Baker (1992) maintains that pragmatics mainly highlights the use of utterances in communication and the way the hearer understands them in their context. Hence, pragmatics is “the study of language in use” (p.217). It focuses on how people play with meaning in their communication. Furthermore, Leech (1983) holds that “General Pragmatics” (p.1) is a key concept in knowing human language. He says that pragmatics is “how language is used in communication.”(p.1). Leech states that pragmatics studies meaning according to the speaker. Moreover, he defines it as “the study of meaning in relation to speech situations” (p.6).
Hatim and Munday (2004) maintain that Koller introduces different relations of equivalence based on the source text and …show more content…
Furthermore, Huang declares that “words are deeds” (p.93). He states that Austin introduces his speech act theory based on two conclusions. He realized that some sentences like “Good morning!” (p.94) and “Is she a vegetarian?” (p.94) do not give any new information; thus they cannot be judged according to being true or not. Moreover, he took notice that some sentences actually “do things” (p.95). Therefore, he introduces his classification of “performatives” (p.95) and “constatives” (p.95). He states that performatives mainly focus on “performing acts” (p.95) whereas constatives are concerned with “assertions or statements” (p.95). For instance, “I command you to surrender immediately” (p.95) is a performative, meanwhile “My daughter is called Elizabeth” (p. 95) is a constative. In addition, Austin classifies performatives into two types; namely, explicit and implicit. The main difference between them is that explicit performatives have the performative verb stated clearly as in “I promise to come to your talk tomorrow” (p.95). On the other hand, implicit performatives lack the performative verb as in “I’ll come to your talk tomorrow afternoon.” …show more content…
Searle declares that they are the basic components of speech acts. They actually play a vital role in carrying out the intended action. Searle classifies felicity conditions according to four levels: propositional content, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition. Firstly, the propositional content focuses mainly on the real goal of the utterance. For instance, a promise requires the speaker to do a certain action in the future. Secondly, the preparatory condition is chiefly concerned with the circumstances that make the utterance come true. For example, in a promise the hearer believes that the promise will be carried out and the speaker is well aware of this fact. Thirdly, sincerity condition as in a promise means that the speaker is really going to carry it out. Finally, the essential condition is concerned with the intention of the speaker as in a promise the speaker has to have a true intention to fulfil his or her promise. In case the speaker does not carry out his or her promise, then the essential condition has been broken