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TEMA
TEMA22“EOI”
“EOI”
LOS
LOSELEMENTOS
ELEMENTOSDE DELA
LA
SITUACIÓN DE
SITUACIÓN DE
COMUNICACIÓN.
COMUNICACIÓN.LA LALENGUA
LENGUA
EN USO. LA NEGOCIACIÓN
EN USO. LA NEGOCIACIÓN
DEL
DELSIGNIFICADO.
SIGNIFICADO.

UNIT 2 ‘EOI’

THE ELEMENTS OF A
COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION.
LANGUAGE IN USE. THE
NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.

By Cristóbal Martínez Alfaro

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OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. MODELS OF COMMUNICATION.

3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE.

4. NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.

5. CONCLUSION.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION.

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are
all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask
questions, give orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, and so on.
Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once,
distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of
saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising,
and how one is trying to affect one's audience.
Communication is traditionally defined as the exchange of meanings
between individuals through a common system of symbols. More recently,
questions have been raised concerning the adequacy of any single definition of
the term communication as it is currently employed. The American psychiatrist and
scholar Jurgen Ruesch has identified 40 varieties of disciplinary approaches to the
subject, including architectural, anthropological, psychological and many other
interpretations. In total, there exist at least 50 modes of interpersonal
communication that draw upon dozens of analytic approaches. Communication
may therefore be analysed in at least 50 different ways.
How language represents the world has long been, and still is, a major
concern of philosophers of language. Many thinkers, such as Leibniz, Frege,
Russell, the early Wittgenstein, and Carnap (q.v.), have thought that
understanding the structure of language could illuminate the nature of reality.
However noble their concerns, such philosophers have implicitly assumed, as J. L.
Austin complains at the beginning of How to Do Things with Words, that 'the
business of a [sentence] can only be to "describe" some state of affairs, or to
"state some fact", which it must do either truly or falsely'. Austin reminds us that
we perform all sorts of 'speech acts' besides making statements, and that there
are other ways for them to go wrong or be 'infelicitous' besides not being true. The
later Wittgenstein also came to think of language not primarily as a system of
representation but as a vehicle for all sorts of social activity. 'Don't ask for the
meaning', he admonished, 'ask for the use'. But it was Austin who presented the
first systematic account of the use of language. And whereas Wittgenstein could

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be charged with having conflating meaning and use, Austin was careful to
separate the two. He distinguished the meaning (and reference) of the words used
from the speech acts performed by the speaker using them.
At classroom level, the content of this unit connects with the necessary
background the teacher must have to solve the problems arising from the special
characteristics of the group he/she is working with. The knowledge of any
particular feature will encourage the students’ motivation, which is why, ‘the
negotiation of meaning and contents’ is one of the principles regulated in the New
Education System, to achieve a much better understanding and use of the target
foreign language.

2. MODELS OF COMMUNICATION.

Fragmentation and problems of interdisciplinary outlook have

generated a wide range of discussion concerning the ways in which
communication occurs and the processes it entails. Most speculation on
these matters admits, in one way or another, that the communication
theorist’s task is to answer as clearly as possible the question. ‘Who says
what to whom with what effect?’ Obviously, all of the critical elements in
this question may be interpreted differently by scholars and writers in
different disciplines.

 The Linear Model.

The simplicity of this model, its clarity, and its surface generality
proved attractive to many students of communication in a number of
disciplines, although it is neither the only model of the communication
process extant nor it is universally accepted. As originally conceived, the
model contained five elements - an information source, a transmitter, a
channel of transmission, a receiver, and a destination - all arranged in
lineal order. Messages (electronic, messages initially) were supposed to
travel along this path, to be changed into electric energy by the transmitter,

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and to be reconstituted into intelligible language by the receiver. In time,

the five elements of the model were renamed so as to specify components
for other types of communication transmitted in various manners. The
information source was split into its components (both source and
message) to provide a wider range of applicability. The six constituents of
the revised model are: (1) a source, (2) an encoder, (3) a message, (4) a
channel, (5) a decoder and (6) a receiver. For some communication
systems, the components are as simply as to specify as, for instance (1) a
man on the telephone, (2) the mouthpiece of the telephone, (3) the words
the man speaks, (4) the electrical wires along which the words travel (5) the
earpiece of another telephone, and (6) the mind of the listener.
In other communication systems, the components are more difficult to
isolate; e.g. the communication of the emotions of a fine artist by means of
a painting to people who may respond to the message long after the artist's
death.

 Types of Communication.

 Non-Vocal Communication.

Signals, signs and symbols, three related components of

communication processes found in all known cultures, have attracted
considerable scholarly attention because they do not relate primarily to the
usual conception of words or language. Each is apparently an increasingly
more complex modification of the former, and each was probably developed
in the depths of prehistory before, or at the start of, man's early
experiments with vocal language.
– Signals: The basic function of such signals is to provide the change
of a single environmental factor in order to attract attention and to
transfer meaning. A code system that refers interruptions to some
form of meaningful language may easily be developed with a crude

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vocabulary of dots, dashes, and other elemental audio and visual

articulations.
– Symbols: The symbol has been defined as any device with which an
abstraction can be made. The abstractions of the values that people
imbue in other people and in things they own and use lie at the
heart of symbolism.
– Signs. The main difference between a sign and a signal is that a
sign (like a policeman's badge) contains meanings of an intrinsic
nature; a signal (like a scream for help) is merely a device by which
one is able to formulate extrinsic meanings. Their difference is
illustrated by the observation that many types of animals respond to
signals but only a few intelligent and trained animals (usually dogs
and apes) are competent to respond even to simple signs.

 Vocal Communication.

Significant differences between non-vocal and vocal communication

are matters more of degree than of kind. Signs, signals and symbols may,
at time, be easily verbalised, although most people tend to think of them as
visual means of expression. Kinesics (body language) and proxemics
(cultural determined interactions as the physical distance maintained
between individuals, angles of vision...) may also, in certain instances,
involve vocalisations as accompaniments to non-verbal phenomena or as
somehow integral to them.

3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE.

Jakobson's1 model of the functions of language distinguishes six elements,

or factors of communication, that are necessary for communication to occur: (1)
context, (2) addresser (sender), (3) addressee (receiver), (4) contact, (5) common
code and (6) message. Each factor is the focal point of a relation, or function,

1
Russian-American linguist, Roman Jakobson (1960, pp. 350-377)

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which operates between the message and the factor. The functions are the
following, in order: (1) referential ("The Earth is round"), (2) emotive ("Yuck!"), (3)
conative ("Come here"), (4) phatic ("Hello?"), (5) metalingual ("What do you mean
by 'krill'?"), and (6) poetic ("Smurf"). When we analyze the functions of language
for a given unit (such as a word, a text or an image), we specify to which class or
type it belongs (e.g., a textual or pictorial genre), which functions are
present/absent, and the characteristics of these functions, including the
hierarchical relations and any other relations that may operate between them.
Following Jakobson, we agree that language must be investigated in
all the variety of its functions. An outline of these functions demands a
concise survey of the constitutive factors in any speech event, in any act of
verbal communication.
The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To be
operative the message requires a CONTEXT referred to, possible to be
grasped by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalised;
a CODE fully, or at least, partially, common to the addresser and addressee
(or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and finally,
a CONTACT, a physical channel and psychological connection between the
addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in
communication. All these factors inalienably involved in verbal
communication may be schematised as follows:

Each of these six factors determines a different function of language:

Factors of communication and functions of language

Target TARGET SOURCE FUNCTION

factor and FACTOR FACTOR
function
no.
1 Context Message Referential
2 Addresser Message Emotive
3 Addressee Message Conative
4 Contact Message Phatic
5 Code Message Metalingual

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6 Message Message Poetic

 Referential Function.

Although we distinguish six basic aspects of language, we could,

however, hardly find verbal messages that would fulfil only one function.
The diversity lies not in a monopoly of some one of these several functions
but in a different hierarchical order of functions. The verbal structure of a
message depends primarily on the predominant function. But even though a
set toward the referent, an orientation toward the context - briefly, the so-
called REFERENTIAL, 'denotative', 'cognitive' function - is the leading task
of numerous messages, the accessory participation of the other functions in
such messages must be taken into account.

 Emotive Function.

The so-called 'emotive' or 'expressive' function, focused on the

ADDRESSER, aims a direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward
what he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain
emotion, whether true or feigned; therefore the term 'emotive' has proved to
be preferable to 'emotional'. The purely emotive stratum in language is
presented by the interjections. They differ from the means of referential
language both by their sound pattern (peculiar sound sequences or even
sounds elsewhere unusual) and by their syntactic role (they are not
components but equivalents of sentences). The emotive function, laid bare
in the interjections, flavours to some extent all our utterances, on their
phonetic, grammatical and lexical level. If we analyse language from the
standpoint of the information it carries, we cannot restrict the notion of
information to the cognitive aspect of language. A man, using expressive
features to indicate his angry or ironic attitude, conveys ostensible
information.

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 Conative Function.

Orientation toward the ADDRESSEE, the 'conative' function, finds its

purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which
syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from
other nominal and verbal categories. The imperative sentences cardinally
differ from declarative sentences; because of in contradiction to the
imperative sentences, the declarative sentences are convertible into
interrogative sentences.

 Phatic Function.

There are messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to

discontinue communication, to check whether the channel works ('Hello, do
you hear me?'), to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his
continued attention ('Are you listening?') and on the other end of the wire
('Umhum').
This set for CONTACT (phatic function) may be displayed by a
profuse exchange of ritualised formulas, by entire dialogues with the mere
purpose of prolonging communication. Dorothy Parker caught eloquent
examples: 'Well' the young man said. 'Well" she said. 'Well, here we are',
he said. 'Here we are' she said, 'Aren't we?', 'I should say we were', he
said, 'here we are'. The endeavour to start and sustain communication is
typical of talking birds; thus the phatic function of language is the only one
they share with human beings. It is also the first verbal function acquired by
infants; they are prone to communicate before being able to send or receive
informative communication.

 Metalingual Function.

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A distinction has been made in modern logic between two levels of

language 'object language' speaking of objects and 'metalanguage',
speaking of language. But metalanguage is not only a necessary scientific
tool utilised by logicians and linguists, it plays also an important role in our
everyday language, in fact, we practice metalanguage without realising the
metalingual character of our operations. Whenever the addressee and/or
the addresser need to check up whether they use the same code, speech is
focused on the code , it performs a METALINGUAL function. 'I don't follow
you, what do you mean? asks the addressee. And the addresser in
anticipation of such recapturing question inquires: 'Do you know what I
mean?’ These sentences convey information merely about the lexical code
of English, their function is strictly metalingual. Any process of language
learning, in particular child acquisition of mother tongue, makes wide use of
metalingual operations; and aphasia may often be defined as a loss of
ability for metalingual operations.

 Poetic Function.

The set toward the MESSAGE as such, focusing on the message for
its our sake, is the POETIC function of language. This function is not the
sole function of verbal art but only its dominant, determining function,
whereas in all other verbal activities it acts as a subsidiary, accessory
constituent. This function, by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens
the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects. Hence, when dealing with
the poetic function, linguistics cannot limit itself to the field of poetry. Any
attempt to reduce the sphere of the poetic function, to poetry or to confine
poetry to the poetic function would be a delusive oversimplification. E.g. A
girl used to talk about 'the horrible Harry'. 'Why horrible?' 'Because I hate
him', 'but why not 'terrible, disgusting, awful? 'I don't know why, but
'horrible' fits him better'. Without realising it, she clung to the poetic device
of paronomasia.

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The particularities of diverse poetic genres imply a different rank of

participation of the other verbal functions along with the dominant poetic

function. Epic poetry, focused on the 3 rd person, strongly involves the

referential use of language and the lyric is intimately linked with the
emotive function.

* * * * *

In a proper analysis, we start by determining whether each of the functions

of language is present or absent. In theory, each factor is necessary to
communication. This does not necessarily mean that each function is always
present. We will assume that while one or more – or even all – of the functions of
language may be absent in short units (such as an isolated sign), lengthy units can
activate all of them. Where more than one function is present, we will establish
either: (1) a simple hierarchy, by identifying the dominant function and not ranking
the other functions, or (2) a complex hierarchy, by specifying the degree of
presence of some or all of the functions.
Various criteria can be used to establish the functional hierarchy. For
example, Arcand and Bourbeau (trans. of 1995, p. 35) use an intention-based
criterion: "The dominant function is the one that answers the question, 'With what
intention was this message transmitted?' and [...] the secondary functions are
there to support it." We must distinguish the intention associated with each
fragment from the overall intention, which is "a sentence or series of sentences
that corresponds to an intention" (1995, p. 27). Since the intention can be hidden,
the function that is dominant in terms of overt degree of presence may not be
dominant in terms of intention. Arcand and Bourbeau also distinguish between
direct and indirect manifestations of intention, which correlate to the opposition
between actual and overt functions. The appellative (conative) function is
manifested directly in "Go answer the door" and indirectly in "The doorbell rang"
(which is equivalent to "Go answer the door"), where the overt function is the
referential (or informative) function (1995, pp. 30-33). In addition, we need to
distinguish between cause and effect functions, as well as ends and means

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functions (the ends being the effect that is sought). For example, when the phatic
function (cause) is overactivated, it can trigger the poetic function (effect);
overactivation can be used for aesthetic ends, and in this case the poetic function
is an end and the phatic function is a means.
The functions of language can be linked to the various possible enunciative
agents: the empirical (real) author, the implied author (our impression of the author
from reading his text), the narrator, the character, the narratee, the implied reader
and the empirical (real) reader. (For more details, see the chapter on dialogic.) To
take a simple example, sometimes the phatic function disintegrates when an
interaction between characters becomes muddled (as when dialogue degenerates
into parallel monologues). This could be a phatic dysfunction between the
empirical author and reader, or it could be a way to activate the poetic function,
using the dysfunction between characters. In this case the phatic function is
thematized, and it is fictional (it is operating between characters), and the poetic
function is "real" (it originates from the real author and is meant to be perceived by
the real reader).

4. NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.

 Language in Use.

Some approaches analyse language use into constituent parts,

thereby reducing the dynamic process of communication to a static
inventory of items. In one case these items are of a formal linguistic kind
and in the other they carry functional labels, but in both cases they are
items separated out and isolated from the communicative process of which
they are naturally a part. This means that at some point in learning the
process has somehow to be reacted, and the items connected up with each
other and recharged with dynamic life so as to become elements of
language use.
What we must look for is a model of language use which does not
simply atomise the user's behaviour into components of competence, but

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which accounts for the essential features of the discourse process. The
model, therefore, has to lend support to the concepts of training and
education, of competence and capacity, of aims and objectives, and so give
us a theoretical basis for ESP
Now linguistic competence is defined as knowledge of language
systems. These, we want to suggest, are second order abstractions and are
not themselves projective of actual language behaviour. That is to say, we
do not normally just compose a comprehend sentence, so that the ability to
do so has no direct executive function in language use: it is always brought
in to act out an auxiliary role in the formation of utterances with appropriate
communicative value. So we want to define SCHEMATA as having to do
not with the structure of sentences but with the organisation of utterances,
as a set of expectations derived from previous experience which are
projected in to instances of actual language behaviour.
The language itself does not convey information: what it does is to
provide a set of directions for which a schema in the user's mind is to be
engaged. If the directions are clear, them interpretation will be a relatively
straightforward affair: if they are ambiguous misunderstandings are likely to
arise. But they arise not from sentence ambiguity but from utterances
ambiguity, and these are very different phenomena. Of course, utterance
ambiguity, though relatively rare, does occur and there will be occasions
when clarification is called for, as in the following familiar example.
A: I think that's funny.
B: Do you mean funny peculiar or funny ha ha?
These are the cases we have to prevent our pupils to be misled.
What we want to suggest is that there is a contextual level within the
knowledge of language itself, or level of preparedness for use, and it is at
this level that schemata have their being. So, in this view, knowledge of
language embraces two levels: the level of system, which we can call
communicative competence. What this proposal amounts to, in effect, is an
extension of the principle of double structure or dual articulation in
language. This refers to the fact that phonological systems have no direct

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executive function in language use but simply serve to give substantial

existence to meanings signalled in syntax and semantics. What we are
suggesting is a three-layer organisation in which the second level of syntax
and semantics has no direct executive function either.

 Negotiation of Meaning.

If communication were simply a matter of applying the appropriate

schema, life would be a good deal easier than it is now. These are
occasions, when one can, as it were, switch over to the automatic pilot and
allow oneself to be the projection of schemata calls for negotiation, and
often this will involve some modification of the schemata themselves.
Without them, there is no pattern of what is given to make sense of what is
new. Whichever may it goes, no learning can take place and, equivalently,
no communication can occur. We need now to consider, then, what
procedures are needed to actualise these abstract schemata in the process
of discourse itself.
Interpretative procedures are needed to exploit the schematic
knowledge and bring it to bear on particular instances of use. All
communication depends on the alignment and adjustment of each
interlocutor's schemata so that they are brought into sufficient
correspondence for the interlocutor's, the more procedural work will need to
be done to achieve communicative rapport.
Procedures, them, are used to match up and adjust schemata in the
discourse process; they are the interactive negotiating activities which
interpret the directions provided and enable us to alter our expectations in
the light of new evidence as the discourse proceeds. And it is this
procedural ability which realises schematic knowledge as communicative
behaviour which we refer to as CAPACITY. This concept, therefore, covers
a range of different activities which have been referred to as inference ,
practical reasoning , negotiation of meaning , problem solving and so on. It is
convenient, however, to characterise them in relation to two dimensions of

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description. One of these has to do with the kind of schema that is being
realised, that is to say whether the procedure applies to frames of
reference or rhetorical routines. The other dimension has to do with the
kind of communicative situation that has to be negotiated and, in particular,
with the way in which the relationship between the schemata of the
interlocutors is to be managed.

 Routines, Frames of Reference and Illocutionary Acts.

There are occasions when we are required to go through our

procedures consciously; this is the case when it is not at all clear what the
frame of reference is and we have to plot it by a careful shifting of the given
evidence. Sometimes the directions are quite deliberately inexplicit, as in
riddles, where the whole point of the game is to discover the hidden frame
of reference.
So much for procedures which make sense of propositional
information by relating it to schemata which define frames of reference. We
turn now to procedures which realise rhetorical routines. Like frames of
reference, the routines are hierarchically organised. Just as, for example,
the house frame is included within the town frame, so a routine which
defines a particular illocutionary act can be contained within a larger routine
or speech event. So we may begin with the illocutionary act . This is defined
by a set of conditions which interlocutors have to acknowledge as realised
within a particular situation. But it may, of course, not be at all clear that
the situation does provide for a satisfactory realisation of these conditions,
or one interlocutor may wish to alter the situation in some way so that it
does not provide for them. And this is where procedures come in.
A standard illustration of how interpretative procedures are applied to
realise illocutionary value is an exchange of the following kind:
A: I have two tickets for the theatre tonight.
B: My examination is tomorrow.
C: Pity.

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Here, B, we may assume, recognises that A's utterance keys in with

situational factors in such a way as to make the utterance interpretable as
an invitation. But there is a further feature of this routine that needs to be
taken into account: and that is that if an invitation is refused, it is customary
to provide some kind of excuse which will justify it so B's response: B: My
examination is tomorrow is intended and interpreted as an excuse.
Procedural negotiation can be quite extended on occasions.
Interlocutors will sometimes decide that the point of an interaction does not
warrant such expense of time and patience and will disengage, drawing
unfavourable conclusions about the other person's intelligence or integrity.
This happens frequently in interethnic interaction, which calls for particular
intensive procedural activity to bridge the gap between schemata which are
very different. Sometimes interlocutors will seek to clarify their meanings by
shifting to a different signalling system altogether, from a linguistic to a
pictorial mode of presenting information.
Since the negotiation in establishing a frame of reference or a routine
may be lengthy, there is always the possibility that it may so occupy the
interlocutor's attention that the objective of the negotiation may be lost of
sight. There is a need in this case for a recapitulation, a drawing together of
the threads. Such a procedure can be referred to as a FORMULATION. The
overt indicators of such a procedure are expressions like:
- So what you are saying is...
- Are you trying to tell me that...?
- Now let's get this straight.
The theory of speech acts aims to do justice to the fact that even though
words (phrases, sentences) encode information, people do more things with words
than convey information, and that when people do convey information, they often
convey more than their words encode. Although the focus of speech act theory
has been on utterances, especially those made in conversational and other face-
to-face situations, the phrase 'speech act' should be taken as a generic term for
any sort of language use, oral or otherwise. Speech acts, whatever the medium of
their performance, fall under the broad category of intentional action, with which

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they share certain general features (see ACTION). An especially pertinent feature
is that when one acts intentionally, generally one has a set of nested intentions.
For instance, having arrived home without one's keys, one might push a button
with the intention not just of pushing the button but of ringing a bell, arousing one's
spouse and, ultimately, getting into one's house. The single bodily movement
involved in pushing the button comprises a multiplicity of actions, each
corresponding to a different one of the nested intentions. Similarly, speech acts
are not just acts of producing certain sounds.
Austin identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterance
itself. He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it,
and what one does by saying it, and dubs these the 'locutionary', the 'illocutionary'
and the 'perlocutionary' act, respectively. Suppose, for example, that a bartender
utters the words, 'The bar will be closed in five minutes,' reported by means of
direct quotation. He is thereby performing the locutionary act of saying that the bar
(i.e., the one he is tending) will be closed in five minutes (from the time of
utterance), and what is said is reported by indirect quotation (notice that what the
bartender is saying, the content of his locutionary act, is not fully determined by
the words he is using, for they do not specify the bar in question or the time of the
utterance). In saying this, the bartender is performing the illocutionary act of
informing the patrons of the bar's imminent closing and perhaps also the act of
urging them to order a last drink. Whereas the upshot of these illocutionary acts is
understanding on the part of the audience, perlocutionary acts are performed with
the intention of producing a further effect. The bartender intends to be performing
the perlocutionary acts of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to
close and of getting them to want and to order one last drink. He is performing all
these speech acts, at all three levels, just by uttering certain words.
There seems to be a straightforward relationship in this example between
the words uttered ('The bar will be closed in five minutes'), what is thereby said,
and the act of informing the patrons that the bar will close in five minutes. Less
direct is the connection between the utterance and the act of urging the patrons to
order one last drink. Clearly there is no linguistic connection here, for the words
make no mention of drinks or of ordering. This indirect connection is inferential.

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The patrons must infer that the bartender intends to be urging them to leave and,
indeed, it seems that the reason his utterance counts as an act of that sort is that
he is speaking with this intention. There is a similarly indirect connection when an
utterance of 'It's getting cold in here' is made not merely as a statement about the
temperature but as a request to close the window or as a proposal to go some
place warmer. Whether it is intended (and is taken) as a request or as a proposal
depends on contextual information that the speaker relies on the audience to rely
on. This is true even when the connection between word and deed is more direct
than in the above example, for the form of the sentence uttered may fail to
determine just which sort of illocutionary act is being performed. Consider, by
analogy, the fact that in shaking hands we can, depending on the circumstances,
do any one of several different things: introduce ourselves, greet each other, seal
a deal, or bid farewell. Similarly, a given sentence can be used in a variety of
ways, so that, for example, 'I will call a lawyer' could be used as a prediction, a
promise, or a warning. How one intends it determines the sort of act it is.

5. CONCLUSION.

Communication is not only a matter of making intentions clear, or

understanding the intentions of other. If understanding is, as we have
argued, dependent on the engagement of the individual's personal
construct of reality, them access to it could be seen as an intrusion. In
order to be co-operative, one has to encroach on somebody else's life
space and leave one's own vulnerable to 'invasion'. So it is that many of the
procedures we use are protective and are directed at ensuring that what it
is said is not only accessible but also acceptable to others. It is all very well
to believe in being blunt and non-spoken, but to be so is to rely on
tolerance that many people could be reluctant to extend, and they are
likely, in this case, to disengage from the interaction. Communication
depends on interlocutors being receptive, and this means that both
propositional information and illocutory intent has to be expressed in such a
way that is both accessible and acceptable.

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In saying something one generally intends more than just to communicate--

getting oneself understood is intended to produce some effect on the listener.
However, our speech act vocabulary can obscure this fact. When one apologizes,
for example, one may intend not merely to express regret but also to seek
forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is, strictly speaking, distinct from apologizing,
even though one utterance is the performance of an act of both types. As an
apology, the utterance succeeds if it is taken as expressing regret for the deed in
question; as an act of seeking forgiveness, it succeeds if forgiveness is thereby
obtained. Speech acts, being perlocutionary as well as illocutionary, generally
have some ulterior purpose, but they are distinguished primarily by their
illocutionary type, such as asserting, requesting, promising and apologizing, which
in turn are distinguished by the type of attitude expressed.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

 Alcón Soler, E. & Roderic Guzmán, J., Learning Interaction in the

Language Classroom . Universidad de La Coruña, 1990.
 Arcand, R. and N. Bourbeau, La communication efficace. De l'intention aux
moyens d'expression, Anjou (Québec): CEC, 1995.
 Austin, J. L. (1962) How to Do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. (Develops the distinction between performative and
constative utterances into the first systematic account of speech acts.)

 Bach, K. (1994) 'Conversational impliciture', Mind & Language 9: 124-62.

(Identifies the middle ground between explicit utterances and Gricean
implicatures.)

 Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Commuication and Speech Acts,

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Combines elements of Austin's taxonomy and
Grice's theory of conversation into a systematic account of the roles of the
speaker's communicative intention and the hearer's inference in literal,
nonliteral and indirect uses of sentences to perform speech acts.)

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 Chaudron, C., Second Language Classroom , Research on Teaching and

Learning , Series editors: Michael H. Long & Jack C. Richards, 1988.
 Ellis, R., Understanding Second Language Acquisition , Oxford, O.U.P,
1985.
 Grice, H. P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. (The essays on meaning and conversational implicature
provide a framework for distinguishing speaker meaning from linguistic
meaning and for explaining their relationship.)

 Jakobson, R., "Linguistics and Poetics", in T. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language,

Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1960, pp. 350-377.
 Jaylor, T. J., Linguistic Theory and Structural Stylistics , Pergamon
Press, 1980.
 Kllnkenberg, J.-M., Précis de sémiotique générale, Paris, Seuil, 1996.
 Rastier, F., Meaning and Textuality, trans. Frank Collins and Paul Perron,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997 [1989].
 Rosales López, C., Metodología de Investigación de la Comunicación
Oral .
 Searle, J. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language,
Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. (Presents a theory of speech
acts relying on the notion of constitutive rules.)

 Stern, H., Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching , Oxford

University Press, 1984.
 Strawson, P. F. (1964) 'Intention and convention in speech acts', Philosophical
Review 73: 439-60. (Applies Grice's account of meaning to support the claim
that most speech acts are communicative rather than conventional, as Austin
had suggested.).

 Tritsmans, B., "Poétique", in M. Delcroix and F. Hallyn (dir.), Méthodes du texte.

Introduction aux études littéraires, Paris: Duculot, 1987, pp. 11-28.

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 Tsohatzidis, S. L., ed. (1994) Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical

and Linguistic Perspectives, London: Routledge. (Collection of original essays
on outstanding problems in the field, with useful bibliography.)

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