Illocutionary Acts and Comparison English-Vietnamese

The Comparison
of Illocutionary
Acts
in English &
Vietnamese
Presented by:
● Nguyễn Vũ Nhật Ánh -
20176364
● Trịnh Ngọc My - 20176440
● Phạm Hồng Nhung - 2017
OUTLINE!
PRACTIC
DEFINIT TAXONOMY
AL
ION OF
IMPLICA
ILLOCUTIO
TIONS
NARY ACTS
SPEECH ACTS
AND
ILLOCUTIONARY
ACTS
SPEECH ACTS
- First introduced by British philosopher John Langshaw Austin
in How to Do Things With Words and further developed by
American philosopher John Rogers Searle
.
SPEECH ACTS
o Speech acts are actions performed by utterance

e.g:
“You’re fired!”
“Raise your hand!”
“I’ll call you tonight”
“The tea is too cold.”
SPEECH ACTS
LOCUTI ILLOCUTI PERLOCUTIO

ONARY ONARY NARY
ACTS ACTS
ACTS
ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS
o Is the communicative force or intention of an utterance.
o Defined by social conventions such as accusing, admitting, apologizing,
challenging, complaining,…
o The same utterance can have different illocutionary acts in different
contexts
e.g: “I’ve just made some coffee” an explanation of the coffee smell
an offer
“I’ll see you later” a prediction
a promise
a warning
2. Taxonomy of
illocutionary acts
and the comparison
between English and
Vietnamese
Taxonomy of illocutionary acts
Commissive
Representatives
Expressive
Declaration Directives
Declaration
- Illocutionary acts that change the world via their utterance/ words.
e.g:
o Priest: “I now pronounce you husband and wife”.
Þ The marital status of both the groom and the bridge are changed into
married.
o The employer: “You’re fired”
Þ Your employment is hereby terminated
o Judge: I sentence you to 6 months in prison.
Þ The criminal is sent to the prison.
- In order to perform a declaration effectively, the speaker must
have a special contextual privilege that allow him/her to perform an
also contextual declaration to bring about a change.
Expressive
- It shows the attitudes or feelings of the speaker via utterance.
e.g.: “I’m sorry”, “I like it”, “Thank you”.
Thanking in Vietnamese and
- English
In English: people have been using “Thank you” or “Thanks” since the old
times.
- In Vietnamese: the expression has changes with the times.
• In feudal period: “cảm tạ”, “đa tạ”, “bái tạ”, “đội ơn”, “tạ ơn”
• Even now: in ceremonial, spiritual circumstances, people still use those
words.
e.g.: “Lạy Chúa” / “Tạ ơn trời đất” (“Thank God”)
Commissive
- It is the act of committing to some future actions, such as promising, threating,
begging, etc
e.g.: “I will come to your home tonight”.
=> The speaker intends to come to the hearer’s home at the night time. In other
word, this speech act is called a promise.
Promising in Vietnamese and
English
- Both English & Vietnamese: people use performative verbs to perform a
promise, such as “promise / hứa”, “swear / thề”, “undertake / cam kết”, ect.
- In Vietnamese: “promise” commits to the positive actions in the future;
- In English: “promise” may come to a totally different meaning.
e.g.: “If you don’t behave well, I promise there’s going be trouble” (a threat)
but in Vietnamese, we say “Tao thề sẽ làm mày điêu đứng” instead of “Tao hứa
sẽ làm mày điêu đứng”.
Promising in Vietnamese and
- English
In Vietnamese: the promising meaning can be implied.
+) Dẫu / dẫu cho / cho dù / dù thế nào đi chăng nữa (No matter what / No
matter how)
e.g.: “Cô vẫn yêu người đàn ông dẫu cho anh ta có xát muối vào ruột cô thế
nào đi chăng nữa”.
+) Cứ yên tâm đi / Sẽ không / Không bao giờ
e.g.: “Cứ yên tâm ngủ một lát đi rồi lát tôi đưa cô đi”
- Foreigners, who don’t know deeply Vietnamese, may not understand the implied
meaning in those utterances.
Representative
- Representative is a speech act of stating, proposing, bragging, complaining,
expressing opinions, and reporting. The truth of the proposition is depended on
the speaker.
E.g. ‘And yet it moves’. - Galileo Galilei, is to claim that the Earth moves
around the Sun.
− In both English and Vietnamese: representative is commonly used without much

significant differences.
Directive
– A DIRECTIVE act is any illocutionary act which essentially involves the
speaker trying to get the hearer to behave in some required way.
– The functions of directive speech acts are ordering, commanding, begging,

demanding, and advising. (1)
E.g. ‘Stop’
‘Could I have two coffees and a tea, please?’
Requesting in Vietnamese and
English
− In both English and Vietnamese: imperatives are used to make a request.
− In English: Imperative request is more polite with ‘Please’.
E.g. ‘Please remember to close the windows before you leave’

− In Vietnamese: Imperative request is more polite with ‘Hãy’, ‘Vui lòng’.
E.g. ‘Hãy giữ trật tự’’

‘Vui lòng không ngắt hoa trong khu vực công viên’
Asking for permission in
− In English: mostVietnamese and for
of speech acts of asking English
permission come under the
interrogative form with auxiliary verbs, such as “Would you mind...?”,
“Could you...?”, “May I...?”.
E.g. ‘Excuse me, can I get pass?’
‘Would you mind closing the door?’
‘Could you lend me a pen?’
− Native English speakers tend to use ‘Could I…’ rather than ‘Could you…’ to
ask for permission because the more benefits hearer seems to get, the more
polite it sounds. (2)
E.g. ‘Could I borrow this electric drill’ – more polite
‘Could you lend me this electric drill?”
Asking for permission in
− In Vietnamese: Vietnamese
most of speech acts ofand
askingEnglish
for permission go with some
verbs, such as “xin”, “xin phép”.
E.g. ‘Cháu xin phép bác vào nhặt quả bóng ạ’
− Speech acts of asking permission in Vietnamese are in interrogative form as

that in English, but they have different auxiliary verbs, such as ‘... được
không?’, ‘... nhé?’
E.g. ‘Cho tớ mượn xe nhé?’
‘Tối nay con đi chơi được không ạ?’
3. Practical Implications
Implication in Translation &
Interpretation
The knowledge of differences between speech acts in English and Vietnamese
assists ESL students in translating/interpreting more naturally and exactly
without misunderstanding the meaning of foreigners.
− (1) Rahardi, R. K. (2000). Imperatif Dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Yogyakarta:
Duta Wacana University Press.
− (2) Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.

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The Comparison

o Speech acts are actions performed by utterance

LOCUTI ILLOCUTI PERLOCUTIO

− In both English and Vietnamese: representative is commonly used without much

– The functions of directive speech acts are ordering, commanding, begging,

E.g. ‘Please remember to close the windows before you leave’

E.g. ‘Hãy giữ trật tự’’

− Speech acts of asking permission in Vietnamese are in interrogative form as

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