Bob Yates cites a particularly obtuse passage from Halliday. I'm
surprised that Halliday didn't do a better job of talking about what is
going on with the alternative forms of statements, commands, offers, etc.

Why would we have indirect speech acts, that is, speech acts formulated
as one type (say, a question about ability such as 'Can you tell me what
time it is?') but intended as another type (a request to tell me the
time--literal meaning something like 'please tell me what time it is')?

These are, in fact, particularly good examples of how language form
adapts to social function. Part of any communicative act is not just
transmitting literal meaning, but also negotiating the social status of
the participants--attaining the correct politeness level. Manipulating
the form of the utterance is a way of marking it for politeness level.
Even with the 'please', the direct imperative 'please tell me what time
it is' leaves the addressee little wiggle room, and assumes that the
person making the request has 'command rights' over the addressee that
s/he does not in fact have. Phrasing the request as a question 'Can you
tell me what time it is?' gives the addressee face-saving room to refuse
('Sorry, I don't have a watch' or 'Sorry, my watch has stopped').
Increasing the addressee's potential not to cooperate increases the
politeness level--In 'Could you possible tell me what time it is?', the
'could' and the 'possibly' lower the expectations of the questioner even
further, thus heightening the face-saving 'out' potential for the
addressee. Every language I have studied uses indirect speech acts in
these ways, though the specific forms sometimes vary.

I can't believe Halliday isn't aware of this aspect of language. Now,
indirect speech isn't an example of language form being motivated by the
literal content of the utterance, since the form of the utterance flies
in the face of its literal content, but it is an example of language
form being motivated by the social context of the utterance--by
communicative function.. For functionalist linguists, these are all part
of a person's knowledge of language.

Maybe those who have studied SFG more closely than I and have retained
more of its principles in working memory than I have can let me know
whether speech act theory is part of the framework or not.

The idea of indirect speech acts, and the general principle that
language form changes with politeness level, is important for students
to know, especially those who have not been subject to many demands to
modulate their speech for politeness in their home and school lives. I
can see that this finding of theoretical linguistics could be
particularly useful in middle- and high-school English classes. Part of
the function of school, after all, is to widen students' ability to
function in a variety of social situations that their home lives might
not expose them to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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