ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA

XLVI (2002), 145–172

The strategy, social roles, and types of speech act participants in Lithuanian

EGIDIJUS ZAIKAUSKAS

Vilniaus universitetas

The article deals with the theory of speech act participants. It is based mainly on Austin’s theory of performatives and on Grice’s maxims of communication. The theoretical claims are illustrated mainly with Lithuanian examples of performative speech act types. Three aspects of the study of speech act participants are singled out: (a) communicative strategies, (b) social roles and (c) types of speaker’s and hearer’s roles as defined with respect to illocutionary acts. Both participants may choose either a constructive or a destructive communicative strategy. Performatives reduce to a minimum the possibility of selecting a destructive strategy but do not eliminate it altogether. A correct assessment of the speaker’s and the hearer’s social roles determines the way in which the speaker makes explicit his illocutionary intention and the way in which the hearer interprets it. Types of speakers and hearers (addressees) are defined not only with respect to illocutionary force, but also with respect to the circumstances of the speech act and the way in which it is performed (institutional or in everyday life, orally or in writing etc.).

Speech act theory (including the theory of performatives) is one of the most important parts of linguistic pragmatics. As Ch. Morris, the very creator of the term pragmatics, notes, having divided semiotics into three parts—syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics—“pragmatics is the science of the relation of signs to THOSE WHO INTERPRET THEM (emphasis mine—E. Z.)” (Morris 1938: 30). In a particular situation, any sign or set of signs (in our case, a speech act) has two interpreters: the sender of the speech act, the speaker, hereafter called the addressor, and the recipient of the speech act, the listener, hereafter called the addressee¹.

The addressor and the addressee are among the most important factors in a speech act. The addressor is the initiator and creator of the speech act. Through the speech act, the addressor realizes their communicative intentions. However, to achieve the desired goal, the addressor must also take the addressee into account: their social role, their pragmatic presupposition—that is, what the addressee knows about the situation in which the speech act is performed—and, finally, the addressee’s ability to understand the speech act appropriately—its illocution and proposition.

This article examines the following aspects of speech act participants:

– the interlocutors’ linguistic strategy,

– the social roles of the addressor and addressee,

¹Different authors also call the addressor a locutor, expedient, subject, or author, and the addressee a percipient, recipient, decoder, etc. (see Vilkienė 1998: 154).

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– the relationship between the illocutions of speech acts and various types of speakers and addressees.

1. THE LINGUISTIC STRATEGY OF SPEAKERS

Both the speaker and the addressee of a speech act have their own communicative goals. These goals determine not only the lexical and grammatical means of expression, style, and manner of performance selected by the speaker, but also the interpretation of the illocution and proposition of a particular act. J. Hintikka maintains that participants in a conversation choose a particular strategy for performing a speech act (the speaker) and receiving a speech act (the addressee), which can determine its interpretation, including the understanding of its illocutionary force (Hintikka 1979: 36).

1.1. The speaker’s linguistic strategy

The speaker’s strategy can be twofold:

– constructive – to communicate one’s intentions precisely;

– destructive – to disguise one’s true intentions in an utterance or, more precisely, to leave gaps for interpretation so that later, if necessary, one can offer a different interpretation—more favorable to oneself in that situation.

Illocutionary force is conveyed in a speech act by various means and, if the addressee’s aim is to interpret the speech act performed by the speaker as the speaker intends (the constructive strategy), these means are usually understood adequately. Nevertheless, so that the illocution of a speech act is not misinterpreted (deliberately or due to some unfavorable circumstances), the speaker may choose explicit means of indicating illocutionary force—performative verbs. It is especially important for the speaker to indicate illocutionary force precisely in institutional (legal, administrative) speech acts; therefore, performatives are most commonly used in formal language. According to Ch. Peirce (1976: 249–250), “in asserting a certain proposition, the speaker assumes responsibility for its truth and is punishable in some way if this proposition proves to be false.” Thus, the speaker is concerned that the proposition uttered be interpreted in such a way that it does not become false. The listener, meanwhile, is concerned to determine whether the speaker has uttered a false proposition, and seeks an interpretation that would reveal this (Hilpinen 1986: 304).

It is another matter when the speaker themselves seeks to prevent the addressee from understanding their true aim. In that case, the speaker chooses the destructive strategy. By means of the destructive strategy, the speaker seeks, in one way or another, to deceive the addressee. This by no means implies that the speaker’s speech act must be false (the maxim of quality in Grice’s theory of conversation is not violated—do not say what is false (Grice 1975: 46)); however, the speech act is always insincere: it violates one of the six felicity conditions for speech acts identified by J. L. Austin—that of sincerity (Austin 1962: 39–40). Indirect speech acts that allow room for interpretation are more suitable for a speaker who has chosen the destructive strategy, for example:

The hedgehog sidles up to the fishermen and asks:

– Lads, would you like some black caviar?

– We would! – the delighted fishermen exclaimed, smacking their lips.

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– All right. When you sit down to eat, invite me too. (LLA 34)

The speaker asks a question that the addressee interprets as an indirect suggestion. The expressive means chosen do not make the illocutionary force explicit, while the situation, as confirmed by the addressee’s responsive speech act, implies the illocutionary force of a suggestion. However, this implicature does not bind the speaker to the obligations entailed by the suggestion. Therefore, in his next speech act, interpreting his first speech act as a special question (cf. Labutis 1998: 113), he simply mocks the addressee. Thus, the speaker chooses a destructive communicative strategy, creating the conditions for a double interpretation of the speech act and choosing an option that benefits him (a successful mockery—a moral victory) but harms the addressee.

Although performatives would seem to leave the least room for interpretive gaps, there are some whose use gives the speaker the opportunity to change the interpretation of the speech act after performing it. This is especially true of assertives², which can neutralize a lie in the propositional content and may even give rise to a legal casus. Legal literature describes a case from a U.S. senator’s trial in which the senator lied under oath, saying I deny that I committed this crime, although it was later proven that he had committed it. Here, the denial creates a fact, and only that fact is legally assessable as true or false (though, pragmatically speaking—from the perspective of ordinary people—the senator was obviously lying).

Nevertheless, other types of performatives also leave interpretive “gaps.” Unlike assertives, however, in such cases the destructive strategy relies more on the proposition than on the illocution. For example, in the tale of the sailor Sinbad, the protagonist, having been driven by a storm to an island, evasively promises its ruler that he will marry the ruler’s beloved daughter:

– I promise to do everything I can so that I may marry your daughter.

Cornered by the ruler, Sinbad claims that he has done everything he could, but that he still cannot marry the ruler’s daughter. After all, he had not promised to MARRY HIS DAUGHTER. In performing the speech act, the speaker had kept a fallback option and later made use of it. Indeed, formally speaking, the speech act was not a promise to marry. In everyday language, however, such speech acts are assessed in light of the pragmatic situation—with no possibility of changing their interpretation.

Some performatives are unsuitable for the speaker’s destructive strategy. These are most directives³, especially the deferential ones—those addressed to someone of higher social status, such as the performative verbs beseech, implore, request. The aim of most directives is to get the addressee to do something beneficial to the speaker. Thus, by adopting a destructive strategy, the speaker would primarily harm his own interests.

² Assertives (assertions of the speaker’s attitudes) express the speaker’s attitude toward the propositional content of the speech act being performed, e.g.: affirm, doubt, deny, report, etc.

³ A directive is a speech act whose illocutionary aim is to get someone to do something. By means of a directive, the speaker seeks to influence the hearer so that the latter does something. Directives may be deferential, e.g.: implore, beseech, neutral, e.g.: advise, suggest, or aggressive, e.g.: order, demand.

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Expressives⁴—etiquette-related acts—are also not very suitable for this strategy, since the performance of the acts themselves already satisfies the addressee’s communicative expectation (expectation—what the addressee may expect from someone performing a particular social role; cf. Karaliūnas 1997: 87). It is true that the addresser’s irony is a suitable means of turning expressives into expressions of the destructive strategy. For example, a coach “congratulates” the team’s best player, who has fought with an opponent and been sent off during the decisive match of the season:

Congratulations. You’ve just ruined our entire season. (RESP. SP.)

Irony turns the act of congratulating into a reproach. Incidentally, when such an act is described in writing, its illocutionary force is indicated by quotation marks, for example, “congratulates.” Quotation marks signal that the addresser’s strategy was destructive or that the act was unsuccessful.

1.2. The Addressee’s Linguistic Strategy

The addressee’s strategy can also be twofold: – constructive—the addressee attempts to determine the addresser’s intention precisely, i.e., seeks the speaker’s meaning; – destructive—the addressee attempts to discover a semantic “gap” in the utterance in order to interpret it in their own way (in which case they must also understand the speaker’s meaning). The constructive strategy corresponds to the general requirements of communication, for example, the fundamental postulate of communication identified by Grice—that of cooperation—the cooperation of the addresser and addressee (Grice 1975: 45). If the addressee adheres to the principle of cooperation, a speech act may fail because of the addresser’s strategy (an attempt to conceal illocutionary force), inappropriate circumstances, the use of different language codes (interpreting an utterance in one language according to the rules of another), external interference, such as background noise, impaired hearing on the part of the addressee, or the like, for example:

Due to deafness: – Where are you going, fishing? – No, fishing. – Ah, I thought you said fishing. (folk joke)

Due to different language codes: A Samogitian met two Russian friends. The Samogitian did not know Russian, and the Russians understood Samogitian only poorly. It was Friday evening. They each put in a few rubles. Vodka and snacks appeared. At first, everyone drank a hundred grams. The Samogitian began to groan: – That’s so much. What strong vodka! I might even drop dead. – Da možno i po dviesti [You can even have two hundred], the friends agreed. They poured two hundred grams each. Everyone again drained their glasses. – Oh dear, oh dear, the Samogitian whined. – Now I might even get the runs. – Možno i po trista [You can even have three hundred], the friends laughed. (LLA 253)

⁴ An expressive is an etiquette-related speech act intended to sustain, e.g., saying goodbye, congratulating, wishing, or to restore, e.g., apologizing, a “climate of politeness”—good social relations with the addressee.

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In the preceding example, the addressee, relying on a single word padvesti = after two hundred and pratrysti = after three hundred, and, on the basis of the pragmatic situation (they drank one hundred each, then two hundred each), misinterprets the illocution of the speaker’s speech acts—as a suggestion rather than a plea.

When the addressee’s strategy is destructive, they undoubtedly understand the speaker’s meaning, but interpreting the speech act accordingly is not in their interest. If the speaker leaves even the slightest possibility for the addressee to misinterpret the speech act they have performed, the addressee may indeed do so. “The point is not that the hearer does not understand the true illocutionary force of the utterance, but that they are not obliged to understand it” (Austin 1962: 33–34). The addressee chooses the destructive strategy in order to defend their own interests, placing them above the speaker’s interests.

It is possible to interpret an utterance’s illocutionary force or propositional content in one’s own way when the speech act is indirect or ambiguous, for example:

Once, having met Kazimieras, Petras asks: “Could you lend me at least ten litas?” Kazimieras replies: “I’m very sorry, I don’t have any with me.” “What about at home?” “Thank God, everyone is well. Goodbye.” (LLA 188)

The addressee pretends to understand the question What about at home?, which is semantically connected to the preceding discourse and means Don’t you have any money to lend at home? as a polite inquiry about their family, thereby evading the request to lend money.

Most often, the addressee chooses the destructive strategy when interpreting directives, especially mitigated ones (unlike the speaker), and declaratives⁵. It is in the addressee’s interest to interpret directives in their own way when they do not want or are unable to do what the speaker seeks to achieve through the directive. When interpreting aggressive directives—orders, commands, and demands—the addressee usually has no opportunity to choose the destructive strategy because the use of these directives is strictly regulated. An addressee interprets declaratives in their own way when they establish a state of affairs that is disadvantageous to them. When the speaker performs an assertive, expressive, or commissive⁶, the addressee has little opportunity to choose the destructive strategy. And if a performative speech act is performed, a distinct interpretation by the addressee is virtually impossible.

Nevertheless, most often neither the speaker nor the addressee needs to look for a “fallback” option, because they comply with the general principle of cooperation. A speech act is often embedded in a sequence of other linguistic and non-linguistic actions and forms part of a particular language game. The rules of a language game stipulate that players know and follow its rules.

The relationship between the speaker’s and addressee’s linguistic strategies and communicative success is shown in the table:

⁵ Declaratives (decrees) are a means of creating a particular state of affairs; that is, they create new (usually legal) facts, e.g.: appoint (as deputy), dismiss (from office), declare war, etc.

⁶ Through commissives (the speaker’s commitments), the speaker commits to performing in the future what is expressed by the propositional content of the speech act, e.g.: promise, undertake, swear, etc.

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TABLE 1. THE LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES OF THE SPEAKER AND ADDRESSEE

Speaker | Speaker’s linguistic strategy | constructive | destructive; Addressee | constructive | cooperation: the speech act is successful | cooperation: the speech act is successful, but unacceptable to the addressee, and therefore ineffective; Addressee’s linguistic strategy | constructive | destructive | non-cooperation: the speech act is successful but unproductive | non-cooperation: the speech act is unsuccessful; destructive

Thus, the linguistic strategy chosen by the speaker determines the locution of the speech act, i.e. its specific form, and its illocution, while the addressee’s linguistic strategy determines the perlocutionary effect of the speech act. Nevertheless, an individual speech act often does not reveal the interlocutors’ strategies; a broader discourse is needed for this. The general principles of communication, first and foremost the principle of cooperation, oblige interlocutors to choose a constructive strategy. The speaker usually chooses a destructive strategy in order to avoid responsibility for their insincere speech act or to mock or even humiliate the addressee. The addressee’s linguistic strategy is destructive when they deliberately misinterpret the speech act, especially its illocution. In this way, the addressee usually seeks to evade actions that are disadvantageous to them. The addressee’s opportunity to choose a destructive strategy is greatly restricted by performative speech acts, whereas the speaker’s opportunity to choose a destructive strategy is usually restricted by the positional social role they occupy, especially when the speaker is an institution.

2. SOCIAL SITUATION AND SOCIAL ROLES

When choosing communicative strategies, the speaker and addressee cannot limit themselves to their own communicative goals. To achieve a goal, one must take the interlocutor’s action into account—the speaker must take the addressee into account, and the addressee the speaker.

Emphasizing the special connection between the content of linguistic expression and the speaker, Grice points out that there is not only the meaning of an utterance, but also the speaker’s meaning (Grice 1969: 147). J. Searle, one of the founders of speech act theory, agrees: “It is not always possible to infer from the meaning of a sentence what the speaker means by saying it” (Searle 1975: 68). The listener can grasp the speaker’s meaning by interpreting the meaning of the utterance in the context of the communicative situation. In other words, the true meaning of a speech act (the speaker’s meaning) is understood as a move in a language game (L. Wittgenstein’s term) (Vitgenšteinas 1995: 22 §). Without knowing what language game is being played, it is impossible to interpret a speech act correctly. Thus, it is necessary to know the context, the situation. A speech act is an intentional and interpersonal action; the space in which it takes place is

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society. Thus, one of the most important factors in recognizing the speaker’s meaning is the social situation.

A social situation is the totality of external circumstances that shape an individual’s behaviour in society. Situations understood broadly correspond to Wittgenstein’s concept of forms of life, for example: negotiations, wedding ceremonies, war, and so on. Forms of life consist of language games, i.e. narrower situations: making an offer, a marriage vow, declaring war, and so on. Such language games are realized through specific speech acts. The performer of a speech act, the speaker (and, in turn, the addressee), is assessed not as a particular person with a set of individual traits (this aspect is of interest to psychology), but as the performer of a particular social role represented by the speech act they perform (Arutiunova 1981: 357). In a linguistic community, there are certain patterns of behaviour (including linguistic behaviour) for the performer of each social role: “these are established ways of how one should behave and act in a given situation” (Karaliūnas 1997: 87). These patterns can be very flexible in informal settings and everyday communication, and very strict in formal settings—legal, administrative, religious, and so forth. Everyday communication is based on unwritten rules of etiquette, whereas in formal settings the actions of the performer of a particular social role are regulated by laws and regulations. “The more specific and stringent the requirements imposed by society on a particular role—for example, those of a judge, meeting chairperson, or sports commentator—the stricter the stylistic requirements for speech” (Krysin 1976: 52). Templates are even created for speech acts designed to perform particular social roles. For example, the text of the oath of the President of the Republic of Lithuania presented below is a template for speech acts actually performed by two Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania, Mr A. Brazauskas and Mr V. Adamkus.

I, (first name, surname), swear to the Nation to be faithful to the Republic of Lithuania and the Constitution, to respect and uphold the laws, to safeguard the integrity of Lithuanian territory; I swear to perform my duties conscientiously and to be equally just to all; I swear with all my strength to strengthen Lithuania’s independence and to serve the Fatherland and the welfare of the people of Lithuania in a democratic manner. So help me God! (doc: http://www.lrp.lt/institutiontoday.phtml#HD_NM_20.)

The speaker of this oath act matters to the addressee not as a particular person, but as a social institution—the President of the Republic of Lithuania. When interpreting this speech act, the speaker’s individual qualities as a human being are entirely irrelevant, as are the other communicative roles that the same person performs through other speech acts.

The interpretation of a speech act depends on how clearly the addressee understands the social roles of the speaker and of themselves as the addressee, as well as the relationship between those roles. The social relations between participants in communication may be:

– symmetrical—between equivalent social roles;

– asymmetrical—between unequal social roles, which in turn may be determined by:

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– anthropological differences,

– sociocultural differences,

– varying degrees of participation in the conversation (Henne, Rehbock 1995).

Social relations are in fact nothing other than a juxtaposition of the social roles of two participants in communication—the addresser and the addressee. The social roles occupied by speech-act participants, regardless of whether they reflect symmetrical or asymmetrical relations, are always perceived as a pair, for example: superior–subordinate, father–son, buyer–seller, colleague–colleague. Therefore, in establishing their own social role, the addresser of a speech act also determines the addressee’s social role. Conversely, having identified their own social role, the addressee can readily determine the addresser’s social role, which also helps identify the illocutionary force of the speech act performed by the addresser. If the addresser misperceives their own or the addressee’s social role, they are likely to choose a speech act with an inappropriate illocutionary force, for example:

– Don’t go, I order you! – Julius raised his voice.

– Go order your granny around, – [Rima] slammed the door and left. (PB 464)

In this situation, the addressee’s social role is disregarded, while the addresser unjustifiably assumes a social role superior to the addressee’s. In fact, the addresser’s and addressee’s social roles are equal—Julius and Rima are friends. The aggressive directive chosen by the addresser is appropriate for an addresser in a superior position, and usually only when the speech act is directed at a direct subordinate. Because the performative I order was chosen inappropriately instead of the neutral I ask or deferential I beg, the speech act fails: Rima slams the door and leaves. Thus, the addresser’s inappropriate choice of social role results in communicative failure.

Sometimes a speaker explicitly indicates their social role in a speech act, for example:

ŠIMKŪNAS. […] In my view, Mr Kliemas’s treatment should continue in the hospital’s inpatient department.

DOCTOR. As a doctor, I agree that his health is not improving. (NDB 2, 74)

In this example, the second interlocutor emphasizes their positional social role (as a doctor) in response to a speech act—the stimulus: a prompt to express their professional opinion.

It is also customary to indicate one’s social role when “switching” from a superior social role to an equal one, for example:

ANDREAS. Not as your master, but as a knight addressing knightsI ask whether you truly did not know that Mindaugas […] serves Christ the Lord? (KR 2, 597)

The addresser emphasizes their equal social role in the hope that the addressee’s linguistic-behavior strategy will be constructive—that the knights will tell the truth without evasion.

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In performative speech acts involving certain illocutionary forces, it is customary to explicitly state one’s social role. For example, let us recall:

R. OZOLAS at a press conference after losing the election: – I accept full responsibility for the party’s failure to receive the required number of votes in the election, as the party chairman. (TV news). J. KAZLAUSKAS after the “Eurobasket 2001” debacle: – As the team’s coach, of course, I accept full responsibility for the failure and confirm: yes, I am resigning from my position as coach. (TV news)

Much more often, however, a speech act identifies not the addresser’s social role but their unique identifier, usually their first and last name (and often their position as well, sometimes their academic title, place of residence, kinship relationship, etc.). This is a feature of most juridical speech acts. The majority of them are performed through performative utterances. For example, authorizations:

I, Jonas Petraitis, <...> hereby authorize Antanas Petraitis <...> to manage and operate the passenger car belonging to me, <...> to look after the car’s technical condition, represent me before the road police, insurance agencies and customs, travel abroad, reassign this authorization to another person, write statements on my behalf, sign for me, and perform all other actions related to this authorization. (DOK.)

When performing some institutional speech acts, it is customary, and sometimes mandatory, to state both one’s social role and one’s unique identifier, for example:

Order <...> Pursuant to Article 32 of the Law on the Constitutional Court, I authorize Audronė Ožiūvienė, legal adviser to the Legal Department of the Seimas Chancellery, to represent the Seimas in the Constitutional Court proceedings concerning the petition by a group of Members of the Seimas to investigate [whether the laws contradict one another]. <...> Vytautas Landsbergis, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (DOK.)

In general, all juridical speech acts characteristically make explicit the addresser and addressee of the speech act as members of a particular community, as well as its illocutionary force. In everyday language, it is usually not so important for the addresser to identify themselves, given the relatively weak and indeterminate connection between a speech act and the effects it produces. Making one’s social role explicit may be much more important. Incidentally, as Arutiunova notes, the addresser most often makes their role explicit when in fact taking on a role that is not theirs (Arutiunova 1981: 357). There is also a tendency to make one’s social role explicit when, in communicating with the same addressee, one shifts the register of social roles—from an equal footing to a higher one, that is, emphasizing authority, usually in an attempt to gain the upper hand in the conversation, or vice versa, for example:

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“Who says it’s unjust?” shouted the bailiff. And the village elder added: “I, the village elder, declare that it is just. For resisting, you’ll get fifty lashes!” (PS 84–85)

Until then, the bailiff and the village elder had spoken to the farmers as equals, but, seeking to assert his superiority, the village elder emphasized his higher social status.

2.1. Types of Social Roles

Social roles are divided into:

– status roles,

– positional roles,

– situational roles (Karaliūnas 1997: 88).

2.1.1. STATUS ROLES. Some situational roles are inherited: sex, race, and nationality. They usually remain unchanged throughout a person's life. Inherited status roles in today's world of racial, national, and gender equality have relatively little influence on the expression of speech acts.

Other status roles are acquired over time, for example, age (older, younger, and peers), family membership (father, son, brothers), social estate (in our society, usually distinguished roughly by wealth), and so on. Social roles, like the entire social structure, form a certain hierarchy that indicates the unequal distribution of wealth, power, or prestige in society (Dumbliauskas 1999: 26). They can be very important both to the illocution of a speech act and to its specific expression. Nevertheless, status roles influence the very manner and style of speaking more than the expression of particular illocutions. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that any particular performatives are characteristic of a given status-based social role.

2.1.2. POSITIONAL ROLES. Positional roles are determined by the position an individual occupies in society. A positional role is usually connected either with a profession, such as teacher, judge, officer, and so on, or with a long-term activity or way of life, such as student, soldier, or prisoner. Positional roles are acquired over time and are long-lasting. They not only determine the illocution and specific expression of a speech act, but some also have a certain “arsenal” of speech acts, governed by laws and regulations, with specific illocutionary force and a specific pattern of expression—for example, judges’ verdicts, officers’ commands, and priests’ ritual phrases. Performative verbs are most characteristically used by those who perform positional social roles.

2.1.3. SITUATIONAL ROLES. These are more or less fixed patterns of behavior and activity. They are further divided into situational roles in the narrow sense and personal roles. The former are associated with certain behavioral stereotypes and are most often determined by external circumstances. The individual is, as it were, drawn into such a situation and assigned the corresponding situational role. Such roles are performed by a buyer, passenger, guest, spectator, and so on. Personal roles depend on the individual's value orientation; the individual's interlocutor assigns such a role, identifying themselves at the same time: friend, enemy, beloved, and so on. The illocutions and expressions of speech acts in most situational roles are not regulated, except for speech acts associated with etiquette—thanking, apologizing, expressing sympathy, and so on—which are often expressed by performatives.

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Every individual is characterized by a particular set, or complex, of specific social roles (Smelser 1984: 36). It is true that this complex encompasses only status and positional roles. Situational roles are, as it were, possibilities that may or may not be realized. For example, every trolleybus passenger without a ticket can become a caught “hare” (fare dodger), but suitable circumstances must arise for this to happen. Positional roles are the most important for communication: they determine not only the linguistic strategy constructed by the addresser, but often also define the illocution and locution of specific speech acts performed by the addresser. The speech acts of those who perform positional roles and are perceived as institutional addressers are subject to particularly strict regulation.

3. ADDRESSER

An addresser is a person, group of people, or institution that creates and performs a speech act⁷. The category of the speech-act addresser is considered central to contemporary pragmatics (cf. Stepanov 1981: 326). It also occupies a particularly important place in the theory of performatives. The main function of a performative is to convey precisely the addresser’s relation to the action performed by the utterance, that is, its illocution—what the addresser does with that utterance, rather than what reality is (was, will be, or would be) (conveying facts about reality is the main function of constatives). At the same time, by means of a performative the addresser not only informs others what action they are performing with the utterance but, most importantly, performs that action. Thus, with regard to the addresser, the function of a performative is creative.

The creator of a specific speech act is always one or more particular persons. However, in the process of communication, that person is often irrelevant, while the institution, as a legal entity, is foregrounded; alternatively, the speech-act addresser may be entirely irrelevant. The illocution of the speech act itself often depends on this foregrounding.

3.1. Types of Addressers

The addresser of a performative speech act may be:

1) an individual:

– performing the act on their own initiative,

– performing the act as authorized by another addresser (an authorized addresser);

2) a group of people:

– the group performs the act (speaks in unison),

– one person performs the act on behalf of the group (one speaks for all);

3) an institution;

⁷In communication theory, the addresser as creator is distinguished from the addresser as performer (sender), and the addressee as experiencer is distinguished from the addressee as recipient (final destination). Usually, the addresser is both the creator and the performer (sender) of the speech act, while the addressee is both the experiencer and the recipient (Cook 1997: 25). There may be cases in which the creator and performer are not the same, for example, when a press secretary (performer) reads a speech written by the president (creator); there may also be cases in which the addressee and recipient are not the same, for example, when other people’s letters are read. In speech-act theory, particularly when establishing the features of performatives and defining illocutions, cases in which the creator of a speech act is not the same as its performer are not relevant: only the addresser and addressee as elements of the communicative situation are of concern (see Kobezova 1986: 13). A speech act that does not reach its addressee—for example, if it is intercepted by another person for whom it was not intended—is considered unsuccessful, since through it the addresser fails to realize their communicative intention.

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4) the addresser is unspecified (irrelevant).

3.1.1. AN INDIVIDUAL AND A GROUP OF PEOPLE.

An individual and a group of people are closely related types of addressers. The speech acts they perform are determined primarily by personal will and the situation. The main difference between an individual and a group of people is the number of creators of the speech act, usually expressed at the linguistic level by the grammatical category of number: singular for individuals, plural for a group of people. It is true that there are domains in which an individual addresser characteristically uses the exclusive plural⁸.

First of all, this is the “plural of majesty” we (Latin pluralis majestaticus), that is, the expression of a ruler’s will, for example:

For the love of God, we, Alexander the Second, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., proclaim to all our faithful servants. (PS 17)

Likewise, the plural used by the author of a scholarly work, for example:

We shall note that the second line of the melodies of these songs is merely an exact repetition of the first. (article author Austė Nakienė – TD₅ 90)

This use of the exclusive plural form of performatives is also closely associated with referring to the addresser by the pronoun we. As A. Rosinas states, the “plural of majesty” we is now used in Lithuanian <…> only in works of fiction on historical themes and in historical documents, <…> whereas the “authorial” we is a new phenomenon in Lithuanian: it is used by intellectuals. <…> It is a clear syntactic calque” (Rosinas 1988: 33–34). Thus, the exclusive plural of performatives is only an exception to the general rule.

An individual addresser may perform a speech act of their own devising, thus being both its creator and performer, or may perform another creator’s speech act on their behalf. In the latter case, they may choose the specific means of expressing the speech act, but cannot choose its illocution and propositional content. Therefore, they should be examined not as an addresser but as an intermediary addressee (see section 4.1.4, “Intermediary Addressee,” for more detail).

If an addresser performs a speech act on behalf of another person without authorization, communication problems may arise later. For example:

Once, a meeting was being held in a classroom. The teacher scolded a good student for having started to do poorly at school. The student’s father stood up before the meeting and said: “Next trimester he will study well.” After the second trimester, the teacher scolded the student again: “You promised you would pull yourself together.” The student calmly replied: “I didn’t promise; my father did. Let him study well himself.” (LLA 67–68)

⁸ Usually, the term exclusive describes the property of a plural personal pronoun (Lith. we) of referring only to the addresser, without including other people.

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The father makes a promise on behalf of his son, and later the son denies having made any promise. The speech act of promising is unsuccessful because the promise is illegitimate: the speaker has not been authorized to make a promise on behalf of another person. Nevertheless, such a situation is indeed more anecdotal. In reality, such a promise would be legitimate because the father, who occupies a higher social role in relation to his son, has the power to assume obligations on his son's behalf. In such a case, the speaker's duty is to use his power to compel another person to act in accordance with the promise made.

A speech act performed in chorus by a group of people is relatively rare. Usually, it is a reaction to a speech act—a stimulus, for example:

SIERAKAUSKAS. Whoever is able to swear, I will consider a soldier of the Lithuanian People's Army.

MEN. We swear! We swear, Commander! (GR₁, 153)

More often, one person speaks on behalf of a group—for example, a father on behalf of his family, one student on behalf of an entire class, or a commander on behalf of a troop of soldiers. They are not directly authorized by the group; rather, they take the initiative themselves and represent the collective opinion, for example:

SIERAKAUSKAS. I make no claim to be a host. And I thank you on behalf of all the troublemakers.

(GR₁, 145)

J. Thomas calls such performatives group performatives (English: group performatives) (Thomas 1995: 41–42).

The social roles of the speakers in both groups are generally status-based and situational: in such cases, the intention of the speech act depends on the speaker, while its success is not tied to the entire procedure for performing the act.

In terms of illocutionary force, expressives and assertives are most characteristic of speakers of these two types, while declaratives are least characteristic. Among directives, such speakers can generally choose only mitigated or neutral ones, while they can perform any commissives except initiation oaths.

3.1.2. INSTITUTION. In reality, any performative speech act is performed by a specific person or people. Nevertheless, sometimes, in performing a speech act, a person expresses not their own will but that of a certain institution which they represent. It may be argued that the specific person (or persons) merely verbalizes the institution’s act; therefore, the institution should be considered the speaker. The institutional speaker generally performs a positional social role.

Some speech acts are performed not by a person representing an institution, but as if by the institution itself. Of course, their actual creator is a specific person; however, it is often impossible to identify the actual creator of a written, as opposed to a spoken, speech act, and the institution itself is explicitly indicated as the speaker, for example:

The “Rūta” Candy Factory is offering work in the Vilnius region. (RESP. SP.)

The most characteristic institutional performatives are declaratives and aggressive directives. Among commissives, the institution is the speaker of solemn oaths. A speaker of this type rarely performs speech acts with expressive illocutionary forces. And this is understandable: the primary domain for the expression of expressives is interpersonal relations. Even public expressives

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are formulated as performatives of an individual or, more often, of a group or collective (the plural is used), for example:

The staff of the Vilnius Regional Court sincerely extends its condolences to Judge A. K. on the death of his father at this hour of painful loss and grief. (RESP. SP.)

or

We sincerely extend our condolences to Member of the Seimas A. P. and his family on the death of their dear Mother. – The Social Democratic Coalition Group of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. (RESP. SP.)

An institution is generally the speaker of legal performatives. In legal performatives (as in most institutional speech acts in general), especially those performed in writing, it is customary to indicate the speaker and, in particular, their higher positional social role (office), for example (the speaker’s social role is marked in small capitals; other references to the speaker are in bold):

Order of the DEAN of the FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY of VILNIUS UNIVERSITY

On Permission to Defend Bachelor’s Theses

I hereby authorize former fourth-year students of the Lithuanian Philology program to defend their bachelor’s theses

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY signature Name Surname (DOK.)

Since a speaker with a higher social role generally binds the addressee through their speech acts to certain obligations, determines the model for their future behavior and even their entire way of life, the speaker must justify why they are “exercising authority,” that is, indicate their social role.

3.1.3. SPEAKER UNDEFINED. Since a performative is not an informative but a constitutive act, its performer (speaker) is experienced directly by the addressee. Nevertheless, if the act is performed not orally but in writing, the addressee may not know who the speaker of the performative is. There are written performatives in which the identity of the speaker is irrelevant to the addressee. Therefore, a non-subject performative form is chosen. These are most often declaratives, whose written promulgation formally validates a legal act. Such performatives are typically expressed by an impersonal sentence with an infinitive or a passive participle, for example:

The lost round seal belonging to S. S. PĮ is to be considered invalid. (RESP. SP.)

The special secondary education diploma No. 999999 of I. V. has been lost: issued by the Kaunas School of Applied Arts, it is hereby declared invalid. (RESP. SP.)

In these examples, the speaker is both unexpressed and irrelevant. Since the act takes effect only when it is published in a newspaper, it can be argued that the speaker objectively understood by the addressee could be the newspaper itself. Performatives of this type resemble acts performed by institutions, except that the institution is not formally identified in the utterance itself.

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Often, the speaker is unspecified in written directives, especially prohibitions, for example:

Dumping rubbish is prohibited. Fine: 200 Lt. (sign by a ravine in Viršuliškės)

The speaker of the prohibition just mentioned is inferred from the proposition of the speech act (who is responsible for cleanliness) and the circumstances, specifically the location (Viršuliškės). It can be conjectured that the speaker is, for example, the Viršuliškės eldership. Thus, although the speaker is not made explicit in this act, it can be inferred from the circumstances of the speech act.

Sometimes the speaker is also unspecified in written expressives, most commonly greetings, for example:

Greetings to the participants and guests of the festival who love and cherish the unique nature of Neringa. (poster above the road to Nida)

It is true that this greeting implies an exhortation to love and cherish the unique nature of Neringa. This is probably why an unspecified-speaker form was chosen.

Performatives belonging to other illocutionary types—assertives and commissives—do not have an unspecified speaker.

Thus, the strongest connection of a speech act is with an institutional speaker: speech acts that institutions may or must perform in a particular social situation are usually defined in written rules—not only is a particular illocution specified, but often a specific locution as well, and certain linguistic formulae are prescribed. Most institutional speech acts are declaratives and aggressive directives. Distinguishing the speaker as an institution from an individual speaker or a group of speakers also divides speech acts into two types: institutional, whose use is governed by written rules, and everyday, whose use is determined by the speaker’s intention, general principles of communication, and linguistic etiquette.

4. ADDRESSEE

The addressee is a person, a group of people, or an institution to which a speech act is directed. Since a speech act is oriented toward a specific addressee, it is usually tailored to that addressee. In addition to the main principle of cooperation, which applies to both interlocutors, Grice explicitly instructs the speaker to take the addressee’s interests into account: 1) the maxim of quantity requires the speaker to say enough for the addressee’s level of propositional knowledge to allow them to understand the speech act properly; 2) the maxim of quality requires the speaker not to lie to or mislead the addressee; 3) the maxim of relation to the subject under discussion requires the speaker not to stray from the topic and thus confuse the addressee; 4) the maxim of manner requires choosing an expression that is both most understandable and most acceptable to the addressee, for example, for ethical reasons (Grice 1975: 47).

Performatives best meet almost all of these requirements. First, a performative is perhaps the shortest expression for conveying many illocutionary forces. Second, one

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of the features of a performative is its inherent truthfulness—a performative cannot be false, only unsuccessful. Third, the expression of many performatives is very simple and clear, and therefore easily understood by the addressee. Finally, many performatives are necessary in certain legal, ritual, and social situations; failure to use them can cause social or even legal conflict. This is especially true of etiquette performatives—expressives.

On the other hand, the speaker is usually concerned that the addressee correctly interpret their utterance. To this end, the speaker must choose an expression that is appropriate for the addressee and suitable to the situation. The illocutionary force of an utterance is conveyed most precisely, and usually unambiguously, by a performative.

With respect to the addressee, performatives, like other speech acts, can serve two different functions:

– the action performed by the speaker involves the addressee (changes their social status, obliges them to do something, etc.); such speech acts have a more pronounced performative function (declaratives, directives);

– the action performed by the speaker does not involve the addressee; the performative is relevant to the addressee only as information—an informative function (all).

On the basis of these functions and other factors, several types of addressee can be distinguished in relation to the speech act.

4.1. Types of addressees

The addressee of a performative speech act may be:

1) the actual addressee (direct addressee);

2) the quasi-addressee (indirect addressee);

3) the witness addressee;

4) the intermediary addressee;

5) the executor addressee.

There may also be performative speech acts that are not intended for any addressee, but are instead manifestations of inner speech. These are addressee-less performatives. In addition, there are performatives of a single illocutionary force whose condition is the joint participation of both interlocutors in performing that speech act. These are reciprocal performatives.

4.1.1. ACTUAL ADDRESSEE (DIRECT ADDRESSEE). The actual addressee is a person (persons or institution) who, in the speaker’s opinion, can understand the speech act in the way intended by the addresser. In rare cases, more often in the spiritual sphere and in artistic creation, the actual addressee can also be an inanimate object, for example:

LITTLE MESSAGE. By the might of Lithuania’s gods, I command the water to part asunder and reveal the infernos of the sea.

(FG 611)

The actual addressee is usually connected in some way with the fact of reality expressed by the propositional content of the speech act: the addresser seeks to have the addressee do something (directives); the addresser commits to doing something desired by the addressee (commissives); the addresser performs an etiquette-related act connected with the addressee’s situation (expressives), and so on.

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For a speech act to be received and interpreted by the intended addressee, the addressee may, and sometimes must, be specified within the speech act itself. In everyday language, the addressee is explicitly specified quite rarely in a performative speech act, since such an act is usually performed in a face-to-face interaction, and the addressee is clear from the situation. Often, the addressee is the other participant in the dialogue, the author of the stimulus utterance to which the performative speech act is a response. If more than one interlocutor is being addressed at a time, the actual addressee may be indicated either by linguistic means, most often by a form of address, or by extralinguistic means, for example by turning toward the actual addressee, touching their hand, and so on.⁹ In a performative utterance, the addressee is most often expressed by a form of address, but may also be expressed by an object, for example:

WAITER. I’m very sorry, gentlemen... You know—the war... (NDB₂ 74)

A form of address or an object referring to the addressee can make explicit the addressee’s identifying label, social role, and social distance.

An identifying label is used more often when several interlocutors are involved and one needs to be singled out.

TEACHER IN THE CLASSROOM. Jonaitis, come to the board. (GYV.)

It is true that a person may also be addressed by name when there is no need to identify the actual addressee, for example:

LARK. I forbid you, Aušra, to speak about Birutė Vidugirytė. (RV 538) I wish you happiness, Mirta. (Sk 221)

The addressee’s social role is usually indicated in cases of asymmetric relations, when communication is formal, for example:

Private Jonaitis! You are standing guard and notice a person crawling toward you. What will you do? (TEXT: SPECIAL PERIODICAL) Petras humbly pleads: – Director, I’ll quit drinking. It won’t happen again. Forgive me... (TEXT: LOCAL NEWSPAPER)

In formal spoken language, performatives are very rarely used in cases where the addressee’s social role is specified. In the Lithuanian Language Corpus, not a single instance was found

⁹ The form-of-address test can be used to identify the addressee of a speech act: the person who can actually be addressed while performing the speech act. For example: Cf. / Gentlemen witnesses and everyone gathered here,] I pronounce Antanas and Ona husband and wife. Antanai and Ona, I pronounce you husband and wife. [Head of Personnel and Head of Department,] Jonas Petraitis is hired. Jonai Petraitį, you are hired. Dear guests, I name this ship “Vincas Kudirka.” (It is impossible to address the ship.)

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a single performative in which one would address such clearly institutional addressees together: private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, chief, deputy, secretary. This is because relations between different social roles, including linguistic behavior, are regulated in official settings. For example, an officer may address a private with a command, but cannot address them with a request, promise, recommendation, or the like. Otherwise, the addressee’s communicative expectation would not be met. The following example illustrates precisely the communicative expectation associated with a lower social role:

Shall I make you some coffee, Captain? (TEXT: FICTION)

Since the usual illocutionary force of a captain’s speech acts directed at a soldier is that of a command, the soldier expects precisely such an act. Even if the illocutionary force of the command is not made explicit through linguistic means, the soldier will understand all directives addressed to them by the captain as commands, on the basis of their own and the addresser’s social roles.

Adresatas yra būtinas bet kokio dokumento dėmuo (žr. Laurinavičienė ir Rancova 2002: 4, 6). Rašytinėje oficialiojoje kalboje performatyvais reiškiami ir tokie aktai, kuriuose nurodomas adresato socialinis vaidmuo, tiesa, ne kreipiniu, pavyzdžiui:

Vilniaus universiteto REKTORIUI PRAŠYMAS

Lecturer in the Department of Lithuanian Language Vilnius

A. S. 2001 05 15

I would ask you to allow me to participate in the competition for the position of Lecturer in Lithuanian.

A. S.’s signature (DOCUMENT)

Forms of address reveal the greater or lesser social distance in the relationship with the addressee. Lexical and derivational means are used for this purpose:

– lexical: kitty, my love, darling, esteemed one, gentlemen…

– derivational: a diminutive form of address usually indicates closer social distance. For example:

Anyda, I’m begging you, please be good, my dear, save her. (TEXT: FICTION)

PETKEVIČIUS. Gentlemen! I propose a toast to the successful conclusion of our many years of work together. (KS₁ 640)

SKURVYDAS (to Eugenija). I would ask you, madam, not to insult me. (KS₁ 542)

KĘSTUTIS. Mommy! I beg you especially—don’t be cross. (KS₁ 568)

The social distance between interlocutors is also established through grammatical means: a singular form of address—*tu* (“you”)—is used for an addressee in a closer social role, whereas the plural form—*jūs* (“you”)—is used when addressing someone in a more distant social role. The addressee’s higher social standing is also indicated by the use of the “polite” infinitive instead of the imperative in some dialects, especially when addressing older people, for example:

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Grandma, let’s eat. (GYV.)

Utterances of this form usually correspond to neutral directives, such as please, I suggest, I invite.

4.1.2. QUASI-ADDRESSEE (INDIRECT ADDRESSEE). Sometimes the speaker seeks to convey their intentions to the actual addressee in a milder form; therefore, not only is an implicit speech act chosen, but the speaker addresses not the actual addressee, but a quasi-addressee, in such a way that the actual addressee also experiences and correctly interprets the speech act. For example, an elderly woman standing on a bus addresses another elderly woman standing nearby:

“Well, young people these days never give up their seat for an old person!” (GYV.)

The illocution and situation of a speech act indicate who its actual addressee is: indignation (an assertive) at the impolite young people of today, expressed to a quasi-addressee, implies a request or demand (a directive) to the actual addressee—the young man sitting right there—to give up his seat. G. G. Clark and T. B. Carlson argue that speech acts of this type are dual in nature: they have two addressees and a corresponding illocutionary force directed at each, so that two illocutionary acts are performed in a single speech act (Clark, Carlson 1986: 274). The quasi-addressee is addressed with an act of informing (e.g., about the speaker’s dissatisfaction) (an assertive), while the actual addressee is addressed with a directive.

A quasi-addressee may also be an animal, which cannot grasp the true meaning of the speech act, or even an inanimate object, for example: a mother-in-law scolds a door for letting the cold in, while the actual addressee is her daughter-in-law, who has left the door open; parents scold a child for having “wronged” an object, though in fact they are indirectly comforting the child. G. G. Poče pavos calls such an address to an inanimate object an extreme case of addressing a quasi-addressee and considers it nearly equivalent to addressing a direct addressee, since the pragmatic situation unambiguously identifies the actual addressee (Počepcov 1985: 12).

There are quasi-addressees whose presence is a necessary condition for performing the speech act, for example: lamenting while addressing the deceased, an oath of revenge at the grave of a murdered friend, and so on. Spiritual beings mentioned in oaths as addressees can also be regarded as quasi-addressees, for example:

In the presence of all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Teachers I vow to work for the sake of Enlightenment.

(TEKST.: GROŽ. LITER.)

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In fact, such oaths are either addressed to other persons—the witnesses to the act—or are moral commitments to oneself.

4.1.3. WITNESS ADDRESSEE. Most speech acts have a specific addressee, indicated by linguistic or extralinguistic means, or clear from the circumstances of the speech act. Nevertheless, the specific addressee is often not the only person who experiences the act and can therefore interpret it. First, a bystander listener should be noted: the speaker does not direct the speech act to this listener, but sometimes takes them into account when choosing a particular expression for the speech act, for example, by avoiding vulgarisms and swear words. A bystander listener may be very important even when choosing between a direct and an indirect speech act, especially when the speaker seeks to conceal the propositional content of the speech act and, often, its illocutionary force, making it understandable only to the specific addressee.

Some juridical performative speech acts would be considered invalid if performed without witnesses, for example, marriage, making a will, and granting power of attorney (mostly declaratives and some directives). These speech acts have an informational function for the witness addressee. Such an addressee is called an institutional witness (Clark, Carlson 1986: 280). This witness is necessary for the speech act to be considered successful. An institutional witness acts as a kind of guarantor that the speech act (and, with it, the entire juridical act) will be performed correctly and lawfully. Such a guarantor is especially important should any uncertainties about the legality of the act arise later.

An institutional witness is more often required for speech acts performed orally. For juridical acts performed in writing, the document in which the speech act is recorded guarantees their legality. It must therefore be authenticated in a particular form, with seals, signatures, or the like. On the other hand, in fact, all juridical speech acts are also recorded in writing, and the witness must confirm their participation with a signature. Such a witness is provided for in the rules governing the performance of certain speech acts. There is even a juridical institution of the witness—the notary—who has the right and obligation to certify that an act (speech act) has been performed lawfully.

There are also speech acts that do not really have an addressee, but are performed in the presence of witnesses, for example, solemn oaths (of a president, soldier, or the Hippocratic Oath), the naming of a ship, and a declaration of war (the latter, that is, declaratives, also have an addressee who is to carry them out). For example, the oath of police officers of the Republic of Lithuania:

I,..., with you as witnesses: swear, sparing neither strength nor life, to defend the State of Lithuania and its independence; I swear to conscientiously obey the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and the orders of my superiors; I swear to perform my duties faithfully, to serve the people of Lithuania and the State; I swear to refrain from actions that could harm the good name of the police. So help me God. (P 19)

The speaker of this speech act does not name a direct addressee (for example, I swear to you, my fellow officers), but addresses the oath to the witnesses. All those listening to the oath act as a kind of guarantor that the officer will keep it. Nevertheless, if the oath is broken, the witness has no right to impose any sanctions on the transgressor. This fact makes clear that the witness addressee is more ritual than legal in nature—

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in character. Perhaps this is why P. Čiočys, who examined Lithuanian oaths and identified eight features of commissive oaths, did not include the witness factor among them (Čiočys 1996: 35).

In some performative speech acts, the witness is also the actual addressee; they must be connected with and involved in the speech act being performed, for example:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I declare the meeting open. (GYV.)

This speech act is addressed to everyone who hears it. On the one hand, all the listeners are witnesses to the act of opening the meeting performed by the performative. On the other hand, by the same act the listeners are informed that the meeting is beginning, so they must behave in accordance with the established procedure, for example, stop talking, applaud, and begin listening to the speakers. Thus, the informational function of this act becomes apparent.

4.1.4. INTERMEDIARY ADDRESSEE. An intermediary addressee (relay) is a person through whom information is conveyed to another person—the actual addressee. For example, a message may be relayed by telephone through another person. An utterance often has two parts: one intended for the addressee, the other for the intermediary addressee and containing an instruction about what to do (or how to do it), for example:

A mother says to her child on the phone:

– Tell Dad that I’m waiting for him. Warn him not to be late. And remind him to bring the tools. (GYV.)

In this speech act, which has the illocutionary force of a directive, the parts addressed to the actual addressee—the father—and the intermediary addressee—the child—are structurally distinguished:

The parts intended for the intermediary addressee are presented as instructions about what illocutionary force should be conveyed in the message to the actual addressee, while the information intended for the latter is presented as the propositional content of each utterance.

Speech acts conveyed through an intermediary are usually not performative, or, more precisely, are not performed as classical performatives. Nevertheless, a performative reference to the speech act intended for the actual addressee is not uncommon in such a speech act. If the speaker believes that the illocution of the speech act they are performing must be conveyed explicitly to the actual addressee, they indicate the illocutionary force in the propositional content of that speech act, most often expressed in a subordinate clause¹⁰. For exam-

10 The performative itself cannot occur in a subordinate clause.

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ple (the part of the utterance highlighted in boldface is intended for the intermediary as an instruction about what they should do with the second part of the utterance; the information intended for the actual addressee is in small capitals):

a) without an indication of illocution:

Tell Antanas, that I WILL RETURN THE MONEY IN A WEEK.

b) with an illocutionary indication:

Tell Antanas, that I PROMISE TO RETURN THE MONEY IN A WEEK.

The part of the message intended for the actual addressee is formulated as a performative promise. In conveying to the actual addressee the content of the speech act entrusted to them, the intermediary often informs them not only of the proposition itself (here: to return the money in a week), but also of the illocution of that speech act, for example (the indication of the first speaker’s illocution is highlighted in boldface):

Antanas, Jonas promised to return your money in a week.

or

Antanas, Jonas said: “I promise to return the money in a week”.

or

Antanas, Jonas asked me to tell you that he promises to return the money in a week.

Even if the speaker does not indicate in their speech act the illocution of the message to be conveyed, the intermediary sometimes identifies it themselves.

The intermediary may also be regarded as a speaker in relation to the actual addressee, especially when they formulate their own part of the speech act as a performative, for example (the intermediary-speaker’s performative is highlighted in boldface):

I, the bailiff of Bagynai manor, hereby announce to you the lord’s order: tomorrow, at sunrise, whoever holds a valakas or half a valakas is to report to the manor <...>. I also hereby announce the lord’s order: on Monday, at sunrise, the same men are to report to the outlying fields of Užbaliai. (PS 84)

In fact, all media representatives who convey to the general public the speech acts performed by politicians and prominent people could be regarded as intermediary addressees. Media representatives perform the positional social role of an addressee intermediary.

An addressee intermediary may also be institutionally designated, for example, a press representative, newsreader (announcer), or the head’s secretary. It may also be not a separate person but even an organization, as in the case of ELTA in Lithuania.

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There are also everyday speech acts in which the participation of an addressee intermediary is essential. For example, an intermediary is needed to pass on greetings. With utterances such as Pass on my greetings to Lina or Greetings to Lina (the latter may also be considered a performative), what is actually performed is the illocutionary act of SENDING GREETINGS, which is specifically intended to be conveyed through an intermediary. Since, as in the case of any other etiquette speech act, what matters to the addresser is not the specific content of such a speech act but the very fact that it is performed, the obligatory addressee intermediary entrusted with sending greetings is usually also allowed to create the specific linguistic expression—the proposition of the greeting speech act—and the form of the entire speech act. Instructions concerning the proposition are usually limited to the intensity of the greetings being sent: pass on my sincere / most sincere / warmest regards. Instructions concerning the specific linguistic expression may be added as another speech act to be conveyed, usually by supplementing one’s request to pass on greetings with the phrase “and say that [p].” Instructions concerning the specific expression of the greetings to be conveyed may also indicate a particular illocution of the greetings. For example:

And pass on greetings like these to them [your friends] from me, you know, the kind with swear words, with everything. (M1 radio DJ speaking on air by telephone to a female caller)

In this speech act, the additional instructions concerning the specific expression of the greetings show that this is an illocutionary act of cursing, not of greeting. An addressee intermediary is characteristic only of speech acts with directive illocutionary forces.

4.1.5. THE ADDRESSEE AS EXECUTOR. In legal speech acts, two types of addressee can be distinguished:

1) the addressee as experiencer of the action, 2) the addressee as executor of the action.

The addressee as experiencer of the action is the person on whose behalf (but not necessarily to whom) the speech act is performed, or whose legal status is changed by that speech act. For example:

I hereby declare Antanas Petraitis and Ona Kazlauskaitė husband and wife.

This speech act by a civil registrar is performed on behalf of Antanas Petraitis and Ona Kazlauskaitė. It also changes their legal status: from unmarried individuals they become a family. The experiencer of the action is specified in the proposition of such a speech act.

Nevertheless, for the act of declaring a marriage to take effect, certain other actions must be performed: the marriage certificate must be drawn up, the necessary entries made in the marriage register, etc. These are usually carried out by a person (or persons) or institution(s) that ENSURE the FUNCTIONING and taking effect of that speech act, and thus its success (at the perlocutionary level). Such persons or institutions may be called executor addressees. They are not made explicit in the speech act, since they are regulated by other speech acts (laws, regulations).

Declaratives and directives are thus dual in terms of the addressee. The relation to different addressees even makes it possible to distinguish two functions of a declarative.

1. For the experiencer of the action, the relevant function is the declarative one—the performance of the action itself and the creation of a legal fact. Even if the experiencer of the act is an inanimate object, for example,

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in the speech act I name this ship after Vincas Kudirka the addressee, as the recipient of the action, is the ship, or a living being incapable of comprehending the act, for example, in the speech act I baptize this baby in the name of Peter the addressee, as the recipient of the action, is a still-unconscious baby, but it is the one for whose sake the speech act is performed and is therefore equivalent to the actual addressee.

2. For the agents who carry out the action, a declarative in fact has a directive function—it is an INSTRUCTION that the actions prescribed in the regulations must be carried out for the declarative to take effect. For example:

ORDER

A. S. is appointed as an assistant in the Department of Lithuanian Language from 2000 09 01 to 2001 08 31.

(DOC.)

This declarative by the university rector is also an instruction to the personnel directorate to process the necessary documents and allocate a certain salary, and to the head of department or administrator, who must arrange for A. S. to be given the necessary workload and, perhaps, a workplace and office. This function is also attested by the title of the declarative as a document: ORDER, a formal marker of the directive’s illocutionary force.

4.2. Addressee-less Performatives

Although one of the most important functions of language is communication, by no means are all utterances addressed to a specific addressee. One form of speech is the monologue—speech not directed at an addressee, as, for example, in a diary. Monologic speech acts are often directed at an imagined or actually existing addressee who cannot experience that speech act—a thing, a deceased person, or someone not participating in the communicative situation. Such speech acts are indeed not addressed to the addressee mentioned in the utterance. Sometimes the speaker themself also becomes the addressee, when engaging in dialogue with themself. Arutiunova also includes speech acts addressed to higher powers and to God among such addressee-less speech (Arutiunova 1981: 363). All instances of monologic speech can be regarded as manifestations of inner speech (Wittgenstein’s term). Of performatives, only acts of moral commitment are used in inner speech, for example, a vow at a friend’s coffin to avenge the murderer, and smokers’ frequent promises to themselves to quit smoking, etc.

Inner speech is not an object of speech act theory, primarily because it is not directed at an addressee; therefore, it is not examined in greater detail in this work.

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4.3. Bidirectional Performatives

Communication is most often bidirectional¹¹: interlocutors exchange speech acts. This is dialogue. With each speech act, the speaker and the addressee switch places—from speaker to addressee—responding to the interlocutor’s speech act as a stimulus:

– Where are you going, Jonas?

(1)

– To the market, sir.

(2)

– What will you buy, Jonas?

(3)

– A little pipe, sir.

(4)

– Play it, Jonas.

(5)

– I don’t know how, sir.

(6)

In speech act theory, the unit under examination is an individual speech act in specific circumstances. Thus, in speech acts 1, 3, and 5, the speaker is the gentleman and the addressee is Jonas; in speech acts 2, 4, and 6, the speaker is Jonas and the addressee is the gentleman.

Thus, the usual model of a speech act is:

speaker ⟶ addressee

This model is also characteristic of many performative speech acts. However, there are performatives whose model is different. These are bidirectional performatives. Their model is:

speaker ⟷ speaker

These are acts of mutual agreement, for example:

I, Jonas Petraitis, and I, Antanas Kazlauskas, agree:...

Both participants in such an act are simultaneously speakers and addressees. Its true purpose is to attest (to serve as evidence) that an agreement has been concluded. Thus, such acts are generally performed in the presence of institutional witnesses or in writing, and constitute legal documents.

¹¹ Most often, though not always: it can be unidirectional, e.g., radio and television broadcasting, or multidirectional, e.g., a group discussion.

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4.4. The relationship between addressee types and illocutionary forces

The addressee is one of the most important factors in a speech act. Most speech acts could not be performed without an addressee. Directives are the most dependent on the addressee, since the perlocutionary effect that the addresser expects from a directive should be an action performed by the addressee and specified in the directive’s proposition. According to Arutiunova, when utterances in the form of directives lose a specific addressee, their communicative status also changes: a wh-question becomes a rhetorical question or exclamation, while an imperative becomes a precept, an ethical recommendation, or a maxim of indeterminate meaning (Arutiunova 1981: 360–361). Thus, performative directives that have lost their addressee turn into constatives. Most often, the addressee of a directive is direct. An intermediary addressee may also be chosen to convey instructions, and a quasi-addressee for indirect influence.

All expressives are also strictly oriented toward the addressee. Since expressives are etiquette acts, that is, acts of human interaction, they are performed by the addresser and directed toward other people. What matters more to the addressee is not their content but the performance of the act itself. Under certain circumstances, failing to perform an expressive would cause a conflict between interlocutors.

A commissive (except for moral commitments in inner speech) is usually a reaction to an earlier speech act by the addressee and is important to them, and is therefore also closely connected with the addressee. Most often, the addressee of a commissive is direct. The addressee of institutional commissives is often understood as a witness.

Declaratives may be related to the addressee in very different ways: the addressee may be the direct experiencer of the declarative, its institutional witness or executor; declaratives may also be reciprocal.

Assertives are the least dependent on the addressee factor. Since by means of an assertive the addresser expresses their attitudes toward the fact presented in the proposition, the addresser is more important than the addressee. This is why assertive performatives, except those with the illocutionary force of informing (inform, assert, announce), usually contain no direct reference to the addressee.

LITERATŪRA

APRESJAN, J. D. 1986: Перформативы в грамматике и словаре. Известия АН СССР. Серия литературы и языка 45 (3), 208–223.

ARUTJUNOVA, N. D. 1981: Фактор адресата. Известия АН СССР, Серия литературы и языка 40 (4), 356–367.

AUSTIN, J. L. 1962/1986: How To Do Things With Words. 2nd ed. by J. O. Urmson and M. Sbisa, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ČIOČYS, P. 1996: Priesaika: juridinio akto, sukeliančio darbo (tarnybos) teisių santykį, sudedamoji dalis. Teisė 30, 29–41.

CLARK, H. H., CARLSON, T. B. [Кларк, Г. Г., Карлсон, Т. Б.] 1986: Слушающие и речевой акт. Новое в зарубежной лингвистике 17, 270–321.

Cook, G. 1997: Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DUMBLIAUSKAS, V. 1999: Sociologija, Vilnius: Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas.

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GRICE, H. P. 1975: Logic and Conversation. Syntax and Semantics 3. Ed. by P. Cole and J. L. Morgan, 41–58.

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Henne, H., Rehbock, W. 1995: Einführung in die Gesprächsanalyse, Berlin etc.: De Gruyter.

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Kobozeva, I. M. 1986: „Теория речевых актов“ как один из вариантов теории речевой деятельности. Новое в зарубежной лингвистике 17, 7–21.

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Labutis, V. 1998: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla.

Laurinavičienė, A., Rancova, G. 2002: Dokumentų rengimas ir įforminimas (bendrosios nuostatos ir dokumentų pavyzdžiai), Vilnius: Kvalifikacijos kėlimo kursai „Vanata“.

Morris, Ch. W. 1938: Foundations of the Theory of Signs, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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ŠALTINIAI

DOK. – įvairūs dokumentai: tarnybiniai, administraciniai raštai.

FG – Fromas-Gužutis, A. Baisioji gadynė, Vilnius: Vaga, 1955.

GYV. – gyvoji kalba: pavyzdžiai iš įvairių kasdienio bendravimo situacijų.

GR, – Grušas, J. Raštai 1, Dramos. Vilnius: Vaga, 1980.

KR, – Krėvė, V. Raštai 2, Vilnius: Vaga, 1982.

KS – Saja, K. Rinktiniai raštai 1, Dramos. Vilnius: Vaga, 1990.

LLA – Lietuvių liaudies anekdotai. Parengė B. Kerbelytė, P. Krikščiūnas, Vilnius: LLTI, 1994.

NDB, – Naujosios dramaturgijos biuletenis 2, Vilnius: Teatro ir kino informacijos ir edukacijos centras, 1998.

P – Policijos departamento nuostatai, Vidaus reikalų ministerijos nuostatai, Policijos įstatymas, Tarnybos LR vidaus reikalų sistemoje statutas (http://litlex.lpa.lt).

PB – Pūkelevičiūtė, B. Devintas lapas, Vilnius: Dienovidis, 1997.

PS – Mykolaitis-Putinas, V. Raštai 6, Sukilėliai. Vilnius: Vaga, 1959.

RESP. SP. – respublikinė spauda: Lietuvos rytas, Respublika, Alio reklama ir kt.

RV – Rimkevičius, V. Studentai, Pjesės, Vilnius: Vaga, 1987.

SK – Skablauskaite, J. Žolių kartumas, Vilnius: Vaga, 1990.

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TD₅ – Tautosakos darbai 5 (12), Vilnius: LLTI, 1996.

TEKST. – Lietuvių kalbos tekstynas (http://donelaitis.vdu.lt).

GROŽ. LITER. – grožinė literatūra.

SPEC. PERIOD. – specialioji periodika.

VIET. LAIKR. – vietiniai laikraščiai.

TV – įvairios televizijos laidos.

Egidijus Zaikauskas

Vilniaus universitetas

Universiteto g. 5, 2734 Vilnius, Lietuva

Gauta 2002 03 13