Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The classification of illocutionary acts'

This dissertation examines the notion of illocutionary force and whether it is embeddable by examining the syntax, semantics and pragmatic effects of a range of root-like embedded constructions. Though illocutionary force has long been considered a property exclusive to root clauses, the examination and analysis of English embedded inverted questions and other quasi-quotational constructions cross-linguistically show that this is not the case. The contributions of this dissertation are three-fold: a refined definition of independent illocutionary force; a syntax for non-root complement clauses that carry independent illocutionary force; and a model for the discourse that captures the effects of these clauses. I also work towards understanding how the instantiation of independent illocutionary force in such constructions leads to their restricted distribution. Illocutionary force may be represented both lexically and through syntactic processes such as verb movement. I argue that verb movement to Force° is an interface operation—it occurs in syntax but is directly linked to a specific discourse interpretation. Building on Krifka (2014), illocutionary force is the expression of who takes responsibility for asserting or responding to a proposition or set of propositions, according to a given modal base. When illocutionary force is independently expressed on an embedded clause, the perspective holder and responsibility taker(s) are unambiguous and not mixed. In contrast, standard embedded clauses may be ambiguous as to who takes responsibility and may contain multiple perspectives. Clauses with independent illocutionary force have an expanded C-layer that is nonetheless smaller than that in true root clauses. An Illocutionary Act head selects for the embedded ForceP, determines illocutionary force and, obliquely, determines the restricted distribution of quasi-quotational constructions. A range of facts show that quasi-quotational constructions are truly embedded but are not direct objects of the matrix verb. Instead, they are in close apposition with a nominal direct object. This structure accounts for the properties of quasi-quotational constructions as entities that refer to a conversational move proffered in the relevant discourse, following Roberts's (1996, 2012) Question Under Discussion framework.

We present a new analysis of illocutionary forces in dialogue. We analyze them as complex conversational moves involving two dimensions: what Speaker commits herself to and what she calls on Addressee to perform.
We start from the analysis of speech acts such as confirmation requests or whimperatives, and extend the analysis to seemingly simple speech acts, such as statements and queries.
Then, we show how to integrate our proposal in the framework of the Grammar for Conversation (Ginzburg, to app.), which is adequate for modelling agents' information states and how they get updated.

In this study, young children’s development of speech acts was examined. Interaction between six Swedish-speaking parents and their children was observed. The frequency, form and distribution of speech acts in the output from the parents were compared with the frequency, form and distribution of the children’s speech acts. The frequency was measured by occurrences per analysed session. The aim of the analysis was to examine if the parent’s behaviour could be treated as a baseline for the child’s development. Both the parents’ and the children’s illocutionary speech acts were classified. Each parent-child dyad was observed at four different occasions, when the children were 1;0, 1;6, 2;0, and 2;6 years of age. Similar studies have previously shown that parents keep a consistent frequency of speech acts within a given time span of interaction, though the distribution of different types of speech acts may shift, depending on contextual factors. The form, in terms of Mean Length of Speech Act in Words (MLSAw), were correlated with the longitudinal result of the children’s MLSAw. The distribution of the parents’ speech acts showed extensive individual differences. The result showed that the children’s MLSAw move significantly closer the MLSAw of their parents. Since the parent’s MLSAw showed a wide distribution, these results indicate that the parent’s speech acts can be treated as a baseline for certain aspects of the children’s development, though further studies are needed.

The present study investigates the use of hedging devices in the readers’ comment section of the newspaper The Guardian Online. Two comment sections were chosen for the contrastive study: ‘Politics’ in the subsection ‘Comment is free’ and the series ‘Problem solved’ in the subsection ‘Life and style’. The corpus-based analysis of the frequency of hedges has revealed that the incidence of hedging devices in comments on personal issues is higher (by 19.2%) than on political articles. Three of the most frequently occurring hedging devices, namely, might, SEEM and I (don’t) think underwent further contextual analysis: the utterances containing these items were classified according to their illocutionary force, applying Bach’s (2003) classification of illocutionary acts. The most commonly hedged speech act types, characteristic of each section, were revealed.  Subsequently, an attempt was made to account for these findings from the perspective of ‘face’ and ‘facework’ as represented by Brown and Levinson (1987), Lim and Bowers (1991), MacGeorge, Lichtman and Pressey (2002), Ting-Toomey and Kurogi (1998). Since hedging is considered to be an effective strategy in minimizing ‘threats’ to the face of the addressee, it has  been possible to conclude that in discussions of personal issues participants are more concerned to ‘save’ the addressee’s face than in the case of political matters where the comment writers’ ‘self-face seems to be in the forefront.

The current study investigated whether point-accompanying characteristics, like vocalizations and hand shape, differentiate infants’ underlying motives of prelinguistic pointing. We elicited imperative (requestive) and declarative (expressive and informative) pointing acts in experimentally controlled situations, and analyzed accompanying characteristics. Experiment 1 revealed that prosodic characteristics of point-accompanying vocalizations distinguished requestive from both expressive and informative pointing acts, with little differences between the latter two. In addition, requestive points were more often realized with the whole hand than the index finger, while this was the opposite for expressive and informative acts. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, revealing distinct prosodic characteristics for requestive pointing also when the referent was distal and when it had an index-finger shape. Findings reveal that beyond the social context, point-accompanying vocalizations give clues to infants’ underlying intentions when pointing.

This research presents a study of the intention that exists in the speech acts. The context is placed as a determinant element as far as such acts are concerned, which are units of language in use. Special attention is given to the Austinian approach for its relevance to the studies of language. The previously mentioned approach provides important contributions to the performative and pragmatic understanding of language usage. Through the speech acts theory, Austin called the attention to a new conception, where language is accepted as action, starting to be seen as nontransparent, but open to different interpretations. This conception of language is supported by the performative and pragmatic approach by Austin, Searle and Grice, beginning a new phase in the linguistic studies, a new paradigm in the language study, not only for contemporary philosophy but also for linguistics. The present work shows a different approach from the philosophers aforementioned, comparing them, in order to demonstrate that there are significant differences in relation to the way they understand the intention in the speech acts. The different understandings of these researchers are also presented as well as their definitions of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Finally, the Austinian contributions to the study of language are also emphasized in the present study.
Este trabalho apresenta um estudo da intenção que está presente nos atos de fala. O contexto se coloca como um determinante no que diz respeito a esses atos, os quais são unidades de linguagem em uso. Destacamos a concepção austiniana, que apresenta importantes contribuições com relação à visão performativa e pragmática do uso da língua. Com a teoria dos atos de fala, Austin evidenciou uma nova concepção, em que a linguagem é concebida enquanto ação, passando a ser vista como não transparente, mas aberta a diferentes interpretações. Essa concepção de linguagem consolida-se com a abordagem performativa e pragmática de Austin, Searle e Grice, originando uma nova etapa nos estudos linguísticos e constituindo um novo paradigma de estudo da linguagem, tanto para a filosofia contemporânea quanto para a linguística. O presente trabalho faz uma abordagem dos filósofos citados, comparando-os entre si, com a finalidade de mostrar que existem diferenças significativas em relação à forma como entendem a intenção nos atos de fala. Também destacamos os entendimentos desses estudiosos, bem como a sua definição em relação aos atos locucionários, ilocucionários e os perlocucionários. Por fim, enfatizamos as contribuições que Austin nos deixou para o estudo da linguagem.

This thesis investigates verbal insults recorded in judicial protocols in the Swedish university townUppsaladuring the 1630s. The aim of the study is to analyze insults as linguistic formulations and social acts in Early Modern Swedish society. The methodology of the study is guided by speech act theory and ethnography of communication in order to examine the lexical realizations of insults and verbal action in different speech communities. From a total of 652 protocols in two series of records from the city court and the university council inUppsalain the 1630s, sections of text were excerpted that registered insults. The material under investigation comprises 179 cases that contained 276 insults. The descriptive meta-linguistic expressions for insults are rich as well as varied, and the performed insults are reported with or without invectives and as direct or indirect speech. Clear patterns emerged in the investigation by performing various semantic-, pragmatic-, and discourse-level analyses of the judicial records. Insults among city people were commonly interpreted as truth-conditional representative speech acts and thereby were viewed as false accusations of various kinds. In the academic world, however, the truth value of the insult was of minor importance. The speech act was regarded mainly as an expressive utterance of anger and frustration. Through a comparison of the city and university judicial records, it is shown that the patterns of insults reveal a general semantic process in which primarily concrete, objective meanings come to fulfill increasingly interpersonal and pragmatic speech functions.

Das herkömmliche völkerrechtliche Institut des diplomatischen Schutzes ist im Verhältnis zwischen Staaten (als originären Völkerrechtssubjekten) entstanden. Aber auch intergouvernmentale Organisationen sind in der Lage, Maßnahmen mit unmittelbarer Rechtswirkung gegenüber Einzelpersonen zu treffen, so daß auch hier die Frage aufzuwerfen ist, wann und mit welchen Mitteln der jeweilige Heimatstaat die (Grund-)Rechte seiner Staatsangehörigen gegenüber einer solchen Organisation geltend machen kann.

Dialogue act (DA) classification is an important step in the process of developing dialog systems. DA classification is a problem usually solved by supervised machine learning (ML) approaches that all require hand labeled data. Since hand labeling data is a resource-intensive task, many have proposed to focus on unsupervised or semi-supervised ML approaches to solve the problem of DA classification. This master’s thesis explores a novel method for semi-supervised approach to DA classification: K-Means+HMM. The method combines K- Means and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) modeling in addition to abstracting away the words in the utterances to their part-of-speech (POS) tags and the utterances to their cluster labels produced by K-Means prior to HMM training. The focus are the following hypotheses: H1) incorporating context of the utterances leads to better results (HMM is a method specifically used for sequential data and thus incorporates context, while K-Means does not); H2) increasing the number of clusters in K-Means+HMM leads to better results; H3) increasing the number of examples of cluster labels and hand labeled DAs pairs in K-Means+HMM leads to better results (the examples of pairs are used to create the emission probabilities used to define the HMM). One of the conclusions is that K-Means performs better than K-Means+HMM (the result for K-Means measured with one-to-one accuracy is 35.0%, while the result for K-Means+HMM is 31.6%) given 14 clusters and one example pair. However, when the number of examples is increased to 15 the result is 40.5% for K-Means+HMM; the biggest improvement is when the number of examples is increased to 20 resulting in 44% one-to-one accuracy. That is, K-Means+HMM outperforms K-Means provided that a certain number of examples is given. Another conclusion is that the number of examples has a much larger impact on the results - compared to the number of clusters - thus perhaps concluding that the statement “there is no data like labeled data” holds.
Klassificering av dialoghandlingar är ett viktigt steg i processen för utveckling av dialogsystem. Klassificering av dialoghandlingar är ett problem som vanligtvis löses med hjälp av övervakade maskininlärningsmetoder som alla behöver uppmärkt data. Eftersom uppmärkning av data är en resurskrävande uppgift har många föreslagit att fokusera på oövervakade eller delvis övervakade maskininlärningsmetoder för att lösa problemet av klassificering av dialoghandlingar. Denna masteruppsats utforskar en ny delvis övervakad maskininläningsmetod för klassificering av dialoghandlingar: K-Means+HMM. Föru- tom att metoden kombinerar K-Means och Hidden Markiv Model (HMM) modellering, abstraheras orden i yttranden till deras ordklasstaggar och yttranden till deras klusteretiketter som produceras av K-Means före HMM träningen. Projektets fokus är följande tre hypoteser: H1) en intergration av yttrandenas kontext leder till ett bättre resultat (HMM är en metod som används specifikt för sekventiell data och den integrerar således kontexten, medan K-Means gör inte det); H2) ökning av antalet kluster i K- Means+HMM leder till bättre resultat; H3) ökning av antalet exempel av par av klusteretiketter och dialoghandligar uppmärkta för hand i K- Means+HMM leder till bättre resultat (parexemplen används för att skapa emissionssannolikheter som definierar HMM). En av slutsatserna är att K-Means presterar bättre än K-Means+HMM (resultatet för K-means mätt med en-till-en noggrannhet är 35,0%, medan resultatet för K-Means+HMM är 31,6%) givet 14 kluster och ett exempelpar. Däremot, när antalet av exempelpar ökar till 15 ökar resultatet för K-Means+HMM till 40,5%. Den största ökningen är när antalet exempelpar är 20, vilket ger ett resulat på 44% en-till-en noggrannhet. Med andra ord, presterar K-Means+HMM bätre än K-Means då att ett visst antal exempelpar är tillgängligt. En annan slutsats är att antalet av exempelpar har en mycket större effekt på resultaten jämfört med antalet kluster, vilket då möjligtvis leder till slutsatsen att “det finns ingen bättre data än uppmärkt data”.

Background: In Europe, men have lower rates of attempted suicide compared to women and at the same time a higher rate of completed suicides, indicating major gender differences in lethality of suicidal behaviour. The aim of this study was to analyse the extent to which these gender differences in lethality can be explained by factors such as choice of more lethal methods or lethality differences within the same suicide method or age. In addition, we explored gender differences in the intentionality of suicide attempts.

Throughout Victoria's reign, Lord Lindsay and his son Ludovic, respectively twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth earls of Crawford, created one of the largest private libraries ever assembled in Britain. The Bibliotheca Lindesiana included some six thousand manuscripts, which Ludovic sold to Enriqueta Rylands in 1901 for £155,000. The principal problematic that I address in this thesis is: Why did the earls of Crawford invest vast amounts of financial and cultural capital in this endeavour? In other words, what factors - both structural and specific - led to the formation of the library, what purposes did it serve, and what roles did its manuscript components in particular perform? Other questions include: How - and how successfully - did Lindsay and Ludovic maintain physical and intellectual control over the rapidly growing library? How did they position themselves within networks of connoisseurship and collecting in Victorian Britain? How was the formation of the Oriental manuscript collections connected with Lindsay's interest in racial classification and with wider racial discourses? And how did the library reflect and reinforce Lindsay's identity as a gentleman-scholar? Previous studies of this and other manuscript collections have adhered to an antiquarian, bio-bibliographical model, focusing on the detailed matter and mechanisms of collecting, rather than exploring the socio-cultural and epistemological contexts of their development. This thesis, by contrast, constitutes the first extended application of cultural theory to a manuscript collection, or indeed to any private library, in the nineteenth century. I combine close archival work with Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital and habitus to reveal the complex structuration and signification of the library, and to investigate the imbrication between the earls' personal agency and wider forces operating upon the library. My examination of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana has uncovered several key issues and themes hitherto unexplored in this or any other major private library of the nineteenth century. First, I argue that the reasons for the library's development reside principally in various forms of classification, which preoccupied Lindsay and reflected wider societal trends and taxonomies: the classification of libraries and the ramification of knowledge; Lindsay's deployment of the library to corroborate his and his family's social and cultural distinction (i.e. social classification); and an interest in racial classification, which reflected Orientalist discourses associated with imperialism. Secondly, while the dispersal of aristocratic collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a familiar trope, this study is the first to contextualize the decline of a private library within the struggle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Finally, this is the first examination of the impact of professionalization upon private as opposed to public libraries, revealing the tensions between amateur traditions and growing professionalism and specialization in the nineteenth century. I thus 'read' through the library some of the wider socio-economic and cultural issues operating in Victorian Britain and its empire.

Background Growing evidence emphasizes the relevance of sphingolipids for metabolism and immunity of antigen-presenting cells (APC). APCs are key players in balancing tolerogenic and encephalitogenic responses in immunology. In contrast to the well-known prominent effects of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) on lymphocyte trafficking, modulatory effects on APCs have not been fully characterized. Methods Frequencies and activation profiles of dendritic cell (DC) subtypes, monocytes, and T cell subsets in 35 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients were evaluated prior and after undergoing fingolimod treatment for up to 24 months. Impact of fingolimod and S1P on maturation and activation profile, pro-inflammatory cytokine release, and phagocytotic capacity was assessed in vitro and ex vivo. Modulation of DC-dependent programming of naïve CD4+ T cells, as well as CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proliferation, was also investigated in vitro and ex vivo. Results Fingolimod increased peripheral slanDC count—CD1+ DC, and monocyte frequencies remained stable. While CD4+ T cell count decreased, ratio of Treg/Th17 significantly increased in fingolimod-treated patients over time. CD83, CD150, and HLADR were all inhibited, but CD86 was upregulated in DCs after incubation in the presence of fingolimod. Fingolimod but not S1P was associated with reduced release of pro-inflammatory cytokines from DCs and monocytes in vitro and ex vivo. Fingolimod also inhibited phagocytic capacity of slanDCs and monocytes. After fingolimod, slanDCs demonstrated reduced potential to induce interferon–gamma-expressing Th1 or IL-17-expressing Th17 cells and DC-dependent T cell proliferation in vitro and in fingolimod-treated patients. Conclusions We present the first evidence that S1P-directed therapies can act additionally as immunomodulators that decrease the pro-inflammatory capabilities of APCs, which is a crucial element in DC-dependent T cell activation and programming.

In den letzten Jahren ist nicht nur in der Forschung, sondern auch in der breiten Öffentlichkeit die akute Problematik der männlichen Identitätsfindung beziehungsweise Identitätskonstruktion unübersehbar geworden. Medial schlug sich dies allein im Januar und Februar 2008 in entsprechenden Leitartikeln sowohl im SPIEGEL als auch in der ZEIT nieder und lebensweltlich nimmt die Anzahl der von männlichen Jugendlichen ausgehenden Gewalttaten unvermindert zu. Ein Verweis auf die durch die Medien gegangenen U-Bahn-Attacken (München) mag hier genauso genügen wie die Erinnerung an die gewalttätigen Zwischenfälle an der Columbine High School, der Virginia Tech University, der Northern Illinois University (DeKalb), der Berliner Rütli Schule, dem Erfurter Gutenberg Gymnasium oder der Jokela Schule in Tuusula, Finnland.

Während die traditionellen Grammatiken, letztlich nicht über Satzgrammatiken hinausgehen, ist es sinnvoll im Rahmen einer kommunikativen Grammatik als kleinste Texteinheit den Sprechakt zu definieren (vgl. Engel 1991; Johnen 2012). In modernen Lehrwerken des Portugiesischen als Fremd- und Zweitsprache wird den Sprechakten bereits eine gewisse Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Es fehlt jedoch eine systematische Behandlung und eine didaktisch adäquate Progression um eine kommunikative Kompetenz zu entwickeln (vgl. für das Spanische als Fremdsprache de Matos Lundström 2013). Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Beschreibung des Sprechaktes Entschuldigung im Portugiesischen (vgl. Johnen / Weise / Schmidt-Radefeldt 2003) im Rahmen einer kommunikativen Grammatik, d.h. an der Schnittstelle zwischen Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik. Trotz seiner Bedeutung für die Erlangung einer kommunikativen Kompetenz wurde dieser Sprechakt bis heute kaum in der Grammatikographie des Portugiesischen berücksichtigt (vgl. jedoch die Darstellung in Carreira / Boudoy 1993: 123-124).
Enquanto as gramáticas tradicionais, em última análise, são gramáticas da frase, para uma abordagem comunicativa da gramática convém partir da unidade textual mínima que é o ato de fala (cf. Engel, 1991 e Johnen, 2012). Em manuais modernos de Português Língua Estrangeira e Segunda Língua (PLE/PLS), os atos de fala recebem já certa atenção, faltando, porém, uma abordagem sistemática e uma progressão didaticamente adequada para fomentar o desenvolvimento da competência comunicativa (ver também, para o Espanhol como Língua Estrangeira, de Matos Lundström, 2013). O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma descrição do ato de fala desculpa em português (cf. Johnen; Weise; Schmidt-Radefeldt, 2003), no âmbito de uma gramática comunicativa, i.e., na interface entre sintaxe, semântica e pragmática. Apesar da sua importância para a aquisição de uma competência comunicativa, até hoje, este ato de fala foi raramente considerado na gramaticografia do português (cf., contudo, o tratamento em Carreira e Boudoy, 1993: 123-124).

This article addresses the notion of linguistic meaning with reference to Kiswahili. It focuses particular attention on meaning typology, with the assumption that a discussion of meaning types can enhance the understanding and appreciation of linguistic meaning. The discussion takes its general conceptual orientation from the approach that considers meaning as use, whereby the unit of analysis is the speech act. This is a functional view of linguistic meaning, the tenets of which are contained in functional grammar. From a broader perspective, this article distinguishes conceptual and associative meaning then proceeds to deal with the individual types. Ultimately, five types of linguistic meaning are discussed: conceptual, connotative, social, affective and collocative. From the discussion, conclusionsabout the value of the typology for defining the concept and the scope of semantics are drawn.

Als Sonderorganisation der Vereinten Nationen soll die UNESCO als rechtlich selbstständige Organisation mit eigener Rechtspersönlichkeit zur Erreichung des Gesamtziels der Vereinten Nationen beitragen. Grundlage dafür sind gemeinsame Standards in den Bereichen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur, die gegenseitiges Verständnis und Kooperation fördern sollen. Rechtssetzungsinstrumente sind demnach von großer Bedeutung für die Tätigkeit der UNESCO. Die vorliegende Arbeit konzentriert sich auf die Analyse und kritische Würdigung der vorhandenen Instrumente und ordnet sie rechtlich sowohl nach ihrer Verbindlichkeit als auch ihrer Entstehung ein. Abschließend wird die Implementierung sowie die gewollte und erreichte Wirksamkeit der Rechtssetzungsinstrumente hinterfragt.

In this thesis we deal with pragmatic aspects of language, specifically studying the classification of speech acts and conversational implicature. The theoretical part is concerned with the work of J. L. Austin, J. R. Searle and M. Grepl with an emphasis on differences in the classification of illocutionary acts. Then we deal with the maxim of politeness and pleasantries types according to P. Brown and S. C. Lewinson. In the practical part using analysis of advertising headlines and slogans we are trying to demonstrate the functionality of the classification of speech acts by individual authors. We try to also confirm the performative nature of these statements also implicitly expressed performative verbs. We are interested in the presence of the maxims of politeness in these texts and the consequent shift between different types of courtesy. The aim is to highlight the issue of classification of illocutionary acts and try to outline improvements to this shift. The assumption is that, although the classification struggling with inaccuracies, we thereunder able to distinguish different types of repetitive speeches. To complement these findings, we want to prove performative character of advertising texts, even assuming that there will be implicitly expressed performative verb and the presence of...

O presente estudo, no âmbito da Pragmática Linguística, resulta de uma investigação, que observa a realização dos atos ilocutórios expressivos de agradecimento nas interações comerciais. O objetivo é tentar compreender os processos linguísticos subjacentes à realização dos referidos atos ilocutórios, nomeadamente através do recenseamento dos diferentes tipos de agradecimento, da descrição dos atos de fala predominantes e das funções semântico-pragmáticas do agradecimento. Um dos aspetos mais importantes será o recensear dos tipos de agradecimento mais usados nas interações comerciais. Para tal, parte-se da observação detalhada de um corpus recolhido no âmbito específico de interações comerciais que ocorreram entre 10 de fevereiro de 2014 a 30 de setembro de 2014. Os resultados obtidos convergem no sentido de que o agradecimento é um ato expressivo reativo que pode ser verbal ou não verbal, com a finalidade de estabelecer a relação custo-benefício entre locutor e ouvinte, tendo em conta e respeitando os vários contextos socioculturais. De facto, o ato de agradecer, tal como os restantes atos ilocutórios expressivos, depende da forma como é expressado, dos gestos que o acompanham e das emoções que lhe são inerentes.
This study conducted in the field of Pragmatics, is the result of an investigation that observes the expressive illocutionary acts of gratitude in business interactions. The aim of this work is to try and understand the linguistic processes involved in the illocutionary acts, by assembling the different types of gratitude acts, the description of the most predominant speech acts and semantic-pragmatic functions of gratitude. One of the most important aspects will be the identification of the most common types of gratitude used in business/commercial interactions. In order to do that we analysed the corpus collected in a specific field of business interactions from the 10th of February 2014 to the 30th of September 2014. This study shows that the act of gratitude is a reactive expressive act that can be either verbal or non-verbal and that it has the purpose to establish the cost-benefit relation between speaker and the listener, taking into account and respecting the various socio cultural contexts. In fact, the gratitude act, as well as the other illocutionary expressive acts, depends on the way it is expressed and on the gestures and the emotions involved.

The drama of Senkatana by S.M. Mofokeng is analysed by applying principles provided by speech act theory, using as basis the explication of the theory by Bach and Harnish (1979). The socio-cultural context in the play has as its starting point the realm of myth and legend. From here all categories of relationships within the protagonist/antagonist encounter unfold, as do opposing sets of contextual beliefs characters rely on; these are primarily responsible for the growing conflict in the drama. Enhancing the mythical character of the play is the absorbing role played by the diboni, acting as seers, as prophets and as additional 'authorial voice'. Their and those of other characters' speech acts reflect this and more; they operate in a substantiated sign-system which provides a framework for evaluating each semiotic act from locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary dimensions of meaning. Chapter 1 comprises a historical survey of studies on speech act theory, and includes a brief summary of the position of the theory in the field of semiotics. The micro speech act analysis of the play is facilitated by the division of the text into smaller action units (summarised in Addendum 1). Chapter 2, containing the greater part of the exposition, commences the narration of the folktale and offers a clear rendering of the epic rise of the hero. Chapter 3 portrays the rise and progress of the antagonists challenging the hero, coupled with intensifying anxiety among the protagonists. Chapter 4 provides a vivid overview of how the values of the hero triumph over those of the antagonist despite the physical slaying of the hero. Chapter 5 offers a graphic outline of how the macro speech act is accomplished in the play. It is shown how an investigation of the speech act profiles of characters, coupled with the evaluation of illocutionary tactics and illocutionary/perlocutionary dynamics, communicates significant information pertaining to characterisation. A graph illustrating the rise and fall of micro speech acts within the larger macro speech act is provided in Addendum 2. Suggestions are made regarding future research in literary texts.
African Languages
D.Lit. et Phil. (African Languages)

Advertising plays a distinct role in economies around the world and, in this regard, diverse countries have been investigated in this study including the BRICS countries. It focused on the classification of advertising cost for tax purposes. Research questions posed by this study are answered through the development of a classification process that may assist with the classification of advertising cost for the purpose of taxation. It has been established that guidelines for the classification of advertising cost as capital or revenue of nature are needed to correctly classify advertising cost for tax purposes. Furthermore, the determination of when advertising cost will be regarded as capital of nature is required. The study used a mixed method research approach, involving a literature review of case law and income tax acts as well as an analysis of annual financial statements. Findings from this research indicate a growing trend in revenue generated from advertising in South Africa; proving the importance of the advertising market in the economy. Guidelines for the classification of advertising cost for tax purposes were established by using principles from national and international case law.
MCom (Accountancy)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

A word or a linguistic construction can mean various things depending on the context. The imperative is a representative example of such a construction and can express a variety of illocutionary forces such as COMMAND, REQUEST, ADVICE, and more (Quirk et al., 1985, Huddleston et al., 2002).

However, although there are many studies that comprehensively deal with the imperative or individual illocutionary forces of it (e.g. Lakoff, 1966, Ljung, 1975, Davies, 1986, Wilson & Sperber 1988, Han, 2000, Takahashi, 2012, Jary & Kissine, 2014), there is no such study that shows a possible overall process of how we would interpret an imperative to reach a certain illocutionary force when it is uttered. Without such a shared process, we cannot explain why we can communicate using imperatives without misunderstandings. Thus, this process needs to be investigated.

Another problem regarding imperatives is the treatment of non-directive uses of imperatives such as “Have a good day”. The illocutionary force of this imperative would be called GOOD WISH and regarded as a conventional use of imperatives (Davies, 1986). However, it has not been clearly explained why we would choose the imperative construction to express wishes. If this kind of wishes expressed in the form of the imperative are actually a use of imperative, then there should be some reason and motivation for it.

The main purposes of this study are to provide (1) a schema of how one would typically reach the interpretation of WISH when hearing an imperative and (2) an account of such use of imperatives as WISH. In this study, examples of imperatives in two non-cognate languages are used for the analysis in the hope to substantiate the credibility of the schema and the account: Japanese and English. Based on the analyses on the imperative and individual illocutionary forces that have been presented in the literature combined with my own analysis, a schema is proposed that illustrates how one would typically reach PRIVATE WISH, the state of affairs of which is deemed to be desirable mainly for the speaker, and GOOD WISH, the state of affairs of which is deemed to be desirable mainly for the addressee. Then, an account for the use of PRIVATE WISH and GOOD WISH is provided. Specifically, the use of imperatives as WISH is an analogous use of prototypical imperatives; people would use the imperative construction to express their strong desirability, and to build and maintain a good relationship with others.

To explore documenting practices in detail that use the time-based medium of film to engage with performance art’s negotiation of duration and disappearance, this article addresses Stuart Brisley’s and Ken McMullen’s 16 mm film “Being and Doing”. “Being and Doing” is an experimental, highly subjective documentation of live art practices of the late 1970s and early 1980s in Eastern and Western Europe. The film’s highly concentrated and rhythmically elaborate montage assembles photographs, sound recordings, footage of communal rituals, and artists’ performances with a voice-over narration by Brisley. Starting from a detailed analysis of particular montage sequences the article elaborates on the inventive aesthetics of “Being and Doing” as a conjunction of body art practices and a process-oriented mode of documentation, which is concerned with the frame as the essential constituent of film form.

The clean-slate acts of the Hebrew Bible, i.e., the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25 and the Šemittah Year and the Law of Slave Release in Deut 15:1-18, are a part of the tradition of clean-slate acts in the ancient Near East. In these acts, those who have become indebted and have loss land and freedom, are given a fresh start. Through comparing the biblical clean-slate acts with the evidence of clean-slate acts in ancient Mesopotamia including the existing Edict of Ammiṣaduqa and fragments of an edict from Samsuiluna, the Holiness Code’s Year of Jubilee and Deuteronomy’s Šhemittah Year and the Law of Slave Release are brought into sharper focus. The goal of this book is to use the lens of the ancient Near Eastern clean-slate acts to better understand not only the biblical acts but the role they play within their respective law codes. Through the clean-slate acts, both the Holiness Code and Deuteronomy set economic justice as a cornerstone of their theology. They serve as a culmination of what it means to be the people of YHWH. Analyzing the biblical clean-slate acts in light of the larger tradition shows that the Year of Jubilee and the Šemittah Year and the Law of Slave Release call the people of Israel to be participants in renewal, blessing, and providing justice for the community.:Table of Contents Abbreviations vii A Note on the Spellings of Names ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 General Tendencies of the Research 2 Leviticus 25 2 Deuteronomy 15:1-18 5 The Relationship between Lev 25 and Deut 15:1-18 8 Lev 25 and Deut 15:1-18 and the Ancient Near East 12 Ancient Near Eastern Literature and the Hebrew Bible 15 Methodology 17 Chapter 2: From Freedom to Slavery. 20 Introduction 20 Causes of Debt in the Hebrew Bible 21 Loans 22 Taxes and Corvée 23 Consequences of Debt in the Hebrew Bible 25 Oppression of the Poor in the Literary Prophets 27 Debt in Ancient Mesopotamia 32 Interest-Bearing Loans 33 Taxes and Corvée 36 Consequences of Debt in Ancient Mesopotamia 38 Loss of Land 38 Loss of Freedom 39 Conclusion 43 Excursus 1: Debt in Ancient Egypt 44 General Survey 44 Debt-Slavery under Joseph - Genesis 47:13-26 45 Chapter 3: Economic Justice and Clean Slate Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia 47 Introduction 47 Ur-Namma (regnal years: 2112-2095 B.C.E., Ur): 49 Lipit-Ištar (regnal years: 1934-1924 B.C.E., Isin) 51 Ur-Ninurta (regnal years: 1923-1896 B.C.E., Isin) 53 Sumulael (regnal years: 1880-1845 B.C.E., Babylon) 54 Sabium (regnal years: 1884-1831 B.C.E., Babylon) 54 Hammurabi (regnal years: 1792-1750 B.C.E., Babylon) 55 Samsuiluna (regnal years: 1749-1712 B.C.E., Babylon) 58 Abiešuḫ (regnal years: 1711-1684 B.C.E., Babylon) 63 Ammiditana (regnal years: 1683-1647 B.C.E., Babylon) 63 Date and Attribution Uncertain 64 Ammiṣaduqa (regnal years: 1646-1626 B.C.E., Babylon) 64 Conclusion 71 Chapter 4: Esarhaddon’s Neo-Assyrian Clean-Slate Acts 73 Introduction 73 Sennacherib and Babylonia 73 Esarhaddon’s Restoration of Babylon 77 Conclusion 84 Chapter 5: Dating the Holiness Code and Deuteronomy 87 Introduction 87 Overview 87 Deuteronomy 88 The Holiness Code 90 The Role of the Covenant Code 93 Evidence from Jeremiah 34 98 Authorship 101 Deuteronomy 102 The Holiness Code 106 Conclusion 109 Chapter 6: The Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25 111 Introduction 111 Textual Issues 112 Land as Subject of Sabbath 112 Meaning of יוֹבֵל and דְּרוֹר 112 Debates 114 Questions of Redaction 119 Pronoun Switching 119 Cities 120 Structure 122 Sabbath and Jubilee 123 The Debt-Spiral and Clean-Slate Remedies 126 Key Issues and Themes 134 Sabbath: Not for the Poor 134 Debt and Debt Relief 135 Cities 136 Theology 137 Particularity 137 The Exodus Event and the Israelites as YHWH’s Slaves 138 The Land is YHWH’s 142 The Jubilee as Holy 144 The Day of Atonement and Created Order 146 In the Context of the Holiness Code 149 Conclusion 150 Chapter 7: The Šemittah Year and Law of Slave Release in Deuteronomy 15:1-18 152 Introduction 152 Šemittah 152 Debates 154 Debt Forgiveness or Deferment 154 Same or Double Work in v. 18 156 Structure 157 The Šemittah Year (15:1-11) 161 The Law of Slave Release (15:12-18) 165 Key Issues and Themes 166 Sabbath Rhythm 166 Generosity 168 Right Attitude 171 חטא in Deuteronomy 172 Particularity 174 Slave Laws in Deuteronomy 15:12-18 and Exodus 21:2-11 175 Theology 179 Care for the Poor Kin 179 The Gift of Land 180 Slavery in Egypt and the Exodus Event 181 Sovereignty of YHWH 182 Šemittah Year, Torah, and Joy 185 Conclusion 186 Excursus 2: A Clean-Slate Act in Nehemiah 5:1-13 187 Introduction 187 The Narrative 188 The Vocabulary 189 Shared Themes 191 The Nehemiah Memoir as Self-Presentation and Propaganda 192 Conclusion 194 Chapter 8: Comparisons and Conclusions 196 Introduction 196 Divine versus Human Agency 197 Sabbath 201 Forward-Looking 204 Provisions for the Future 207 Divine Ownership 209 Exclusivity 209 The Exodus Event 212 The Land and the Promise of Blessing 215 Community Ethics 217 Different Approaches 219 Community in Deuteronomy 221 The Land and YHWH’s Sovereignty in the Holiness Code 224 Conclusions 225 Bibliography 228

Yiwen Zhan defends a new account of the pragmatics of assertion, according to which assertions are agents’ performative speech acts of commitment to truth. He explains how such a pragmatic approach can be fitted into Fregean context and account for the force–content relation, non-assertoric contents, context-sensitivity, constitutive norms, belief and the dynamics in discourse, and other related problems.

Atendendo ao caráter não universal da delicadeza ou à sua flutuação cultural, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo investigar o desempenho de um grupo de estudantes específico de Português Língua Não Materna quanto às estratégias de delicadeza usadas em atos ilocutórios com uma dimensão diretiva, assim como o uso das formas de tratamento em língua portuguesa. No esteio dos atos diretivos, analisamos os atos de ordem, pedido, oferta, convite e proposta, tendo sido estes três últimos incluídos na categoria de atos híbridos, visto também apresentarem uma dimensão comissiva. O estudo das formas de tratamento contempla a constante reestruturação das práticas sociais subjacente aos diferentes condicionantes para a escolha de cada forma, tal como as subtilezas e especificidades de certos vocábulos. Com base num corpus linguístico de produção escrita de estudantes do nível B2 da Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Valência, em Espanha, quisemos verificar se existia uma dissociação entre as competências gramatical e pragmática dos aprendentes, tendo como contraponto produções de falantes nativos. Na análise sociolinguística dos estudantes, destacamos fatores característicos do grupo em observação, como o multilinguismo, a proximidade das línguas românicas e o fator idade. Em face dos resultados obtidos, observamos uma preocupação de os estudantes adequarem as formas à finalidade do ato discursivo e às características dos interlocutores. No entanto, concluímos que a competência pragmática dos aprendentes deve ser reforçada, tendo em conta as especificidades das interações. A proposta didática apresentada neste trabalho inclui exercícios fundamentados nos resultados da análise dos dados recolhidos e na preparação da consciencialização do próprio processo de aprendizagem por parte dos estudantes.
This study examines how a group of students use Portuguese as a non-native language, in relation to the politeness strategies used in directive illocutionary acts, as well as the use of social etiquette strategies or forms of treatment in Portuguese. This is in the context of the non-universal nature of politeness, and how it changes across different cultures. The directive acts we analyze include orders, requests, offers, invitations and proposals. Of these, the last three were included in the category of hybrid acts, since they also have a commissive dimension. The study of the forms of treatment considers the constant restructuring of social practices that underlies the different conditioning factors for the choice of each form, as well as the subtleties and specificities of certain words. The study is based on a body of written work by B2 level students at the Official Language School of Valencia, in Spain. Our intention was to verify if there was a dissociation between the grammatical and pragmatic competence of the learners, taking as counterpoint the written production of native speakers. In the sociolinguistic analysis of students’ work, we highlighted characteristic factors of the group under observation, such as multilingualism, the proximity of Romance languages and age. Based on the results we obtained, we observed that students are concerned about adapting the forms both to the purpose of the discursive acts and to the characteristics of the interlocutors. However, we conclude that the pragmatic competence of learners should be enhanced, taking into account the specificities of the interactions. The didactic proposal presented in this paper includes exercises based on the results of the analysis of the collected data and on activities to raise students' awareness of the learning process itself.

Dissertação de mestrado em Ciências da Linguagem
Este trabalho aborda a importância do discurso acadêmico e do seu ensino sistematizado para a efetiva comunicação no âmbito universitário. Para isso, tomamos como objeto central de estudo os atos discursivos realizados nos enunciados do par ‘pergunta-resposta (P-R)’ como par adjacente, produzidos pelo professor e pelo aluno, respectivamente, nos papéis de participantes na interação comunicativa avaliativa da Prova escrita de validação do conhecimento (PEVC). O objetivo principal é descrever os itens avaliativos da PEVC como intercâmbios das interações de um subgênero discursivo institucionalizado e, portanto, estruturalmente menos flexível quanto à sequenciação dos atos discursivos de cada intervenção interacional. O corpus estudado consiste de itens de avaliação autênticos, selecionados de PEVCs de disciplinas do primeiro ano de dois cursos de uma faculdade localizada na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. O principal foco da análise é a organização estrutural dos atos diretivos da intervenção iniciativa (pergunta) para a qual corresponde uma intervenção reativa (resposta). A partir de uma perspectiva pragmática-discursiva, e particularmente da teoria dos atos, desenvolvida por Austin e Searle, investigamos as diversas estratégias de organização discursiva produzidas pelo professor avaliador e pelos alunos avaliados na realização deste gênero acadêmico. Tivemos em conta a sua organização composicional, em termos do plano de texto caracterizado por uma estrutura cumulativa de “pergunta” e “resposta”. Pretendia-se analisar os elementos constitutivos de cada item de avaliação de prova escrita, para apreender as estratégias de organização de cada um destes turnos de interação de modo a completarem-se como um par adjacente ou intercâmbio. Os resultados apontam para uma relativa estabilidade de organização discursiva e textual da PEVC e evidencia a assimetria discursiva e a previsibilidade da estrutura composicional das respectivas intervenções, sequenciadas em atos discursivos estrategicamente organizados para alcançarem os êxitos esperados nas produções enunciativas. O par “pergunta-resposta”, designação vulgar decorrente da categorização dos falantes, é parte da estruturação discursiva, e a unidade básica do plano de texto característico deste género discursivo em análise. O par “P-R” foi reanalisado como par adjacente, de atos ilocutórios, no quadro da teoria acional da linguagem e, de seguida, como intervenção iniciativa e reativa de um intercâmbio, a fim de recolocar a análise e preservar a dimensão sequencial e global da coerência discursiva. As intervenções iniciativas organizam-se tipicamente em atos sequenciados, assertivos e diretivos. Os atos assertivos assumem a função explicativa e enquadradora do contexto situacional em que determinado evento ocorre, constituindo-se como atos subordinados ao ato dominante de valor diretivo. As intervenções reativas são constituídas por sequências de atos predominantemente assertivos de força explicativa ou argumentativa. As sequências analisadas com características discursivas explicativas estão organizadas em função de diferentes estratégias. Especificamente para os atos ilocutórios diretivos, com função de instrução, que incluem o verbo diretivo ‘explique’, alguns funcionamentos linguísticodiscursivos foram observados: as intervenções reativas ora ofereciam definição para termos, situando seus significados em um contexto específico (Ir1.n), ora ‘explicavam’ a partir de que eventos algo resultava, correlacionando-os em ordem cronológica (Ir4.n).
This work addresses the importance of academic discourse and its systematized teaching for effective communication in the university context. For this, we take as the central object of study the discursive acts performed in the statements of the pair 'question-answer (Q-A)' as adjacent pair, produced by the teacher and the student, respectively, in the roles of participants in the communicative interaction of the Written Test of Knowledge Validation (WTKV). The main objective is to describe the evaluative items of the WTKV as interactions interchanges of an institutionalized discursive subgenre and, therefore, structurally less flexible as to the sequencing of the discursive acts of each interaction intervention. The corpus studied consists of authentic evaluation items, selected from the WTKVs of the first year of two courses at a university located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The main focus of the analysis is the structural organization of the directive acts of the initiative intervention (question) to which a reactive intervention (response) corresponds. From a pragmatic-discursive perspective, and particularly from the theory of acts, developed by Austin and Searle, we investigated the different strategies of discursive organization produced by the evaluating teacher and the evaluated students in the accomplishment of this academic genre. We take into account its compositional organization, in terms of the text plan characterized by a cumulative "question" and "response" structure. It was intended to analyse the constituent elements of each written test evaluation item to apprehend the organizing strategies of each of these interaction turns in order to complete each other as an adjacent pair or interchange. The results point to a relative stability of the discursive and textual organization of the WTKV and it shows the discursive asymmetry and the predictability of the compositional structure of the respective interventions, sequenced in discursive acts strategically organized to reach the expected successes in the enunciative productions. The "question-answer" pair, a common term derived from the categorization of speakers, is part of the discursive structure, and the basic unit of the text plan, characteristic of the discursive genre under analysis. The "Q-A" pair was reanalysed as an adjacent pair of illocutionary acts within the framework of the actional language theory and then as initiative and reactive intervention of an interchange, in order to re-analyse and preserve the sequential and global dimension of discursive coherence. The initiatives interventions are typically organized in sequenced, assertive and directive acts. Assertive acts assume the explanatory and framing function of the situational context in which a given event occurs, constituting itself as acts subordinated to the dominant act of directive value. Reactive interventions consist of sequences of predominantly assertive acts of explanatory or argumentative force. The analysed sequences with explanatory discursive characteristics are organized according to different strategies. Specifically for directional illocutionary acts with an instructional function, which include the verb 'explain', some linguistic-discursive functions were observed: the reactive interventions sometimes offered definition for terms, placing their meanings in a specific context (Ir1.n), sometimes 'explained' from which events something resulted, correlating them in chronological order (Ir4n).

Austin's Speech Act Theory is a valuable tool for the analysis of a literary text. In interaction, the intentionand purpose-success of linguistic communication can be gauged by establishing whether participants have met felicity conditions and have respected maxims. When the Co-operative Principle is ignored, special effects are achieved and receivers can only make sense of utterances through implicature and inferences based on background knowledge and mutual contextual beliefs. In the drama, Buzani kubawo, characters interact on four levels of time in space and place. They reveal themselves and convey theme through their speech and actions. Conflict is entrenched by lines of force drawn between opposing characters and between sub-worlds contrasted. Cohesion, determined by plot structure, and form, expressed on the endophoric and exophoric levels, give meaning to the drama. The micro-analysis of the wedding scene illustrates how communication can misfire should the playwright allow it!
African Languages
M.A. (African languages)

This thesis deals with the theory of speech acts which is based mainly on analysis of speech and its function in communication. We use speech not only to convey something but to also do something, to change the state of things around us and to accomplish specific goals. Speech acts in a literary piece are then analyzed on theoretical basis, specifically in Milan Kundera's dramatic play Majitelé klíčů.