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Chapter 6. The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory

  • Emanuela Cresti
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In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language
This chapter is in the book In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language

Abstract

According to the Language into Act Theory, reference units in speech have a pragmatic nature: they correspond to the activation of sensory-motor schemas leading to the performance of different speech acts. Our background is the affective and psychic motivations of the Human Birth Theory (Fagioli, 1971), compatible with recent theories of Embodied Cognition. Identification and classification of speech acts rest on corpus-based research. Speech activity is encoded by prosody, that conveys utterance boundaries, illocutionary force and information structure. The utterance nucleus is the Comment, responsible for illocutionary force. We illustrate the methodology for the induction of illocutions from corpora and detail pragmatic and prosodic features which allow classifying illocutionary types. A case study is presented for four original illocutions (self-conclusion, assertion taken for granted, ascertainment, evidentiality assertion).

Abstract

According to the Language into Act Theory, reference units in speech have a pragmatic nature: they correspond to the activation of sensory-motor schemas leading to the performance of different speech acts. Our background is the affective and psychic motivations of the Human Birth Theory (Fagioli, 1971), compatible with recent theories of Embodied Cognition. Identification and classification of speech acts rest on corpus-based research. Speech activity is encoded by prosody, that conveys utterance boundaries, illocutionary force and information structure. The utterance nucleus is the Comment, responsible for illocutionary force. We illustrate the methodology for the induction of illocutions from corpora and detail pragmatic and prosodic features which allow classifying illocutionary types. A case study is presented for four original illocutions (self-conclusion, assertion taken for granted, ascertainment, evidentiality assertion).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction. In search of a basic unit of spoken language 1
  5. Part I
  6. Chapter 1. Russian spoken discourse 35
  7. Chapter 2. The basic unit of spoken language and the interfaces between prosody, discourse and syntax 77
  8. Chapter 3. Prosody and the organization of information in Central Pomo, a California indigenous language 107
  9. Chapter 4. Syntactic and prosodic segmentation in spoken French 127
  10. Chapter 5. Design and annotation of two-level utterance units in Japanese 155
  11. Chapter 6. The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory 181
  12. Chapter 7. Illocution as a unit of reference for spontaneous speech 221
  13. Chapter 8. Narrative discourse segmentation in clinical linguistics 257
  14. Chapter 9. Cross-linguistic comparison of automatic detection of speech breaks in read and narrated speech in four languages 285
  15. Part II
  16. Same texts, different approaches to segmentation 303
  17. Chapter 1. Segmentation and analysis of the two English excerpts 309
  18. Chapter 2. Analysis of two English spontaneous speech examples with the dependency incremental prosodic structure model 327
  19. Chapter 3. Applying criteria of spontaneous Hebrew speech segmentation to English 337
  20. Chapter 4. Basic units of speech segmentation 349
  21. Chapter 5. Segmentation of the English texts Navy and Hearts with SUU and LUU 359
  22. Chapter 6. The Moscow approach to local discourse structure 367
  23. Chapter 7. Some notes on the Hearts and Navy excerpts according to the Language into Act Theory 383
  24. Chapter 8. Comparing annotations for the prosodic segmentation of spontaneous speech 403
  25. Index 433
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.94.06cre

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction. In search of a basic unit of spoken language 1
  5. Part I
  6. Chapter 1. Russian spoken discourse 35
  7. Chapter 2. The basic unit of spoken language and the interfaces between prosody, discourse and syntax 77
  8. Chapter 3. Prosody and the organization of information in Central Pomo, a California indigenous language 107
  9. Chapter 4. Syntactic and prosodic segmentation in spoken French 127
  10. Chapter 5. Design and annotation of two-level utterance units in Japanese 155
  11. Chapter 6. The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory 181
  12. Chapter 7. Illocution as a unit of reference for spontaneous speech 221
  13. Chapter 8. Narrative discourse segmentation in clinical linguistics 257
  14. Chapter 9. Cross-linguistic comparison of automatic detection of speech breaks in read and narrated speech in four languages 285
  15. Part II
  16. Same texts, different approaches to segmentation 303
  17. Chapter 1. Segmentation and analysis of the two English excerpts 309
  18. Chapter 2. Analysis of two English spontaneous speech examples with the dependency incremental prosodic structure model 327
  19. Chapter 3. Applying criteria of spontaneous Hebrew speech segmentation to English 337
  20. Chapter 4. Basic units of speech segmentation 349
  21. Chapter 5. Segmentation of the English texts Navy and Hearts with SUU and LUU 359
  22. Chapter 6. The Moscow approach to local discourse structure 367
  23. Chapter 7. Some notes on the Hearts and Navy excerpts according to the Language into Act Theory 383
  24. Chapter 8. Comparing annotations for the prosodic segmentation of spontaneous speech 403
  25. Index 433
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