Comparison between Speech Act Theory And Cooperative Principle

Abstract：Speech Act Theory and Conversation Implicture are two of the most important pragmatical theories. They are at the different stages of pragmatical development. Both of them have paid tribution to the whole field.

Key words： speech act， cooperative principle， implicture

Sometimes people do not only produce utterance containing grammatical structures and words. Some people find they perform actions via those utterances. Action performed via utterances are generally called speech acts， and in English are commonly given more specific labels such as apology， complaint， compliment…Austin distinguish 2 types of sentences （sentence is the smallest unit in pragmatics）： those that are used to do things and those that are used to describe things. The former is dubbed performative， the latter constative. The performative – constative dichotomy came into being. He tried to separate performative from constatives by means of felicity condition and some grammatical criterion， but failed. Austin then found that on any occasion， the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of 3 related acts. There is first a locutionary act， which is the basic act of utterance， or producing a meaningful linguistic _expression. We form an utterance with some kind of function in mind. This is the illocutionary act. We say something can mean to do something concerns the consequential effects of a locution upon the hearer. The act is called perlocutionary. Of course， the most discussed is illocutionary. It is performed through a locutionay act to express the speaker’s purpose. Searle suggested the felicity condition which are different from those proposed by Austin， for the performance of speech act to be recognized as intended： they are general conditions， content conditions， preparatory conditions， sincerity conditions and essential conditions. Austin ‘s classification of speech acts was criticized by searle， and then he proposed his which lists five types of general function performed by speech acts： declaration， representative， directive， commissive， expressive. Someone says there are more than one thousand speech acts， so it is difficult to classify them one by one. A different approach to distinguishing types of speech acts can be made on the basis of structure. Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between them， we have indirect speech act.

In order to communicate， speakers and listeners involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other， when the listener hears the _expression， such as “ business is business”， he first has to assume that the speaker is being cooperative and intends to communicate something. That something must be more than just what the words mean. It is an additional conveyed meaning， and called an implicture （implicture was invented by Grice）. How the implicture came into being？ First of all， Grice’Cooperative Principles have to be mentioned. If the conversation proceeds normally， we assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information. They are telling the truth， be relevant and trying to be as clear as they can. So the Cooperative Principle says “ make your conversational contribution such as is required， at the stage at which it occurs， by the accepted purpose of direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. There are 4 maxims in Cooperative Principle. Actually， they are not the rules telling speakers how they ought to behave. Cooperative Principle is meant to describe what actually happen in conversation. When the principles are flouted， there comes implicture. Of course， there are some weak points of Cooperative Principle， thus Horn’s Q- and R- principle， Levinson’s Q-， I-， and M- principle came into being.

One can mean more than one say. Austin and Searle distinguished meaning and illocutionary force， although they had different point of view of the relationship between them. According to Speech Act Theory， when a person utters a sentence， he performs an illocutionary act. For example， the boss’s _expression in “you are fired” is more than just a statement. Illocutionary act is the purpose of the speaker’s performing locutionary act. Similarly， when a participant violate the maxims of Cooperative Principle in purpose and an implicture would arise， the listener may can’t understand what the speaker really mean only with the knowledge of word meaning. Both of them distinguish semantical meaning of a sentence and what it means in different context.

When people perform speech act， they should comply with some rule， or under what conditions they can perform them. We call it felicity condition. When people recognize the implicture， there are also cases they use Cooperative Principle to analyze while others they can’t. Both theories can be used in different time， places， and circumstances. They have different research direction. For example， “telling a lie” is representative declaration. When a person is telling a lie， he doesn’t want listener realize that he is telling a lie. Cooperative Principle can’t explain it， because he isn’t cooperative.

Speech Act Theory focuses on acts， what effort does the speaker makes by saying a sentence. Cooperative Principle and New Crice concern the implicture raised by the sentence the speaker says and which maxims he violate and how the listener understand it.

Using Speech Act Theory and Cooperative Principle to analyze the conversation is not contradictive， for example，

A： It’s so hot！

The speaker looks at the air-conditioner.

B： Ok， I will turn on the air-con.

The first sentence implies that B should turn on the air-con， and it is representative. What B says is commisive， he will perform the action after his words.

As far as I am concerned， Cooperative Principle properties can also be used in analyzing speech acts……

Both theories is developing all the time， from Austin to Searle， from Grice to Levinson to Sperber and Wislson. Austin’s classification of illocutionary acts was not convincible， and then Searle improved it. Grice ‘s Cooperative Principle doesn’t explain why people talk in indirect way rather than directly. Leech proposed Politeness Principle. Everything is developing， so is pragmatics. Probably one day， there is a theory can cover all theories we study.

Bibliography：

[1]何兆熊 《新編语言学概要》，上海外语教育出版社，2000.

[2]姜望奇 《当代语用学》，北京大学出版社，2003.

作者简介：曾筝，女，汉，四川省成都人，生于1983-5-9，外语系，讲师，硕士研究生，主要研究方向为英语语言文学，英语教学。