Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies Speech Acts

Pragmatics  “the study of the purposes for which sentences are used, of the real world conditions under which a sentence may be appropriately used as an utterance” (Stalnaker 1972:380)

Speech Acts Basic Unit of Language  Not word or sentence  The act which a person performs by using words and sentences

Speech Acts “Besides the question that has been very much studied in the past as to what a certain utterance means, there is a further question distinct from this as to what was the force, as we call it, of an utterance. We may be quite clear what ‘Shut the door’ means, but not yet at all clear on the further point as to whether as uttered at a certain time it was an order, an entreaty or whatnot. What we need besides the old doctrine about meanings is a new doctrine about all the possible forces of utterances” (Austin 1970:251).

Speech Acts Locutionary act  The act of saying something, using the sound, grammatical and semantic systems of the language (close the door) Illocutionary act  The act performed in saying something. The act identified by an explicit performative (he urged me to close the door) Perlocutionary act  The act performed by or as a result of saying something (non-linguistic) (he persuaded me to close the door)

Speech Acts Example: I mention to a friend that I’m thinking of resigning. His response might be analysed as follows: Act (A) or Locution He said to me, “This is not a good idea, because it’s difficult to get a good job elsewhere”. Act (B) or Illocution He advised me against leaving my current job. Act (C.a) or Perlocution He persuaded me not to resign. Act (C.b) He brought me to my senses. He annoyed me by his comments.

Speech Acts Searle  Direct Speech Acts  Indirect Speech Acts An illocutionary act is performed indirectly  Can you pass the salt (question/request)

Speech Acts Searle’s Felicity Conditions (illocutionary)  Propositional content condition (Propositional content or conventional meaning)  Sincerity condition (speaker’s mental state)  Essential condition (what the utterance is meant to count as)  Preparatory conditions (situational preconditions)

Speech Acts Difficulties Speech Acts pose in translation and interpreting  When force departs from conventional sense (locutionary force)  When the ultimate effect defies expectations based on the locutionary and illocutionary force (perlocutionary force)

Speech Acts Strategies  Translator attempts to re-perform locutionary and illocutionary acts (Blum-Kulka 1981)  Bourne 2002 Report verbs  Strengtheners/weakeners  Addition (compensation)  Pre-empting TT readers perception of ST characters (Britishness)

Speech Acts Interpreting  Tunisian minister example “This matter concerns the Saudis” (Hatim & Mason 1997)

Speech Acts Criticism of Speech Act Theory  Neglects naturalness of language use (differentiation between different types of illucutionary force)  A single utterance will often perform several acts simultaneously  Single act does not have to be limited to the sentence  Use of ‘de-contextualised’ sentences

Speech Acts Beyond the single speech act  Illocutionary structure (Ferrara 1980) Interpretation of speech acts depends on their position and status within a sequence  Text act Contribution of local sequences of speech acts to a global sequence encompassing the entire text (Horner 1975)

Speech Acts Findings  Illocutionary value of Argumentative texts Problem section ‘assertive’ Solution section ‘directive’  Indeterminancy of individual speech acts Can be resolved by reference to global organisation of text

Speech Acts Findings (cont.)  Irony (Pelsmaekers & Van Besien 2002) Shifts in ironic cues in subtitling Increase in overt criticism, explicitness and loss of ambiguity