Chapter 3 Methodology
3.4. Categorization and Subcategorization of Speech Acts
3.4.2. Direct Speech Act
3.4.2.2. Assertives
falling in the category of direct assertive, include informing, confirmation, correction, and justification. Linguistic features of these direct assertives are listed in Table 5.
Table 5. Linguistic devices of Direct Assertives emerged in this study
3.4.2.2.1. Informing
In political talk shows, informing is a common speech act because speakers often have to introduce some background information of the intended topic, such as people, events, locations, or time. In the speech act of informing, speakers aim to provide adequate and true information to hearers. As mentioned in Grice (1975), no provided information should be more informative than necessary and also no provided information should lack evidence. The following excerpt taken from the talk shows provides a typical example of direct informing.
(15)
Illocutionary purposes Linguistic devices Informing
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國立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
→ 7 M5: 他說 <L2in 遐有人去予埋去啊 L2>6 8 Host: <L2 是 L2>
[大話新聞, 三立新聞台, August 13, 2009]
From the end of Turn 1 to Turn 7, speaker M5 reports a text message received from the damaged area. In M5‘s report, he tells the audience three pieces of information: first, the area calling for help (Turn 3); second, the information source (Turn 5); third, the emergency situation (Turn 7). As represented in (15), speaker M5 gives sufficient information about the people, the location, and the event of an urgent need. In addition, speaker M5 also mentions the source of the information, a text message from others, which shows that his information is with adequate evidence. In all, the sufficient and true information qualifies M5‘s utterance as the speech act into informing.
3.4.2.2.2. Confirmation
When making the speech act of confirmation, speakers check the truth of the expressed proposition to assure their own expressibility and the hearer‘s accessibility to the given information. Excerpt (16) demonstrates such speech act.
(16)
1 Host: …那我們現在給大家看 今天啊 台北市議員洪健益啊 啊 這個 帶 了 志工 十三位志工 六噸還有 一頓 一輛 六頓的卡車去屏東啊 南州教會 去配合長老教會去救援 那麼 他從 屏東啊 林邊鄉 林邊 鄉<L2 就無 L2> 土石流嘛
2 ?: hen hen
→ 3 Host: o [kay]
[大話新聞, 三立新聞台, August 13, 2009]
6 In the transcription of this study, L2 refers to Taiwan Southern Min.
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國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
In the beginning of the excerpt, the Host reports the rescue action launched by a councilor. Information of the rescue action includes the number of devoted volunteers, the amount of invested resources, and the path that volunteers took to the damaged area. However, the last piece of information about the path is vague: it is widely acknowledged that Pingtung County (屏東縣) is one of the damaged areas in this disaster; yet, in the reported rescue action, it serves as the bypath to the destination.
Such confusing information drives the Host‘s speech act of clarification and confirmation.
Firstly, at the end of Turn 1, the Host clarifies that Linbian Town (林邊鄉), although locating in Pingtung County, is not affected by the landslide and, therefore, it is not part of the damaged area. Further, in Turn 3, the Host utters ‗okay‘ with a raising intonation to confirm whether his hearers are clear with the clarified information or not. In semantic aspect, the utterance ‗okay‘ focuses on the addressee‘s satisfaction or acceptability toward the antecedent proposition. As to the phonological aspect, the rising intonation of ‗okay‘ indicates that the utterance is a question to the hearer. Overall, in Turn 3, the Host asks for confirmation on whether the provided information (the clarification) is satisfactory/acceptable for the hearers to comprehend both linguistically and pragmatically.
3.4.2.2.3. Correction
Correction is a speech act committed to eliminate the inaccuracy of the expressed proposition, as represented in (17).
(17)
1 2
M4: …一萬人現在還困在山上什麼[孤]島裡面 Host: [嗯]
3 M4: 如果今天 疏疏散多少人 4 Host: <L2 是 L2>
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國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
5 M4: 兩三百人 [這]
→ 6 Host: [七]到八 他說救出八百多人
7 M4: 救出八百多人那代表這一萬多人如果用八百的速度要 多久啊
[大話新聞, 三立新聞台, August 13, 2009]
Speaker M4 in Turn 5 reports the number of victims who are rescued in that day—two to three hundred people. The number is later amended by the Host with the correct number—more than eight hundred people—in Turn 6. Because the number is given by the Host in the conversation prior to the excerpt, the Host is reminding M4 of the correct number. It is shown that when making the speech act of correction, the speaker concerns the accuracy of the given proposition.
3.4.2.2.4. Justification
Justification is a speech act by which speakers give explanations for something or for doing something, as demonstrated in (18).
(18)
1 Host: [是] 好的 所以鄉鄉長還有什麼 代表村民有話要說的嗎
2 M2: 對 據實的說 啊因為我們這個天然災害啦 ho 啊這重大天然災害的 死亡的這個失蹤人口的認定是 一年嘛 ho
3 Host: 嗯
→ 4 M2: 我們希望政府能夠從 從寬認定 是因為這個是 [緊]急狀況嘛
[2100 全民開講, TVBS, August 13, 2009]
In the beginning of Turn 4, speaker M2 requests the government to leniently grant the eligibility of the victims‘ subvention. Afterwards, speaker M2 justifies his appeal by explaining that the request is based on the urgent situation right now. The conjunction, yin wei 因為 ‗because,‘ syntactically and semantically indicates that the following utterance is an explanation for speaker M2‘s appeal. And by the