SEMA N TICS

E-UFIV NIT
UP 24
GR &

BY

25
LECTURER : DR. RAHAYU PUJI HARYANI, M.Hum.
 Meet Our Team!

Ashari
Adam Ismail Ragil Gustaman
Pungkasana Aji
(2302180012) (2302180009) (2302180006)
 Overview
UNIT 24
01 . DIRECT AND INDIRECT ILLOCUTIONS

UNIT 25
02. PROPOSITIONS AND ILLOCUTIONS

EXCERCISES
03. uNIT 24 & uNIT 25

Hurford J.R., Heasley B. Semantics. A Coursebook

(p.289-313)
Would you like a cup of
coffee?

According to the conventions of everyday usage,

could the utterance, in a normal situation, be an act
of?

(1) warning?
(2) thanking?
(3) apologizing?
(4) offering?
(5) asking?
 HOW do we decide if ‘Would you like a cup of
coffee?’ is an act of offering and asking, and that
it is NOT an act of thanking, warning, or
apologizing?

This kind of question can be answered by studying Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocution
 Let’s identify! (.”)/
Ragil: Do you have 100?
Fina: Umm, I don’t think so..
Locution: the actual words uttered
Illocution(s): the speaker’s intention(s)
Direct Illocution: An illocution indicated by a LITERAL
reading of the grammatical form and vocabulary of the
sentence uttered
Indirect Illocution: Any further illocution the utterance
may have
Perlocution(s): The effect(s) of the utterance to the
hearer

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

 Give the direct and indirect illocutions of
the following utterances
EXAMPLE PRACTICE
‘Why don’t we go to Portugal this summer?’ ‘(1) ‘I must ask you to leave.‘
Direct illocution: Asking why speaker and hearer do not
(or will not) go to Portugal (2) ‘Don’t you think you should call your mum?’
Indirect illocution: Suggesting that the speaker and the
hearer go to Portugal

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

 A deliberately unhelpful reply can be given to an
utterance which has both direct & indirect
illocutions
EXAMPLE PRACTICE
‘I must ask you to leave.’ Suggest 1 unhelpful reply & 1 helpful reply for:
Unhelpful reply: ‘Must you?’ ‘(1) ‘Let me say immediately that I endorse the
Helpful reply: ‘I’m sorry. I will leave the room now.’ chairman’s ruling.‘

Notice that the unhelpful reply still makes sense for (2) ‘Don’t you think you should call your mum?’
the said utterance which has both direct & indirect
illocutions.

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

 Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

Can you pass me the fish?

Where the direct illocution of an utterance is

deliberately infelicitous, the indirect illocution is
an act to which the hearer’s attention is drawn
by mentioning one of its felicity conditions.

Conditions that must be met for a speech act to be considered successful

Can you pass me the fish?

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

Directive and Commisive Acts

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

Directive and Commisive Acts

Unit 24 - Direct and Indirect Illocutions

 Directive and Commisive Acts

Literal

Not literal
 How to
identify
indirect
directive
illocution
How to identify indirect commisive illocution
 Unit 24 Study Guide and Exercises
1. You should understand these terms and concepts from this unit:
a. direct illocution
An illocution indicated by a LITERAL reading of the grammatical form and vocabulary
of the sentence uttered.
b. indirect illocution
Any further illocution the utterance may have.
two types of illocutionary act:
c. directive act
A DIRECTIVE act is any illocutionary act which essentially involves the speaker trying to get the
hearer to behave in some required way.
d. commissive act
A COMMISSIVE act is any illocutionary act which essentially involves the speaker committing
himself to behave in some required way.
2. Give the direct and indirect illocutions of the following utterances.
Speaker is abbreviated as "S" and Hearer is abbreviated as "H".

a. "Can you hand me the butter?"

Direct illocution :. S asks H if H has the ability to give S the butter
Indirect illocution: S requests the H to hand over the butter.

b. "The car is dirty."

Direct illocution: S asserts that the car is dirty.
Indirect illocution: S asks H to wash the car, or warns H or complains
to H about the car.
c. "When do you plan to dust your room?"
Direct illocution: . S asks H at what time she plans to clean her room
Indirect illocution: S asks (requests) H to clear her room.
3. Classify the following acts as either directive, commissive, or neither,
and be ready to explain your choice. Directives are marked "D",
commissives "C", and neither "N".

a. pledging (C)
b. accosting (N)
c. accusing (N)
d. imploring (D)
e. complaining (N)
f. inviting (D)
4. Classify the following utterances as belonging to one of the following
categories: direct or indirect directives, direct or indirect commissives. For
the indirect acts explain which felicity conditions are invoked.
The felicity conditions invoked are not given here.

a. "Put on this sweater." direct directive

b. "It would be a good idea for you to stay here." indirect directive
c. "I'll volunteer to feed the tiger." direct commissive
d. "Could I get you a drink?" indirect commissive
e. "Send back that package." direct directive
f. "I don't think I'll be able to go with you." indirect commissive
 UNIT 25 PROPOSITIONS AND ILLOCUTIONS
By RAGIL PUNGKASANA

Sentence Meaning Utterance Meaning

what a sentence means, regardless of
the context and situation in which it what a speaker means
may be used.
when he makes an
Ex : 1. He sat the chair. utterance in a particular
2. He has the Chair of Philosophy at The
university.
situation.
 Practice
Each of the following is a statement from an everyday context
in which the word meaning or means or mean is used. Say
whether the statement is about sentence meaning (S) or about
utterance meaning (U).

(1) A statement by a tourist guide: The inscription above this

door, translated into English, means Those who enter here will
live forever. (S / U)

(2) What did you mean by telling me you’d think twice about
lending money to Gary? (S / U)

(3) When George says that his gun is loaded, he means it as a

threat. (S / U)

(4) I think I understand the literal meaning of what you’re saying,

but I can’t see why you should be saying it to me. (S / U)
 Comment
The gap between sentence meaning and utterance
meaning is least noticeable when speakers are being
direct (i.e. not being ironic, or diplomatic, or polite).
Politeness is one of the main motivations for using
an indirect illocution in preference to a direct one
(Unit 24). In the previous unit we saw how a speaker
could carry out an indirect illocution by (directly)
asserting or questioning certain of its felicity
conditions. Now we will go through an exactly
parallel exercise, illuminating one aspect of the
relationship between propositions and illocutions.
 The Notion of Proposition The Notion of Illocution
Related to concept of
prediction and reference are Crucial for UTTERANCE
crucial for SENTENCE MEANING
MEANING
The PROPOSITIONAL CONTENT of a directive illocution

can be expressed by a declarative sentence

describing the action that the speaker
requires of the hearer. (This definition is
partial because it only applies to directives. It
does not apply to commissives, for instance,
or other types of illocution.)
 Practice
Express the propositional content of each of the
following directives with a declarative sentence.

(1) In each of the above cases, would uttering the declarative

sentence you have given actually carry out (either more or
less directly) the same directive illocution as the original
utterance? (Yes / No)

(2) In general, does it seem that uttering a declarative

sentence describing an action required of the hearer actually
carries out a directive illocution? (Yes / No)

(3) Is it polite (P) or rather impolite (I) to issue a directive with

an utterance beginning ‘You will . . .’? (P / I)
 Comment
Thus another way of carrying out an indirect directive is to
question the propositional content of the illocution. This method
actually results in a more polite utterance than simply asserting
the propositional content. But, as we have seen in the last two
examples (Will you relax? and Won’t you give up?), this method is
not completely general.
Sometimes uttering the interrogative is not more polite than
uttering the corresponding declarative. And sometimes the
interrogative form gives rise to a quite different illocution (as in
the last example). These exceptions probably have something to
do with the special nature of such items as relax, give up, and the
effects of negation. We will not delve more deeply into such
complications, but will turn to the case of indirect commissives.
 Practice
(1) In the case of directives, the actor who is to carry out the
required action is the hearer of the utterance. Who is the
actor to carry out the action concerned in the case of
commissive illocutions?

(2) Could the propositional content of an offer to give the

hearer a piece of gum be expressed with the sentence I will
give you a piece of gum? (Yes / No)

(3) In general, can the propositional content of any commissive

illocution be expressed with a sentence of the form I will . . .?
(Yes / No)
The PROPOSITIONAL CONTENT of a COMMISSIVE ILLOCUTION

can be expressed by a declarative sentence

describing the action which the speaker
undertakes to perform.
Now we will see whether asserting and
questioning the propositional content of a
commissive actually (indirectly) carries out that
commissive, parallel to the case of directives
 Practice
(1) In each of the following cases, give an assertion of the
propositional content of the commissive illocution concerned.
We have done the first one for you.

(a) Father promising to buy his son a rubber dinghy when he can swim:
‘I will buy you a rubber dinghy when you can swim’

(b) Dinner guest, offering to help wash the dinner dishes:

..........................................................................................................

(c) Soldier volunteering to cover his section’s retreat:

..........................................................................................................
Asserting & Questioning Their propositional content

Commissives are like directives in that

they can be indirectly carried out by
asserting their propositional content, but
they differ from directives in that they
cannot generally be carried out by
questioning their propositional content.
 Practice
For each of the following utterances, (a) name the most likely
illocutionary act being carried out, (b) say whether the
speaker is explicitly referred to, and (c) say whether the
hearer is explicitly referred to.

(1) ‘I am most grateful to you’

(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
(2) ‘Thank you very much’
(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
(3) ‘Thanks a lot’
(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
(4) ‘Go away’
(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
(5) ‘Please will you pass the sugar’
(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
(6) ‘I hereby undertake to pay all my debts’
(a) .............................................................. (b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No
We see that for an illocutionary act to be carried out there is no need
for either the speaker or the hearer to be referred to (although, in
general, reference to the speaker or hearer makes the illocution of an
utterance more explicit, and hence clearer).
Expressions like Hello, Goodbye, and Hey! belong to a tiny set that
seem to have purely non-propositional meaning. Declarative
sentences such as I greet you and I take my leave of you, this is not an
argument that Hello, Goodbye, and Hey! themselves have
propositions as their meanings, or that they contain referring
expressions or predicates. Such expressions are for this reason
(verbal) gestures, parallel in essential ways to non-verbal gestures
such as waves, nods, and handshakes. Rather than classing these
expressions under categories of meaning such as predicate or name,
we will categorize them simply as primary illocution indicators.
 Summary
The study of speech acts adds a dimension to the study of
meaning, in particular the interpersonal dimension. It gives
us a way of describing how speakers use sentences in
actual utterances to interact with other speakers in social
situations, exchanging such socially significant illocutions
as promises, requests, greetings, warnings, etc. But human
communication is not purely interpersonal; people
communicate about the world they live in, using reference
and predication. In these units we hope to have given
some idea of the complex ways in which all these semantic
notions are related.
 Unit 25 Study Guide and Exercises

1.You should understand these terms and concepts from this unit:
a. sentence meaning
is what a sentence means, regardless of the context and situation in which it may be used.

b. utterance meaning
is what a speaker means when he makes an utterance in a particular situation.

c. propositional content of a directive illocution

can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action that the speaker requires of
the hearer

d. propositional content of a commissive illocution

can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action which the speaker undertakes
to perform.
2. Express the propositional content of each of the following directives with a declarative
sentence (that asserts this content). Do the declarative sentences you give also have the
same directive illocution as the original? Comment on the relative politeness of each type of
utterance.

a. "Put on this sweater." You will put on this sweater.

b. "Stay over there." You will stay over there.

c. "I'd like you to do something for me." You will do something for me.

You will have to stay here.

d. "You have to stay here."
3. For each of the following utterances identify the most likely illocutionary act involved and indicate
whether the speaker or hearer is explicitly mentioned (and identify them if they are). Answers may vary.
Speaker = "S" and Hearer = "H".

a."Here's the book." Offering S, H are not mentioned

b. "Here's the book you ordered." Offering S is not mentioned

c. "I appreciate the help." Thanking H is not mentioned

d. "Scram!" Ordering S, H are not mentioned

e."We'd like another helping." Requesting H is not mentioned

4. For each of the following utterances identify the most likely illocutionary act involved and indicate
whether they contain any referring expressions or predicates. Can you think of any more similar utterances
not already listed here or in the text?

a. "So long." leave taking

b. "Over here!" calling or getting attention

c. "What's up?" greeting or questioning

d."No." declining or refusing

e. "Ouch!" complaining

f."Great!" approving or congratulating

 Question
& Answer
TH ANK
YOU