Key Terms for English Language

Key Terms for English Language

1. Impoliteness: The act of directly threatening face.

   • Intended to avoid giving offence by showing deference.
     • I.e. Questioning, hedging + presenting disagreements (opinions)

2. Politeness strategies: Distinctive ways in which speakers can choose to speak to avoid threatening face.

   • Expresses concern + minimises threats to self-esteem / "face". Intended to avoid giving offense by highlighting friendliness.
     • I.e. Juxtaposing criticisms with compliments, establishing common ground, jokes, nicknames, tag questions & discourse markers (please)

3. Conversational Maxims: Explicit principles that provides a backdrop for conversation to take place so speakers can easily understand each other.

   • Maxim of quantity: One tries to be as informative as possible + give as much information as needed.
   • Maxim of quality: One tries to be as truthful + does not give information that is false / not supported by evidence.
   • Maxim of relation: One tries to be relevant + say things pertinent to the discussion.
   • Maxim of manner: one tries to be as clear, as brief + as orderly as they can in what one says. Avoid ambiguity & obscurity.

4. Felicity conditions: The conditions needed for a speech act to achieve its purpose. I.e. Authority of the speaker & the situation of the speaker.

   • An essential condition: Whether the speech act is being performed seriously & sincerely. (Promise)
   • A sincerity condition: Whether the speaker intends that an utterance be acted upon by the addressee. (Go jump off a bridge)
   • A preparatory condition: Whether the authority of the speaker and the circumstances of the speech act are appropriate to its being performed successfully.

5. Speech Acts: Forms and functions associated with particular utterances + types of speech.

   • I.e. Suggestions, apologies, threats, compliments, invitations, advice & warnings.
   • Locutionary act: Utterance itself.
     • Expressives: Speech which expresses the feelings / attitudes towards the proposition.
     • Assertives: Speech which commits the speaker to the truth of what they're saying.
     • Directives: Speech which triggers the reader to take action. I.e. requests.
     • Declaratives: Speech that makes a pronouncement that changes the reality of the situation. I.e. 'I now pronounce you man & wife.'
   • Perlocutionary act: The actual effect of the utterance on the hearer.
   • Illocutionary act: The significance & pragmatic force of the utterance.
   • Declaratives: Assertations / statements.
   • Imperatives: commands.
   • Interrogatives: Questions / requests.