Page 483 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

(c) Recognition of what S is referring to in the world spoken of (which forms part of the con- text C).
(d) Recognition of the primary illocution of U on the basis of the mood of the clause in the locution, and the definitions of the five or so primary illocutionary acts which form part of the theory of speech acts.
(e) S's presumed reason for performing this pri- mary illocution is sought in the light of various assumptions and presumptions of the coop- erative principle, knowledge of L, and the use of L (including knowledge of the definitions of illocutionary acts), context, and background information of many kinds. This process may lead to a number of illocutions being inferred, ranged in a sequence from primary illocution to illocutionary point.
(f) The illocutionary point (or points) of U, that is, S's message in U, is recognized when at last no further illocutions can be inferred, and the inference schema shuts down.
An utterance such as (4) trades on the cooperative requirement that H should have a good reason not to comply with such a request:
8. S's question presupposes that H has been noisy. Noise imposes on others; it seems it has imposed on S. It is impolite to impose on others, therefore the person doing it should desist or else give a reason for not being able to desist. Any other action is uncooperative, and S must know this.
9. Therefore S reflexively- intends that U be taken as a reason either for H to be quiet or to inform S of the reason for being unable to be quiet. [Recognition of the tertiary illocutionary intention].
10. S is requesting H either to be quiet, or to tell S the reason for being unable to be quiet. [Recognition of the tertiary illocution]
11. There is no reason to believe any further illocutionary intention can be inferred, therefore S is either requesting H to be quiet or questioning his reason for being unable to be quiet. [Conclusion as to the illocutionary point of U]
7, semantic theory. encyclopedic knowledge,
cooperative principle, and perhaps context,
7,8, definition of illocutionary acts,
9, definition of requestives.
3, 10, definitions of illocutionary acts, encyclopedic knowledge.
Why don't you be quiet?
Consider the following inference schema:
(4)
In uttering (4) S intends H to reason that:
1. S utters U in C. [Recognition of the utterance act]
2. U consists of <7t,e> in English, and <?t, ey means 'S asks why don't you be quiet?' (='//') [Recognition of the locution]
3. By'you,' Smeans 'H.' Sis using <TT, ey to mean 'S asks H to give a reason not to be quiet'. [Recognition of reference]
4. S reflexively-intends U to be taken as asking a reason to be given for H not to be quiet. [Recognition of the primary illocutionary intention]
5. S is asking for a reason to be given for H not to be quiet. [Recognition of the primary illocution]
6. S's reason for asking this is to be informed of the reason for H not to be quiet; i.e. S reflexively-intends U to be taken as a reason for H to tell S H's reason not to be quiet. [Recognition of the secondary illocutionary intention]
7. S is questioning H as to H's reason not to be quiet. [Recognition of the secondary illocution]
Basis:
People are not expected to expressly offer reasons for being cooperative, but they are expected to offer reasons for not being cooperative: which is why there is the disjunctive illocutionary point to (4). Notice how the question illocution is carried down through the schema to become one of the disjuncts of the illocutionary point of the speech act.
Having recognized the utterance act, H must reco- gnize S's locution. To accomplish this, H must reco- gnize that U consists of expression e from language L spoken with prosody n. The first step in the process is for H to make the communicative presumption that S intends to communicate with him/her using language as a medium. This presumption is based in part on a categorizing ability to which H must have recourse at various levels in the analysis of utterance meaning. H takes the sense data from constituents of U and categorizes them using his/her linguistic knowl- edge, so as to perceive them in terms of a linguistic category. Perhaps the initial categorization is to recog- nize U as made in language L; this might be crudely described as matching H's perception of U and its parts with the languages that s/he knows. In practice, H usually has a clear expectation about which language S is using because of former experience with S or the situation of utterance; where this is not the case, there will be a heuristic interactional process along the following lines: (a) U sounds as though it is made in Lb; (b) constituent ef of U seems to be a constituent of L b ; (c) if constituent e} also seems to be
Hearing S utter U inC.
1, cooperative principle, knowledge of English.
2, semantic theory, context.
3, definitions of illocutionary acts.
4, definition of interrogatives.
5, cooperative principle, definitions of illocutionary acts.
6, definition of questions.
Speech Act Theory: Overview
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