A Pragmatic Analysis of Illocutionary Act in a Selected Presidential Speech on COVID-19

This paper aims at studying the illocutionary speech acts: direct and indirect to show the most dominant ones in a presidential speech delivered by the USA president. The speech is about the most critical health issue in the world, COVID-19 outbreak. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted by observing the first speech delivered by president Trump concerning coronavirus outbreak and surveying the illocutionary acts: directive, declarative, commissive, expressive, and representative. Searle's (1985) classification of illocutionary speech acts is adopted in the analysis. What are the main types of the illocutionary speech acts performed by Trump in his speech?; Why does Trump perform illocutionary acts?; and What is the purpose behind using the most dominant acts? The study is of significant value as it displays how the USA's leader addresses his people linguistically using the illocutionary acts. It helps to understand how language is used to deal with certain actions and how it affects the hearers’ viewpoints. The study concludes that two types of illocutionary acts show a significant frequency of occurrence: representatives and declarative. Such result appears due to the purpose behind the discourse under analysis. The other three types of illocutionary acts are of very low frequency. The purpose of the speech and the identity of the figure who delivers it significantly influence the choice of the illocutionary acts. Since the figure who delivers the speech is the president, he has the authority to declare the issue, give instructions concerning the actions that will be taken in the light of this issue and clarify the situation.

MEANING-MAKING OF INTERNET MEMES TO CREATE HUMOROUS SENSE: FUNCTIONS AS SPEECH ACTS

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the readers to understand the background knowledge of memes (2) two types of communicative illocutionary acts were found in the memes: constative and directive illocutionary acts which function to express the emotion or opinions and question something (3) the effects of using internet memes could be seen through verbal and non-verbal perlocutionary acts which showed an agreement and had the same feeling as in the memes. Finally, the memes containing multimodal components composed of semiotic resources interacted creatively to make humorous sense, and it could aid the readers to communicate online.

Argumentation as a Speech Act: A (Provisional) Balance

This paper investigates whether, and if so, in what way, argumentation can be profitably described in speech-act theoretical terms. I suggest that the two theories of argumentation that are supposed to provide the most elaborate analysis of it in speech-act theoretical terms (namely van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst’s Pragma-Dialectics and Lilian Bermejo-Luque’s linguistic normative model of argumentation) both suffer from the same two flaws: firstly, their “illocutionary act pluralism” assumption and secondly, a lack of interest in where arguing belongs in the classification of illocutionary acts. I argue that these flaws derive from the authors’ reliance on an intention-based speech-theoretical framework. Finally, I adopt a deontic framework for speech acts in order to propose an alternative way of accounting for argumentation which seems to overcome the two limitations outlined above. According to this framework, argumentation may be conceived as a speech act sequence, characterized by the conventional effects brought about by the communicative moves (as illocutionary acts) of which it is composed.

The Illocutionary Acts Of Written Conversation In Eleventh Grade Senior High School Students’ Textbook : Modul Pengayaan Bahasa Dan Sastra Inggris Peminatan Semester 2

Background: Language is method of human communication. It is used as means to communicate with other people. Research purposes: to find out the types of illocutionary act in Textbook : Modul Pengayaan Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris Peminatan Semester 2, to identify dominant kinds of illocutionary act in Textbook : Modul Pengayaan Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris Peminatan Semester 2. Research methods: This reseacrh was designed as descriptive qualitative research. The technique of data collecting there are 3 steps. First, the researcher researcher tries to identify the data or the dialogues from the written conversation which are related to the statements of the problems according textbook. Second, the researcher analyzed and classified the types of illocutionary act and the dominant kinds of illocutionary act. Third, the researcher identified the illocutionary act found in Textbook : Modul Pengayaan Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris Peminatan Semester 2 based on types of illocutionary acts. Research results: The total number of types of the data found were 292, there were 34 utterance of declaration, 92 utterances of representative, 48 utterances of expressive, 95 utterances of directives, and 26 utterances of commisive. The dominant type of illocutionary was found is directives with 95 utterences Conclusion: Those were declarative, representative, expressive, directive, and commisive. To be more specific, there are 40 utterances of declarative, 85 utterances of representative, 53 utterances of expressive, 87 utterances of directive, and 26 utterances of commisive.

Discourse Analysis from the Perspective of Austin’s Speech Act Theory and Searle’s Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts: A Case Study of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper

A focus on discourse analysis, this study presents a particular interest in the power relationship artfully constructed by Charlotte P. Gilman in three dialogue instances in her most memorable short narrative, The Yellow Wallpaper. With the awareness of gender differences in mind in terms of how men and women use language, Gilman evinces the ways in which language could be a medium of silencing the other. Consequently, this paper carefully examines the protagonists’ discourses through J. L. Austin’s speech act theory and John Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts. The corpus of the study consists of the utterances of the husband/doctor and of the wife/patient, and both the quantitative and qualitative research methods have been employed for the data analysis. The results have shown that the patriarchal discourse, originally dominated by representatives (opinions, facts) and directives (commands, orders, advices, and refusals), produces utterances meant to fabricate reality (erroneous diagnosis) and generate refusals, whereas the discourse of the other consists mainly of representatives- true statements and opinions -which contradict men’s reality in the journey to achieving self-assertion and selfexpression.

Meaning Loss in Translating Commissive Speech Acts in Movie Subtitles from English into Kurdish

The paper aims at investigating translating commissive speech acts in movie subtitle from English into Kurdish. It attempts to identify the meaning loss, in other words deletion errors and then categorize them along with the illocutionary acts. The samples of the study are taken from the subtitle of the horror movie (Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud) which has been translated into the Kurdish language. First, twenty commissive speech act are identified as having translation problems in the movie according to Searle’s category, then their illocutionary acts are specified. The English and Kurdish subtitles are compared to find out the meaning loss and deleted items, in addition to the compatibility of the illocutionary acts between them. The results of the analysis show that ‘promising’ and ‘warning’ are the most challenging illocutionary acts for translators because of the number of deletion errors found in their translation. The most common type of meaning loss in the translation of commissive speech acts are adverbs, pronouns, exclamation words, main verbs, modal verbs, nouns, and adjectives, respectively.

Insulting in English and Iraqi-Arabic: A Pragmatic Study

Crimes are committed by uttering words or expressions, writing or signifying in a public way like insulting which is one of the crimes against public welfare. This crime has been dealt with and compared legally but its linguistic aspect has not been given much attention. This study tries to emphasize this crime pragmatically and contrastively in English and Arabic. No study has shed light on such aspects concerning the study under investigation. The researcher has not found any previous related study to get a benefit from about this topic. The aim of this study is to shed light on the points of similarity and difference in strategies of insulting in terms of speech act, implicature and impoliteness theories between English and Arabic. The present study hypothesizes the following: In terms of the three theories mentioned above, English and Arabic have points of similarities in strategies of insulting. To support or refute the hypothesis of the study, data consisting of 20 complaints in English and Arabic were collected from Courts of Appeal in Iraq, Britain and the United States. They are analyzed in terms of an eclectic model. The results arrived at are: English and Arabic are different in insulting in terms of the locutionary acts and illocutionary acts. Concerning impoliteness, the same strategies are applied to insulting in both languages. As far as implicature is concerned, the two languages are different in insulting.

Illocutionary Acts from the Perspective of Identity Theory with Pu-Yi’s Lines in The Last Emperor against the Tobacco-Prevalent Backdrop

The end of Qing Dynasty was a time where tobacco was prevalent. The social context exerted great influence on group members’ behavior. The central idea of Identity Theory is that the languages we use are actually controlled, or at least affected, by both ourselves and the situations we are in. However, the analyses of illocutionary acts from the perspective of identity are short of due attention. This article is designed to detect illocutionary acts from the perspective of Identity Theory to find out a brand-new way to approach the reasons why different illocutionary acts are chosen by speakers and also will offer the answer to the question of how illocutionary acts reflect speaker’s social identities. After analyzing the seven examples, this paper arrives at two main conclusions i.e. Pu-Yi’s illocutionary acts change with the changes of identities and the illocutionary acts make it possible for reflecting his various social identities. Furthermore, with the examples of Pu-Yi’s lines in The Last Emperor, this study might be more understandable, more interesting and with, more or less, an added historical value in the specific tobacco-prevalent social context.

A Pragma- Stylistic Analysis of Formal Congratulatory Letters in English and Arabic

Politeness strategies are of significant importance to maintain the face of the addressee. Senders of formal congratulatory letters seek to create a positive image in the minds of their addresses by performing particular illocutionary acts and face-saving acts (FSAs) in the form of written texts. To the best knowledge of the researcher, this topic received little attention from linguistic researchers, especially on the pragma-stylistic level. The importance of this study arises from the fact that congratulatory formal letters are an effective tool in the successful performance of foreign relations and thus deserve investigation. The current study investigates the pragma-stylistic aspects of illocutionary acts and FSA Politeness Strategies in some selected English and Arabic formal congratulatory letters written by English and Arabic officials. Findings reveal that assertive constitutes the highest frequency in English data, while expressive occurs more in Arabic. Besides, the FSA politeness strategy (Use appropriate forms of address) includes most of the total frequency in both English and Arabic data, which still it appeared more in English. Additionally, (Exaggerate interest, sympathy with H) comes next in Arabic, while (Be optimistic) appeared more in English. In addition, results show that exaggeration (Hyperbole) is the prevalent stylistic device used in Arabic. Arabic officials usually exaggerate the glorification of people in authoritative positions, while English high officials tend to be more moderate. The findings will be helpful in cross-cultural comparative studies and other related fields.

ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS UTTERED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN FEAR OF RAIN MOVIE: PRAGMATIC APPROACH

Speech acts are pragmatic elements that involve speaker and hearers in every conversation in which it has an illocutionary act. The purpose of the research was to find out the types and functions of illocutionary acts. This research used descriptive qualitative method. The data analyzed used the theory of Searle. The source of data is utterance of the main character in Fear of Rain movie. In this research, there are 355 data which contain types of illocutionary acts, such as assertive with 189 data (53%) which consist of 7 functions (stating, informing, asserting, complaining, predicting, convincing, agreeing). Directives with 117 data (33%) consisted of 7 functions (asking, commanding, requesting, advising, warning, suggesting, inviting). Commissive with 19 data (5%) which consist of 3 functions (promising, refusing, and offering). Expressive with 30 data (9%) consisted of 6 functions (thanking, apologizing, praising, greeting, blaming, and expressing anger). The most frequently type of illocutionary act is assertive because the utterance of the main character is believed to be true based on the fact