Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

● In a dead metaphor, the original sentence meaning is bypassed and the utterance has the
meaning that used to be its metaphorical meaning.
● In an ironical utterance, a speaker means the opposite of what the sentence means. So
the utterance meaning is worked out by deciding what the sentence meaning is and
what its opposite is.
In an indirect speech act, which is what concerns us here, a speaker means what s/he
says but means something else as well, so that the utterance meaning includes the
sentence meaning but extends beyond it. So in the case of an indirect speech act, the
speaker means what the sentence means but something else as well. So a sentence
containing an illocutionary force indicator for one particular type of illocutionary act can
be used to perform that act and simultaneously, in addition, another act of a different
type. Such speech acts have two illocutionary forces.
For a hearer to grasp both these forces at once, s/he must (1) know the rules for
performing speech acts; (2) share some background information with the speaker; (3)
exercise her or his powers of rationality and inference in general; (4) have knowledge of
certain general principles of cooperative conversation (see PRAGMATICS and Grice,
1975).
Searle provides an example of how speakers cope with indirect speech acts:
(1) Student X: Let’s go to the movies tonight
(2) Student Y: I have to study for an exam
Let’s in (1) indicates that a speech act which we might call a proposal is being made.
Example (2) is a statement, but in this context it is clear that it functions as the speech
act rejection of the proposal. Searle calls the rejection of the proposal the primary
illocutionary act performed by Y, and says that Y performs it by way of the secondary
illocutionary act, namely the statement. The secondary illocutionary act conforms to the
literal meaning of the utterance, so it is a literal act; but the primary illocutionary act is
non-literal. Given that X only actually hears the literal act, but recognizes the non-literal,
primary illocutionary act, how does s/he arrive at this latter recognition on the basis of the
recognition of the literal, secondary illocutionary act?
Searle proposes that X goes through the following ten steps of reasoning:
Step 1: I have made a proposal to Y, and in response he has made a statement to
Step
2:
Step
3:
Step
4:
Step
5:
Step
6:
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the effect that he has to study for an exam.
I assume that Y is cooperating in the conversation and that therefore his remark is intended
to be relevant.
A relevant response would be one of acceptance, rejection, counterproposal, further
discussion, etc.
But his literal utterance was not one of these, and so was not a relevant response.
Therefore, he probably means more than he says. Assuming that his remark is relevant, his
primary illocutionary point must differ from his literal one.
I know that studying for an exam normally takes a large amount of time relative to a single
evening, and I know that going to the movies normally takes a large amount of time relative