MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY HỒ THỊ MINH TÂM A STUDY ON ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS OF EXPRESSIVES IN MODERN AMERICAN SHORT STORIES FIELD: English Linguistics CODE: 8.01 Supervisor: HÀ THANH HẢI, PhD BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN HỒ THỊ MINH TÂM NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC PHƯƠNG THỨC DIỄN ĐẠT THUỘC HÀNH VI TẠI LỜI TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN HIỆN ĐẠI HOA KỲ Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. HÀ THANH HẢI i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I consequently certify that this master thesis has been written by myself and describes my own work, unless otherwise stated in the text. All references or sources of information have been clearly acknowledged and are included in the References. Furthermore, identical extracts have been quoted extensively.
This thesis has not been approved in any previous application for another degree or diploma. Binh Dinh, 2023 Ho Thi Minh Tam ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation to my supervisor, Doctor Hà Thanh Hải, who has given me much great advice and encouragement during the time I managed to complete this thesis. I am also indebted to her for spending his time to read my manuscripts and make the necessary changes. I would like to extend my gratitude to the lectures of this course for their valuable lectures, materials, and experiences which have contributed to the foundation of my thesis.
I am very much thankful to my friends for encouraging me and providing me with needed materials. My warmest thanks are given to my beloved family who always takes care of me and helps me overcome a lot of stress throughout the course as well as the study of this thesis. Binh Dinh, 2023 Ho Thi Minh Tam iii ABSTRACT Expressives as illocutionary acts emerge as one of the most strictly typical pragmatic characteristics and indicate the speaker’s feelings, attitude, and psychological state, particularly in modern short stories. Based on the illocutionary acts, 10 modern short stories from well-known American authors (Kate Doyle, Caitlin Horrocks, Mia Alvar, Alexandra Kleeman, John Wiswell, etc.) are collected to demonstrate how expressives as illocutionary acts are used in modern American short stories.
The purpose of this study is to analyze and classify the syntactic and functional aspects of expressives as an illocutionary act that can be found in 145 turns containing expressives in modern American short stories. The theory from Quirk and Greenbaum's (1973) is used to analyze the syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act. There are four syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act, including declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives, and exclamatives. Then, Searle's analytical framework (1979) is used to analyze the functions of expressives as an illocutionary act.
There are six functions of expressive acts based on Searle's (1979) theory. Those are thanking, apologizing, congratulating, greetings, wishing, and attitudes. This thesis also uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. All the things the characters say are looked at using descriptive methods, discussion, and comments to find out what we can learn about the syntactic and functional tasks that need to be done.
Despite the limitations of a small study and the lack of time, the researcher hopes that the thesis will contribute to increasing awareness of pragmatics and clarifying illocutionary act theory with specific analysis and interpretation of expressives as illocutionary acts in modern American short stories. Keywords: Pragmatics, illocutionary acts, expressives, modern American iv short stories, syntactics features, functional features. v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
v LIST OF TABLE. viii LIST OF FIGURES. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims and objectives.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the study. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Speech Acts theory. The definition of Illocutionary Acts. Classification of Illocutionary Acts. The definition of Expressives.
Syntactic features of English sentences. Functional features of Expressives. Validity and Reliability. 32 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
The syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories. The functional features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories. The syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act performed by the charaters in the ten of modern American short stories. The functional features of expressives as an illocutionary act performed by the charaters in the ten of modern American short stories.
Limitations of the study. Suggestion for further research. 55 vii APPENDIX viii LIST OF TABLE Table 4. The Syntactic Features of Expressives as an Illocutionary Act in Modern American Short Stories.
The Functional Features of Expressives as an Illocutionary Act in modern American short stories. 41 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4. Number of Syntactic Features of Expressives as an Illocutionary Act in Modern American Short Stories. Number of Functional Features of Expressives as an Illocutionary Act.
41 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The present chapter describes the major components of the thesis and provides the rationale for the study. At the beginning, the main reasons for conducting the study is presented. The aims of the thesis then is stated, and clarified by the research questions. The scope and significance of the current study are also discussed in the chapter.
It ends with a description of the organization of the thesis. Rationale It is widely accepted that communication is an essential need in our lives, and language is one of the most effective and successful means of communication. As a result, when we communicate, language plays an important role. It cannot be denied that when speaking, the speaker must consider not only the content of the speech but also how to express it so that the listener can understand it easily.
Furthermore, speakers frequently use speculative statements, forcing listeners to deduce both the speaker's literal and implicit meaning. Because of the reasons above, mastering the relationship between the external form and the underlying purpose of an utterance are regarded as the golden key to successful communication. According to Griffiths (2006), the act of speaking is the fundamental unit of language interactions such as warnings, greetings, applications, communicating information, confirming appointments, and other expressions. Every expression that people use in everyday conversation is an example of a illocutionary acts, but they are unaware of it.
Illocutionary acts, obviously, cover a wide range of languages; all sentences that people say are illocutionary acts, as is the word "hello", which is one example of a speech act to say hello and ask. As a result, the act of speaking is performed every day, at any time, and anywhere in the world. Illocutionary acts are utterances made by two or more people acting as 2 speakers and listeners (Yule, 1996). Therefore, illocutionary acts have always occupied a prominent and leading position in the study of pragmatics in particular and language use in general.
That is, speech behavior is regarded as one of the most typical pragmatic features, which is crucial in the communication process in everyday contexts as well as in the process of language teaching and learning. Indeed, among the five types of illocutionary acts, it is expressives that emerge as one of the most strikingly typical pragmatics characteristics, particularly in modern short stories. However, despite the fact that expressives have occuppied an importantly irreplaceable position in terms of speech act studies, there has been a lack of research putting much emphasis on such expressive-related issues under the umbrella of pragmatics perspective. In fact, there are numerous sources of valuable reference material available, including both the media and published literature.
This provides numerous advantages to teachers and students while getting them engaged in daily English and Vietnamese conversation. Reading allows people to learn more and widen their knowledge. Furthermore, people can improve their language skills in a variety of settings by reading modern American short stories. Researchers studying linguistic behavior can benefit from reading modern American short stories.
Famous works of this genre have always piqued the interest of readers not only in Vietnam, but almost everywhere in the world. Through modern American short stories, we have a deeper insight into the culture of communication by using illocutionary acts. It is extremely beneficial for improving people's pragmatic abilities and assisting us in becoming more successful communicators in English. In addition, the topic of discussion is chosen due to the appeal of a character in modern American short stories to be evaluated.
Researchers can reach a broader audience through reference and conversation. Researchers can 3 interpret or describe how illocutionary acts occur in a new character. Expressives as illocutionary acts analysis research can also be done in the form of a literary work in the form of a text, where the study of speech actions is not limited to the original person who talks, or in the form of video. This study employs novel objects because short tales are imaginary prose narratives that often depict character and action in written form.
Linguistically, many aspects in modern American short tales must be studied in terms of pragmatic comprehension, such as implicature, presupposition, and speech acts. Furthermore, modern American short stories have distinct literary styles that allow readers to readily understand them. Finally, as far as I know, there are also a number of studies on expressing illocutionary acts used in modern American short stories, so this thesis hopes to provide more complete and richer material of illocutionary acts for everyday communication. The research will also help people comprehend illocutionary acts of expressives and be proficient in applying them.
All these factors have created the tremendous motivation for me to conduct this research. Aims and objectives 1. Aims The aim of my research is to analyze expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories. Through the analysis of turns containing expressives as illocutionary acts in these modern American short stories, we will find out syntactic and functional features of expressives used from their detailed characteristics employed to realize them.
Objectives In order to achieve the aim of the research, there are two objectives as follows: - To find out the syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories. 4 - To find out the functional features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories. Research questions The thesis is made to answer two following questions: 1. What are the syntactic features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories? 2.
What are the functional features of expressives as an illocutionary act in modern American short stories? 1. Scope of the study By virtue of limited time and research conditions, it is obviously difficult to conduct a large-scale investigation of illocutionary acts in all modern American short stories. Instead, this thesis will focus mainly on the syntactic and the functions of expressives as illocutionary acts collected from about 10 modern American short stories in the 21st century chosen. The short stories are chosen based on their potential to win literary awards and each short story ranges in length from 2000 to 5000 words.
Significance of the study The study is expected to contribute to the field of pragmatic analysis studies, particularly illocutionary acts research, which still receives not much attention from scholars in the field. In terms of theory, this research helps to make a contribution to the study, performance and interpretation of illocutionary acts as well as help to clarify the illocutionary acts theory thanks to detailed analysis and interpretation of the illocutionary acts utilized in modern American short stories. In terms of practice, the manipulation of indirect types in modern American short stories into real-life contexts to reinforce the effectiveness and efficiency of communication and language teaching-learning process is worth to consider.