DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS: WHAT THE UTTERANCE ‘COUNTS AS’
It is important to separate the concepts of statement, question and directive, which are semantic-pragmatic categories of meaning in use, from the grammatical categories of declarative, interrogative and imperative, which are typically associated with them. When a clause type is used to carry out the speech act typically associated with it, it is considered to be a direct speech act. Thus, in a direct speech act the declarative is said to have the illocutionary force of a statement, an interrogative has the force of a question, an imperative has the force of a directive, and an exclamative has the force of an exclamation. The force is the speaker’s ‘intended meaning’ at that particular point in the discourse. The table shows this basic or typical correspondence between the two sets of categories; and in the following invented dialogue based on an advertisement, each clause type in the independent clauses realizes its typical speech act:
Is that you Dan? Geoff here.
Hi, Geoff.
Has the board reached a conclusion?2
They’ve decided to launch the product,3 if the terms are right.
How do ours compare?4
Very well. But are you sure you can put up the necessary capital?5
We’ve got a huge loan from the Bank of England.6
In that case, let’s go.7
Have we got the deal, then?8
You’ve got it.9
Fantastic. How soon do you expect to be able to sign?10
1interrog./question; 2interrog./question; 3declar./statement; 4interrog./question; 5interrog./question; 6declar./statement; 7imper./directive; 8interrog./question; 9declar./statement; 10interrog./question
In interpersonal interaction, however, the relationship is frequently more complex – and more flexible. Every clause type can carry out different speech acts. When a clause type has any other but its typical force, we consider it an indirect speech act. That is, it ‘counts as’ an act different from its typical correspondence.
We can rewrite one of the executives’ utterances so that the correspondence between grammatical form and its function is no longer direct:
So we’ve got the deal, then? (declarative which ‘counts’ as a question)
Looking at it the other way round, our new version of this utterance still ‘counts as’ a question, as in the original text, even though it’s expressed by a different clause type. Even more indirectly, the words we use do not always express the full meaning of our intended act, as we can see in the following familiar situational dialogue:
A. The door-bell’s ringing.
B. I’m in the bath.
A. Okay, I’ll go.
A’s first utterance is to be interpreted as a directive to B: ‘Answer the door’. B’s utterance counts as a statement explaining why she can’t answer the door (‘I’m in the bath’), at the same time implying that A should answer the door. A’s second utterance shows that he has inferred the implied request and will comply with it. Notice that neither participant has made specific reference to answering the door.
We shall be more concerned with the first type of indirect correspondence, the relationship between grammatical form and pragmatic meaning. In interpersonal interaction, however, especially in conversation, the second type – ‘not saying exactly what you mean’ and expecting the addressee to infer your meaning – is also extremely common in English.
The motivation for using indirect speech acts is often that of tact, politeness or simply economy of effort. Assuming that speakers are cooperative and make their utterances relevant, hearers use inference in order to recover the intended meaning. For instance, a colleague’s question on leaving the office Have you come by car today? may lead the addressee to infer that the colleague is politely requesting to be given a lift. Inference is also based on cultural knowledge, for example, that people who have cars often give lifts to those who don’t.
In inferring the speaker’s meaning, the situational context is all-important, as is the relationship between speaker and hearer. In different situations, or at different points in a conversation, any one utterance may take on a different pragmatic force. If an explosion has just been heard in the car-park, Have you come by car today? will suggest a very different intended meaning, perhaps that of a warning, or a suggestion to go and see what has happened. As in other areas of the grammar, a form can fulfil more than one function, and a function can be fulfilled by more than one form. There is no one-to-one relationship between form and function.
It is not always possible to make a clear-cut distinction between one type of indirect speech act and another. Sit over here by me may be a request or an invitation, or a combination of the two. Similarly, Geoff’s response We’ve got a massive loan from the Bank of England is at once a statement and an assurance in answer to Dan’s somewhat anxious question. This indeterminacy of pragmatic meaning is not, in general, a disadvantage, as it allows the interlocutors in a situation to negotiate the outcome of any one utterance as they go along.
