A Metonymic Analysis Of Indirect Speech Acts

One of the central issues in the study of speech acts is concerned with indirect speech acts (ISAs). In recent studies on ISAs, several approaches can be identified from different perspectives such as pragmatic and cognitive linguistic and so on. These researches have taken good account of the decoding of the hearer in ISAs, however slightly address, if not wholly neglect, the encoding of the speaker in the conceptual metonymic model, which I expect to study in this thesis.Based on the previous researches on ISAs, this thesis intends to make a further study on ISAs within the framework of Panther & Thornburg's speech act metonymy (1997, 1998), and Langacker's reference point metonymy (1993). It aims at exploring the conceptual motivation of the speaker's choice of ISAs among different linguistic patterns under a certain context. We postulate that the indirectness and the optionality of ISAs, and the metonymic relation between the two, arguably play an important role in determining the speaker's choice of the linguistic pattern in ISAs. That is, different linguistic patterns can have different illocutionary force and different metonymic force: the more indirect a pattern is, the weaker its metonymic force; the stronger the metonymic link force, the less indirectness and optionality.Metonymy serves a useful cognitive and communication function and plays a very important role in our language expression. Generally, it has been assumed that there are two pragmatic principles operating in determining the linguistic choice: a principle of economy and a principle of clarity. It is metonymy that allows an efficient reconciliation of the two conflicting factors: the need to be economic, i.e. by virtue of our reference point ability. A well-chosen metonymic expression makes us mention one entity or component that is salient and easily coded, and thereby evokes the target—the whole event; the need to be clarity, i.e. of being sure that the hearer's attention is directed to the intended target by our natural inclination to think...