View/Open - University of Zululand Institutional Repository

negotiation situations. Deterring, surprising, and misleading are aimed at causing the
hearer to act in a different manner to what he originally intended to.
According to Combrink (1982:xix) speech acts can also take place without the
active participation ofa hearer e.g. when a wish is expressed.
Direct indirect and nonliteral speech acts
As mentioned previously the speaker's intentions are not always explict in
hisfher utterance. This is the case when an ambiguous word has been used and must
fust be interpreted before the meaning of the utterance can be understood; or when
indexical statements or statements whose meaning depends on the context have been
used. Bach mentions three ways ofperforming speech acts i.e. directly or indirectly by
perfonning another speech act. For example, instead ofsaying "Please get me a glass of
water" one says:"] am getting thirsty." Or one can ask a question like:"Can I see your
letter?" Here the speech act was indirectly performed by performing another one
directly. A nonliteral illocution is one, which is performed when we say something
other than what we do mean. For example:"What a wonderful dress!" when the
intended meaning is "What a dreadful dress." Bach calls this
"conversational
irnplicature."
This situation can take place in a negotiation process and may retard progress
89