The Concept of Speech Act

The Concept of Speech Act



The Concept of Speech Act
First, I want to explain speech act concept. I think speech acts are the way of saying feelings and emotions. Speech acts are an important thing in language because if you want to tell your situation, you have to express yourself in a really good way. This situation require to know not only rules of language but also their culture. According to University of Minnesota’ sources:
A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal. A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to perform an apology, or several words or sentences: "I’m sorry I forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind." Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture. Speech acts are difficult to perform in a second language because learners may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in the second language or they may transfer their first language rules and conventions into the second language, assuming that such rules are universal. Because the natural tendency for language learners is to fall back on what they know to be appropriate in their first language, it is important that these learners understand exactly what they do in that first language in order to be able to recognize what is transferable to other languages. Something that works in English might not transfer in meaning when translated into the second language. (http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html)
If I give an example for culturel differentness, I can give an idiom for this: ‘rain cats and dogs”. Normally we want to translate this word by word meaning will change and this situation arise from culturel differentness in language.
There are two type of speech act, one of them is direct speech act and the other one is...

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