跟讀練習: SEM141 - Speech Acts - An Overview - 通過影片學習英語口語

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149 句

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Any semantic theory must give an account of word and sentence meaning, explaining their nature and the relations between them.

Yet, such a semantic theory has little to say about any structures other than standard declarative sentences

or about semantic aspects involved in conversation.

Look at the following anomalies.

there please.

Well, here the adverb there is illegal in this context.

Rather it should be come here please, that is, from an external position to the position of the interlocutor.

Or take this one.

I hereby run to the station.

Well, here the adverbial hereby requires a so-called performative verb,

that is, a verb that performs a certain action such as promise, declare but run is not such a verb.

What do you think about this one here?

I promise I'll come to your party.

That's not really me, is it?

Anyway, the term promise normally involves that the addressee wants the promise to be realized.

Is that the case here?

Do you really want me to turn up at your party?

I don't know.

Well, here is my final example.

The table is under the ashtray.

Here we have a problem of perspective.

Small objects are mentioned first if they are related to larger objects.

Thus, the table is under the ashtray is only acceptable in this situation.

If the ashtray is at least as big as the table, maybe in a fairy tale world.

The goal of pragmatics is to define these and other non-truth functional aspects of meaning, hence a more general approach to meaning.

The modern use of the term pragmatics goes back to the American philosopher Charles William Morris,

who defined pragmatics as the study of the relation of signs to interpreters.

Thus, we need to make a distinction between the usual meaning of a word

or a sentence and the meaning it has in specific circumstances.

That is, we need to differentiate between meaning and use.

Here is an example.

Imagine someone says, it's fairly hot in here, which is the case because there are all the lamps around me.

Now, what does this utterance mean?

Well, it probably means that you could say some unknown person notices

that the temperature at the location of the speaker is currently above average.

That's the plain meaning.

And what about the use?

Well, the use could be something like this.

Someone is intended to open the window.

Now this dichotomy between semantics, the meaning on the one hand, and pragmatics, the use, is controversial among linguists.

Perhaps the most useful distinction is made in terms of sentence meaning versus utterance meaning,

where the latter includes all secondary aspects of meaning.

Two fields constitute the core of linguistic pragmatics,

the analysis of utterances and the analysis of conversation.

We will focus on utterances in this e-lecture.

In a now famous little book entitled How to do things with words,

with words, which was posthumously published in 1962,

John Langshaw Austin pointed out that a large number of utterances are part of an action, that is, they are performative.

For example, I hereby name this ship HMS Titanic.

This utterance is clearly in action.

As soon As it is uttered by the person who is entitled to utter it, the ship will have been named accordingly.

Thus uttering this sentence is an action of baptism.

Oh, here's another one.

There's a dog in the field.

Well, this utterance is likely to be understood as a warning.

Well, and how do you understand this?

Don't do that.

Well, maybe as an order or a request.

The peculiar thing about these sentences is that they are not used to state things.

That is, they are not just conceptive, but rather actively do things.

Furthermore, such utterances cannot be assessed as true or false, but only as appropriate or inappropriate.

How this is done has been manifested in speech act theory.

Now besides the insight that utterances are used to perform actions,

speech act theory assumes that speakers are simultaneously involved in three different speech acts when uttering a sentence.

Let us analyze these acts using our utterance don't do that.

The first of these acts is the so-called locutionary act.

This is the act of uttering a sentence with its meaning comprising phonetic and syntactic aspects corresponding to any meaningful utterance.

What does don't do that mean?

Well, it first of all addresses an unknown person,

you, the covered subject, the addressee of the speech act.

Then don't, well that's the opposite of allowance, this is the symbol for negation in logic.

So someone is not allowed to perform something.

So you're not allowed to perform something.

What is it that you're not allowed to perform?

Well, it's the overt object, probably this object here, this socket,

the object of the sentence meaning an unknown entity.

Well, as I said in this case, the socket.

So, the locutionary act is related to the basic linguistic analysis of an utterance.

Central to speech act theory is the illocutionary act.

It describes what the speaker does by uttering a sentence, that is, in performing the locutionary act.

For example, commanding, promising, threatening, warning, and so on and so forth.

The intended effect of an utterance used to perform a certain elocutionary act is known as elocutionary force.

Most elocutionary acts are implicit.

That is, they lack a particular performative verb signaling the act.

So, don't do that is an implicit order.

However, we can easily make an implicit act explicit.

An elocutionary act is explicit if the utterance contains a performative verb, that is a verb that denotes the act.

The optional adverb hereby can be inserted into such a performative utterance to stress its performative nature.

Well, here is the explicit elocutionary act.

Now, such an explicit elocutionary act or performative utterance follows a specific linguistic formula.

It always has a subject which must occur in the first person singular.

Then we have the optional adverbial hereby and a verb.

And the verb, quite interestingly, must be used in the simple present tense.

Now compare the following.

If I said, I am hereby ordering, this would not be in order at all.

It would be an explanation of what I'm doing at a particular time.

So it must occur in the simple present tense.

And then of course we have an optional object which,

if we use it, must occur in the second person, singular or plural.

100

There are some cases where the object could occur in the third person, for example, in the act of baptizing,

101

I hereby name this ship, for example.

102

Even if you use performative utterances, the interpretation might not necessarily be clear.

103

My father, and I remember this very well, often said to me, My dear son, I promise if you do that again, I will.

104

It was a warning, wasn't it?

105

Shall I tell you the whole story?

106

Well, I'd better not.

107

Let's finally look at the perlocutionary act.

108

The perlocutionary act denotes the effects on the listener by means of performing the illocutionary act.

109

The effects are special to the situation and may or may not be what the speaker intended.

110

Don't do that.

111

Well, what is the intention?

112

Well, either the speaker succeeds in preventing the listener from touching the dangerous object or not.

113

All speech acts have to follow certain felicity conditions.

114

I love that word.

115

An alternative would be appropriacy conditions.

116

Now, these conditions have to be satisfied for the performance of a speech act to be recognized as intended.

117

There are cases where the performance of a speech act will be infelicitous or, if you prefer, inappropriate, if the speaker is not a specific person in a specific context.

118

Here are some examples of declarations.

119

I declare open the Olympic Games.

120

Well, can I do it?

121

Certainly not.

122

I'm not the person who is entitled to do so.

123

So I have just violated one felicity condition.

124

I sentence you to six months in prison.

125

Again, I can't do that.

126

Or could you say something like, I hereby finish my oral exam?

127

You'd love to, but you can't because it's your examiner who is entitled to do that.

128

So you see declarations just like the other illocutionary acts such as promising or threatening, they have to follow certain conditions.

129

Austin's approach identifies several such conditions ranging from preparatory conditions,

130

that is the necessary condition for a speech act such as the correct person who performs it,

131

to propositional conditions where an act needs to say certain things about the world which are in line with the speech act.

132

These conditions will be discussed in a separate e-lecture about speech acts.

133

Now many efforts have aimed at categorizations of the types of speech acts possible in language.

134

In fact, some acts are so universal and fundamental that they are grammaticalized into the same basic sentence types in most languages.

135

So, for example, into statements, into questions, to orders.

136

However, this typology only associates sentence types with their most literal, unmarked elocutionary force.

137

Generally, the set of speech acts recognized by the speakers of a language is much more diverse and more finely grained.

138

A more sophisticated scheme was proposed by John Searle who was born in 1932.

139

He suggested that all speech acts fall into five main categories.

140

Representatives, things such as boasting or bragging, I'm an excellent footballer, would be such an act.

141

Directives or commands.

142

Commissives such as promising, well we've heard about some examples here here, expressive emotional responses, something like,

143

oh please forgive me, and of course, declarations.

144

With this e-lecture, you should now have some basic understanding of the fact that you can actually do something with language,

145

and that you can achieve particular effects.

146

So pragmatics is more than mere analysis of language.

147

It is the examination of language and its effects you can achieve with it.

148

This e-lecture concentrated on the effects you can achieve with utterances.

149

A follow-up e-lecture will add the central principles of conversation. So see you then.

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本課的詞彙與口語要點

這節 C1 級別的口語課以影片“SEM141 - Speech Acts - An Overview”為素材。影片中反覆出現的詞有：utterance, speech, sentence, meaning, condition。這段影片共有 149 個句子、1683 個單詞可供跟讀。講話部分時長為 14:18。說話人語速平穩，每分鐘約 118 個詞，很適合跟讀。只有 81% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，詞彙難度較高。

影片中的重點詞彙

影片中最難的 15 個單詞，附發音和釋義：

單詞	發音	釋義
verb 名詞	/vɝb/	動詞 /動詞
pragmatic 形容詞	/pɹæɡˈmætɪk/	務實的 /務實的
utter 動詞	/ˈʌtəɹ/	發出 /發出, 說出 /說出
explicit 形容詞	/ɪkˈsplɪs.ɪt/	精確
intend 動詞	/ɪnˈtɛnd/	打算, 想要
ashtray 名詞	/ˈæʃ.tɹeɪ/	煙灰缸 /菸灰缸, 煙灰碟 /菸灰碟
implicit 形容詞	/ɪmˈplɪsɪt/	隱含的 /隱含的, 隱含的
linguistic 形容詞	/lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪk/	語言的 /語言的
addressee 名詞	/ˌædɹɛˈsiː/	收件人
denote 動詞	/dɪˈnoʊt/	表示, 意為
socket 名詞	/ˈsɑkɪt/	插座, 插口
listener 名詞	/ˈlɪs(ə)nɚ/	傾聽者 /傾聽者, 聽者 /聽者
singular 形容詞	/ˈsɪŋ.ɡjə.lɚ/	單一 /單一
threaten 動詞	/ˈθɹɛt.n̩/	威脅 /威脅, 恐嚇 /恐嚇
tense 名詞	/tɛns/	時態 /時態, 時制 /時制

影片中出現的短語動詞

單詞	釋義
follow up 動詞	跟進 /跟進
point out 動詞	指, 指出

值得反覆跟讀的句子

影片中簡短而完整的句子，可以直接用在日常對話裡：

What do you think about this one here?
I promise I'll come to your party.
That's not really me, is it?
What is it that you're not allowed to perform?
Shall I tell you the whole story?

影片中的語法

說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：

結構	影片中的用法
條件句 if + 從句，will/would + 動詞 — 條件及其結果	if you do that again, I will
被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的	be realized · are mentioned · is intended
定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物	here, which is · words, which was · person who is
現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事	has been manifested · have just violated · have aimed

需要注意的發音

說話人用了 19 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 don't, I'm, can't。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。

“sh” 和 “zh” 音: ashtray /ˈæʃ.tɹeɪ/, optional /ˈɑp.ʃə.nəl/, categorization /ˌkæt.ə.ɡə.ɹaɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, negation /nɪˈɡeɪʃn̩/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/
長單詞——注意重音位置: adverbial /ædˈvɝbi.əl/, felicity /fəˈlɪsəti/, inappropriate /ˌɪnəˈpɹoʊpɹi.ət/, anomaly /əˈnɑ.mə.li/, categorization /ˌkæt.ə.ɡə.ɹaɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/

如何用這段影片練習

先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
用正常速度逐句跟讀，每句重複到你的節奏與說話人一致為止。
錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 verb, pragmatic, utter 這類單詞。

什麼是跟讀法？

跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。

影子跟讀法: 閱讀完整分步指南 →

跟讀練習: SEM141 - Speech Acts - An Overview - 通過影片學習英語口語

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