This thesis is organized as follows: Chapter Two reviews the related studies of speech acts and promises, the major components of a promise, and the empirical studies of children‘s understanding of promises. Chapter Three introduces the research design of the present study. The results and discussion of the data are presented in Chapter Four. An overall conclusion is provided in Chapter Five.
C
HAPTERT
WOL
ITERATURER
EVIEWBefore the experiment of the present study was designed, it was necessary to review the related works on speech acts and promises. Thus, in Section 2.1, we discuss Austin‘s speech act theory, and in Section 2.2 we review theoretical issues of promise. The major components required to conduct a successful promise are introduced in Section 2.3. In Section 2.4, we explore empirical studies of children‘s understanding of promises in the case of L1 acquisition. Last but not least, a summary of this chapter is provided in Section 2.5.
2.1 Austin’s Speech Act Theory
Speech act theory was first developed by Austin (1962), who was concerned with whether or not a statement could only be used to state a fact that is either true or false. He found that, under certain language circumstances, utterances can accomplish more than simply ―state a fact‖; they can also ―do an action,‖ such as in language which is used to propose a question, issue a request, make a promise, etc. The speaker does not use these utterances to describe or present anything; instead, by carrying out these utterances, the speaker performs an act or a part of an act, as he states in his book, How to Do Things with Words (1962):
―Once we realize that what we have to study is not the sentence but the issuing of an utterance in a speech situation, there can hardly be any longer a possibility of not seeing that stating is performing an act.‖ (1962:139)
Austin‘s research on speech acts began with the speech act of promises, and he noticed that when a speaker says ―I promise…,‖ he has actually accomplished an
―action‖ to change the temporal status by just delivering a normal utterance to an addressee, as is the case in other language behavior. Thus, by uttering, for example, ―I promise to take you to the movie tomorrow,‖ a speaker has to take the addressee to the movie tomorrow in order to keep the promise. Such performative utterances that can actually perform an act rather than just describe one are called ―performatives‖
(1962:67). Speech acts can be indicated by a performative verb, but they can also be implicit. In some special situations, speech acts can be expressed without the explicit use of performative verbs. On the contrary, the kinds of utterances that can only be used to state the truth value of a fact—for instance, ―It is raining outside‖—are defined as ―constatives‖ (1962:67). The distinction between performatives and constatives is that constatives are judged by truth value, which is to say that they are either true or false, while the value of performatives is judged by a set of felicity conditions (1962:15) as either felicitous or infelicitous for the performing act. For example, only a clergyman baptizing a baby would be felicitous, while an ordinary person baptizing a baby would be infelicitous.
Regarding different dimensions of speech acts, namely, locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary (1962:94–101), Austin‘s (1962) definitions are given below with ―promises‖ as examples for better understanding:
Table 2-1. Different Dimensions of Speech Acts
Facets of a Speech Act Definition Example Locutionary Act the act of saying
something
the speaker saying ―I promise to take you to the movie tomorrow‖
Illocutionary Act the performance of an act in saying something
the speaker putting himself under a condition to keep the promise
Perlocutionary Act the performance of an act of saying something
the speaker taking the addressee to the movie tomorrow
The locutionary act refers to the utterances produced by the speaker and the literal meaning of the utterances. If we remove the illocutionary force in it, the utterances would be similar to the constatives, i.e., making statements that are true or false.
However, the illocutionary act is much more complicated and most studies concerning the speech act theory have mainly focused on the illocutionary act, which refers to the real intention of the speaker concealed in the utterances by virtue of the conventional force. It is intriguing to figure out the interaction between the speaker‘s expression of the intention in utterances and the addressee‘s comprehension of the speaker‘s intention. Last but not least, the perlocutionary act refers to the performance of an act done by saying something. The consequences or effects are usually contingent on the circumstances of the utterances and therefore cannot be preconceived (Kurzon, 1998;
Levinson, 1983).
Austin categorized the illocutionary acts of language into the following five classes (1962:151):
Table 2-2. Austin‘s Classification of Illocutionary Acts Classes of
Illocutionary Acts Definition Examples
Verdictives offer a certain state of facts as true describe, analyze, interpret
Exercitives convey a motive or inclination for a
certain kind of behavior command, advise, warn Commissives commit the speaker to a certain
activity
promise, guarantee, swear
Behabitives reactions to the behavior of other persons
apologize, congratulate, thank
Expositives offer a certain view or position in
an argument affirm, deny, emphasize
Austin‘s (1962) rough classification of speech acts was criticized for having two major weaknesses (Allwood, 1977; Cerf, 1969; Leech, 1983:176). First, his
classification clearly suffers from a lack of systematic and scientific coverage of all possible dimensions of transformative speech acts1. As a result, the categorical criterion for each class becomes inconsistent. Second, he does not categorize speech acts as different illocutionary acts; thus, he fails to create an infinite system of social interactive patterns which differs for other languages. The performative verbs do not always represent a type of speech act. For example, not every sentence that contains the performative verb ―promise‖ can be counted as a speech act of promise; this is the case in sentences such as ―I promise you that everything will be alright.‖
2.2 Theoretical Studies of Promises
A promise, as seen as a kind of speech act, originated from Austin‘s (1962) understanding of ―saying is doing‖. Searle (1969) further elaborates on it with systematic conditions and rules to govern this special language phenomenon. He develops the speech act theory initiated by Austin towards the real world and into actual language use. Furthermore, Mey (1993) emphasizes the context and societal condition by examining the problems in Searle‘s (1969) conditions and rules of promise. In the following subsections, the above theoretical studies of promises are reviewed.
2.2.1 Searle (1969)
When it comes to successfully performing illocutionary acts, it is necessary to have a set of specific and sufficient conditions and rules as performing guidelines.
Searle provides nine conditions which interpret behaviors as institutional concepts;
promises are explained below with regard to these conditions (1969:57–61):
1 Vendler (1972) extends Austin's classification of illocutionary acts by adding two more classes, operatives, and interrogatives.
(1) a. Normal input and output conditions obtain.
b. A speaker (S) expresses the proposition that promise (p) in the utterance of T.
c. In expressing that p, S predicates a future act A of S.
d. The hearer (H) would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his doing A to his not doing A.
e. It is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events.
f. S intends to do A.
g. S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A.
h. S intends (i-1) to produce in H the knowledge (K) that the utterance of T is to count as placing S under an obligation to do A. S intends to produce K by means of the recognition of i-1, and he intends i-1 to be recognized in virtue of (by means of) H's knowledge of the meaning of T.
i. The semantical rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions a–h obtain.
In the above nine conditions, the first one regulates the objective conditions for verbal communication and the basic conditions to perform a speech act successfully, while the following conditions b–g are the conditions especially needed to be satisfied to conduct a successful promising statement, which is the identifiable condition for the speech act of promise. The last two conditions emphasize the semantic rules to ensure the rational use of language. According to some of these conditions, Searle induces four fulfillment conditions for promise: propositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition. The detailed explanations and examples of these conditions are discussed in the following subsection. Searle (1969) maintains that the conditions compatibly constitute the illocutionary force, but they might not be the only elements which govern a speech act. Based on these conditions, Searle (1969:63) further establishes the following set of semantic rules to use the illocutionary force indicating devise of promise (Pr) correctly:
(2) a. Pr is to be uttered only in the context of a sentence T, the utterance of which predicates some future act A of the speaker S.
b. Pr is to be uttered only if the hearer H would prefer S‘s doing A to his not doing demarcate the different types of rules: ―constitutive‖ and ―regulative‖ (1969:33).
Rules a–d are regulative and the last one is constitutive. The regulative rules make up the criteria for the speech act of promise, but it is the last constitutive rule that determines which speech act can be considered a ―promise.‖ The fifth rule is superior to the former four rules because it is the key to forming a promise.
This misunderstanding of canonical speech act expressions with specific performative verbs could cause the earlier performative hypothesis2 to be an irrational fallacy. In Searle‘s (1969) opinion, an effective promise is governed by certain rules and conditions. An expression of speech act can be counted as a ―promise‖ only when all rules and conditions have been fulfilled. However, there might be other factors
2 The performative hypothesis proposed by Ross (1970) states that every sentence is associated with an explicit illocutionary act, i.e. it is derived from a deep structure containing a performative verb.
For example, the sentence ‗It‘s cold in here‘ is derived from ‗I‘m stating the fact that it‘s cold in here.‘
involved in addition to the original conditions and rules which Searle (1969) mentioned. Consider this paradox: although the speech act theory has been proposed as a theory of action, as its name suggests, it is intrinsically a theory of propositional content (Bickhard and Campbell, 1992:428). The IFIDs (illocutionary force indicating devices) of speech can only indicate the illocutionary force; they do not actualize it.
Attributing to this fact, even though a promiser obligates himself to keep a promise, it is still possible that the promise might not be kept. Therefore, in addition to a speech act, we still need a pragmatic act that ‗lifts the speech act out of the domain of abstract describing into the realm of concrete acting‘ (1993:124). In this pragmatic view of speech acts, the line between regulative and constitutive rules is blurred. In the example of promise, the pragmatic view focuses on both the regulative rules (what is a valid promise?) and constitutive rules (how to use promises in a real contextual situation?). The regulative rules explain how the constitutive rules are shaped, and the constitutive rules decide the practical conduction of regulative rules. Due to the fact that the constitutive elements of a speech act are almost included in that of the regulative, these two rules should be considered inseparable from each other.
In order to extend this pragmatic view, in Mey‘s (1985) book Whose Language, he argues for a context-oriented pragmatic perspective of language. We should discuss the usage of speech act of promise in reality instead of in abstract theory. As he states,
‗every promise is a promiser‘s promise, promised to a real-life promisee‘. Consider the following example:
(3) There is a policeman at the corner. (1993:116)
Without context, the illocutionary force of warning in (3) may be realized as an assurance, dare, or hint. In this sense, since the nature of speech acts may change with various linguistic uses, we should put more emphasis on the human conditions (users,
promisers, and promisees), contextual conditions (user interaction), and societal conditions (external surrounding factors) when analyzing language usage (1993:126).
The idea of societal conditions may easily lead to the notion of cultural differences. Mey brings up the doubt of the existence of a ―universal speech act.‖
People make promises in difference languages in different places around the world every day; however, it is possible that the insight of the speech act of promise varies in different cultures. Take the following sentence as an example:
(4) Men du lovede den skulle vœre fœrdig kl. 4.
‗But you promised it would be ready by 4 o‘clock.‘ (1993:117) The Danish performative verb at love ‗to promise‘ does not correspond to the performative verb ―promise‖ in English. Without a promise being officially made, the use of the verb ―promise‖ would be awkward rather than the general verb ―say‖. Also, the expression of ―excuse me‖ in West Africa does not involve any feelings of guilt or direct responsibility on the part of the speaker. In addition, in certain cultures, such as the Ilongot in the Philippines and Micronesians in Pohnpet, the sincerity condition is not a crucial element in the speech act of promise (Rosaldo, 1980, 1982). Therefore, it is evident that context is paramount. Except for the conditions constituted by Searle (1969), an effective promise must be made under certain context and societal conditions. A drunken person or a young child‘s promise may not always be taken seriously. On the other hand, the uttering of ―promise‖ is not definitely necessary for a vital promise in all instances. Thus, the performative verb ―promise‖ cannot always guarantee a real promise. Just as Mey states, ‗It is the context which determines whether an expression counts as a speech act‘ (1993:117).
2.2.3 Summary
After Austin (1962) proposed the theory of speech acts, Searle (1969) determined the necessary and sufficient conditions and rules which govern successful illocutionary acts in the example of promises. The speech act theory therefore builds a bridge between humans and language. Later, through examining Searle‘s (1969) conditions, Mey (1993) discussed other factors that might affect the performing of illocutionary acts: context and societal condition. There is no doubt that his idea about the speech act theory is inspiring. How to form a speech act appropriately then becomes an intriguing issue. The speech act theory has influenced the studies of linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and language acquisition.
2.3 Major Components of the Speech Act of Promise
In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (5th
edition, 2009), a
―promise‖ refers to ―telling someone that you will definitely do or provide something or that something will happen.‖ The insight of the speech act of promise is well-discussed in many studies (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Searle and Vanderveken, 1985; Vendler, 1972). Among these studies, Searle‘s (1969) analysis of promise—which contains the four major components of propositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition—has been widely adopted by many researchers to examine children‘s understanding of promises as a speech act (Astington, 1988a, 1990; Bernicot and Laval, 1996, 2004;
Laval and Bernicot, 1999; Maas, 2008; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). Therefore, the definition of promise used in the present study is mainly based on Searle‘s classification.
2.3.1 Propositional Content Condition
The most fundamental component of a promise is the propositional act delivering from a promiser to a promisee. The propositional act is usually an utterance or a statement which is made by the promiser to accomplish a future action (Searle, 1969). Two intrinsic parts should be included in a propositional act: the indicator of illocutionary force and the indicator of propositional content3. The illocutionary force indicative devices can be any feature of a language such as word order, intonation contour, performative verbs, etc., as long as it points out what the speaker is performing (Fraser, 1974; Searle, 1969). A promise would be considered defective if either of the two parts is missing, as shown below:
(5) I promise I‘ll be there tomorrow. (Mey, 2001:99) (6) Wo daying hui mai liwu huilai gei ni.
1SG promise will buy present back for 2SG
‗I promised to bring you presents.‘
In (5), the illocutionary force indicative device refers to the first half of the sentence ‗I promise‘, while the second half ‗I‘ll be there tomorrow‘ is the indicator of propositional content. In (6), the illocutionary force indicative device refers to the first half of the sentence wo daying ‗I promised‘, while the second half hui mai liwu huilai
gei ni ‗to bring you presents‘ is the indicator of propositional content. Sometimes,
these two parts are combined together and become difficult to distinguish in the surface structure (Searle, 1969), as in (7):(7) a. I promise that I will come.
b. I promise to come. (Searle, 1969: 30) In (7)a, the two parts are ―I promise‖ and ―that I will come‖. In (7)b, the same
3 These two terms are taken from Searle (1969:30).
illocutionary force indicative device and the indicator of propositional content lies in the deep structure, while in (7)a the boundary of the two parts is in the surface structure. However, both sentences involve the same underlying phrase marker ―I promise + I will come.‖ Similar sentences in Mandarin Chinese are shown in (8):
(8) a. Wo daying wo hui bang ni.
1SG promise 1SG will help 2SG
‗I promise that I will help you.‘
b. Wo daying bang.
1SG promise help
‗I promise to help.‘
In (8)a, the sentence can be clearly divided into the two parts wo daying ‗I promise‘
and wo hui bang ni ‗that I will help you‘. In (8)b, it is difficult to determine the boundary of the illocutionary force indicative device and the indicator of propositional content, but the same underlying phrase marker ―I promise + I will help you‖ lies in the deep structure as in (8)a.
An important element in the illocutionary force indicative device is the so-called performative verb ―promise‖. Without invoking an explicit illocutionary force indicative device, a promise may still be a promise. That is to say, without the performative verb, we can still explicitly express the speech act of a promise (Searle, 1969). Compare (9) to (7):
(9) I‘ll do it for you. (Searle, 1969:68) In (9), with the missing of the performative verb, we still can get the illocutionary force in this speech act. The main function of the performative verb is to present the satisfaction of the essentiality which is the obligation to finish a future action (Fraser, 1974; Searle, 1969). Thus, as long as the meaning of the utterance is clear and the essential condition of a promise is satisfied, the performative verb is no longer needed
in the speech act of promise. The speech act of a promise in Mandarin Chinese can also be well-interpreted without the performative verb, as in (10):
(10) Wo hui dasao fangjian de.
1SG will clean room EVI
‗I will clean up the room.‘
Unlike in (6) and (8), the performative verb of commissives daying ‗promise‘ is not uttered explicitly in (10). However, the illocutionary act is well understood with the speaker guaranteeing a future action; thus cleaning up the room, as uttered in this sentence, will be carried out. In Mandarin Chinese, it seems that the performative verb
daying ‗promise‘ is not commonly used. In Wang‘s (2009) study, the young
participants showed no sensitivities between the forms with or without the performative verb. To further prove this point, we had designed a questionnaire survey to investigate Chinese speaker‘s usage of the performative verb daying‗promise.‘ In the result, we found that among the 50 adult Chinese speakers, none of them had employed the performative verb daying ‗promise‘ to make a promise.
To make a promise, there are many effective ways, as long as the two elements mentioned above—the indicator of illocutionary force and the indicator of propositional content—are expressed either explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes, the content of the promise can be implied in the context, and the context can determine if a specific expression counts as a promise (Mey, 2001; Searle, 1969). Therefore, a simple affirmative expression, such as ―OK‖ or ―Sure‖, can be recognized as a
To make a promise, there are many effective ways, as long as the two elements mentioned above—the indicator of illocutionary force and the indicator of propositional content—are expressed either explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes, the content of the promise can be implied in the context, and the context can determine if a specific expression counts as a promise (Mey, 2001; Searle, 1969). Therefore, a simple affirmative expression, such as ―OK‖ or ―Sure‖, can be recognized as a