Speech Acts
Below is a list of speech acts that have been researched at CARLA. Within each category you will find basic information about the speech act, as well as teaching tips, sample exercises, and past research findings.

Apologies
Complaints
Compliments/Responses
Refusals
Requests
Thanks

American Apologies

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In American English people typically use apologies for a variety of reasons such as:

1. To say that they are sorry
2. To explain why the offense happened
3. To make a repair for the offense and maintain a good relationship with the addressee

Complex speech acts like apologies actually consist of a set of routinized patterns or strategies typically used by native speakers of the language. There are five possible strategies for making an apology (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981. pp. 119-125).

1. An expression of an apology. The speaker uses a word, expression, or sentence containing a verb such as "sorry," "excuse," "forgive," or "apologize." Languages have certain words that are used to express an oral apology more than others. For example, in American English, "I apologize..." is found more in writing than it is in oral language. An expression of an apology can be intensified whenever the apologizer feels the need to do so. Such intensification is usually accomplished by adding intensifiers such as "really" or "very" -- e.g., "I'm really sorry."
   
   
2. Acknowledgement of responsibility. The offender recognizes his/her fault in causing the infraction. The degree of such recognition on the part of the apologizer can be placed on a scale. The highest level of intensity is an acceptance of the blame: "It's my fault." At a somewhat lower level would be an expression of self-deficiency: "I was confused/I didn't see/You are right." At a still lower level would be the expression of lack of intent: "I didn't mean to." Lower still would be an implicit expression of responsibility: "I was sure I had given you the right directions." Finally, the apologizer may not accept the blame at all, in which case there may be a denial of responsibility: "It wasn't my fault," or even blaming of the hearer: "It's your own fault."
   
   
3. An explanation or account. The speaker describes the situation which caused him/her to commit the offense and which is used by this speaker as an indirect way of apologizing. The explanation is intended to set things right. In some cultures this may be a more acceptable way of apologizing than in others. Thus, in cultures where public transportation is unreliable, coming late to a meeting and giving an explanation like, "The bus was late," might be perfectly acceptable.
   
   
4. An offer of repair. The apologizer makes a bid to carry out an action or provide payment for some kind of damage resulting from his/her infraction.
   
   If someone is late for an appointment with a friend s/he might say something like,
   
   
   "How can I make it up to you -- why don’t I buy you lunch on Friday?"
   
   Or someone who fails to make it to an appointment might say,
   
   
   "Would you be willing to reschedule the meeting?"
   
   
5. A promise of non-recurrence. The apologizer commits him/herself to not having the offense happen again, which is again situation-specific and less frequent than the other strategies.

The five major patterns or strategies that make up the apology speech act are available to speakers across languages, yet preference for any one of them or for a combination of them will depend on the specific situation within the given language and culture group.
Perhaps equally as important as knowing which strategies to use when, is knowing how to modify these strategies in a given situation. Factors that may affect how you would deliver an apology in your native language (and ideally in the target language as well) include:

• your familiarity with the person being apologized to (intimate to very formal)
• the intensity of the act (its gravity, seriousness, or importance)
• the relative authority that each of you has
• your relative ages
• your sex and that of the other person
• the place where the exchange takes place

Here is an example of an apology situation calling for modification of the speech act since the offense is relatively severe and the recipient is a friend:

In a cafeteria, you accidentally bump into a friend who is holding a cup of hot coffee. The coffee spills all over your friend, scalding his/her arm and soaking his/her clothing. You friend shouts, startled: "Oooh! Ouch!" ~ Cohen, Olshtain, & Rosenstein, 1986, p. 73.

As an American speaker of English, you may appropriately select the strategy of expressing an apology, you are likely to say "I’m really sorry," or "I’m really very sorry" in order for it to sound sincere enough. You would probably not say just "Sorry!" or "I’m very sorry." Although this might be a textbook answer, there actually is a difference in American English between "very" and "really," with "really" implying more regret and "very" more etiquette. Thus, this latter apology may not sound very sincere to your friend. Your friend is probably expecting something more like, "I'm really sorry. Are you O.K.?" (Cohen, Olshtain, & Rosenstein, 1986, pp. 66-67)

American Complaints

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Function of Complaints

Americans use complaints:

• to express displeasure, disapproval, annoyance, blame, censure, threats, or reprimand as a reaction to a perceived offense/ violation of social rules (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1985, 1993; Trosborg, 1995)
• to hold the hearer accountable for the offensive action and possibly suggest/request a repair (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1985, 1993)
• to confront a problem with an intention to improve the situation ("a face-threatening activity", Brown & Levinson, 1978)
• to share a specific negative evaluation, obtain agreement, and establish a common bond between the speaker and addressee"trouble sharing" (Hatch, 1992), "troubles talk" (Tannen, 1990) ~ (Boxer, 1993a, 1996). For example:
  1. "I can't believe I didn't get an A on this paper. I worked so hard!"
  2. "Same here. She doesn't give away A's very easily, that's for sure."
• to vent anger or anxiety/let off steam (Boxer, 1993a, 1996)
• to open and sustain conversations (Boxer, 1993a, 1996)

Two categories of complaints, direct and indirect complaints, are often investigated separately. While direct complaints are addressed to a complainee who is held responsible for the offensive action (Could you be a little quieter? I’m trying to sleep), indirect complaints are given to addressees who are not responsible for the perceived offense (She never cleans up after her. Isn’t that horrible?). Indirect complaints often open a conversation and establish solidarity between the speakers.
Above passages from Boxer (1993a).

Direct Complaints

Strategies

Explanation of Purpose / Warning for the Forthcoming Complaint

• I just came by to see if I could talk about my paper.*
• Uh, I got my paper back here and after looking through it...*
• Listen, John, there’s something I want to talk to you about. You remember our agreement, don’t you?
• Well, look, I might as well start right out.
• Look, I don’t want to be horrible about it.

Complaint

• I think maybe the grade was a little too low.*
• I was kind of upset with my grade. I know that a lot of the problems are mine but there are certain areas that I wasn’t totally in agreement with what you said.*
• I put a lot of time and effort in this...*

Request for Solution/Repair

• I would appreciate it if you would reconsider my grade.*
• ..so, I’d like to maybe set up a time when we can get together and discuss...*
• Would you mind doing your share of the duties?**
• I presume your insurance will cover the damage.**

Request for non-recurrence (The speaker requests that the complainee never perform the offence again or improve the behavior.)

• Well, I’d really like to find out about this because I’m hoping it won’t happen again.**

Characteristics*

Use of pronoun "we"

• to indicate that both parties share the blame
• as a way of negotiating the problem

  I know we have a different point of view on this subject.
  I hope we could sit down and discuss the paper…
  

Use of questioning

• to ask for advice, for permission to explain oneself
• to get the listener to recondsider or discuss the problem

  Do you have a minute so that we could go over the paper together?
  

Depersonalization of the problem

• to transfer blame from the interlocutor to the problem

  I feel this grade may reflect a difference of opinion.
  

Use of mitigators ("downgraders")

• to soften the complaint (e.g., kind of, perhaps, possibly, a little bit, a second, somehow, I suppose, I’m afraid, you know, I mean, right, don’t you think?)

  I think uh it’s just in my opinion maybe the grade was a little low.
  Maybe you know something about this dent on my car.**
  I’m a bit annoyed that...**
  Are you somehow involved in this affair?**
  

Use of "upgraders"**

• to increase the impact of the complaint (e.g., such, quite, terrible, really, frightfully, absolutely, I’m sure, I’m positive, it’s obvious)

  What a frightful mess you’ve made, I’m absolutely shocked.
  I’m certain that this dent wasn’t there when I last drove my car.
  

• Acceptance of partial responsibilities for the problem

  …and uh, perhaps it wasn’t quite as polished as both of us would have liked, but the content was there, and I think I deserve a better grade.
  

Severity Scale**

1) Least Severe:

The speaker avoids actually mentioning the offensive event.

Don’t worry about it, there’s no real damage.
The kitchen was clean and orderly when I left it last.**
There was nothing wrong with my car yesterday.

2) Somewhat Severe:

Neither the offense nor the complainee is explicitly mentioned but general annoyance at the violation is expressed:

Look at these things all over the place.**
This is really unacceptable behavior.
There’s a horrible dent in my car.**

3) Fairly Severe:

The speaker threatens the complainee’s face by making a direct complaint but does not say there will be any other consequences:

You’re inconsiderate!***
You should not postpone this type of operation.***

4) Severe:

The speaker explicitly accuses the complainee of the offense directly and hints that there may be consequences for the offender:

Look at this mess! Haven’t you done any cleaning up for the last week?**
You borrowed my car last night, didn’t you?**
Next time I’ll let you wait for hours.***

5) Very Severe:

The speaker immediately theatens the complainee by attacking him/her:

You’d better pay the money right now.***
I’m not going to budge an inch until you change my appointment.***
Now, give me back what you have stolen or I'll call the police.***

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Above passages from *Murphy & Neu (1996), pp. 199-204, **Trosborg (1995), pp. 315-329 and ***Olshtain & Weinbach (1985), pp. 200-201.

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Indirect Complaints

Indirect complaints usually begin with an introductory expression like one of the following:

There’s no way... I’m sick and tired... The problem is... It’s not fair... I’m up to here... I can’t stand...

I can’t take it. How dare... It’s a shame... This is not my day! It drives me crazy! Unfortunately...

Indirect complaints tend to center on three themes:

1. Self (Oh, I’m so stupid.)
2. Other (John is the worst manager.)
3. Situation (I feel, in a way, boxed in, you know?/Why did they have to raise tuition?)

Above passages from Boxer (1993a), pp.30-31.
[ Research notes on the section above... ]
Responses to Indirect Complaints
Responses to indirect complaints can vary, but they typically follow one of the patterns below:

Commiseration — showing agreement or reassurance in an attempt to make the speaker feel better.*

A: I’m getting more and more lost.
B: So am I.
A: And yesterday he went over the homework, which is fine, but it didn’t prepare us at all for this week.
B: No. He’s just not a good teacher.

No response, or a switching of the topic (Notice that in this dialogue, minimal response to the complaint or topic switch terminates the complaint.)*

A: It takes a day and a half to get anywhere ‘cause you spend six hours on an airplane.
B: So you stayed at X hotel. We liked that place.
A: Yeah, it was great. There was a big pool for the kids.

Question — simple clarification requests, elaboration requests, or challenge questions expressing doubts about the validity of the complaints*

A: His talk was so weak that I wonder how it got accepted for the conference..
B: Oh, really? I think he had a lot of useful things to say.

Contradiction — not accepting or approving of the complaint by contradicting the speaker or providing some kind of defense for the object being complained about.

A: You don't even do your own writing.
B: Yes I do!

Joke/teasing*

A: Wow- I just opened this bag of chips and before I'd eaten even one, they were half gone!
B: You sure pay a lot for a bag half full of air!
A: Yeah, they should come in a smaller bag. I feel ripped off.
B: Let's write a letter to the chip master!

Advice/lecture — offering advice on solving a problem in retrospect.*

A: An annoying thing happened to me. I took my bike in to be repaired- to align the spokes. They did a lousy job. Now I have to find the receipt and take it back.
B: You should have just bought a new wheel and not bothered to fix it.

Complaints:
Teaching Tips

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Indirect Complaints
Although the common image of complaining is negative, indirect complaints are utilized frequently in a positive manner to establish points of commonality -- ELT textbooks tend to center on direct complaints and exclude important information on this underlying social strategy (Boxer & Pickering, 1995 [©]).
Interpreting Complaints
In presenting or interpreting complaints, non-verbal features are important part of the communication (e.g., gestures, motions, gaze, postural shifts, tone of voice) (Boxer, 1993a).
Gender Differences
Women tend to commiserate about twice as much as men do, while men are more likely to give advice, especially in response to complaints by female speakers. Males are likely to think logically and want to solve problems, whereas females tend to provide emotional support (Boxer, 1996).
German / English
German complaints tend to have a higher level of directness than British English complaints. Words and phrases that intensify the force of the complaint ("upgraders," e.g., absolutely, really, I’m sure) are more often utilized in German than in English. While attaching someone’s identity seems to be a taboo in Britain, it seems perfectly appropriate behavior for Germans under specific circumstances. German learners of English, therefore, may use more direct complaint expressions than appropriate in English (House & Kasper, 1981).
Hebrew
American learners of Hebrew have been found to relatively prefer softer complaints than native speakers of Hebrew. The central strategy preferred by native speakers was explicit complaints on the severity scale of: no reproach, disapproval, explicit complaint, warning or threat (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1985).
Japanese
Japanese learners of English may tend to make nonsubstantive responses (e.g., no response, non-verbal backchannels, and nonverbal backchannels in repeated succession) rather than commiseration to indirect complaints. Such responses are unlikely to sustain their part of the conversation, and result in a missed opportunity in establishing solidarity in the interaction (Boxer, 1993b).

Complaints:
Sample Teaching Materials

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Indirect Complaints (Boxer & Pickering, 1995, pp. 52-55 [©])

1. Present and discuss indirect complaint sequences taken from spontaneous speech.
   • Typical responses to complaints and responses (agreement, reassurance or commiseration)
   • Advice responses that serve to encourage the speaker
   • Joking and teasing responses that demonstrate light-hearted goodwill
   • Question responses to show interest in the speaker’s complaint
   • Commiseration responses in exclamatory form
     
2. Present sample complaints without responses and encourage discussion on how each complaint makes students feel.
   
3. Ask students to fill in the indirect complaint that might come before the following responses. For each of such complaint exchanges, have a group discussion about how setting, context, and interlocutor variables affect how people complain and respond.
   
4. Ask students to arrange short conversations in order.
   
5. Give the context of a situation with gender, social status, social distance relationships, and have small groups play roles of mini-drama, videotape, play back and analyze the interactions.  

American Compliments

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Functions of Compliments

In American English we use compliments for a variety of reasons:

• To express admiration or approval of someone’s work/appearance/taste (Manes, 1983; Herbert, 1990).
• To establish/confirm/maintain solidarity (Manes & Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson, 1989).
• To replace greetings/gratitude/apologies/congratulations (Wolfson, 1983, 1989).
• To soften face-threatening acts such as apologies, requests and criticism (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Wolfson, 1983).
• To open and sustain conversation (conversation strategy) (Wolfson, 1983; Billmyer, 1990; Dunham, 1992).
• To reinforce desired behavior (Manes, 1983).

A great majority of compliments are addressed to people of similar age and status to the compliment giver (Knapp, Hopper, & Bell, 1984 [©]).
Acceptance responses occur only about a third of the time. In American English, two thirds of the time respondents to compliments do something other than to accept them (Herbert, 1990 [©]).

Major compliment topics can be classified into 3 categories:

1. appearance/possessions
   
   
   Compliments on someone’s appearance or possessions are the most common type of compliments in American English. "Your blouse looks beautiful!" is an example of an adjectival compliment. About 2/3 of adjectival compliments use the words nice, good, pretty, great, or beautiful (Manes & Wolfson, 1981). Good is often used for performance and nice is mostly used for appearance/attire (Knapp et al., 1984 [©]).
   
   "I really love your car!" is an example of a compliment that contains a semantically positive verb. Like or love are used 90% of the time in this type of compliment. Some other semantically positive verbs that are used would be admire and be impressed (Wolfson, 1989).
   
   
2. performance/skills/abilities
   
   
   "You did a good job!" and "You are such a wonderful writer" are examples of compliments on performance/skills/abilities.
   
   Concise compliments such as "Nice shot!" are typically given by male speakers (Herbert, 1990 [©]).
   
   
3. personality traits
   
   
   Such comments as "Good boy" and "You’re so sweet" are compliments on the addressee’s personality traits. This category of compliments occurs less frequently than those on appearance/possessions and performance/skills/abilities (Holmes, 1988 [©]).

In terms of sentence structure, compliments in American English can be classified into 9 categories.

NP = noun phrase
ADJ = adjective
PRO = pronoun
V = verb
ADV = adverb

1. Your blouse is/looks (really) beautiful. (NP is/looks (really) ADJ)
2. I (really) like/love your car. (I (really) like/love NP)
3. That’s a (really) nice wall hanging. (PRO is (really) a ADJ NP)
4. You did a (really) good job. (You V a (really) ADV NP)
5. You really handled that situation well. (You V (NP) (really) ADV)
6. You have such beautiful hair! (You have (a) ADJ NP!)
7. What a lovely baby you have! (What (a) ADJ NP!)
8. Nice game! (ADJ NP!)
9. Isn’t your ring beautiful! (Isn’t NP ADJ!)

Above passages from Manes & Wolfson (1981), p. 120.
[ Research notes on the section above... ]

Responses to Compliments

As noted in the introduction to this website, and at the beginning of this compliment page, Americans rarely accept compliments. Deflecting or rejecting compliments negates the implication that the addressee is superior to the speaker in any way. In American English, the preference of response strategies other than acceptance may be related to the notion of democracy and equality of all human beings (Herbert & Straight, 1989, p. 39 [©]).
Compliment Response Strategies

1. Accept
   • Appreciation Token (Thanks/Thank you)*
   • Comment Acceptance (Yeah, it’s my favorite, too)*
   • Praise Upgrade (Really brings out the blue in my eyes, doesn’t it?)**
   
    
2. Mitigate
   • Comment History (I bought it for the trip to Arizona)**
   • Shift credit (My brother gave it to me/It really knitted itself)**
   • Questioning or Request Reassurance/Repetition (Do you really like them?)*
   • Return (So’s yours)**
   • Scale Down/Downgrade (It’s really quite old)**
   
    
3. Reject
   • Disagreeing Utterance (A: You look good and healthy. B: I feel fat)*
   
    
4. No Response**
    
5. Request Interpretation**
   • Addressee interprets the compliment as a request: (You wanna borrow this one too?)

[ Research notes on the section above... ]

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Above passages adapted from *Nelson, Al-Batal, & Echols (1996), p.419 and **Herbert, 1990, p. 208 [©].

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Gender Differences in American Compliments

There are some interesting gender differences in the giving of compliments:

• Compliments given by female speakers tend to have a personal focus and use 1^st and 2^nd person pronouns: "I love your purse!" "You look great!" (Herbert, 1990 [©]).


• Compliments given by male speakers are often impersonal: "Nice game!" "Good job!" (Herbert, 1990 [©]; Holmes, 1988 [©]).


• Women give and receive significantly more compliments to each other than they do to men or men do to each other (Holmes, 1988 [©]).


• Male compliments are more likely to be accepted than female compliments (Herbert, 1990 [©]).

Teaching Tips

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Intonation
Intonation is an important factor in giving sincere compliments.
Status
Some ESL learners tend to assume that people of lower status are likely to give compliments if this is the norm in their native-language, but this is not the case in American English.
Accepting Compliments
Some learners may believe that Americans always accept compliments due to typical textbook descriptions, previous classroom learning, and limited experience.
Unequal Status
In interactions where status is unequal, in American English the most appropriate response may be a simple acceptance of the compliment (Thank you).
Arabic
In Arabic, formulaic expressions are often used for compliments and compliment responses. Arabic speakers may be apt to give too many compliments or find it hard to simply accept a compliment without elaborating on it in English, because in Arabic in general, the longer a compliment is, the greater the sincerity is (Nelson, Al-Batal, & Echols, 1996 [©]).

Sample Teaching Materials

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Giving and Receiving Compliments in American English

1. Introduction and Discussion Questions
   • What is a compliment?
   • What do people say to give a compliment in English and in your first language?
   • Who is likely to give and receive compliments in the United States?
   • When do Americans give compliments?
   • What do they give compliments about?
      
2. Practice Giving and Responding to Compliments
   • Use the compliment and response to compliment categories in the "American Compliments" section.
      
3. Student Observation
   • Assign homework in which learners collect responses to the compliments they give to other speakers of English outside the class. They could also keep track of the responses they give when they are complimented.
      
4. Analysis and Practice of Compliment Responses
   • Go over with the learners the responses to compliment that were collected and discuss various possible response strategies (see the "American Compliments" section above).
      
5. Practice Sustaining a Conversation Using Compliments
   • Practice compliments and responses and discuss another function of compliments, opening and sustaining conversation. Practice developing conversation using compliments and encourage learners to try it outside the class.
   
   

   Structure of Refusals

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   Functions of Refusals

   Refusals can be used in response to:
6. Requests
7. Invitations
8. Offers
9. Suggestions

In response to requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions, acceptance or agreement are usually preferred, and refusing or rejecting are not. Refusals and rejections can mean disapproval of the interlocutor's idea and therefore, a threat to the interlocutor's face. While acceptance or agreement tend to be used in direct language without much delay, mitigation, or explanation, refusals tend to be indirect, include mitigation, and/or delay within the turn or across turns. The delay probably shows that the refuser has a good reason for refusing and may imply that the refuser would accept or agree instead if it were possible or practical.
Refusals often include explanations/reasons why such refusals are necessary. Refusal strategies function to reassure the recipient of the refusal that s/he is still approved of but that there are necessary reasons for the refusal, and that the refuser regrets the necessity for the refusal. Such various refusal strategies include those listed below.

Classification of Refusal Strategies

Refusals can be classified into two categories:

I. Direct

1. Using performative verbs (I refuse)
2. Non performative statement
   • "No"
   • Negative willingness/ability (I can't./I won't./I don't think so)

II. Indirect

1. Statement of regret (I'm sorry.../I feel terrible...)
2. Wish (I wish I could help you...)
3. Excuse, reason, explanation (My children will be home that night./I have a headache)
4. Statement of alternative
   • I can do X instead of Y (I'd rather.../I'd prefer...)
   • Why don't you do X instead of Y (Why don't you ask someone else?)
5. Set condition for future or past acceptance (If you had asked me earlier, I would have...)
6. Promise of future acceptance (I'll do it next time./I promise I'll.../Next time I'll...)
7. Statement of principle (I never do business with friends.)
8. Statement of philosophy (One can't be too careful.)
9. Attempt to dissuade interlocutor
   • Threat or statement of negative consequences to the requester (I won't be any fun tonight to refuse an invitation)
   • Guilt trip (waitress to customers who want to sit a while: I can't make a living off people who just order coffee.)
   • Criticize the request/requester (statement of negative feeling or opinion; insult/attack (Who do you think you are?/That's a terrible idea!)
   • Request for help, empathy, and assistance by dropping or holding the request
   • Let interlocutor off the hook (Don't worry about it./That's okay./You don't have to.)
   • Self-defense (I'm trying my best./I'm doing all I can do.)
10. Acceptance that functions as a refusal
    • Unspecific or indefinite reply
    • Lack of enthusiasm
11. Avoidance
    • Nonverbal
    • Silence
    • Hesitation
    • Doing nothing
    • Physical departure
    • Verbal
    • Topic switch
    • Joke
    • Repetition of part of request (Monday?)
    • Postponement (I'll think about it.)
    • Hedge (Gee, I don't know./I'm not sure.

Above passages from Beebe et al. (1990).
>> Adapted version of the refusal classification (American graduate students' rejections in academic advising sessions).

Adjuncts to Refusals

1. Statement of positive opinion/feeling or agreement (That's a good idea.../I'd love to...)
2. Statement of empathy (I realize you are in a difficult situation.)
3. Pause fillers (uhh/well/oh/uhm)
4. Gratitude/appreciation

Above passages from Beebe et al. (1990).

Refusal Sequences

Refusals can be seen as a series of the following sequences.

1. Pre-refusal strategies: these strategies prepare the addressee for an upcoming refusal
2. Main refusal (Head Act): this strategy expresses the main refusal.
3. Post-refusal strategies: these strategies follow the head act and tend to emphasize, justify, mitigate, or conclude the refusal response.

For instance, a refusal example below shows an instance of a refusal sequence to a boss' request for an employee to stay at work two extra hours.

Boss:	I was wondering if you might be able to stay a bit late this evening, say, until about 9:00 pm or so.
	Response		Refusal-sequences		Strategy
Employee:	Uh, I'd really like to		[PRE-REFUSAL]		~ Willingness
	but I can't		[HEAD ACT]		~ Direct refusal
	I'm sorry		[POST-REFUSAL]		~ Apology/Regret
	I have plans		[POST-REFUSAL]		~ Reason/Explanation
	I really can't stay		[POST-REFUSAL]		~ Direct refusal

Australian English Requests

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(Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984)
In comparison to American English, Hebrew, Canadian French, and Argentinean English requests, Australian English has been found the least direct (although this does not mean that Australian English speakers are more polite than the rest). If conventionally and unconventionally indirect strategies are combined, the level of indirectness in Australian English reaches 90%. Australian English speakers tend to opt for highly scripted, routinized requestive behavior. The majority of the requests take the form of could you, would you, or would you mind doing X:

• Would you please clean up the mess you’ve made?
• Excuse me, I was wondering whether you could give me a lift?

Australian English speakers are also found to use downgraders more often than Canadian French, Hebrew, and Argentinean Spanish speakers:

• Could I please borrow your notes from yesterday?
• I was wondering if you could possibly present your paper next week, instead of the week after?
• Do you think you could help me clean this mess up? 
  

  American Thanks

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  We thank/express gratitude in different ways for different reasons. We may say:
  
• "Thank you so much for the gift!" to show gratitude,
• "Thanks for the wonderful meal." to compliment someone, or
• "That’s all, thank you." to signal the conclusion of a conversation.

Many examples of thanking appear in a ritualized form, such as saying "Thanks" or "Thank you" to a bus driver, a cashier, or to a friend who has handed you something. Some speakers, especially those living in larger cities, may say nothing at all to a bus driver or a cashier. Others tend to automatically thank others for performing a service for them.
There are phrases that commonly precede or follow an expression of gratitude or thanks. These phrases perform another function for the speaker:

• Complimenting (Thank you. You’re wonderful.)


• Expressing affection (I really appreciate this. You’re a sweetheart.)


• Reassuring the listener (I can’t thank you enough. This is just what I wanted. Blue is my favorite color.)


• Promising to repay (I don’t know how to thank you. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.)


• Expressing surprise and delight (Oh, wow! Thank you!)


• Expressing a lack of necessity or obligation (I don’t know how to thank you. You didn’t have to do this for me.)


• Exaggerating to emphasize the depth of the gratitude (I really appreciate this. You’re a lifesaver.)

Above passages from Eisenstein & Bodman (1986), pp. 168-172.
[ Anatomy of American thanks... ]

Examples and Strategies of American Thanking

(Eisenstein & Bodman 1986, pp. 179-183).
To a friend who lends you $5:

• Thanks a lot. / Thanks. I really appreciate it. (Thanking)
• Thanks, I’ll give it back to you Monday. (Thanking + promise / reassurance)
• Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. (Expressing surprise + thanking)
• Thanks a bunch. You’re a lifesaver. (Thanking + compliment)

To a friend who brings you a birthday present:

• Oh, you know me so well. Thanks, I love it. (Expressing surprise + complimenting + thanking + espressing liking)
• It’s beautiful. Thank you. (Complimenting the object + thanking)
• It’s lovely, but you didn’t have to get me anything. (Complimenting the object + expressing the lack of necessity/generosity)

To a vice-President of the company you are working for who offers you an unexpected raise:

• Gee, thanks. / Wow, thanks. (Expressing surprise + thanking)
• Thank you. I’m glad you appreciate my work / I’m glad you’re happy with my work / That’s great! (Thanking + expressing pleasure)
• That’s very kind of you. Thank you so much. (Complimenting the person + thanking)
• Thank you very much. I really like working here. I'll continue to give it my best. (Thanking + expressing liking + promising)

To a friend who offers to lend you $500 you suddenly need:

• You’re a lifesaver. I’ll never forget it. You can’t imagine what this means to me. (Complimenting the person/action + thanking + expressing indebtedness + expressing gratitude)
• I’ll return it to you as soon as I can. I really appreciate what you’re doing. (Promising to repay + expressing appreciation)
• Wow. I don’t know how to thank you. This is a lifesaver. (Expressing relief + thanking + complimenting the action)
• Are you sure this is all right? (Expressing reluctance to accept)

To a friend who took you to lunch at a very nice restaurant:

• Thanks for lunch. I’ll take you out next week / Next time, it’s my treat. (Thanking + promising to reciprocate)
• This was very nice. Thanks a lot for the meal. (Complimenting the person/action + thanking)
• It was a wonderful lunch. Thank you for inviting me. (Complimenting the event + thanking)

To a colleague at the office who tells you that she has organized a farewell party for you before you leave for a new job:

• You’re wonderful. / That’s very nice of you. (Complimenting the person)
• Oh that’s really nice! You didn’t have to do that! (Expressing surprise + complimenting the action + expressing the lack of necessity)

To a relatively new friend whose party you have really enjoyed:

• You really made me feel at home. / The dinner was delicious. You’ll have to come for dinner at my place when we get a chance / I’d like you to come over to my place next time / I’d like to have you over. I’ll be in touch with you. (Complimenting action / person + offering reciprocity)
• Thank you very much for the dinner and the company. I really enjoyed myself. I’ll see you later. Good night. (Thanking + expressing pleasure + leave-taking)
• Thank you for inviting me. I had a great time. (Thanking + expression of pleasure)
• Thank you for a wonderful evening. I hope we’ll get together again soon / Perhaps we can get together again soon / Let’s get together again soon. (Thanking + expressing a desire to continue relationship)

Responses to Thanks

How people respond to being thanked typically falls into these categories:

1. Recognizing the gratitude and relieving the speaker of its burden (You’re welcome.)


2. Indicating that it was gladly done (That’s quite all right.)


3. Denying the existence of the need to thank or playing it down (Not at all / Don’t mention it.)

Above passages from Coulmas (1981), p. 77.
Thanks and apologies can be responded in similar terms (That’s all right / Not at all). What thanks and apologies have in common is the concept of indebtedness. Thanks implying the indebtedness of the speaker to the listener closely resembles apologies where the speaker actually recognizes his indebtedness to his listener. For example:

1. Thank you for all your help. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
2. Don’t mention it/That’s all right. It’s really nothing.

1. I’m terrible sorry I did this to you.
2. That’s all right. It’s really nothing.

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SPEECH ACTS

Kent Bach, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry

SPEECH ACTS

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, and so on. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience.
The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory. It must systematically classify types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail. It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique. For example, the sentence 'This is a pig sty' might be used nonliterally to state that a certain room is messy and filthy and, further, to demand indirectly that it be straightened out and cleaned up. Even when this sentence is used literally and directly, say to describe a certain area of a barnyard, the content of its utterance is not fully determined by its linguistic meaning--in particular, the meaning of the word 'this' does not determine which area is being referred to. A major task for the theory of speech acts is to account for how speakers can succeed in what they do despite the various ways in which linguistic meaning underdetermines use.
In general, speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker's intention, the attitude being expressed.
Some speech acts, however, are not primarily acts of communication and have the function not of communicating but of affecting institutional states of affairs. They can do so in either of two ways. Some officially judge something to be the case, and others actually make something the case. Those of the first kind include judges' rulings, referees' calls and assessors' appraisals, and the latter include include sentencing, bequeathing and appointing. Acts of both kinds can be performed only in certain ways under certain circumstances by those in certain institutional or social positions.

1. Levels of speech acts
2. Communicative and conventional speech acts
3. Types of speech acts
4. Direct, indirect and nonliteral speech acts
5. Philosophical importance of speech act theory


1. Levels of speech acts
How language represents the world has long been, and still is, a major concern of philosophers of language. Many thinkers, such as Leibniz, Frege, Russell, the early Wittgenstein, and Carnap (q.v.), have thought that understanding the structure of language could illuminate the nature of reality. However noble their concerns, such philosophers have implicitly assumed, as J. L. Austin complains at the beginning of How to Do Things with Words, that 'the business of a [sentence] can only be to "describe" some state of affairs, or to "state some fact", which it must do either truly or falsely'. Austin reminds us that we perform all sorts of 'speech acts' besides making statements, and that there are other ways for them to go wrong or be 'infelicitous' besides not being true. The later Wittgenstein also came to think of language not primarily as a system of representation but as a vehicle for all sorts of social activity. 'Don't ask for the meaning', he admonished, 'ask for the use'. But it was Austin who presented the first systematic account of the use of language. And whereas Wittgenstein could be charged with having conflating meaning and use, Austin was careful to separate the two. He distinguished the meaning (and reference) of the words used from the speech acts performed by the speaker using them.
Austin's attention was first attracted to what he called 'explicit performative utterances', in which one uses sentences like 'I nominate ...', 'You're fired', 'The meeting is adjourned', and 'You are hereby sentenced ...' to perform acts of the very sort named by the verb, such as nominating, firing, adjourning, or sentencing (see PERFORMATIVES). Austin held that performatives are neither true nor false, unlike what he called 'constatives'. However, he came to realize that constatives work just like performatives. Just as a suggestion or an apology can be made by uttering 'I suggest ...' or 'I apologize ...', so an assertion or a prediction can be made by uttering 'I assert ...' or 'I predict ...'. Accordingly, the distinction between constative and performative utterances is, in Austin's general theory of speech acts, superseded by that between saying something and what one does in saying it. This broader distinction applies to both statements and other sorts of speech acts, and takes into account the fact that one does not have to say 'I suggest ...' to make a suggestion, 'I apologize ...' to make an apology, or 'I assert' to make an assertion.
The theory of speech acts aims to do justice to the fact that even though words (phrases, sentences) encode information, people do more things with words than convey information, and that when people do convey information, they often convey more than their words encode. Although the focus of speech act theory has been on utterances, especially those made in conversational and other face-to-face situations, the phrase 'speech act' should be taken as a generic term for any sort of language use, oral or otherwise. Speech acts, whatever the medium of their performance, fall under the broad category of intentional action, with which they share certain general features (see ACTION). An especially pertinent feature is that when one acts intentionally, generally one has a set of nested intentions. For instance, having arrived home without one's keys, one might push a button with the intention not just of pushing the button but of ringing a bell, arousing one's spouse and, ultimately, getting into one's house. The single bodily movement involved in pushing the button comprises a multiplicity of actions, each corresponding to a different one of the nested intentions. Similarly, speech acts are not just acts of producing certain sounds.
Austin identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterance itself. He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it, and dubs these the 'locutionary', the 'illocutionary' and the 'perlocutionary' act, respectively. Suppose, for example, that a bartender utters the words, 'The bar will be closed in five minutes,' reported by means of direct quotation. He is thereby performing the locutionary act of saying that the bar (i.e., the one he is tending) will be closed in five minutes (from the time of utterance), and what is said is reported by indirect quotation (notice that what the bartender is saying, the content of his locutionary act, is not fully determined by the words he is using, for they do not specify the bar in question or the time of the utterance). In saying this, the bartender is performing the illocutionary act of informing the patrons of the bar's imminent closing and perhaps also the act of urging them to order a last drink. Whereas the upshot of these illocutionary acts is understanding on the part of the audience, perlocutionary acts are performed with the intention of producing a further effect. The bartender intends to be performing the perlocutionary acts of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to close and of getting them to want and to order one last drink. He is performing all these speech acts, at all three levels, just by uttering certain words.
There seems to be a straightforward relationship in this example between the words uttered ('The bar will be closed in five minutes'), what is thereby said, and the act of informing the patrons that the bar will close in five minutes. Less direct is the connection between the utterance and the act of urging the patrons to order one last drink. Clearly there is no linguistic connection here, for the words make no mention of drinks or of ordering. This indirect connection is inferential. The patrons must infer that the bartender intends to be urging them to leave and, indeed, it seems that the reason his utterance counts as an act of that sort is that he is speaking with this intention. There is a similarly indirect connection when an utterance of 'It's getting cold in here' is made not merely as a statement about the temperature but as a request to close the window or as a proposal to go some place warmer. Whether it is intended (and is taken) as a request or as a proposal depends on contextual information that the speaker relies on the audience to rely on. This is true even when the connection between word and deed is more direct than in the above example, for the form of the sentence uttered may fail to determine just which sort of illocutionary act is being performed. Consider, by analogy, the fact that in shaking hands we can, depending on the circumstances, do any one of several different things: introduce ourselves, greet each other, seal a deal, or bid farewell. Similarly, a given sentence can be used in a variety of ways, so that, for example, 'I will call a lawyer' could be used as a prediction, a promise, or a warning. How one intends it determines the sort of act it is.

2. Communicative and conventional speech acts
The examples considered thus far suggest that performing a speech act, in particular an illocutionary act, is a matter of having a certain communicative intention in uttering certain words. Such an act succeeds, the intention with which it is performed is fulfilled, if the audience recognizes that intention. This is not by magic, of course. One must choose one's words in such a way that their utterance makes one's intention recognizable under the circumstances. However, as illustrated above, the utterance need not encode one's intention. So, in general, understanding an utterance is not merely a matter of decoding it.
A specifically communicative intention is a reflexive intention, of the sort characterized by H. P. Grice (see COMMUNICATION/INTENTION). This is an intention part of whose content is that it be recognized, indeed be recognized partly on the basis that this is intended. Accordingly, it is an intention whose fulfillment consists in its recognition. This feature distinguishes acts of communication from most sorts of acts, whose success does not depend on anyone's recognizing the intention with which they are performed. One cannot succeed in running a marathon just by virtue of someone's recognizing one's intention to do so, but one can succeed in stating something, requesting something, etc., by virtue of one's addressee recognizing that one is stating it, requesting it, etc. This is success at the illocutionary level. It is a further matter, a condition on the success of perlocutionary act, whether the addressee believes what one states or does what one requests.
Now Austin did not take into account the central role of speakers' intentions and hearers' inferences. He supposed that the successful performance of an illocutionary act is a matter of convention, not intention. Indeed, he held that the use of a sentence with a certain illocutionary force is conventional in the peculiar sense that this force can be 'made explicit by the performative formula'. P. F. Strawson argues that in making this claim Austin was overly impressed by the special case of utterances that affect institutional states of affairs, and should have not taken them as a model of illocutionary acts in general. Austin was especially struck by the character of explicit performative utterances, in which one uses a verb that names the very type of act one is performing. For them he developed an account of what it takes for such acts to be performed successfully and felicitously, classifying the various things that can go wrong as 'flaws', 'hitches', and other sorts of 'infelicities'. It is only in certain conventionally designated circumstances and by people in certain positions that certain utterances can have the force they do. For example, only in certain circumstances does a jury foreman's pronouncement of 'Guilty' or 'Not guilty' count as a verdict, a legislator's 'Aye' or 'Nay' as a vote, and a baseball umpire's cry of 'Y'er out' as calling a runner out. In these cases it is only by conforming to a convention that an utterance of a certain form counts as the performance of an act of a certain sort. However, as Strawson argues, most illocutionary acts succeed not by conformity to convention but by recognition of intention. They are not conventional except in the irrelevant sense that the words and sentences being used have their linguistic meanings by virtue of convention (see CONVENTIONALITY OF LANGUAGE).
Strawson's argument raises a serious problem for theories inspired by Austin's view. Consider, for example, the theory advanced by John Searle, who proposes to explain illocutionary forces by means of 'constitutive rules' (conventions) for using 'force-indicating' devices, such as performative verbs and sentential moods. The problem is that the same sorts of illocutionary acts that can be performed by means of such devices can be performed without them. For example, one does not have to use a performative, as in 'I demand that you be quiet', or the imperative mood, as in 'Be quiet!', to demand someone to be quiet. Clearly a theory that relies on rules for using such devices is not equipped to explain the illocutionary forces of utterances lacking such devices. No such difficulty arises for a theory according to which most illocutionary acts are performed not with an intention to conform to a convention but with a communicative intention.

3. Types of speech acts
Pretheoretically, we think of an act of communication, linguistic or otherwise, as an act of expressing oneself. This rather vague idea can be made more precise if we get more specific about what is being expressed. Take the case of an apology. If you utter, '[I'm] sorry I didn't call back' and intend this as an apology, you are expressing regret for something, in this case for not returning a phone call. An apology just is the act of (verbally) expressing regret for, and thereby acknowledging, something one did that might have harmed or at least bothered the hearer. An apology is communicative because it is intended to be taken as expressing a certain attitude, in this case regret. It succeeds as such if it is so taken. In general, an act of communication succeeds if it is taken as intended. That is, it must be understood or, in Austin's words, 'produce uptake'. With an apology, this a matter of the addressee recognizing the speaker's intention to be expressing regret for some deed or omission. Using a special device such as the performative 'I apologize' may of course facilitate understanding (understanding is correlative with communicating), but in general this is unnecessary. Communicative success is achieved if the speaker chooses his words in such a way that the hearer will, under the circumstances of utterance, recognize his communicative intention. So, for example, if you spill some beer on someone and say 'Oops' in the right way, your utterance will be taken as an apology for what you did.
In saying something one generally intends more than just to communicate--getting oneself understood is intended to produce some effect on the listener. However, our speech act vocabulary can obscure this fact. When one apologizes, for example, one may intend not merely to express regret but also to seek forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is, strictly speaking, distinct from apologizing, even though one utterance is the performance of an act of both types. As an apology, the utterance succeeds if it is taken as expressing regret for the deed in question; as an act of seeking forgiveness, it succeeds if forgiveness is thereby obtained. Speech acts, being perlocutionary as well as illocutionary, generally have some ulterior purpose, but they are distinguished primarily by their illocutionary type, such as asserting, requesting, promising and apologizing, which in turn are distinguished by the type of attitude expressed. The perlocutionary act is a matter of trying to get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and in some cases to act in a certain way. For example, a statement expresses a belief and normally has the further purpose of getting the addressee form the same belief. A request expresses a desire for the addressee to do a certain thing and normally aims for the addressee to intend to and, indeed, actually do that thing. A promise expresses the speaker's firm intention to do something, together with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it, and normally aims further for the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to expect, the speaker to do it.
Statements, requests, promises and apologies are examples of the four major categories of communicative illocutionary acts: constatives, directives, commissives and acknowledgments. This is the nomenclature used by Kent Bach and Michael Harnish, who develop a detailed taxonomy in which each type of illocutionary act is individuated by the type of attitude expressed (in some cases there are constraints on the content as well). There is no generally accepted terminology here, and Bach and Harnish borrow the terms 'constative' and 'commissive' from Austin and 'directive' from Searle. They adopt the term 'acknowledgment', over Austin's 'behabitive' and Searle's 'expressive', for apologies, greetings, congratulations etc., which express an attitude regarding the hearer that is occasioned by some event that is thereby being acknowledged, often in satisfaction of a social expectation. Here are assorted examples of each type:
Constatives: affirming, alleging, announcing, answering, attributing, claiming, classifying, concurring, confirming, conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing, disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking, reporting, stating, stipulating
Directives: advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing, excusing, forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring, suggesting, urging, warning
Commissives: agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising, swearing, volunteering
Acknowledgments: apologizing, condoling, congratulating, greeting, thanking, accepting (acknowledging an acknowledgment)
Bach and Harnish spell out the correlation between type of illocutionary act and type of expressed attitude. In many cases, such as answering, disputing, excusing and agreeing, as well as all types of acknowledgment, the act and the attitude it expresses presuppose a specific conversational or other social circumstance.
For types of acts that are distinguished by the type of attitude expressed, there is no need to invoke the notion of convention to explain how it can succeed. The act can succeed if the hearer recognizes the attitude being expressed, such as a belief in the case of a statement and a desire in the case of a request. Any further effect it has on the hearer, such as being believed or being complied with, or just being taken as sincere, is not essential to its being a statement or a request. Thus an utterance can succeed as an act of communication even if the speaker does not possess the attitude he is expressing: communication is one thing, sincerity another. Communicating is as it were just putting an attitude on the table; sincerity is actually possessing the attitude one is expressing. Correlatively, the hearer can understand the utterance without regarding it as sincere, e.g., take it as an apology, as expressing regret for something, without believing that the speaker regrets having done the deed in question. Getting one's audience to believe that one actually possesses the attitude one is expressing is not an illocutionary but a perlocutionary act.

4. Direct, indirect and nonliteral speech acts
As Austin observed, the content of a locutionary act (what is said) is not always determined by what is meant by the sentence being uttered. Ambiguous words or phrases need to be disambiguated (see AMBIGUITY) and the references of indexical and other context-sensitive expressions need to be fixed in order for what is said to be determined fully (see DEMONSTRATIVES AND INDEXICALS). Moreover, what is said does not determine the illocutionary act(s) being performed. We can perform a speech act (1) directly or indirectly, by way of performing another speech act, (2) literally or nonliterally, depending on how we are using our words, and (3) explicitly or inexplicitly, depending on whether we fully spell out what we mean.
These three contrasts are distinct and should not be confused. The first two concern the relation between the utterance and the speech act(s) thereby performed. In indirection a single utterance is the performance of one illocutionary act by way of performing another. For example, we can make a request or give permission by way of making a statement, say by uttering 'I am getting thirsty' or 'It doesn't matter to me', and we can make a statement or give an order by way of asking a question, such as 'Will the sun rise tomorrow?' or 'Can you clean up your room?' When an illocutionary act is performed indirectly, it is performed by way of performing some other one directly. In the case of nonliteral utterances, we do not mean what our words mean but something else instead. With nonliterality the illocutionary act we are performing is not the one that would be predicted just from the meanings of the words being used, as with likely utterances of 'My mind got derailed' or 'You can stick that in your ear'. Occasionally utterances are both nonliteral and indirect. For example, one might utter 'I love the sound of your voice' to tell someone nonliterally (ironically) that she can't stand the sound of his voice and thereby indirectly to ask him to stop singing.
Nonliterality and indirection are the two main ways in which the semantic content of a sentence can fail to determine the full force and content of the illocutionary act being performed in using the sentence. They rely on the same sorts of processes that Grice discovered in connection with what he called 'conversational implicature' (see IMPLICATURE), which, as is clear from Grice's examples, is nothing more than the special case of nonliteral or indirect constatives made with the use of indicative sentences. A few of Grice's examples illustrate nonliterality, e.g., 'He was a little intoxicated', used to explain why a man smashed some furniture, but most of them are indirect statements, e.g., 'There is a garage around the corner' used to tell someone where to get petrol, and 'Mr. X's command of English is excellent, and his attendance has been regular', giving the high points in a letter of recommendation. These are all examples in which what is meant is not determined by what is said. However, Grice overlooks a different kind of case, marked by contrast (3) listed above.
There are many sentences whose standard uses are not strictly determined by their meanings but are not implicatures or figurative uses either. For example, if one's spouse says 'I will be home later'. she is likely to mean that she will be home later that night, not merely some time in the future. In such cases what one means is an expansion of what one says, in that adding more words ('tonight', in the example) would have made what was meant fully explicit. In other cases, such as 'Jack is ready' and 'Jill is late', the sentence does not express a complete proposition. There must be something which Jack is being claimed to be ready for and something which Jill is being claimed to be late to. In these cases what one means is a completion of what one says. In both sorts of case, no particular word or phrase is being used nonliterally and there is no indirection. They both exemplify what may be called 'impliciture', since part of what is meant is communicated not explicitly but implicitly, by way of expansion or completion.

5. Philosophical importance of speech act theory
The theory of speech acts has applications to philosophy in general, but these can only be illustrated here. In ethics, for example, it has been supposed that sentences containing words like 'good' and 'right' are used not to describe but to commend, hence that such sentences are not used to make statements and that questions of value and morals are not matters of fact. This line of argument is fallacious. Sentences used for ethical evaluation, such as 'Loyalty is good' and 'Abortion is wrong,' are no different in form from other indicative sentences. Whatever the status of their contents, they are standardly used to make statements. This leaves open the possibility that there is something fundamentally problematic about their contents. Perhaps such statements are factually defective and, despite syntactic appearances, are neither true nor false. However, this is a metaphysical issue about the status of the properties to which ethical predicates purport to refer. It is not the business of the philosophy of language to determine whether or not there are such properties as goodness or rightness and whether or not the goodness of loyalty and the rightness of abortion are matters of fact. The above argument is but one illustration of what Searle calls the 'speech act fallacy'. He also identifies examples of the 'assertion fallacy', whereby conditions of making an assertion are confused with what is asserted. For example, one might fallaciously argue, on the grounds that because one would not assert that one believes something if one was prepared to assert that one knows it, that knowing does not entail believing. Grice identifies the same fallacy in a parallel argument, according to which seeming to have a certain feature entails not actually having that feature (see ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY).
For philosophy of language in particular, the theory of speech acts underscores the importance of the distinction between language use and linguistic meaning (see PRAGMATICS and SEMANTICS). This distinction sharpens the formulation of questions about the nature of linguistic knowledge (see LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE), by separating questions about capacities exercised in linguistic interaction from those specific to knowledge of language itself. A parallel distinction, between speaker reference and linguistic reference (see REFERENCE), provokes the question of to what extent linguistic expressions refer independently of speakers' use of them to refer. It is common, for example, for philosophers to describe expressions like 'the car', 'Robert Jones' and 'they' as having different references in different contexts, but it is arguable that this is merely a misleading way of saying that speakers use such expressions to refer to different things in different contexts.

References and further reading
* Austin, J. L. (1962) How to Do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. (Develops the distinction between performative and constative utterances into the first systematic account of speech acts.)
Bach, K. (1994) 'Conversational impliciture', Mind & Language 9: 124-62. (Identifies the middle ground between explicit utterances and Gricean implicatures.)
* Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Commuication and Speech Acts, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Combines elements of Austin's taxonomy and Grice's theory of conversation into a systematic account of the roles of the speaker's communicative intention and the hearer's inference in literal, nonliteral and indirect uses of sentences to perform speech acts.)
* Grice, H. P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. (The essays on meaning and conversational implicature provide a framework for distinguishing speaker meaning from linguistic meaning and for explaining their relationship.)
* Searle, J. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. (Presents a theory of speech acts relying on the notion of constitutive rules.)
* Strawson, P. F. (1964) 'Intention and convention in speech acts', Philosophical Review 73: 439-60. (Applies Grice's account of meaning to support the claim that most speech acts are communicative rather than conventional, as Austin had suggested.)
Tsohatzidis, S. L., ed. (1994) Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives, London: Routledge. (Collection of original essays on outstanding problems in the field, with useful bibliography.)

What is a Speech Act?

A speech act in the context of the restaurant game is a line of text that one player typed to another. I adapted six speech act classes from Searle's classifications that work well for labeling speech acts in the restaurant context.

COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING

COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING

... the individual must learn to behave in appropriate ways which permit the other members of the group to recognize and anticipate his behavior. Society is that way in which behavior is calibrated so that existence is not a process of continuous and wasteful trial and error. - Ray Birdwhistle Coordinated Management of Meaning (or, CMM, as it will be abbreviated here) is not a single theory -- rather, it is a unified collection of interrelated definitions and explanations, some of which have been presented in other sections of this tutorial. Taken together, the six elements of the CMM model define a hierarchy of situations and actions that describes the "communication dance."
According to CMM, each of us recognizes and makes use of the cultural patterns of our society. These are similar to what other models call "social conventions." Within those patterns, we "know who we are" -- that is, each of us posses a self-concept. When we interact with others we do so in the context of a relationship, and each contact occurs as a particular event or episode. Our face-to-face communication consists primarily of speech acts which frame the actual words, or the content, of our speech.
CMM focuses neither on the individual thoughts of the communicators, nor on the characteristics of the society in which they live. Instead, it focuses on the interaction between the communicators and among the communicators and the members of the society. It is this interaction that generates the meaning of the messages that are sent and received.
The next sections present each of the CMM levels along with examples that illustrate each in turn. To begin, imagine that there are two people who are about to communicate with one another in a face-to-face situation.

Content

The content of the communication described by CMM is contained in sentences that are spoken aloud by the communicants. The notion of content -- as data and information, as signs, and as the paradigms and syntagms of language appears in many of the theories presented in this tutorial. In this case the content is a series of vocal sounds which the example represents by the string of symbols: "Where's the beef?" It is important to see that the content, by itself, is not sufficient to establish the meaning of the communication. All six levels of the model must work together to do that.

Speech Act

Speech act theory is an integral part of the CMM model. This theory defines illocutionary speech as speech that intends to make contact with a receiver and perlocutionary speech as speech that intends to alter the behavior of the receiver. There are many different kinds of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts -- questions, answers, commands, promises, and so forht -- and the participants' knowledge of these plays a part in the communication. The phrase "Where's the beef?" could be a question -- that is, the speaker could be asking where she might find the beef, or it might be a statement -- that is, in response to the request "Name a famous fast food advertising slogan from the 1980s" she might respond, "Where's the beef?"
The exchange between the two communicants is constrained by the rules of the speech act. In this example we will stipulate that the speaker is asking a question -- this normally means that the receiver feels obligated to respond with a statement in the form of an "answer."

Episode

Every instance of face-to-face communication occurs somewhere at some time and in the context of whatever else is going on at the time. This setting is called the episode. The same content takes on different meanings when uttered in different settings. A phrase used in a joke told over dinner in a restaurant, for example, may take on a very different meaning when used to make a point in an argument that occurs at the office. Although the type of speech act and the type of episode both affect the meaning of the content, they are not independent of one another. In other words the episode plays a part in determining which kind of speech act is in use, and the speech acts play a part in defining the episode. A Legal Episode

In this example we will now reveal that both communicants are participants in a college course in political science. HINT

Relationship

The fact that they are speaking relates the communicants to one another. At the very least, they are two strangers, or they may be spouses, coworkers, owner/employee, parent/child, teacher/student, friends, enemies, and so on. (And, of course, they might simultaneously be two or more of these.)
As was noted earlier, the levels of the CMM model affect one another. Thus, the relationship level interacts with the episode, the speech act and the content. Child-Parent Relationship
In this example we now reveal that the speaker is the teacher and the other participant a student.

Self-Concept

The second person's response will depend in part on the participants' conceptions of "who they are," and on the extent to which they have disclosed their self-concepts to one another.
If the teacher sees herself as a somewhat humorous, interactive individual, then she probably presents many questions to her classes, and likely she presents some of them as interesting puzzles or jokes. If the student sees himself as a serious intellectual, then it is likely that he will try to respond with the correct answer to the teacher's question.

Cultural Patterns

To some extent each of us acts in accordance with the cultural values of our society, and these may have to do with such as race, economic class, gender, and ethnic background. For example, people who work in the offices of large corporations usually wear suits to work and talk about business during lunch. People who live in cardboard boxes on the streets of large cities wear old clothes and don't meet regularly for lunch. Men often refer to sports in their conversation. Women often tell stories about their personal experiences.
In this example suppose that the teacher is a woman with a middle-class American cultural background. Given her self-concept we might expect her to conduct class in a relaxed setting with much weight put on classroom discussion. And, suppose that the student is a man with an upper-class Chinese cultural background. In a traditional Chinese educational setting, students are expected to pay a great deal of respect to their teachers and to remain quiet unless called upon. 4015
In this case, then, the student might find himself in an uncomfortable setting with a teacher who is acting in what seems to be a strange and unpredictable manner. On the other hand, the teacher might feel that the student is unprepared, not very bright, extremely shy or otherwise unable to participate in the class. Because of their diverse cultural backgrounds, they may have difficulty doing the communication dance. [The Dance] 4024 4032
In summary, notice once again that the Coordinated Management of Meaning model focuses neither on the individual thoughts of the communicators, nor on the specific characteristics of the society in which they live. Instead, it focuses on the interaction between the communicators within the context the society. It is this interaction that generates the meaning of the messages that are sent and received.

SELF-DISCLOSURE

As the participants in a relationship come to know one another more completely, the quality of their relationship tends to deepen. An area of communication study that has to do with how this comes about is called self-disclosure. Self-disclosure describes the ways in which humans provide others with information about themselves.
One simple, clear model of self disclosure was developed by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in 1969. The Johari Window, as it is called, describes an individual in terms of what is known to him- or her-self and to others.
In the Johari Window model the Free Area represents characteristics of myself that have been shared with others -- in other words, things I know about myself that others know, too.
The Hidden Area represents characteristics of myself that haven't been shared with others.
The Blind Area represents public characteristics of myself that are not self-knowledge, that is, I don't know about them, but others do.
The Unknown Area represents characteristics of myself that are known to no one, including myself.

Consider some examples:

• Late in afternoon of a day on which I have missed lunch, I find myself at a wedding reception. The host asks if I am hungry. I am, but for reasons of my own, perhaps out of politeness because no one else is eating yet, I say that I am not. The knowledge that I am hungry is in the Hidden Area. I know it, but no one else does.
• Ali and most of Ali's friends know that he is allergic to cats. This information is in his Free Area.
• Margie, who often plays poker with her friends, has a habit of smiling whenever she is "bluffing." She doesn't realize this, but some of her friends do. This information is in Margie's Blind Area.
• Andrea has not yet discovered that she is pregnant. No one else knows this, either. This fact is in her Unknown Area.

Taken together, Speech Act Theory, the Miller-Steinberg Model and the Johari Window provide us with many interesting insights into the interactive, engaging nature of human communication. For example, consider a situation in which the speaker performs a perlocutionary act (in an attempt to influence the behavior of the receiver). In doing so the speaker may be basing his or her choice of message on assumptions that are false because they are contained in the receivers Hidden Area. In that case the receiver may be unsure as to how to interpret the message and may respond with a different action than the speaker expects.
On the other hand, the receiver may possess information from the addresser's Blind Area, and may respond in a way that seems arbitrary or mysterious to the speaker but which in reality is based on the self-characteristics that the speaker doesn't know about. Each of these situations may unfold differently depending on the level of communication rules and the level of knowledge in use by the participants. 4014 4017. 4018
For example, in a previous example we spoke of Margie who, when she plays poker with her friends, has a habit of smiling whenever she is "bluffing." This information is in Margie's Blind Area which means that she doesn't realize it, although some of her friends do.
Suppose that Margie makes a fairly large bet on a relatively poor holding of cards, hoping to "fake out" or "bluff" the other players into dropping out. By this perlocutionary speech act she intends to influence the others' behavior. But some of the others see her smile and, recognizing that she is bluffing, refuse to act as she wishes them to. To Margie this response is at first puzzling, but if it continues for a period of time, she may notice the pattern and eventually deduce that she is giving away her plans. At this point, she may decline to self-disclose and use her new self-knowledge to "fake" a bluff when in fact she has a good hand. Of course, if she succeeds at this, she will then have disclosed this new knowledge (albeit indirectly) to her friends.
Self-disclosure informs one participant in a relationship about the other and thus makes both more knowledgeable of the context of their relationship. Thus, self-disclosure can lead to the development of personal rules and to closer and more tightly focused relationships.
The next section shows how misunderstanding can arise even when both participants are satisfied with their knowledge of one another.

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PUNCTUATION

A group of theorists known as the "Palo Alto Group," who are represented here by the theories of Paul Watzlawick, shift the focus of communication in relationships from the intentions of the individual participants to their mutual interaction within a communication system.
Watzlawick's model of interactive communication separates the content of the communication (or what is said) from the form of the communication (or how it is said). In illustration of this, consider Watzlawick's theory of punctuation.
Relationships become stronger as the participants become increasingly able to predict one another's behavior. Punctuation describes the way that communicators anticipate the outcomes of communication events as they organize the reality of their day-to-day lives. In particular, punctuation occurs when one of the participants changes his or her behavior based on an anticipation of what the other will say before he or she actually says it.
As an example of this, consider the situation in which a student receives from a professor an assignment to write a paper. The student may punctuate this assignment by anticipating that the professor expects the paper to be a certain length, or to be written in a certain style, and so may set out to write what the student thinks the professor "wants." The product of this process will be different than what would have been produced if the student had not taken the professor's preferences into account.
Because punctuation is an act that involves one communicator's interpretation of another's expectations, its effects tend to produce ambiguity. In this case, for example, it might be argued that the student's creativity has been restricted by this punctuation. But it also might be argued that the punctuation gives guidance to a student who is learning how to write.
As the participants in a relationship punctuate their ongoing communication, patterns of recurring behavior can arise. For example, consider the relationship of Tania and Gerald, two people who truly enjoy one other's company. Tania likes to "sit and chat" and enjoys "fixing up" and doing odd jobs around the house. Gerald likes to "fish" and enjoys the relaxed atmosphere of being out on the water.
After a few weeks inside the house, Gerald begins to feel "cooped up," on-the-other-hand, sitting in a fishing boat all day leaves Tania feeling restless and "bored."
At first, at home, they both feel good. But as Tania keeps talking and finding new household fix-it jobs for Gerald to do, he begins to feel cooped-up. Tania anticipates his unhappiness and so she suggests that they go fishing. At first, on the boat, they both feel good. But as Gerald relaxes and withdraws into his own thoughts, Tania begins to feel bored. Gerald anticipates her unhappiness and so he suggests that they go home.
Even though the participants encounter the same data in the course of their communication, each derives different information. Tania punctuates the communication with regard to Gerald's feeling "cooped-up," and Gerald punctuates it in terms of Tania feeling "bored." The result of this is that they establish a pattern of behavior that neither of them fully comprehends. In fact each of them would probably say that the other is "causing" them to cut their favorite activity short. 4003 4006 4019
As with each of the theories and models presented in this tutorial, there is much more to be said of the work of Watzlawick and the Palo Alto Group, but the point of emphasize here is their notion that a relationship is a system in which the individual participants are only partly responsible for what happens, and that the full behavior of the system includes effects that arise only as the two participants interact.