CSD-4162 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Illocutionary Act
27 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
• Dore’s Primitive Speech Acts
o Examines communicative function (purpose or intent)
o Code young children’s utterances as they begin to acquire language (9 codes)
o Primitive speech act
▪ An utterance
▪ A single word or single prosodic pattern
▪ Functions to convey a child’s intentions before he acquires sentences
o Dore’s Primitive Speech Acts
▪ Labeling
• label an object or event
▪ Repeating
• repeats part of the adult utterance while attending to the adult
utterance
▪ Answering
• responds to an adult question or statement while attending to the adult
utterance
▪ Requesting action
• requests an action while attending to the adult utterance
• May be accompanied by a gesture
▪ Requesting answer- request for an answer
• May gesture toward an object
▪ Calling
• obtaining another’s attention
▪ Greeting
• used to mark arrival or leave-taking while attending to the adult or
object
▪ Protesting
• expresses disapproval or dislike for an object or an action to the adult
▪ Practicing
• Not contingent upon preceding utterances
• Produced while attending to an object or event
• Catch-all category to be used whenever an utterance cannot be
assigned clearly to another category
o Dore’s Conversational Acts
▪ Assesses communicative functions of utterances
• Based on the form of the utterance
• Based on how the utterance is used in conversation
• Conversation Act consists of a
o Proposition
▪ Conceptual information
▪ What the utterance means
o Illocutionary force
▪ How the speaker intends the utterance to be taken
