基于言语行为理论的英语专业四级听力理解测试探究(3)

安徽财经大学外国语学院英语系毕业论文

still more or less in the dark. So the illocutionary act is what Austin really driving at. In this sense, speech act theory is in fact a theory of the illocutionary act.

Illocutionary acts that utterances are intended to perform are the focus of pragmatic study. According to Searle, they are categorized into five major types: representatives (covering such acts as stating, asserting, explaining, predicting, and classifying), directives (conveying such acts as ordering, commanding, requesting, instructing and pleading), commissives (covering such acts as thanking, apologizing, congratulating, and condoling), and declarations (covering such acts as appointing, naming, christening, vetoing, dismissing, and declaring). Specific acts that fall into each type share the same illocutionary point, but differ in their strength.

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安徽财经大学外国语学院英语系毕业论文

Chapter 3 Application of Speech Act Theory in Listening

Comprehension of TEM4

In this chapter, the author focuses on the representation and application of speech act theory in the listening comprehension of TEM4 to readers, in which J. L. Austin’s speech act theory, Searle’s five classifications of speech acts together with the method of detailed analysis will all be manifested exactly. It highlights that speech act theory plays a very important role in the apprehending of English listening. At the end of this chapter, this paper brings out the point that English majors can truly benefit immensely in their listening comprehension section of TEM4 if they can apply the theory appropriately.

3.1 Application of Speech Acts in Listening Comprehension

3.1.1 Austin’s Model of Speech Acts

Speech act theory is an important theory in the pragmatic study of language. It was originated with the British philosopher John Lanshaw Austin in the late 50’s of the 20th century. It is the precise explanation of the nature of linguistic communication from a philosophical point of view, and it aims to answer the question “What do we do when using language?”

Initially, Austin himself made a distinction between what he called “constatives” and “performatives”. The former were statements that either state or describe, and were thus verifiable; while the later were sentences that did not state a fact or describe a state, and were not verifiable. And the four examples Austin used to illustrate the point become classical.

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安徽财经大学外国语学院英语系毕业论文

(1) “I do.”

(2) “I name this ship Elizabeth.”

(3) “I give and bequeath my watch to my brother.” (4) “I bet you six pence it will rain tomorrow.”

The first one is usually used in the course of a marriage ceremony for the speaker to get married. The second one is used by an authorized person to perform the act of naming a ship. The third one, similarly, occurs in a will to perform the act of bequeathing. And when a speaker says “I bet…” he is doing nothing else but betting. Therefore, when the speaker utters these sentences, he is actually doing something, i.e. performing certain acts.

Later Austin set up another model to explain the way acts were performed. According to his model, a speaker might be performing three kinds of acts simultaneously when speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speakers’ intention. A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance. Of the three kinds of acts, the illocutionary one is what the linguists are most interested in because it is identical with the speaker’s true intention of his or her utterance. The following is an example. “You have left the window wide open.”

The locutionary act is the utterance of all the lexical words “you” “leave” “window” “open”, and thus expressing the literal meaning of the sentence. The illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by making such an utterance he or she has expressed their true intention, asking the hearer to close the window, making a complaint and the like. It all depends on the context the sentence is uttered. The

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安徽财经大学外国语学院英语系毕业论文

perlocutionary act refers to the effect of the utterance. If the hearer can grasp the speaker’s denominator overtones and understand the speaker means to ask him or her to close the window. Then the speaker has successfully brought about the change in the real world of experience he intends to; then the perlocutionary act is successfully performed.

3.1.2 Application of Speech Acts in the Listening Comprehension

In the listening comprehension of TEM4, students are required to draw upon all they know about to infer what it is behind the literal meaning. Both in the conversation part and the passage part, J. L. Austin’s speech act theory, as the theoretical foundation of the whole thesis, can be well employed in order to apprehend the denominator overtones of the speaker, and comprehend the inherent meaning behind absolutely and thoroughly, and then find out the apt answer.

Example1) M: Are you sure you can’t remember the name of the film you saw last week? W: It’s just on the tip of my tongue.

Question: What does the woman say about the film? A. It is hard to pronounce the name. B. It is not going to be well received.

C. She has temporarily forgotten its name. D. She has never heard of the name.

In the conversation above, there is no difficulty for students to discern that this question given is something about an illocutionary act. Listeners can intake and understand what the woman really intends to mean by the response of her words if they in advance know well deep in their hearts the original meaning of “on the tip of one’s tongue”. The implied meaning of the phrase is that the woman is quite familiar with the name of the film she has seen, but it just does not come to her at that

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安徽财经大学外国语学院英语系毕业论文

moment. In that case, listeners are able to perceive that the suggested answers marked C is the most proper one for the question given.

2) W: Hi, John, haven’t seen you for quite a few days. I heard you’ve been sick. How are

you feeling now?

M: They must have confused me with my brother Jack. Anyway, he is feeling better now. Question: What do we learn about the conversation?

A. John is not sick. B. John is feeling better. C. Jack hasn’t been sick. D. Jack has not got better.

From the conversation above, people can see that the woman was thinking that John had been sick, and she concerned a lot about John’s health. However, the man’s response is much beyond the listeners. As a matter of fact, what he really intended to mean was that the woman had mistaken him for his brother Jack, and he deliberately emphasized the point that his brother had become much better now. What’s more, from the man’s words of meaning, listeners may have no difficulty at all to grasp the hints that he is always enjoying a very good state of health. Hence, the most proper answer to the question is A.

3) W: Why did Jackson suddenly decide to quit his job?

M: He said he wouldn’t break his back working for such a low pay. W: I see.

Question: Jackson changed his job because_

A. hurt himself during his work. B. was not satisfied with his pay. C. wanted to work harder. D. found the job too hard.

In the conversation above, a cause- result relationship could be easily recognized. Here listeners must first of all know well what the true meaning of the phrase “break somebody’s back”, instead of the literal meaning, which means working too hard. So long as students are clear about the illocutionary act hidden in the phrase, they will discern that the hard work has already made a sharp contrast with the speaker’s low pay. Thus listeners may arrive at the conclusion that Jackson was not satisfied

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