a. Introduction Pragmatics deal with meaning in use (in context).

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistics knowledge about the status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and so on. Besides that, pragmatic is also tended as speaker meaning and utterance interpretation. The term speaker meaning means, the intent of what is said. The term utterance interpretation tends to be favored by those who take a broadly cognitive approach, avoids this fault, but at the cost of focusing too much on the receiver of the message, which in practice means largely ignoring the social constrains on utterance production. Now, we will review the chapter about speech acts. Speech acts is a concept which is associated as an idea of John Langshaw Austin. Speech acts are a staple of everyday communicative life, but only became a topic of sustained investigation, at least in the English-speaking world, in the middle of the Twentieth Century. Since that time speech act theory has been influential not only within philosophy, but also in linguistics, psychology, legal theory, artificial intelligence, literary theory and many other scholarly disciplines. The idea of speech acts has its roots in the Philosophy of Language. J. L. Austin was the first one who wanted to capture the fact that there is more in the function of language than semantics. Traditionally, mapping of entities of a proposition onto referents and defining the truth value of a proposition was the major area of interest in language semantics. With Austin, and his follower J. R. Searle, there is a shift towards the events or acts that occur via language, hence the name ``speech acts''. These acts effect changes both in the observable world, as well as in the mental states of dialogue participants. Austin's approach introduces pragmatics in studying and modeling language. Consequently, the focus is now on utterances and not propositions. b. Summary of the Chapter In summary, this chapter discuss about the issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably aroused the widest interest.

How To Do Things with Words (1962) What I shall have to say here is neither difficult nor contentious; the only merit I should like to claim for it is that of being true, at least in parts. The phenomenon to be discussed is very widespread and obvious, and it cannot fail to have been already noticed, at least here and there, by others. Yet I have not found attention paid to it specifically. (Austin 1962) Austin considers utterances like I christen this ship the Joseph Stalin or I pronounce you husband and wife'' uttered by a priest, in the church with all the legal and traditional aspects being settled, will have the actual effect of the couple referred to being husband and wife after the performative has taken place. They seem to be doing something, rather than merely saying something such sentences Austin dubbes performatives in contrast to constatives observe: 1. Performatives cannot be false, but they can fail to do things when their felicity conditions are not fulfilled 2. Performatives are not a special class of sentences some sentences are explicitly performative, others can be implicitly so performative/constative dichotomy does not really exist both are special cases of illocutionary acts. Felicity Conditions is conditions that must be fulfilled for a performative to succeed:
1. There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect (e.g., wedding,

declaring war, christening, betting, etc.); the circumstances and persons must be appropriate, as specified in the procedure.
2. The procedure must be executed; (i) correctly (e.g., using the right words) and (ii)

completely (according to conventional expectations).

3. (i) Persons involved must have the requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions, as

specified in the procedure and (ii) if consequent conduct is specified, the relevant parties must follow the rules of conduct. If conditions not fulfilled performatives may fail to do things categories of infelicities:

Misinvocations, which disallow a purported act Misexecutions, in which the act is impaired by errors or omissions Abuses, where the act succeeds, but participants do not have the expected

thoughts and feelings

Constatives: utterances used to make true/false statements or assertions The snow is green. According to Austin, there are three types of acts that can be performed by every utterance, given the right circumstances:
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Locutionary is the act of actually uttering. Illocutionary is the act performed in saying something. The illocutionary act is not in one-to-one correspondence with the locution from which it is derived. There are different locutions that express the same illocution and vice-versa.

Perlocutionary is the act performed by saying something in a particular context. It represents the change achieved each time, in a particular context. Depending on the kind of perlocution, different conditions have to hold in order for it to be achieved. Classifying illocutionary speech acts A speech act is a minimal functional unit in human communication. Just as a word

(refusal) is the smallest free form found in language and a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning (-al in refuse-al makes it a noun), the basic unit of communication is a speech act (the speech act of refusal). Searle (1975) has set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts:

representative = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g. expressives = speech acts that express the speaker's attitudes and emotions declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition

proposition, e.g. reciting a creed

requests, commands and advice

promises and oaths

towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and thanks

of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

The Performative Hypothesis

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Lakoff 1972, Saddock 1977 (Generative Semantics): negate Austin and Searles position. No need for a special theory of illocutionary force because the phenomena are assimilable to standard theories of syntax and semantics. Reduction of illocutionary force to matters of truth and falsity. Performative Hypothesis: The deep structure of a sentence corresponds to the

performative normal form. Example: (1) The snow is green. (2) I state (that) the snow is green. Hence every sentence has illocutionary force (transformation does not affect meaning)
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Felicity conditions on speech acts are simply part of the meaning of the performative verb. A performative sentence is true simply by virtue of being felicitously said.

The Performative Hypothesis: The PH is justifiable on independent grounds, as it captures a number of syntactic generalisations. For example: Performative adverbs argument: adverbs modifying performative clauses can appear in sentences without such overt performative clauses. (3) a. Frankly, I prefer white meat. b. I tell you frankly, I prefer white meat. (4) a. Whats for lunch, because Im very hungry. b. Whats for lunch? I ask you because Im very hungry. On the other hand, the PH has various problems. Problems for the PH Performatives do not always refer to the speaker: (5) The company hereby undertakes to replace any product that fails to please. The performative clause is not always the highest matrix clause.

(6) We regret that the company is forced to hereby request you to tender your resignation.
Some sentences involve more than one illocutionary force, e.g., an assertion and a

question: (7) Does Jon, who could never learn calculus, intend to do PhD in Math? (8) Wittgenstein was an Oxford philosopher, wasnt he? Semantic Problems for the PH Interpretation of assertions as performatives: (9) I state that snow is green. (10) Snow is green. By the PH, (9) is true, and (10) has (9) as deep structure. Since transformations preserve meaning, (9) and (10) should have the same meaning i.e. (10) should be true which is clearly wrong. Distribution of performative adverbs: Some can only modify explicit performatives. (11) a. I hereby order you to eat. b. Hereby eat! Indirect speech acts have intended meanings that are different from their literal meanings. Both Thesis and Antithesis share the view that illocutionary force is built into sentence form: Literal Force Hypothesis [(i) Explicit performatives have the force named by the performative verb in the matrix clause, (ii) The three major sentence types in English (imperative, interrogative and declarative) have the forces traditionally associated with them namely, ordering (or requesting), questioning and stating.] Example: Direct Speech Acts: Pembantu Majikan Pembantu : Minta uangnya untuk membeli gula. : Ini : Gulanya habis, nyah.

Indirect Speech Acts:

Majikan

: Ini uangnya. Beli sana!

So, in direct speech act, the person who committed the direct request also asked, as evidenced by the use of verbs ask, and asked about what is required, ie the money to buy the sugar. But, in indirect speech acts, the person who commits to asks did not directly ask for money but to tell about the sugar that runs out. In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer. An account of such act, it follows, will require such things as an analysis of mutually shared background information about the conversation, as well as of rationality and linguistic conventions. In connection with indirect speech acts, Searle introduces the notions of 'primary' and 'secondary' illocutionary acts. The primary illocutionary act is the indirect one, which is not literally performed. The secondary illocutionary act is the direct one, performed in the literal utterance of the sentence (Searle 1978). With his doctrine of indirect speech acts Searle attempts to explain how it is possible that a speaker can say something and mean it, but additionally mean something else.

c. Evaluation of the Chapter The pragmatics book by Stephen C. Levinson consists of seven chapters. Each chapter contains a review about important concepts in the field of pragmatics. It explains the theories narrower in each concept. But here we are going to review a chapter in the book entitled Speech Acts. The evaluation of the chapter will be divided into six parts such as: organization, contents, theoretical soundness, significances, special merit, and weakness. 1. Organization In this chapter, the writer puts some headings which separate one topic from the other topic but it still has relation from one another.

2. Content The content of this chapter is clear enough. It provides some explanation of the theories and some examples relate to the theories. There are seven parts in this chapter: Philosophical background Thesis : speech act (Irreducible to matters of truth and falsity) Antithesis : the reduction of illocutionary force to ordinary syntax and Collapse Antithesis Indirect speech acts : a problem for thesis and antithesis The context change theory of speech acts Beyond theory of speech acts

semantics

This chapter begins with introductory paragraph which consist of a brief draft of the philosophical about speech act theory by some linguists. In here, the writer only mentions the name of linguists that had been worked in this area. The next heading is about philosophical background. In here the writer explains about the basic theory of speech acts from Austin and Searle. The next heading is about the summary of the effect on linguistic theorizing through the aspects of the philosophical work on speech acts. From Austins work, and it large part through Searles systematization of it, there has emerged a coherent theory of speech acts that demands the linguists attention. The next heading is about the illocutionary which assimilable to standard theories of syntax and truth-conditional semantics. While the next heading is consists of semantic and syntactic problems. Then the next heading is about indirect speech acts. For the next heading, the writer explains about a pragmatic theory of speech acts is a view that threats speech acts as operations on context. An the last heading is about beyond theories of speech acts which consists about some compelling reasons to think that speech act theory may slowly be superseded by much more complex multi-faceted pragmatic approaches to the functions that utterances perform. The first set of these have to do with the internal difficulties that any speech act theory faces, of which the most intractable is probably the seat of the problems posed by ISAs.

3. Significances For the researcher

The researcher who conducts the study in this field will be helped by this chapter because it provides detailed information about empirical researches conducted by several experts about speech acts theory. For the language teacher

By understanding the speech acts theory in Pragmatics, the teacher can find out the strategy that will be used in teaching learning process in classroom to communicate with the students

4. Special Merit There are a lot of examples of utterances that make the reader more understand. One thing that is very delightful for us to read the book is that the language used is not highly figurative and systematic. It is really clear and relatively easy to understand because Levinson gave a lot of examples to make his reader more understand. It gives deep explanation about speech act Here, rather than putting his own views, Levinson carefully put some experts/linguists statement about speech acts theory. Levinson gave deep explanation about speech acts theory. Besides, this chapter also objective to the subject matter. The writer gives balance explanations for each part in this chapter. 5. Weakness The weakness that we found in the chapter is that Levinson did not put references for further reading related to Speech Acts theory. Levinson also did not put a link paragraph to tell the reader that the first heading is related to the second heading. Levinson also did not put an y conclusion to conclude the content of speech acts theory.

d. A discussion on argued points

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Performative vs Constatives Constatives is utterances used to make true/false statements or assertions (i.e. The snow is green). Performatives utterances used to change the world. Performative are ordinary declarative sentences which are not used with any intention of making true or false statements. They are not true/false (i.e. I declare war on Liliput)

All utterances have both a (propositional) meaning (they say things) and a force (they do things). A theory should clarify in what ways by uttering sentences one might be said to be performing actions.

Indirect speech acts: a problem for Thesis and Antithesis Indirect speech acts have intended meanings that are different from their literal meanings. Both Thesis and Antithesis share the view that illocutionary force is built into sentence form: Literal Force Hypothesis [(i) Explicit performatives have the force named by the performative verb in the matrix clause, (ii) The three major sentence types in English (imperative, interrogative and declarative) have the forces traditionally associated with them namely, ordering (or requesting), questioning and stating.]

e. Conclusion A speech act is a minimal functional unit in human communication. Just as a word (refusal) is the smallest free form found in language and a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning (-al in refuse-al makes it a noun), the basic unit of communication is a speech act (the speech act of refusal). Speech act theory attempts to explain how speakers use language to accomplish intended actions and how hearers infer intended meaning form what is said. Although speech act studies are now considered a sub-discipline of cross-cultural pragmatics, they actually take their origin in the philosophy of language.

According to Austin, there are three types of acts that can be performed by every utterance, given the right circumstances:
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Locutionary is the act of actually uttering. Illocutionary is the act performed in saying something. Perlocutionary is the act performed by saying something in a particular context. Searle (1975) has set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts:

Representative, directives, commissives, expressive, declarations. While indirect speech act, the person who committed the direct request also asked, as evidenced by the use of verbs ask, and asked about what is required. f. Implication The most practical implications of speech act theory are to be found in teaching the idea that what we mean and what we say may not always be the same. A very common example is the idea that an utterance such as Could you pass the salt? is a request rather than an interrogative about ability. In the same way, when we say Must you be so insensitive? this is more likely to be seen as a rebuke rather than a question regarding obligation as it would appear from a purely bottom-up, syntactic view. Additionally, Do you like hospital food? is actually a threat rather than a question. g. References
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Retrieved on 18th October 2012 at http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/projects/milca/courses/dialogue/html/node63.html Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. Sumarsono. 2007. Buku Ajar Pragmatik. Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni (Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha) Retrieved on 18th October 2012 at http://files.ynada.com/teaching/introling/complete/Pragmatics.pdf