Speech acts, those actions carried out mainly by means of language, are used in English in a range of complex ways. However, they have rarely been covered in English as a foreign language (EFL) materials and textbooks. Bringing together current theories from pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, this book addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive model of directive speech acts and showing how to teach them to learners of English. It provides a review of the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of illocution and a critical assessment of existing EFL textbooks. Descriptions of the meaning and form of directive speech act constructions are given in the cognitive pedagogical grammar of directive speech acts (included), which offers a wealth of examples to make the information accessible to non-specialist readers. The book also provides a wide range of practical activities, showing how research on illocutionary acts can be implemented in practice.
Author(s): Lorena Pérez-Hernández
Series: Studies in English Language
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 285
City: Cambridge
1. Introduction
1.1 Teaching Directive Speech Acts: Is There Room for Improvement?
1.2 Objectives
1.3 Methodology
1.4 Chapter Contents
2. What Contemporary Research Tells Us about Speech Acts
2.1 Speech Acts: The Player All Linguistic Theories Want in Their Team
2.2 Team 1. Codification-Based Theories and the Over-Grammaticalisation of Speech Acts
2.2.1 Weaknesses of the Literal Force Hypothesis and Ross’s Performative Hypothesis
2.2.2 Halliday’s Over-Grammaticalisation of Speech Acts
2.3 Team 2. Convention-Based Theories: Indirect Speech Acts
2.3.1 Searle: Inference and Convention in Speech Acts
2.3.2 Morgan’s Conventions of Usage and Short-Circuiting Implicatures
2.4 Team 3. Inference-Based Theories: Over-Pragmatisation of Speech Acts
2.4.1 Standard Pragmatics Approach: Bach and Harnish’s Speech Act Schemas
2.4.2 Direct Access Approaches I: Leech’s Interpersonal Rhetoric
2.4.3 Direct Access Approaches II: Conversational Approaches
2.5 A Cognitive-Constructional Approach to Directive Speech Acts
2.5.1 What Experimental Linguistics Has Revealed about Speech Act Processing
2.5.2 Redefining the Literal Force Hypothesis in terms of Sentence Type/Speech Act Compatibility
2.5.3 Revisiting the Notions of Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
2.5.4 Constraining Inferences via Cognitive Operations: Conceptual Metonymy
2.5.5 Illocutionary Idealised Cognitive Models and (Multiple Source)-in-Target Metonymies
2.5.6 Assembling the Illocutionary Puzzle: Families of Illocutionary Constructions
3. Critical Assessment of the Representation of Speech Acts in Advanced EFL Textbooks
3.1 Analytical Categories and Corpus of Textbooks for Analysis
3.2 Quantitative Assessment of the Treatment of Directive Speech Acts in Advanced EFL Textbooks
3.3 Qualitative Assessment of the Treatment of Directive Speech Acts in Advanced EFL Textbooks
3.3.1 Inclusion of Semantic/Pragmatic Information about Speech Acts
3.3.2 Treatment of the Constructional Nature of Directive Speech Acts
3.3.3 Treatment of Conversational Aspects of Directive Speech Acts
3.3.4 Treatment of Cross-Cultural and Cross-Linguistic Areas of Discrepancy between L1 and L2
3.4 Conclusions and Way Forward : Explicit Instruction through a Corpus-Based Cognitive Pedagogical Grammar
4. A Cognitive Pedagogical Grammar of Directive Speech Acts I: Know-What and Know-How of Directives
4.1 Orders
4.1.1 The Know-What of Orders
4.1.2 The Know-How of Orders
4.2 Requests
4.2.1 The Know-What of Requests
4.2.2 The Know-How of Requests
4.3 Beggings
4.3.1. The Know-What of Beggings
4.3.2. The Know-How of Beggings
4.4 Suggestions
4.4.1. The Know-What of Suggestions
4.4.2. The Know-How of Suggestions
4.5 Advice Acts
4.5.1. The Know-What of Advice Acts
4.5.2. The Know-How of Advice Acts
4.6 Warnings
4.6.1. The Know-What of Warnings
4.6.2. The Know-How of Warnings
5. A Cognitive Pedagogical Grammar of Directive Speech Acts II: Activities and Practice Materials
5.1 Teaching the Know-What of Directives
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
Activity 4
Activity 5
Activity 6
Activity 7
5.2 Teaching the Know-How of Directives
Activity 8
Activity 9
Activity 10
Activity 11
Activity 12
Activity 13
Activity 14
5.3 Teaching Cross-Cultural and Cross-Linguistic Issues of Directives
Activity 15
Activity 16
Activity 17
Activity 18
Activity 19
Activity 20
Activity 21
6. Conclusions
References
Index
