WEEK 2 – PRAGMATICS

Speech acts and speech events

1. The illocutionary act of promising and the physiognomy of speech

act: promising
a) The speech act of promising

Promising is a commissive speech act whose illocutionary force that the

Speaker promises to do a future action to the benefit of a Hearer by expressing its
proposition (e.g., a promise) to the Hearer (Searle, 1969). By promising, the speaker
commits to doing this future action.
Hứa là một hành động lời nói mang tính ủy thác khi lực tại lời mà người nói
hứa thực hiện một hành động trong tương lai vì lợi ích của người nghe, bằng cách bày
tỏ đề xuất của mình (ví dụ: một lời hứa). Bằng cách hứa hẹn, người nói cam kết sẽ
thực hiện hành động này trong tương lai.

For example: I promise to do homework tomorrow

There are dozens of ways to make a promise in any particular language. In

English, the very use of a particular “ speech act verb” is often excluded from use in
performing speech an act. tr117

For example:"I promise I’ll come to the ceremony ( using performative verb)
And we could say: "I'll come to the ceremony."
And according to Searl, it also depends on the context which determines
whether an expression counts as a speech act
One cannot promise a thing that has happened in the past; neither can anybody
promise anything in another person’s stead.
I promised to come
In here, the “ explicit performative” is absent, what this sentence does is
describe an affair that happened once upon a time, it’s not a promising act, despite the
use of the word “promise”.
In order to give an analysis of the illocutionary act of promising, we will find
out what conditions are necessary and sufficient for the act of promising to have been
successfully performed in the utterance of a sentence.

b) The physiognomy of a speech act: promising

In this part, we will deal with the question of Searle: How can we determine a
speech act of promising? by exploring the conditions and the rules governing its use.
 - Conditions

In the book of Jacob Mey, Searle developed some conditions that are known as
the ‘‘Searlean conditions,’’ And these are nine conditions that I show on the screen
and you could review them in Mey’s book on page 118.
And Searle says, only condition 2-7 are specific to the speech act of promising; 1,8
and 9 hold for all speech acts and are not proper to promises (tr122)

According to Yule's book (1996, p.50), he refined his classification into five
fertility conditions. These are specifics for each condition on the speech act of
promising:

- General condition: participants can understand the language being used and
they are not play-acting or being nonsensical
- Content condition: The speaker’s utterance must be a future action of speaker
- Preparatory condition: The hearer wants the speaker to carry the promised act
- Sincerity condition: The speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future
action
- Essential condition: The speaker undertakes to do the promised act

“I promise to tour you around the city.”

By applying conditions for promising, we have
Condition (1): It is evident that both speak and understand the English language and
the meaning of the words found in the utterance.
Condition (2): In the expression of the above content, the predicated act of touring the
hearer around the city is a future act.
Condition (3): It is in the interest of the hearer to be guided by the speaker in going
from one place to another around the city.
Condition (4): The speaker intends to tour the hearer around the city and he/she
believes that it is possible for him/her to perform the said intended act.
Condition (5): By uttering: “I promise to tour you around the city”, the speaker makes
himself obligated to do the aforementioned.

- Rules for using IFIDs

Rule 1: Only use a promissory IFID when the content of the utterance is about
something which is to happen in the future.
Rule 2: Only use the promissory IFID when the promise contains something that the
promisee actually wants to happen to him or her.
Rule 3: Only use an IFID for promising when the content of the promise does not
concern the occurrence of an already scheduled, self-justifying or natural happening.
Rule 4: Only use a promissory IFID if you intend to carry out your promise. This is
clearly the sincerity rule, corresponding to the sincerity condition (6) above.
Rule 5: Only use an IFID on condition that the promise is uttered, and recognized
(accepted) as creating an obligation from the promisee to the promisee.

c) Analysis
You say to a teacher: "I promise to do my homework"
The locutionary act is "I promise to do my homework"
The illocutionary force lies in your intent to make a promise; the perlocutionary
force lies in the teacher's acceptance that a promise was made.
In a sentence, you have said "I promise to do my homework" (locution). The
use of the performative verb “promise” in your utterance emphasizes how much you
wants the teacher to believe her words (illocution) and she does have a feeling of trust
on you (perlocution)

A man says to his wife: ‘I promise that I will spend this evening with you, but at
the same time I will spend it with my friends’.
Does it qualify as a speech act of promise? Câu này có được xem là một hành
vi ngôn từ lời hứa hay không? So, Let’s apply the conditions and rules of the promise
act into the example of this situation: the first
What is the speaker's intention?
The utterance means like: 'I promise that I will spend this evening with you, but
at the same time I will not spend it with you’. Trong câu nói này thì ý định của người
nói thực sự là gì? → So it doesn’t meet the sincerity condition.
Who in these situations is the hearer that must recognize the illocutionary force?
Is it His wife or his friends? What the man says to his wife is the thing that she
wants to hear and prefers the speaker doing ? → So it doesn’t meet the preparatory
conditions
Does the speaker genuinely have the intention to carry out the promise?
It seems to be impossible to recognize the intention of a speaker and if he has,
how can a speaker in this situation commit himself to spending an evening with his
wife and at the same time with friends, and moreover to complete this?
Therefore, I think, this is not speech act of promising