Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T21:44:31.566Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Classification of intersubjective illocutionary acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

William B. Stiles
William B. Stiles
Affiliation:
Miami University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An illocutionary act presupposes not only a speaker, but also an other who is the intended recipient of the utterance's illocutionary force. Thus every illocutionary act has an intersubjective component; it connects two centers of experience in a particular way. This article proposes that the intersubjective illocutionary force of an utterance depends on (1) whether it concerns the speaker's or other's experience, (2) whether it takes the speaker's or other's viewpoint, and (3) whether or not the speaker must presume specific knowledge of the other to make the utterance. These three dichotomous principles of classification are called source of experience, frame of reference, and focus, respectively. The eight possible combinations of “speaker” and “other” values define a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set of families of intersubjective illocutionary acts – Disclosure, Advisement, Edification, Confirmation, Question, Interpretation, Acknowledgment, and Reflection – which I have elsewhere called “verbal response modes.” The modes are associated with characteristic grammatical forms, which retain a “formal” portion of their illocutionary force even when used to express a different intent, yielding a taxonomy of 64 distinct form-intent combinations. Differences between this taxonomy and other taxonomies of illocutionary acts are partially traceable to the present system's roots in the study of psychotherapeutic processes and the previous systems' roots in the study of explicit performatives.

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , August 1981 , pp. 227 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aijmer, K. (1980). Review of Studien zur Sprechakitheorie by Dieter Wunderlich. Journal of Pragmatics. 4:51–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. 2nd ed.Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, K., & Harnish, R. M. (1979). Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E. N. (ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cansler, D. C. & Stiles, W. B. (In press). Relative status and interpersonal presumptuousness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.Google Scholar
Carkhuff, R. R. (1969). Helping and human relations: A primer for lay and professional helpers. Vol. I. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Davison, A. (1975). Indirect speech acts and what to do with them. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.). Syntax and semantics, volume 3: Speed, acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dore, J. (1974). A pragmatic description of early language development. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 3:343–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. (1975). Holophrases, speech acts, and language universals. Journal of Child Language 2:21–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. (1977). “On them sheriff”: A pragmatic analysis of children's responses to questions. In Ervin-Tripp, S. (ed), Child discourse. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dore, J. (1978). Variation in preschool children's conversational performances. In Nelson, K. E. (ed), Children's language Vol. 1. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Dore, J. (1979). Conversational acts and the acquisition of language. In Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (eds.), Developmental pragmnatics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dore, J.Gearhart, M., & Newman, D. (1978). The Structure of nursery school conversation. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language Vol. 1. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Duncan, S. Jr (1972). Some signals and rules for taking turns in conversations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 23:283–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, S. Jr (1974). On the structure of speaker-auditor interaction during speaking turns. Language in Society 2: 161–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1976). Is Sybil there? The structure of some American English directives. Language in Society 5:25–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, B. (1975). Hedged performatives. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.), Syntax and semamics, vol. 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Freud, S. ([1912] 1958). [Recommendations tophysicians practicing psycho-analysis.]. In Stachey, J. (ed. and trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud Vol. 12. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, G., & Dooley, D. (1976). A framework for help-intended communication. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 13:106–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, E. N. (1978). Towards a theory of questions. In Goody, E. N. (ed.), Questions amid politehess: Strategies in social interaction. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Green, O. H. (1977). Semantic rules and speech acts. Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 8:141–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Meaning. Philosophical Review 66:377–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancher, M. (1979). The classification of cooperative illocutionary acts. Language in Society 8:1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holsti, O. R. (1969). Content analysis for the social sciences and the humanities. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Ivey, A. E. (1971). Microcounseling: Innovations in interviewing training. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas.Google Scholar
Kiesler, D. J. (1973). The process of psychotherapy: Empirical foundations and systems of analysis. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Labov, W. & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P. F. & Barton, A. H. (1951). Qualitative measurements in the social sciences: Classification, typologies, and indices. In Lerner, D. & Lasswell, H. D. (eds.), The policy sciences: Recent developments in scope and method. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Marsden, G. (1971). Content-analysis studies of psychotherapy: 1954 through 1968. In Bergin, A. E. & Garfield, S. L. (eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change: An empirical analysis. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
McDaniel, S. H., Stiles, W. B., & McGaughey, K. J. (In press). Correlations of male college students' verbal response mode use in psychotherapy with measures of psychological disturbance and psychotherapy outcome. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.Google Scholar
Miller, G. (1970). Four philosophical problems of psycholinguistics. Philosophy of Science 37:183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohmann, R. (1972). Instrumental style: Notes on the theory of speech as action. In Kachru, B. B. & Stahlke, H. F. W. (eds.), Current trends in stvlistics. Edmonton, Alberta: Linguistic Research, Inc.Google Scholar
Premo, B. E., & Stiles, W. B. (Submitted for publication). Familiarity in verbal interactions of married couples versus strangers.Google Scholar
Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy.Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Russell, R. & Stiles, W. B. (1979). Categories for classifying language in psychotherapy. Psychological Bulletin 86:404–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics, volume 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1976). A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiles, W. B. (1978a). Manual for a taxonomy of verbal response modes. Chapel Hill: Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Stiles, W. B. (1978b). Verbal response modes and dimensions of interpersonal roles: A method of discourse analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36:693–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiles, W. B. (1979). Verbal response modes and psychotherapeutic technique. Psychiatry 42:49–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stiles, W. B. (In press). Verbal response modes as intersubjective categories. In Russell, R. L. (ed), Spoken interaction in psychotherapy: Strategies of discovery. New York: Irvington Press.Google Scholar
Stiles, W. B.Putnam, S. M., James, S. A., & Wolf, M. H. (1979). Dimensions of patient and physician roles in medical screening interviews. Social Science & Medicine 13A:335–41.Google Scholar
Stiles, W. B.Putnam, S. M., Wolf, M. H., & James, S. A. (1979a). Interaction exchange structure and patient satisfaction with medical interviews. Medical Care 17:667–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stiles, W. B. (1979b). Verbal response mode profiles of patients and physicians in medical screening interviews. Journal of Medical Education 54:81–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Stiles, W. B. & Sultan, F. E. (1979). Verbal response mode use by clients in psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 47:611–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stiles, W. B.Waszak, C. S., & Barton, L. R. (1979). Professorial presumptuousness in verbal interactions with university students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 15:158–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiles, W. B. & White, M. L. (In press). Parent-child interaction in the laboratory: Effects of role, task, and child behavior pathology on verbal response mode use. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.Google Scholar
Vendler, Z. (1972). Res Cogitans: An essay in rational psychology. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wunderlich, D. (1976). Studien zur Sprechakttheorie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar