Lecture 5. Speech genre and speech act

The notion of speech genre for the first time appeared in the works of famous Russian scientist M. M. Bakhtin. In the 30-ies of XX century linguist turned to the problem of communication units and the so-called “life genres”, which depend on social environment or communicative situation. M. M. Bakhtin declared that this genre faces life and certain environment, is limited and defined by this environment in all its internal points.

M. M. Bakhtin emphasizes that the diversity of speech genres is unlimited, because the possibility of human activity is inexhaustible, and in every area the repertoire of speech genres differentiates and develops together with the development of human activity and its complication. Thus, the scientist proves that every sphere of human activity has a specific set of speech genres, and the essence of language in it comes down to individual spiritual work.

Expressions reflect the specific conditions and goals of each sphere of human activity not only through its thematic content, language and style, but primarily through compositional structure. These three points, thematic content, style and compositional structure, are inextricably linked in the same determined expression and a specific field of communication. Each single expression is an individual one, although each field creates their relatively stable types of such expressions, which we define as speech genres.

So, M. M. Bakhtin was the first who used the term “speech genre” and gave its definition: it is a relatively stable thematic, compositional and stylistic types of expression, which are extremely important embodiment of typical situations of social, psychological and cultural interaction between people. Referring to the SG as a type of stylistic expression, scholar notes that style is as an element in the genre of expression, and all styles are inextricably linked and therefore able to show the speaker's identity. Moreover, M. M. Bakhtin notes that the most favorable for the analysis are fiction genres, because the individual style is directly connected with the aim of expression and is one of its major goals, but in literature different genres present different opportunities to express individuality.

M. M. Bakhtin also outlined the contours of the typology of SG based on the degree of stability of formal composition and required structure for participants of communication. They are the communicative situation, expression and expressive intonation, volume, the concept of sender and addressee. Scientist singles out primary (simple) and secondary (complicated — novels, drama) SGs; standardized (such as military command) and free (genres of friendly conversations) genres. In addition, the linguist claims that speech in certain situations takes different forms. Secondary SGs are in a more complex and relatively highly developed and organized cultural community: artistic, scientific, social, political ones, etc.. During their formation, they absorb and deal with various primary genres emerged in the process of direct communication. These primary speech genres that are part of the secondary, are transformed and get new nature.

In the second half of the twentieth century linguists modify Bakhtin’s definition of speech genre. In most cases this term is used to describe the processes of communication by Western linguists (Duff, Coulthard, Hasan, Schneuwly, Brown, Kamberelis, Talbot Hymes), Russian linguists (N.D.Arutyunova, V. V. Dementiev, M. N. Kozhina , T. Shmeleva), Polish (A.Vyezhbytska, Art. Gayda) and Ukrainian (F. C. Batsevych) linguists.

According to F.S. Batsevych, the most important factors of modern researchers’ interest in speech genres is tending to pragmatism, its overall development to find relations between structure components and structures of communication components — subjects of communication, connections between them, cognitive, psychological, social, physical and mental characteristics. In modern linguistics there is no single definition of SG, there are no clear boundaries of SG because they do match neither with expression nor with the text, but they are actually engaged in the field of speech communication and social interaction. The problem of criteria for the selection, separation and analysis of SG is still unsettled. The most voluminous linguistic research in this dimension is the Anketa SG, suggested by Russian researcher T.V. Shmelev. It provides analysis of the seven criteria of SG:

• communicative purpose - intention of communicants in the process of communication. By this criterion informative, imperative, evaluating, etiquette SGs are distinguished;

• conception of sender - social and communicative role, which served by the recipient. There are the following criteria: domestic / foreign; authoritative / not authoritative; interested / disinterested in the conversation, etc.;

• conception of recipient - the same criteria;

• event content, which includes many episodes and actions;

• communicative factors of the past - which precede the emergence of SG;

• communicative factors of the future – initiative SGs, which form a sequence of SGs;

• parameters of language realization - lexical and grammatical means of a speaker's communicative intention realization.

Discourse analysis needs a functional model of language, one that can show how the resources of the language system are organized to meet the needs of “whos and whats” (context-function) in actual communication. Two distinct versions of functionalism can be identified here, which we may call “function-external” and “function-internal.”

The “function-external” version is essentially an appropriateness model, derived from Hymes’ theory of communicative competence, which includes knowledge of what is appropriate use of language for a given context function. For example, it is appropriate, in some English-speaking cultures, to say “I’m so sorry” – but not “I’m sorry” – when offering condolences (social function) to a friend; it is appropriate (in some kinds of conversational situation) to use the simple present tense when shifting to narrative mode (discourse function).

The “function-internal” version is the systemic model, whose premise, as described above, is that the lexico-grammar is organized, through the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions, to meet the intrinsic needs of language-mediated communication in whatever situation. In this model, the connection to the external is made through the categories of register and genre. At some risk of over-generalizing, one might say that function-external description is more favored in discourse analysis applied to language teaching (work of the Sydney School is an exception to this); and function-internal description is more favored in critical discourse analysis, particularly the variety associated with Fairclough. (One of Widdowson’s criticisms of CDA, in the debate already mentioned, is what he sees as its tendency to confuse the internal and external concepts of function, and assume that it is possible to “read off” discourse meanings – external – from textual encodings – internal.)

The distinction between register and genre is not always easy to grasp, but may be explained, if somewhat over-simply, as follows. Register is the means whereby contextual predictability (in terms of field, tenor, and mode) is reflected in the lexico-grammar. Genre is the set of purpose-determined conventions in accordance with which the discourse proceeds on a particular occasion. These include the staged patterning of the discourse, typical topics, and features of register. (Genre analysis thus subsumes register analysis.)

Most approaches to discourse explicitly or implicitly address the question of

genre. Genre, as already noted, is one of the items in Hymes’ SPEAKING grid for the analysis of speech events. In conversation analysis, as Eggins and Slade note, though the focus has tended to be on micro-structural issues rather than on the larger macro-structures of conversation, there is some attention to “global text structure” – i.e., in effect, to genre. Birmingham school discourse analysis, though not normally referred to as genre analysis, in fact is so; Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1975) original account of classroom discourse in terms of social purposes, macro-structure, lexico-grammatical choice, etc. is a notable example.

Eggins and Slade (1997) is a detailed study of the genre of, and the genres in (for example gossiping and storytelling) casual conversation, drawing on SFL as well as other approaches to discourse analysis. Their analysis of story-telling episodes draws on Labov’s account (Labov, 1972) of narrative structure in terms of abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, result or resolution, and coda. This must be by far the most frequently cited theory of a genre in the discourse literature. A close runner-up would be Hoey’s situation-problem-solution-evaluation pattern (Hoey, 1983) which, though not devised as a model specifically of narrative structure and though normally applied to the analysis of written text, bears many resemblances to it. It provides, for example, a neat account of the sequence of events in the Moira incident:

act 1 situation (the one created by B as a result of throwing the ball)

(unstated) problem (the ball is lost or difficult to get)

act 2 solution (B should get it)

act 3 evaluation (the solution is unacceptable to B)

Granted what we said in our first reference to the Moira incident, B’s negative evaluation of A’s solution defines this particular encounter as, generically, a quarrel (or at least the beginning of one). If we looked not only at this instance of quarreling but at a sufficient sample, we could begin to identify the generic features of children’s quarrels in terms of their micro-functions (acts), stages, register features, etc., and to explain them in terms of some overall characterization of who engages in quarrels, in what circumstances, and for what reasons.

There are several current approaches to genre, notably SFL, English for Specific Purposes, new rhetoric, and critical (Hyon, 1996; Hyland, 2002). Early SFL genre studies were Hasan’s (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) and Ventola’s (e.g., 1987) studies of service encounters. Later work (especially by Martin and his associates) has been on written genres (reports, narratives, explanations, etc.), especially with the aim of facilitating literacy education in schools.

The “ESP approach,” especially associated with Swales (1990) and Bhatia (1993), is a pedagogically oriented approach to genre, with strong roots in the teaching of English for academic purposes, especially reading and writing. The two most prominent features of this kind of analysis are the description of genre in terms of functionally-defined stages, moves, and steps (in effect Birmingham-style analysis transmuted to the written mode), and the association of genres with particular “discourse communities,” i.e., networks of expert users (for example applied linguists) for whom a genre or set of genres (research article, conference paper) constitutes their professionally recognized means of intercommunication.

The new rhetoric approach is less linguistic and text focused than either the SFL or ESP approaches; it is more ethnographic, looking at the ways in which texts are used and at the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the communities of text users.

Within the critical discourse framework, Fairclough defines genre as “a socially ratified way of using language in connection with a particular type of social activity (e.g., interview, narrative, exposition)”. The distinction he draws between discourse, style and genre is explained, in relation to political language, in his account of the discourse of New Labour:

Styles (e.g., Tony Blair’s style) are to do with political identities and values; discourses (e.g., the discourse of the “Third Way”) are to do with political representations; and genres are to do with how language figures as a means of government (so the Green Paper constitutes a particular genre, a particular way

of using language in governing).

The critical view of genre is that such “ways,” as part of the unequally distributed symbolic capital of society, are empowering to some, oppressive to others.

Oppressive, but not necessarily imprisoning. Genres are historical outcomes,

and subject to change through contestation (the resistance of individuals). Widdowson’s claim, quoted above, that subjects are not absolutely controlled by conventions, “there is always room for maneuver,” represents a widely held view. Genre, like context, is “negotiated” in the process of interaction.

Where the focus of research is on instrumentalities, issues of “quantity” come to the fore. A register is a variety of language (like a dialect), a genre is a type of speech event. Neither can be described simply on the basis of single instances analyzed qualitatively. Sufficient samples of representative data are needed, and many different features of these samples, and associations between the features (for example between tense usage and stage of discourse), will be subjected to scrutiny. It follows that corpus data and methods are likely to prove particularly useful. In the article cited earlier, Stubbs (1994) outlines a research programme to include (amongst other points) comparative analysis, without which “we cannot know what is typical or atypical, or whether features of texts are significant, linguistically or ideologically, or not,” and long texts, “since some patterns of repetition and variation are only realized across long texts (such as complete books).”

Gottlob Frege characterized the assertoric quality of an utterance as an assertoric

force of the utterance. This idea was later taken over by J L Austin, the founding father of the general theory of speech acts. Austin distinguished between several levels of speech act, including these: the locutionary act, the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is the act of “ ‘saying something’ in the full normal sense”, which is the utterance of certain words with certain meanings in a certain grammatical construction, such as uttering ‘I like ice’ as a sentence of English.

The notion of an illocutionary act was introduced by Austin by means of examples, and that is the normal procedure. Illocutionary acts are such acts as asserting, asking a question, warning, threatening, announcing a verdict or intention, making an appointment, giving an order, expressing a wish, making a request. An utterance of a sentence, i.e. a locutionary act, by means of which a question is asked is thus an utterance with interrogative force, and when an assertion is made the utterance has assertoric force. Each type of illocutionary act is a type of act with the corresponding illocutionary force.

The perlocutionary act is made by means of an illocutionary act, and depends

entirely on the hearer’s reaction. For instance, by means of arguing the speaker may convince the hearer, and by means of warning the speaker may frighten the hearer. In these examples, convincing and frightening are perlocutionary acts.

The illocutionary act does not depend on the hearer’s reaction to what has been said. Still, according to Austin (1962:116-17) it does depend on the hearer’s being aware of the utterance and understanding it in a certain way: I haven’t warned someone unless he heard what I said. In this sense the performance of an illocutionary act depends on the ‘securing of uptake’. However, Austin’s view is intuitively plausible for speech acts verbs with speaker-hearer argument structure (like x congratulates y) or speaker-hearer-content argument structure (x requests of y that p) but less plausible when the structure is speaker-content (x asks whether p). ‘Assert’ is of the latter kind, as opposed to e.g. ‘tell’. It may be said that I failed to tell him that the station was closed, since he had already left the room when I said so, but that I still asserted that it was closed, since I believed he was still there. As we shall see, several theories of assertion focus on hearer-directed beliefs and intentions of the

speaker, without requiring that those beliefs are true or the intentions fulfilled.

Austin had earlier initiated the development of speech act taxonomy by means of the distinction between constative and performative utterances. Roughly, whereas in a constative utterance you report an already obtaining state of affairs—you say something—in a performative utterance you create something new: you do something. Paradigm examples of performatives were utterances by means of which actions such as baptizing, congratulating and greeting are performed. Assertion, by contrast, is the paradigm of a constative utterance. However, when developing his general theory of speech acts, Austin abandonded the constative/performative distinction, the reason being that it is not so clear in what sense something is done

e.g. by means of an optative utterance, whereas nothing is done by means of an assertoric one. Austin noted e.g. that assertions are subject both to infelicities and to various kinds of appraisal, just like performatives.

As an alternative, Austin suggested five classes of illocutionary types (or illocutionary verbs): verdictives, exercitives, commissives, behabitives and expositives. You exemplify a verdictive e.g. when as a judge you pronounce a verdict; an exercitive by appointing, voting or advising; a commissive by promising, undertaking or declaring that you will do something; a behabitive by apologizing, criticizing, cursing or congratulating; an expositive by acts appropriately prefixed by phrases like ‘I reply’, ‘I argue’, ‘I concede’ etc., of a general expository nature.

In this classification, assertion would best be placed under expositives, since

the prefix ‘I assert’ is or may be of an expository nature. However, an assertion need not in itself be expository. As a classification of illocutionary types Austin’s taxonomy is thus not completely adequate.

Other taxonomies have been proposed, e.g. by Stephen Schiffer (1972), John

Searle (1975b), Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnich (1979), and Fran¸cois Recanati

(1987). In Bach and Harnich’s scheme, similar to Searle’s, there are four top categories: constatives, directives (including questions and prohibitives), commissives (promises, offers) and acknowledgements (apologize, condole, congratulate). The category of constatives includes the subtypes, in Bach and Harnich’s terms, of assertives, predictives, retrodictives, descriptives, ascriptives,

informatives, confirmatives, concessives, retractives, assentives, dissentives, disputatives, responsives, suggestives and suppositives.

In this list predictives are distinguished by concerning the future and retrodictives by concerning the past, dissentives by the fact that the speaker is disagreeing with what was earlier said by the hearer, and so on. Assertives, according

to this taxonomy, is not distinguished from other constatives by any such feature. As Bach and Harnich point out most of the specialized types of constatives satisfy their definition of assertives. This type then stands out as a higher category, including most but not all of the constatives; not for instance suggestives (suggesting, conjecturing) and suppositives (assuming, stipulating).

A leading idea in the taxonomies of Searle and Recanati is to distinguish between between types according to direction of fit. Constative utterances have a word-world direction of fit (what is said is supposed to conform to what the world is like), while performative utterances have world-word direction of fit (the world is supposed to be changed to fit what is said). Again, assertion is the paradigmatic constative type, if not the constative type itself.