SPEECH ACT THEORY: Felicity Conditions

Felicity Conditions Felicity conditions are the conditions which must be fulfilled for a speech act to be satisfactorily performed or realized. For a speech act to work, as Austin argues, there are a number of felicity conditions that must be met. There must be a generally accepted procedure for successfully carrying out the speech act. Also, the circumstances must be appropriate for the use of the speech act and the person who uses the speech act must be the appropriate person to use it in the particular context. For example: In a wedding ceremony a priest might say ‘I now declare you husband and wife’. In a launching of a ship the person who has been invited to launch the ship might say ‘I hereby name this ship the Titanic.’

Felicity Conditions 2. The procedure must be carried out correctly and completely. Thus, the bride and groom should reply ‘I do’ (rather than ‘Okay, I suppose so’) and the marriage license must be signed. 3. The person must (in most circumstances) have the required thoughts, feelings and intentions for the speech act to be felicitous. That is, the communication must be carried out by the right person, in the right place, at the right time and, normally, with a certain intention, or it will not work. If the first two of these conditions are not satisfied, the act will not be achieved and will misfire. If the third of these conditions does not hold, then the procedure will be abused.

Felicity Conditions According to Searle, the felicity conditions of an utterance are constitutive rules, because they are not just something that can go right (or wrong) or be abused but something which make up and define the act itself. That is, they are rules that need to be followed for the utterance to work. Thus, they constitute the particular speech act. Searle classifies felicity conditions into: Preparatory conditions which concern real-world prerequisites to each illocutionary act. Propositional content conditions that specify restrictions on the content of the complement sentence. Sincerity conditions that state the requisite beliefs, feelings, and intentions of the speaker, as appropriate to each kind of action.

Promising The conditions for the speech act of promising are: I say I will perform an action in the future. I intend to do it. I believe I can do it. I think I would not do it anyway in the normal course of my actions. I think the other person wants me to do it. I intend to place myself under an obligation by the act of promising. We both understand what I am saying. We are both normal, conscious human beings. Both of us are in normal circumstances (e.g. not performing in a play). The utterance contains some illocutionary force indicating device which is only uttered if all the appropriate conditions hold.

SPEECH ACT CLASSIFICATION Declarations Representatives Expressives Directives Commissives

DECLARATIONS Declarations are kinds of speech act that change the world via utterances. The speaker has to have a special institutional role, in a specific context, in order to perform a declaration appropriately. Example: a. Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife. b. Referee: You’re out. c. Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty. In using a declaration, the speaker changes the world via words.

REPRESENTATIVES Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions are all examples of the speaker representing the world as he or she believes it is. Example: a. The earth is flat. b. Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts. c. It was a warm sunny day. In using a representative, the speaker makes words fit the world (of belief)

EXPRESSIVES Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels. They express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow. They can be caused by something the speaker does or the hearer does, but they are about the speaker’s experience. Example: a. I’m really sorry! b. Congratulations! c. Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahh! In using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world (of feeling).

DIRECTIVES Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something. They express what the speaker wants. They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions, etc. Examples: a. Give me a cup of coffee. Make it black. b. Could you lend me a pen, please? c. Don’t touch that! In using a directive, the speaker attempts to make the world fit the words (via the hearer).

COMMISSIVES Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. They express what the speaker intends. They are promises, threats, refusals, pledges. They can be performed by the speaker alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group. Example: a. I’ll be back. b. I’m going to get it right next time. c. We will not do that. In using a commissive, the speaker undertakes to make the world fit words (via the speaker).