Speech act and conversational move

Journ& of Pragmatics3 (1979) 461-466 49&Ml+Hotid PublishingCompany

RSATIONAL MOVE +

THEA FIUNCK

This paper discusses how speech acts relate to conversation& moves. Every speech act produces a new state of conversation in which a set of continuation options is estliblished. This set of continuation options, in turn, acts as a kind of interpretation frame for possible continuat,ions. Continuations vary as to their degree of compliance towards the l.lst move. English Tag questions and German modal particles may function as preference or exp-ztation indicators for continuing moves.

He: My name is P . . Does that tell you anything’? She: Yes, of course: now you want to know rn~r name. (From an old movie, I don’t remember which one.) Among the many things we can do with words, one sort has been rather neglected in the analysis of speech acts: the things we do in order to control, qq;lnize and develop the ongoing process of verbal interaction itself. ‘I’be most basic and frequent use of language is the spontaneous v interchange in evmy-daiy interaction, i.e. conv~~tr’on in the broadest sense o word. Every speech act in a conversation is a step in the process of interaction, or, so to speal;, a move in the game. In addition to the conditions we use to attribute to a given type of speech act along the lines of ‘Ja;Etical’ speech act theory (like truth claims, r;incerity cond!itions, general obligations etc.), I want to direct some attention to those properties of a linguistic act wMeh determine and are determined by the actual converstational state of affairs, the properties ~vhich tell us what this act does to the given conversational context [l] . These latter ones will be called Ima2 properties [2]. Althoug,h * This pa,per is a very abbreviated1 version of one chapter of Franck (1979). It is practically identical with the version presented1at the Speech Act working group, Vienna 1977. [l] By ‘classical”speech act theory I mean Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) and all the studies based directly on their studies. (21 In Sacks,et al. (I974) the most, fundamental rules of the local organization of conversation, the systematics of turn-taking are explained in a very general way. The impact of that kind of conversational analysis can hardly be overestimated. 461

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D. FPcmk IfSpmch act and cmversationtzl move

the local properties or conditions are in many ways connected to other kinds of conditions, I want to illuz;trate the distinction between local and non-local conditions by the following example: if a participant in a conversation A invites the addressee B explicitly and directly to his birthday party, A is not only committed to admit B to the party in question, but he also alters the actual, conversational situa.tion in such a way, that B is now summoned to produce a reaction to the invitation, or, in other words: the respo:nse of B will, if possible, be interpreted as a reaction to the invitation. Not that A needs to reach any perlocutionary effect: the local properties of the speech act produced a new state of conversation in which the response of B will be checked against a pattern of alternative relevant continuations. A linguistic act analyzed into its local presuppositions and local consequences I will call conversational m0ve. The conditions which characterize a specific type of conversational move are those which defme the relation of the speech act to the preceding conversation and/ or establish an interpretation framework for the following contributions of the other participant(s). With each speech act in a ~nnvmcatinn dtalnti-l-.n+*r-* - *. . w.U-C*“.. WP .. v ~hmmn “..ru*& ” the LlL” or\oi-1 Y”\/Ifzl 31LucaLlull UGLw em the interlocuters in various ways. Among the changes relevant for the determination of the kind of conversational move, are those which establish for the next speaker a certain pattern of options for acceptable continuation of the conversation. If, e.g., in the course of a conversation, participant A addresses a question to participant B, B of course is perfectly free to do whatever he or she wants: to remain silent, to give an answer or to talk about another topic etc. - but whatever he or she does, it will be interpreted as a reaction to the question: either as a direct or indirect answer or as a refusal to answer or as an excuse or justification why no answer can be given. The question establishes a set of continuationoptions (SCO), and every next move *+villbe screened with regard to the choice made out of the set of options. Though this is a case of exerting influence upon the addressee it must be stressed that the SC0 has notitig to do Gth perlocutionary effect. The SC0 consists of abstract categories which provide a clastificatlon for all possible reactioajs. ‘5~: it functions as a frame for the interpretation of the actually given reactions. SC03 can be quite vague but also very Qeqnite, as for 9istance in the case of questions or other initiative moves, i.e. moves which open /start) a specific kind of s$peech act sequence. Reactive moves, which close a sequence, can eventually lack indications as to what kind o>fcontinuation is expected or wanted - if it is wanted at all. It is by reference to a given conversational situation or, more specifically to a SCO, that even silence can be meaningful and can be heard as a specific conversational move. As what kind of move an utterance counts is partly determined by the conversational context, partly by the utterance itself. The degree in which the illocutionary force of the utterarce codetermines the conversational move qualities c III vary as well. Those speech act types whose essential conditions establish mainly

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10~4 i.e. speech with the purpose to elicit an immediate specific response of the addressee, are by their very illocutionary force defined as a specific conversational move. The most salient example for this are questions, Qlaestictns must be considered as illocutionary and conversational classification at the same time, whereas answers are only a conversational move type, not (in general) coinciding with a speech act class. But even here the illocutionary and the conversational qualities are intricately connected, The answer responds to a presupposed question and thereby fulfills local. obligations but at the same time establishes normahy new non-local obligations like truth commitments, which are connected with the statement given as answer. Answers are normally statements, but not all statements are answers. The co:nversatjional status of statements is less fixed than that of questions. Other speech acts like es. offers are partly determined by local, partly by-non-local conditions. An offer summons a response to accept or reject the offer; at the same time, it makes a kind of conditional promise: if the addressee accepts, the speaker is bound to carry out what he offered. In normal conversations there is a tendency to understand all speech acts establishing commitments which are in one way or another relevant for the hearer or concern him directly, as a conversational move which summons a reaction with respect to that obligation: acceptance or rejection or indifference [3]. In many cases the obligations of the first act only become valid after an accepting response. The continuation pattern (SCO) established by initiative moves is linked to a hierachy ofpreference or so&l acceptabilityattached to the different continuation options. After a question, one of the options is a refusal to answer, but this is not equally acceptable (in terms of social or interactional accepatability) as giving a real answer. The continuation options can very roughly be divided into ihree main classes: first, the acceptance or positive confirmation; second, re,fusal or doubt; and third, iildeterminate, postponing reactions like chec ks etc. In general the first which can have an aggreskind of reaction is clearly the preferred one, the set sive, disharmonious effect on the interaction, the least wanted. Even the third type is, if it is inevitable to chose this reaction while interaction conflict or tension is not wanted, very often accompanied by remedial elements like excuses, justifications etc. The degree of non-acceptability of second and third typL reactions can vary, depending on the situation and the relation between the participants; it can also be indicated by linguistic means in the utterance and correlates with the strengthenings or mitigations of the illocutionary force. In short, an initiative move imposes a continuation pattern with options’ of differing acceptability to the addressee. The reactive moves by consequence vary with respect to the degree of compliance towards the foregoing move. With respect to the SCO, questions have a special quality, which explairis their suitability for various purposes - among other things the formulation of indirect [ 31)Of wxme G&e’s notion of ‘impiicature’ plays a crucial role in the reconstruction of the interpretation of the utterance in the given context, Cfi Grice (1968).

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requests, offers and other initiative moves. The SC0 of questions offers within the first reaction type (the positively evaluated one) :I choice of different, cjqually acceptable continuations; ati real answers fall into the first clisss. This is {different with requests. A direct reqlsrestsingles out one reaction as the only wanted: the fulfilment of the requested action, possibly preceded by a signail of compliance and willingness, especially when the fuliilment will have to take place at a later moment in time. This quality of offering a free choicle out of equally acceptable reactions makes questions fit for all kinds of poUte variants of directive speech acts, since it means less imposing and more interactional autonomy for the addressee, the mutual supposition of autonomy being one of the most important prerequisites of politeness. (For the analysis of indirect speech iacts this means that the literally expressed illocution is not arbitrary but. on the contrary, has to be interpreted in its own right; the question-SC0 can formally remain valid. on the level of conversation, even if primarily a request is conveyed.) On the other hand, there are eases where the speaker wants to ask a question but at the same time wants to express a preference for a specific answer. In this case, the openness of the question-SC0 is not wanted and has to be reduced. In yes/noquestions the speaker can indicate preference or expectation of one of the two possible direct answers by various linguistic means. In English the most common means are negation and tag questions: ( 1) ‘You will come bat k, won’t you?”

(21 ‘You won’t come back, fill you?” Of course intonation wJl also play a crucial role in this respf,ct. In German there exist besides negation several senteme adverbs or ‘modal particles’ to produce a hiss when inserted into questions. Let us look at sorae yes/noquestions: (3) (4) (5) (6)

‘Wast du “Hast du “Du hast “Mast du

zugeschlossen?” (Did you lock the door?) etwa zugeschlossen?” doch zugeschlossen?” such zugeschlo~sen?”

The neutral question (3j gets a bias towards the negative answer in (4) allndtowards the positive answer in f%) and (6). This bias can be split into two meaning features, although both are often intermingled: the features ‘expectation‘ and ‘preference’. In (4) a preference for a negative answer is expressed, in (6) a preference for a positrve one. ln (5) it is not so much a preference but a strong expectaltion that is expressed. devices mentioned ,above, the use of (yes/no-)questions for requests and th of certain modal particles, are means to modify the conversational proper-

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ties of all utterance. The use of questions instead of a direct imperative form enlarges the claa;s of continuation options of the first type (the most acceptable u&e preferred reaction), whereas the bias-particles inserted into questions narrow down the range of options. These devices concern the forward-development of the conversatim, they are directed towards future actions of the addressee. There exist other devices which are rather backwards oriented, expressions giving a (re-)interpretation or (re)definition of the actual state of conversation. Again some Zcrman modal particles could be mentioned, but for the sake of brevity I will not go into detail in this matter. The backwards oriented properties of a conversational move are those properties which specify in which kind of conversational context the move can Qt viz. which kind of move/speech act must have preceded the actual move to warrant its appropriateness. Since the range of possible or legitimate interpretations of an utterance is always, to a Icertain extent, open-ended, these conversational presuppositions can be used also for redefinitions of the Scene from the actual speaker’s point of view. By these means a certain amount of negotiation about the present state of conversation can be done without turning to explicit meta-communication, Le. a discussion about the discussion itself. I want to close with some - necessarily rushed - conclusions drawn from the observations given above. Some of them are of di rect concern for speech act theory or at least linguistic pragmatics: In the analysis of indirect speech acts we must not leave the level of literal expression too quickly. If we accept a functional view on language, we must start :ii>m the hypothesis that the choice of the means of expression is motivated. Why a speaker determines to choose one linguistic form rather than another, might seem arbitrarr from the point of view of illocutionary fort,: or propositional content but may lie in the conversational properties of the expres% In tb’at analysis a request a question are ilot equivexpressed by a direct request-form and on6 expresseal alent because they express different kind; .>f conversational moves. The conversational pro:perties of the question form remzlin valid even if the question meaning is not the primary illocutionary force. Another, more general conclusion is this: speech act anal:,psishas added to the investigation of language the dzrension of action. By looking at utterances as conversational move we may come closer to the even more complex realm of intemction, which is more than some actions of different actors in a sl’equence.The notion of perlocution cannot explain the ‘mystery’ of how interlocutcrs, who might differ severely in opinion and interests, can coordinate spontaneously the verbal exchange and cooperate in a coherent conversation. The Gricean Cooperation Principle is a very fundamental concept in that field, but it is too general to account for the internal mechanisms of the conversational organization. If we ta.ke the cooperation prini:iple for granted but leave aside the question whether the participants in a given conversation can reach any perlocutionary effects, we can explain the mechanism of tlze conversational (zoordination partly b;Ythe concept of SC0 or continuation pattam. Each conver!,ational move confronts the addressee with a more or less well

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defined continuation pattern. Initiative moves estabUsh a set of continuation optiom, reactive moves vary with respect to the degree of compliance towards that pattern. The participant who continues after a first move is free to do what he wants but he must be conscious of the fact that, whatever his reaction will be, it will be iate~~~@d in the framework of the given continuation pattern; and if he chooses a reaction which w# be classBed as one of the less acceptable continuation types, he must be aware of the consequences.

Austin, J.L. 1962. How to do things with words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Franck, D. 1979. Grammatik und Konversation. Ph.D. Diss. Universiteit van .Qmsterdam. (To be pub~hed in 1980 by Athetium, Frankfurt a.M.) Grice, P. 1968. Logic and conversation. Unpublished lecture notes from William James Lectures at Harvard University, 1967. Sacks, H., EA. Schegloff and G. Jefferson. 1974. A sirn@est sy:;tematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50: 696-735, Sea& , :. l963. Speedi ac-is.iondon: CambrMge Univeadty Pre:ss.

Doror’ha &z~ck. Born 1948. M.A. in generel linguistics, Univhxsity of Konstanz, 1972. Ph.D. 1979, University of Amsterdam, Assistant professor of general linguistics, University of Diisseldcrf, 197 3 -75. 1975 - 1977 lecturer in German linguistecs, University of Nijmegen. At present, lectu:er in stylistics and rhetorics, University of Amsterdam. Present research: the linguistic theory of conversation, description of the various Lingubtic mc:ans of interaction control (e.g. the German modal particles), literal us. non-literal meaning, rhetorics, aplplied to natural conversatir,n. Ma'n pu blhxth~ 19I3. Zur Probtematik der Ptisuppositionsdiskussion. In: J.S. Petofi and D. Franck, eds., Ptisuppositionen in Philosophic und Linguist&. Frankfurt: Atheniium. i 975. ‘Zur Analyse indirekter Sprechakte.’ In: V. Ehrich llnd P. Finke, eds., BeitrQ;e zur Grammatik und Pragmatik. Kornberg (Taunus): Scriptor. 1979. Grammatik and Konversation. Ph.D. Diss. Universitttit van Amsterdam.