Speech Act Theory: Introduction To Semantics November 4, 2004

Outline
Speech Act Theory

Introduction to Semantics
November 4, 2004
Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader
http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/
Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Speech Act Theory
Outline
Outline
Speech has functions

Motivations for Speech Act Theory
Beyond truth
Performatives
Constraints on performatives
Parts of Speech Acts
Indirect speech acts
Politeness is indirect
Face

Speech Act Theory
Speech has functions Beyond truth Performatives Parts of Speech Acts Indirect speech acts Face
How to be a good host in Japan
(1) Nanika nomi ni narimasu ka?

Something drink become Question marker.
What would you like to drink?
(2) Koohii ka koocha wo nomi ni narimasu
Coffee or black tea object-marker drink become
ka?
Question marker.
Are you drinking coffee or black tea?

Speech Act Theory
Exceptions to the rule
I Speaker’s contribute more information than just “what is

said”
I To account for additional information Grice and others
developed the idea of conversational implicatures
I Gricean Maxims can give a principled account of additional
meaning
I We now assume that hearers interpret utterances based on the
assumption that speakers are following Gricean Maxim’s when
they form their utterances
I Yet many utterances don’t seem to follow Gricean Maxim’s!
I In particular speakers seem to communicate many things in an
indirect way, without obvious additional meaning

Speech Act Theory
Utterances that break maxims
The following utterances break Gricean Maxims

(3) Do you have a watch?
(4) Mag ik jou iets vragen?
(5) Wilt u misschien de deur openlaten?

Speech Act Theory
What is speech act theory
Crystal
A theory where the effect of an utterance is analyzed in relationship
to the speaker and listener’s behavior
I Speech Act Theory can help us analyze utterances that seem

to break Gricean maxims
I Speech Act Theory can also help us examine utterances from
the perspective of their function, rather than their form

Speech Act Theory
Austin: How to do things with words
Sentence types have conventional relationships to certain types of

speech acts:
I declarative: The class finishes at 6 pm → assertions
(statements)
I interrogative: Does this class finish at 6 pm? → questions
I imperatives: Stop teaching immediately! → orders
I optative: I wish this class would be over! → wishes

Speech Act Theory
Austin was a response to earlier views of language
1. that the basic sentence type in language is declarative (i.e. a

statement or an assertion)
2. that the principal uses of language is to describe states of
affairs (by using statements)
3. that the meaning of utterances can be described in terms of
their truth or falsity
(from Searle : 223)

Speech Act Theory
Austins first observation: Utterances have many functions
(6) We zouden vanavond pizza kunnen eten.

(7) De woonkamer moet gestofzuigd worden.
(8) Sorry!
(9) Wat raar!
(10) Je zal maar de lotto winnen!
(11) Zeker weten!
I These sentences cannot be said to be true or false.

Speech Act Theory
Austin’s second observation: Certain sentences with

declarative form are not used to make statements
(12) Bij deze verklaar ik Noorwegen de oorlog.
I Declarative sentence-type, but it isn’t being used to say

anything about the truth-value of some statement
I Austin called this type of speech act type a performative
I Only certain people have the ability to declare war

Speech Act Theory
Words can do things
I Performatives change the way the world is

I Performatives can’t be true or false, they can only be
felicitous or infelicitous, i.e you can’t marry people unless you
are a minister, etc.

Speech Act Theory
In what domains are performatives common?
I Church baptizing, confirming, marrying, funerals,

pause exorcism
I Universities conferring degrees
I Court sentencing, swearing oaths to tell the truth
I Gambling placing a bet, raising stakes in poker
I Sports cautioning or sending of players, calling strikes, balls,
outs (in baseball)
(Modified from Andrew Moore’s Website)

Speech Act Theory
Felicity conditions
I Need a known procedure with conventional effects, with

certain words or certain people having the right
I The particular persons (speakers) and circumstance must be
appropriate for the particular procedure...
I the procedure must be executed correctly by all participants
I and completely
(from Saeed : 224)

Speech Act Theory
Right context
Ronald Reagan, 11 August 1984

My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed
legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five
minutes.
I Fails in terms of felicity conditions

I Does it fail in terms of sincerity conditions?

Speech Act Theory
Explicit and implicit performatives
I Sometimes the use of specific words signals the speech act

I Searle: IFID’s “Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices”
I Words such as declare name hereby
I Hereby test (Bij deze test?)

Speech Act Theory
Performative hypothesis (Gazdar 1979)
I Extended notion of performatives

I every time you say something you perform a speech act
I even banal sentences are speech acts
(13) I hereby inform you that I have graded your homework.

(14) I graded your homework

Speech Act Theory
Other types of speech acts
I Representatives speaker asserts a proposition to be true

using verbs such as affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report
I Directives speaker tries to make the hearer do something,
ask, beg, challenge, commmand, dare, invite, insist, request
I Commissives speaker commits themselves to a future course
of action, promiss, pledge, swear, vow, guarantee
I Expressives speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state
of affairs apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest,
regret, thank, welcom

Speech Act Theory
Three parts of a speech act
1. Locutionary act -communicative act

2. Illocutionary act -speakers intention
3. Perlocutionary act -the effect that the speech act has on the
context participants world

Speech Act Theory
Mona Verwenyoghurt
(15) Tims vriendin: Willen jullie fruit of

verwenyoghurt van Tim?
Meisjes: (allebei) Fruit!
Ben je doof of zo? Dat is toch...

Speech Act Theory
Politeness: avoid the wrong perlocutionary effect
(16) Nanika nomi ni narimasu ka?

Something drink become Question marker.
What would you like to drink?
(17) Koohii ka koocha wo nomi ni narimasu
Coffee or black tea object-marker drink become
ka?
Question marker.
Are you drinking coffee or black tea?
I The first form has the perlocutionary effect of the guest

refusing a drink
I Cultures may differ as to the perlocutionary effect that
otherwise translation equivalents may have
Speech Act Theory
Politeness is indirect
Indirect speech acts for politeness
I Indirect speech acts have intended meanings that are different

from their literal meanings
I Hearers recognize their real meaning based on the context
(18) It’s cold in here

I want you to turn up the heat or close the door.
(19) Would you mind helping me carry some of my stuff?
Help me carry some of my stuff.

Speech Act Theory
The concept of face
Brown and Levinson

(face is) the public self image that every member of society wants
to claim for himself (1978:66)
I Positive face individuals desire to be liked, approved of,

admired, etc.
I Negative face individuals desire to be independent, avoid
having others tell them what to do

Speech Act Theory
The concept of face
I Threats to positive face expressions of disapproval,

disagreements, accusations, interruptions
I Threats to negative face orders, requests, suggestions,
advice
I Self threats to positive face apologies or confessions

Speech Act Theory
Threats
(20) Jan, Kom ’ns.

Order, threatens negative face, addressee is not master
of his own actions
(21) Je weet niet waar je het over hebt. Expression of dis-
approval, a correction, threatens positive face, individual
looks bad in front of others
I Individuals try to avoid threatening each other’s face in social

interaction
I this is seen as the root cause of politeness strategies
I orders, request, disapprovals, etc., are all expressed more
indirectly

Speech Act Theory
Face and Politeness Phenomena in Japanese
I Matsumoto claims that Brown and Levinson’s definition isn’t

able to account for Politeness in Japanese
I The concept of face is oriented to the individual
I Japanese society is more group oriented, and politeness
strategies depend on acknowledging or showing one’s role in a
given group

Speech Act Theory
Matsumoto: interdependence
(22) Doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu

Please be good ask
I ask you to please treat me well.
(23) Musume o doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu
Daughter OBJ please be good ask
Please treat my daughter well.
(24) Shujin o doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu
Husband OBJ please be good ask
Please treat my husband well.
I in Japanese culture interdependence is a positive thing
I respectful impositions (demands for help) enhances the image
of the addressee
Speech Act Theory
Deference: exalt addressee, humble self
(25) Annoo, tsumaranai mono desu ga

This is nothing much, but please accept it.
(26) Okuchi ni awanai kamoshiremasen ga, ...
You probably won’t like it but...
(27) It’s not much, it’s just a little thing I picked up for a
song in a bargain basement sale in Macy’s last week, I
thought maybe you could use it.

Speech Act Theory
Operationalizing Speech Act Theory Applications of Speech Act Theory Machine Translation
Part II
Dialogue Coding in NLP

Speech Act Theory
Outline
Operationalizing Speech Act Theory
Applications of Speech Act Theory

HCRC Map Task
Verbmobile
Machine Translation

Speech Act Theory
Speech Act Theory has many practical applications
1. Definition from Searle: Illocutionary Act “the

speakerintention”, i.e. intention think of speech acts as
mini-intentions!
2. Performative hypothesis
Speech acts für Alle!! All utterances are speech acts
3. IFID:er (i.e. Illocutionary (read:intention) Force Indicating
Device) these are the surface cues as to what speech act is
being performed

Speech Act Theory
How to make a code
I linguistically motivated
I functioning, reliable, useable!
I test it by tagging a lot of corpora with it
I Need to find recognizable patterns
I Find expression internal and external signs of a certain speech
act
I Handcoded, or automatically generated (Samuel et al 1996) or
a combination

Speech Act Theory
HCRC Map Task
Giver map

Speech Act Theory Figure: Norway
HCRC Map Task
Follower map

Speech Act Theory Figure: Norway
HCRC Map Task
Map Task
(28) G: Where the dead tree is on

the other side of the stream theres farmed land.
F: I have to jump a stream.

Speech Act Theory
HCRC Map Task
Another Map Task Example
(29) F: Im in between the remote village and the pyramid.

G: Do you have the west lake,
down to your left?:Query-YesNo
F: No.:Reply-No
G: So youre at a point thats probably two or three
inches away from both the top edge, and
the left-hand side edge.
Is that correct?: Query-YesNo
F: No, not at the moment.: Reply-No

Speech Act Theory
Verbmobile
Verbmobile project
Alexandersson et al. (1997), Dialogue Phases

I HELLO greetings
I OPENING theme is introduced (determining a date to meet)
I NEGOTIATION discussion of possible dates until one that
works for both participants is found
I CLOSING task finished, at this point there is often a
repetition of what has been decided.
I GOODBYE goodbyes

Speech Act Theory
Machine Translation (1)
I We want to translate intentions, not words
(30) Would Thursday at 4 pm be good for you?

(31) I suggest 4 pm Thursday
(32) 4 pm Thursday would be good for me.
I ALL of them : suggestions for a time to meet

I Schmitz and Quantz:This is our translation goal!

Speech Act Theory
I Same word gets different translations in different speech acts

I This despite the fact that the domain (topic) is limited in e.g.
Verbmobile
I recognition of speech acts helps solve some of these problems
(33) A: Danke schön!

B: Bitte.
(34) Können Sie Bitte leiser sprechen?

Speech Act Theory
(35) Und Fernsehen macht vielliecht doch aggressiv

(www.heise.de)
And television might make people aggressive.
(36) Können Sie veilleicht einen Vorschlage machen.
Could you make a suggestion?
(37) Passt Ihnen vielleicht Dienstag oder Mittwoch vormittag?
Do Tuesday or Wednesday morning suit you?
I vielleicht should be translated as possibly in most cases, but

in a speech act of request or a suggestion it should not be
translated because it doesn’t not contribute modal meaning

Speech Act Theory
Summary
I Actual language use doesn’t always choose the most efficient

form (despite what Gricean Pragmatics would predict)
I Social conventions such as politeness play a role in how we
choose to express ourselves
I Speech Act Theory gives us the tools to analyze a wider range
of functions of language than theories based on
truth-conditional content.
I Speech Act Theory has practical applications in work done in
i.e. Machine Translation.

Speech Act Theory

Speech Act Theory: Introduction To Semantics November 4, 2004

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Outline

Speech Act Theory

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Speech has functions

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

How to be a good host in Japan

(1) Nanika nomi ni narimasu ka?

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Motivations for Speech Act Theory

Exceptions to the rule

I Speaker’s contribute more information than just “what is

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Motivations for Speech Act Theory

Utterances that break maxims

The following utterances break Gricean Maxims

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Motivations for Speech Act Theory

What is speech act theory

I Speech Act Theory can help us analyze utterances that seem

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Motivations for Speech Act Theory

Austin: How to do things with words

Sentence types have conventional relationships to certain types of

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Motivations for Speech Act Theory

Austin was a response to earlier views of language

1. that the basic sentence type in language is declarative (i.e. a

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Austins first observation: Utterances have many functions

(6) We zouden vanavond pizza kunnen eten.

I These sentences cannot be said to be true or false.

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Austin’s second observation: Certain sentences with

(12) Bij deze verklaar ik Noorwegen de oorlog.

I Declarative sentence-type, but it isn’t being used to say

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Words can do things

I Performatives change the way the world is

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

In what domains are performatives common?

I Church baptizing, confirming, marrying, funerals,

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

I Need a known procedure with conventional effects, with

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Ronald Reagan, 11 August 1984

I Fails in terms of felicity conditions

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Explicit and implicit performatives

I Sometimes the use of specific words signals the speech act

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Performative hypothesis (Gazdar 1979)

I Extended notion of performatives

(13) I hereby inform you that I have graded your homework.

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Other types of speech acts

I Representatives speaker asserts a proposition to be true

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

Three parts of a speech act

1. Locutionary act -communicative act

Guest Lecturer: Jennifer Spenader http://www.odur.let.rug.nl/spenader/

(15) Tims vriendin: Willen jullie fruit of