4.1.

2 The functions of speech

What part does speech play in social interaction? There is no

simple answer, nor even a single complicate one, as speech plays many
Jifferent roles on different occasions. The anthropologist Bronislav
Malinowski claimed that in its primitive uses, language functions as a link
in concerted human activity, as a piece of human behavior. It is a mode of
action and not an instrument of reflection’ (Malinowski 1923). An example
of this would be the kind of speech one hears from people shifthing
furniture: To you…now up a bit…and so on, where the speech acts as a
control on people’s physical activity, in contrast to its function in a lecture
where it is intended to influence the thoughts rather than the actions of
the listeners. Another use of speech is simply to establish or reinforce
social relations – what Malinowski called PHATIC COMMUNIO, the kind of
chit – chat that people engage in simply in order to show that thcy
recognize each other’s presence. We might add many other uses of
speech to this list – speech to obtain information (e.g. Where’s the tea –
cosy?), for expressing emotions (e.g. What a lovely hat!), for is own sake
(e.g. She sells sea – shells by the sea – shere) and so on. We shall not try
to develop a proper classification of speech functions at this level, but just
restrict ourselves to noting that speech in social interaction does not have
just one function, such as communicating propositions which the hearer
does not already know, (For a good survey of attempts to classify the
functions of speech, see Robbinson : 1972: ch. 2.)

One particular approach to the functional classification of speech

certainly ought to be mentioned, however, as it have been extremely
influential. This is the approach based on SPEECH - ACTS, wich has been
developed in the main by philosophers and linguist following the British
philosopher J. L. Austin (see Austin 1962, and excellent reviews in Lyons
1977: ch. 16, Kempson 1977: ch. 4, 5). Austin arguet that the study of
meaning should not concentrate on bald statement such as Snow is white,
taken out of context, since language is typically used, in speech, for many
other functions – when we speak we make suggestions, promises,
invitations, requests, prohibitions and so on. Indeed, in some cases we use
speech to perform an action (as Malinowski had arguet), in the extreme
sense that the speech is itself the action which it reports – for instance, I
name this ship ‘Saucy Sue’ has to be said if the naming is to be
accomplished. Such bits of speech are calied PERFORMATIVE
UTTERANCES. It can be seen that an account of all these different
functions of speech must be formulated in terms of a general theory of
social activity, and this is what Austin and his followers have tried to
provide.
A speech – act is a bit of speech produced as part of a bit of social
interation – as opposed to the linguist’s and philosophers decon –
textualised examples. Our culture includes a rich set of concepts for
classifying bits of social interaction, reflecting the importance of social
interaction in socicty. For instance, we distinguish between ’work’ and,
’play’ or ’leisure’, between ’playing’ and ’fighting’, and between ’visiting,
’living with’ and ’dropping in on’ people. Similarly, as we might expect,
there are many cultural concepts, with linguistic labels, for types of
speech – acts, and the study of such acts seems to be largely concerned
with the meanings of these terms – for instance, what precisely is meant
by the term promise? ( For an answer, see Searle 1965).

One of the important distinctions which Austin introduced was

between what he called the ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE of a speech – act and
its PERLOCUTIONARY FORCE. The former is not easy to define precisely,
but it is in some sence the ’inherent’ function of the speech – act, which
might be established examply looking at the act itself in relation to
existing bellieved. For instance, one could classify He’ll soon be leaving as
a promise if one bellieved that the addressee would be pleased at the
news, that the actually would be leaving soon, and so on. Perlocutionary
force concepts the effects of the act, whether intended or actual-for
instance, the intended perlocutionary force of He’ll soon be leaving might
be to please the addressee.
 The distinction is especially interesting since it would seem to reflect
a general tendency to categorise bits of social interaction in two different
ways raccording to (i) their inherent properties and (ii) their effects. For
instance, we distinguish between ’fighting’ and ’winning’, and between
’playing’ and ’enjoying oneself’ or ’passing the time’. This parallel
between the functional classifition of speech and of other types of social
behaviour is exactly what we might expect, given the view that speech is
just one kind of social behaviour. We might also expect that concepts
used classifying speech – acts will be typical of cultural concepts, in being
defined in terms of prototypes (see 3.1.2); indeed, in defining the
conditions for something to count, say, as a promise, this is just what we
do find. A prototypical promise is sincere, but it is quite normal to report
that someone promised insincerely to do something.

If speech – act categories are cultural concepts, we might expect

them to vary from one socicty to another, and that is again what we find.
One of the standard examples of a type of speech – act which has a
distinctive illocutionary force is the baptising of a person into the Cristian
faith, for which there is a specific verb (babtise) which can be used in per
formative ulterances (I babtise you….). This particular illocutionary force
is clearly restricted to socictics in which baptims takes places, and there
are many other similar examples of culture-specific illocutionary force (for
other see Lyons 1977: 737). It is interesting to compare the concepts
reflected by English with those of an exotic community, such as those of
the Tzeltal Indians (a branch of the Maya, of Mexico) reported by Brian
Sterss (1874). The Tzeltal have an extremely rich terminology for classi -
fying speech – acts, such as ’talk in which thing are offered for sale’ ar
talk in which the speaker has spread the blame for something, so that he
alone is not blamed’. These concepts seem to be instances of illocutionary
force categories, but the terminology goes well beyond such categories,
to include concepts such as ’speech occurring at night or late evening’ or
’speech by someone who comes to another’s house and spends time
talking even though the other is quite ill’. All these concepts are ex -
presed in Tzeltal by the same kind of linguistic item, consisting of a single
word followed by the word k’op, meaning ’speech’. It seems fair to
assume that a Tzeltal has the concepts concerned stored in his memory
(where the reader will have had to construct them as new, internally
complex, concepts), just as we have the complex concepts ’promise’,
’babtise’, ’suggest’ stored in ours, but there is little overlap between the
two systems of concepts, even if we concentrate on the Tzeltal terms
which seem to refer to illocutionary force.
How does the classification of speech – acts fit into that of speech –
fonctions, discussed at the start of this section in terms of
’phaticcommunion’, ’speech for obtaining information’, etc..?. One
possible answer is that the two sets of concepts are appropriate for
classifying bits of speech of different lengths, wits speech – acts as the
smallest bits, classified by illocutionary and perlocutinary force and
loanger stretches classified as ’phatic communio’ and so on. This answer
presupposes the existence of some kind of hierarchical organization to
speech, a possibility considered iv 4.3.2 below, but we connot take it for
granted that speech is organized hierarchically. An alternative is to think
of speakers as having a variety of intentions at any given moment in
speech, varying in scope from relatively long-term intentions like
maintaining good relations with the addressee, through shorter-term
intentions such as pleasing the addressee, to other types of intentions
such as producing a promise. This view differs from the hierarchical model
in that it allows for changes in the speaker’s intentions. Ilowever, the
functional analysis of any given bits of speech connot be satisfactorily
made in term of a single set of mutually exclusive categories, since
different purposes cancocxist. Once again we find the speaker locating his
speech in in a multidimensional space, just as he did with reference to
other people (see 1.3.1 and 2.1.4) and other kinds of situation (see 2.4.1).