Linguistics An Essential Introduction

Imagine Aylin, Zoe and Noah are having breakfast together (they are eating bagels, of course). Zoe wants to put cream cheese on her bagel, but she cannot reach it. She could utter any of the following to make a request to Noah to pass it to her:

In (1a), it is clear how this works: it is an imperative, and the function of imperatives is to make requests — the form of the sentence indicates the illocutionary force.

In the other examples, this is not the case: (1b, c and d) are declarative sentences, and the function of declaratives is to make statements. In (1b), Zoe is making a statement concerning the way she feels about cream chese, in (1c) she is commenting on her visual impression of the cream cheese, and in (1d) she is saying that the feels positively about a hypothetical situation in which she has cream cheese. In other words, the locutionary acts in which these sentences are uttered do not give any indication that Zoe is requesting cream cheese.

The same is true of (1e, f and g), which are interrogative sentences, so their function is to ask questions. In (1e), Zoe is asking about Noah’s ability to pass her the cream cheese, in (1f) she is asking whether we would pass her the cream cheese in a hypothetical situation, and in (1e) she is asking how it would make him feel if he passed her the cream cheese.

Speech acts like (1a), in which the illocutionary act follows direclty from the meaning communicated in the locutionary act, are called direct Speech acts. Speech acts where this is not the case, like those in (1b–g), are called indirect Speech acts.

How do Hearers recognize the illocutionary force of such indirect Speech acts? Generally speaking, they infer them based on the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle we discussed in Section 9.2). Take (1b): Noah first understands the direct Speech act — the statement that Zoe loves cream cheese. He assumes that this is true (maxim of quality), that it is informative (i.e., that Zoe has given him as much information as she thinks is necessary, maxim of quantity), that Zoe is being clear (maxim of manner) and that this statement is relevant to the discussion (maxim of relevance). In a situation where everyone is talking about which foods they like or don’t like, Zoe’s utterance would be relevant as a statement — she is simply contributing to the topic under discussion. But since Aylin, Zoe and Noah have not been discussing hypothetical food preferences, this cannot be all Zoe is trying to do. Noah will therefore continue to look for relevance, and since they are eating, and there is cream cheese on the table, and he can reach it while Zoe cannot, an obvious way in which the statement would be relevant is if Zoe wanted to have the cream cheese.

However, such an inferencing process does not seem necessary in all cases. The utterances in (1e–f), for example, are likely to be interpreted as requests without any such process — in fact, they are more likely to be interpreted as requests than as questions. This is because these specific types of interrogatives — Can you, could you, will you, would you, do you mind, would you mind, etc. — are routinely used to make requests.

Such cases are referred to as conventionalized indirect Speech acts — they were originally motivated by an inferencing process like the one described above, but they have become so common that this process no longer plays a role — they are a bit like idiomatic fixed expressions in this respect.

However, this does not mean that their literal meaning — the direct Speech act they perform — does not play a role. Speakers do not choose indirect Speech acts randomly — instead, they choose them, to some extent, based on their direct meaning. For example, Zoe would be more likely to utter (1e) if Noah’s ability to comply with the request is in doubt (for example, if he can only just reach the cream cheese; she would be more likely to utter (1e) if she thought that Noah might be slightly unwilling to comply with the request (for example, if he has both hands full and would have to put down his bagel or his coffee cup to reach for the cream cheese). So, while no inferencing is taking place, Speakers and Hearers do recognize both the direct and the indirect Speech act in such cases.

Indirect Speech acts are most common with requests, but they are also found with questions and statements. For example, Aylin might utter (2a, b or c) in order to get the information whether or not Noah wants capers on his bagel:

Only the first case is a direct Speech act: it is an interrogative, whose function is to ask questions. The utterance in (2b) is an imperative — it works as a question here, because it requests an action of telling — i.e., of providing an answer. The utterance in (2c) is a declarative — it simply states that capers are available under the condition that the Hearer wants them. It works as a question because the only relevant response by the Hearer is to indicate whether that condition is fulfilled.

Likewise, Noah may answer any of the following to Aylin’s question:

Again, only the first of these is a direct Speech act: it is a declarative, and the function of declaratives is to make statements — in this case, about Noah’s desire or lack of desire for capers. Example (3b) is an imperative — interpreted as a direct Speech act, it would be a request to Aylin not to tell Noah that she has put capers on his bagel — it does not say that he does not want capers on his bagel. It is interpreted as a statement that Noah does not want capers on his bagel by an inferencing process: Aylin would look for a relevant connection of Noah’s utterance to the previous discourse. Since it does not seem relevant to forbid her from saying certain things, and since Noah does not have the authority to forbid her from doing so, it cannot be a direct Speech act — instead, Noah is expressing a hope as to what her answer would be if he asked her whether she has put capers on his bagel — he is hoping that that answer would be “no”, presumably, because he doesn’t like capers.

Example (3c) is an interrogative — interpreted as a direct Speech act, it would be a question to Aylin. However, there is no particular visual cue that would tell us whether someone likes capers or not (unless, perhaps, they were wearing a t-shirt saying “I don’t like capers”), so Noah cannot expect her to be able to answer this on an individual basis. Instead, he must be implying that the question has a general, obvious answer — it is a “rhetorical question”. Why this obvious answer is “no” is difficult to say, rhetorical questions may have affirmative or negative answers. In this case, Aylin might assume that the answer is negative, because otherwise it would be easier to simply say “yes”. Note, however, that this is, again, a case of a conventionalized indirect Speech act — the answer to a question beginning with Do I look like… is always intended to be negative.