The communicative functions of five signing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Austin Leeds ◽  
Mary Lee A. Jensvold
Keyword(s):  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Human Studies ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Internal States

Speech act theory describes units of language as acts which function to change the behavior or beliefs of the partner. Therefore, with every utterance an individual seeks a communicative goal that is the underlying motive for the utterance’s production; this is the utterance’s function. Studies of deaf and hearing human children classify utterances into categories of communicative function. This study classified signing chimpanzees’ utterances into the categories used in human studies. The chimpanzees utilized all seven categories of communicative functions and used them in ways that resembled human children. The chimpanzees’ utterances functioned to answer questions, request objects and actions, describe objects and events, make statements about internal states, accomplish tasks such as initiating games, protest interlocutor behavior, and as conversational devices to maintain and initiate conversation.

scholarly journals Nie-egte vrae in 1 Korintiërs 5–6

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas H. Snyman
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Rhetorical Questions ◽  
Scientific Framework

In tradisionele grammatikas en kommentare word gewoonlik net onderskei tussen egte en retoriese vrae. In hierdie artikel word nie-egte vrae geklassifiseer aan die hand van ’n model wat ontwikkel is uit die taalhandelingsteorie. In plaas van alle nie-egte vrae as retoriese vrae te beskou (soos die meeste kommentators doen), maak die model voorsiening vir ses hoof- en verskeie subkategorieë van nie-egte vrae. Die model word kortliks opgesom, gevolg deur ’n sistematiese ondersoek van al die vrae in 1 Korintiërs 5–6. Die slotsom is dat die voorgestelde model nuttig is vir die onderskeiding van verskillende soorte nie-egte vrae binne ’n wetenskaplike raamwerk en vir die bepaling van hulle kommunikatiewe funksies. Op dié wyse word ’n bydrae gelewer tot die vertaling en eksegese van die betrokke gedeeltes. Die model behoort navorsing oor die rol van nie-egte vrae in al Paulus se briewe te stimuleer.Non-real questions in 1 Corinthians 5–6. In this article, questions previously distinguished in traditional grammars and commentaries as mainly real or rhetorical, are classified in terms of a model developed from speech act theory. Instead of classifying all non-real questions as rhetorical questions (as commentators tend to do), the model makes provision for six main and various sub-categories of non-real questions. The model is briefly summarised, followed by a systematic investigation of all the questions in 1 Corinthians 5–6. The conclusion is that the proposed model is useful for distinguishing various types of non-real questions within a scientific framework and for determining their communicative functions, thereby contributing to the translation and exegesis of the passages involved. The model could stimulate research on the role of non-real questions in all Paul’s letters.

The Implicitness of some Interrogative Sentences in Legislative Debates

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Clara Unoalegie Bola AGBARA
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Verbal Response ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Information Giving ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Illocutionary Acts ◽  
Communication Situations ◽  
Rhetorical Questions

Linguists have identified three major sentence types namely; declaratives, imperatives and interrogatives, which feature in most communication situations, whether formal or non-formal. These sentences which perform specific communicative functions, such as giving out information, giving out command/order, and requesting for information, have unique structures respectively. These functions are sometimes, manipulated to meet speakers’ situational intentions. Legislative discourse is characterized by participants who are of opposing views and yet, need to arrive at a collective decision. Arriving at a collective decision requires convincing information which will assist the participants in decision making. In the bid to provide information as well as to influence co-participants, most speakers punctuate their utterances with interrogative sentences. This paper focuses on the pragmatic functions of some non-verbal response interrogatives in legislative discourse. Using Searle’s Speech Act Theory as well as insights from literature on grammar, this paper sets out to describe the illocutionary acts performed with some interrogative sentences in legislative debates. The data used for the research are taken from the Senate Hansards of the sixth National Assembly.  It was discovered that most non-verbal response interrogative sentences (rhetorical questions) are used to perform three illocutionary acts of representative, directive and expressive acts in legislative debates. The paper concludes that rhetorical sentences are important persuasive tools which influence the emotional and reasoning capacities of participants in arriving at a collective decision in legislative debates. They also have the pragmatic force of emphasis, regrets, objections and appeal.

Communication And Speech Act Theory : A Contextual Study Of Language

2016 ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Makhlouf Abdelkader ◽  
Driss Mohamed Amine
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Contextual Study

New Work on Speech Acts

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Work ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Relationship

The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives generally. It is the goal of this book to reflect the diversity of current thinking on speech acts as well as to bring these conversations together, so that they may better inform one another. Topics explored in this book include the relationship between sentence grammar and speech act potential; the fate of traditional frameworks in speech act theory, such as the content-force distinction and the taxonomy of speech acts; and the ways in which speech act theory can illuminate the dynamics of hostile and harmful speech. The book takes stock of well over a half century of thinking about speech acts, bringing this classicwork in linewith recent developments in semantics and pragmatics, and pointing the way forward to further debate and research.

God’s liturgical activity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Ancient Times

It is typical of Christian liturgical enactments for the people to pray and take for granted that God will act in the course of the enactment. This chapter first identifies and analyzes a number of ways in which God might act liturgically and then discusses at some length what might be meant when the people say, in response to the reading of Scripture, “This is the word of the Lord.” After suggesting that what might be meant is either that the reading presented what God said in ancient times or that, by way of the reading, God speaks anew here and now, the chapter suggests a third possibility by going beyond speech-act theory to introduce the idea of a continuant illocution in distinction from an occurrent illocution. Perhaps the reference is to one of God’s continuant illocutions.

Sentence mood

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Portner
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Topic

Sentence mood is the linguistic category which marks the fundamental conversational function, or “sentential force,” of a sentence. Exemplified by the universal types of declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences (as well as by less-common types), sentence mood has been a major topic of research in both linguistics and philosophy. This chapter identifies the two main theories which address the topic, one based on speech act theory and the other on dynamic approaches to meaning. It explains and evaluates current research which uses the two theories, and identifies the most important insights which come out of each.

Sexual Harassment, Speech Acts, and Public Secrets in U.S. Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Debenport
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Online Conversations ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Discursive Representations

This chapter draws on data from U.S. higher education to analyze the ways that the language used to describe sexual harassment secures its continued power. Focusing on two features viewed as definitional to sexual harassment, frequency and severity, the discussion analyzes three sets of online conversations about the disclosure of abuse in academia (a series of tweets, survey responses, and posts on a philosophy blog) from grammatical, pragmatic, and semiotic perspectives. Unlike most prior research, this chapter focuses on the language of victims rather than the intentions of harassers. The results suggest that speech act theory is unable to account fully for sexual harassment without accepting the relevance of perlocutionary effects. Using Gal and Irvine’s (2019) model of axes of differentiation, the chapter demonstrates how opposing discursive representations (of professors, sexual harassers, victims, and accusers) create a discursive space in which it becomes difficult for victims to report their harassers.

scholarly journals Uttering geographies: Speech acts, felicity conditions and modes of existence

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 1124-1140
Author(s):  
Miles Ogborn
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Everyday Talk ◽  
Modes Of Existence

The geographies of speech has become stuck in a form of interpretation which considers the potentially infinite detail of spoken performances understood within their equally infinitely complex contexts. This paper offers a way forward by considering the uses, critiques and reworkings of J.L. Austin’s speech act theory by those who study everyday talk, by deconstructionists and critical theorists, and by Bruno Latour in his AIME (‘An Inquiry into Modes of Existence’) project. This offers a rethinking of speech acts in terms of power and space, and a series of ontological differentiations between forms of utterances and enunciations beyond human speech.

Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse

Language ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
William O. Hendricks ◽  
Mary Louise Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Literary Discourse
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