this is the chapter of pragmatics

I think it a summary of the chapter 6


CHAPTER 6
SPEECH ACTS AND EVENTS
In attempting to express themselves, people perform actions via those utterances. Utterance can be used to perform the act of ending your employment. However, the actions performed by utterances do not have to be as dramatic or as unpleasant. The action can be quite pleasant, as in he compliment performed, the acknowledgement of thanks, or the expression of surprise. For the examples, “You’re so delicious”, “You’re welcome”, “You’re crazy”.
Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request.
These descriptive terms for different kinds of speech acts apply to the speaker’s communicative intention in producing an utterance. Speaker and hearer are usually helped in this process by the circumstances surrounding the utterance. These circumstances, including other utterances, are called the speech event. In many ways, it is the nature of the speech event that determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech art. If the same utterance can be interpreted as two different kinds of speech act, it also means that there is more to the interpretation of a speech act that can be found in the utterance alone.
SPEECH ACTS
On any occasion, the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts. There is first a locutionary act, which is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression.
Mostly we don’t just produce well-formed utterances with no purpose. We form an utterance with some kind of function in mind. This is the second dimension, or the illocutionary act. The illocutionary act is performed via the communicative force of an utterance.
We do not, of course simply create an utterance with a function without intending it to have an effect. This is the third dimension, the perlocutionary act.
Indeed, the term ‘speech act’ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance. The illocutionary force of an utterance is what it ‘counts as’.
How can speakers assume that the intended illocutionary force will be recognized by the hearer? That question has been addressed by considering two things: illocutionary Force Indicating devices and Felicity conditions.
While other devices, such as lowered voice quality for a warning or a threat, might be used to indicate illocutionary force, the utterance also has to be produced under certain conventional conditions to count as having the intended illocutionary force.
FELICITY CONDITIONS
There are certain expected or appropriate circumstances, technically known as felicity conditions, for the performances of a speech act to be recognized as intended.
In every context among ordinary people, there are also preconditions on speech acts. There are general conditions on the participants, for example, that they can understand the language being used and that they are not play-acting or being nonsencial.
Them there are content conditions. For example, for both a promise and a warning, the content of the utterance must be about a future event.
The preparatory conditions for a promise are significantly different from those for a warning. When I promise to do something, there are two preparatory conditions: first, the event will not happen by itself, and second, the event will have a beneficial effect. Related to these conditions is the sincerity condition that, for a promise, the speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future action, and for a warning, the speaker genuinely believes that the future event will not have a beneficial effect.
Finally, there is the essential condition, which covers the fact that by the act of uttering a promise, In the other words, the utterance changes my state from non-obligation to obligation. This assential condition thus combines with a specification of what must be in the utterance content, the context, and the speaker’s intentions, in order for a specific speech act to be appropriately (felicitously) performed.
THE PERFORMATIVE HYPOTHESIS
One way to think about the speech acts being performed via utterances is to assume that underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause, similar to “I (Vp) you that…”, containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary force explicit. This is known as the performative hypothesis and the basic format of the underlying clause in “I (hereby) Vp you (that) U”.
“I hereby order you that you clean up this mess.”, in that clause, this underlying clause will always make explicit. Unlike, “ Clean up this mess!”, in utterances is implicit.
“I hereby order you that you clean up this mess.”, are used by speakers as explicit performatives. “ Clean up this mess!”, are implicit performatives, sometimes called primary performatives.
The advantage of this type of analysis is that it makes clear just what elements are involved in the production and interpretation of utterances.
Another advantage is to show that some adverbs such as ‘honestly’, or adverbial clauses such as ‘because I may be late’, in “What time is it, because I may be late?”, naturally attach to the explicit performative clauses rather than the implicit version.
There are some technical disadvantages to the performative hypothesis. For example, uttering the explicit performative version of a command has a much more serious impact than uttering the implicit version. It is also difficult to know exactly what the performative verb (or verbs) might be for some utterances, it would be very strange to have an explicit version.
The really practical problem with any analysis based on identifying explicit performatives is that, in principle, we simply do not know how many performative verbs there are in any language. Instead of trying to list all the possible explicit performatives, and then distinguish among all of them, some more general classifications of types of speech acts are usually used.
SPEECH ACT CLASSSIFICATION
One general classification system lists fives types of general function performed by speech acts, declaration, representatives, expressive, directives, and commisive.
1. Declaration are those kind of speech acts that change the word via their utterance.
When use it, the speaker change the world with words.
2. Representative is are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker belief as issues or not.
Example :
a. the earth is flat
b. chomsky didn’t write about peanuts
c. it was a warm sunny day
to using a representative, the speaker makes the words fit the world (of belief).
3. Expressive are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels.
Example:
I’m really sorry!
Congratulations!
In using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world (of feeling).
4. Directives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speakers use to get someone to do something.
Example :
Could you lend me a pen, please?
Don’t touch that.
In using a directive, the speaker attempts to make the world fit the words (via the hearer).
5. Commisive are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. They express what the speaker intends.
Example:
I’ll be back
We will not do that.
In using the commisive, the speaker understake to make the world fit the words (via the speaker).

DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
There is a simple recognized relationship between the three structural forms (declaratives, interrogative, imperative) and the three general communicative function (statement, interrogative, imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question, command/request).
Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act.
Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and function, we have an indirect speech art.
Thus, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act. When it is used to make a statement, it is a direct speech art.
When it is used to make a command/request, it is functioning as an indirect speech art.
Example:
It’s cold outside.
Indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech art.
SPEECH EVENTS
Asking about preconditions technically is not count as making a request, but does allow the hearer to react as if is the request has been made. It is better in most social circumstances, for the speaker to avoid direct imposition via a direct request. When the speaker asks about preconditions, no direct request is made. A speech event is an activity in which participants interact via language in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome. The analysis of speech events is clearly way to studying how more gets communicated than is said.