the thesis. I also found it almost impossible at first to work at home during the evenings and weekends and with a full time job, it was often difficult to get much done. With respect to various parts of the thesis, I must of course thank David Holdcroft for guiding me through some of the more mysterious apsects of speech act theory. I would also like to thank Sachiko Ide for stimulating within me an interest in politeness. I must thank my wife Sim for explaining to me the Chinese idea of face and for providing me with some of the examples. My thanks to various members of the Philosophy Department at Leeds University with whom I have had discussions at some stage on some aspect of my thesis. I mention: Timothy Potts, Harry Lewis and Peter Millican. I must admit that I spent more time talking to Peter Millican about the Duble Muzio Gambit or the Marshall Attack. I acknowledge with thanks the financial support of City University, who also provided me with a light timetable load in my second year there. I also grudgingly acknowledge the financial support of Leeds Polytechnic in the early stages of the thesis. I would like to thank my wife Sim for her forebearance and patience and for putting up with the fact that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings (as well as the rest of the week) I would be upstairs using the word processor. Finally, I must of course thank my supervisor David Holdcroft to whom I owe an immense debt of gratitude. What can I say? Only that I consider it an honour to know and to have worked with a scholar and a gentleman. -1- 1. Speech Act Theory 1.1 Introduction The direction main of this thesis will be to explore what exactly a speech act is or should be.
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