Speech Act Theory Perspective Political Lie

The study of lies is an intersecting research field which covers many subjects such as psychology, linguistics, sociology, and behavioural science. A linguistic study on lying can not only contribute to linguistics as a science, but also provide theoretical help for the other subjects.Political lies distinguishes themselves from other kinds of lies(doctor-patient, interpersonal, commercial lies ): the liar runs a very high risk because he performs a lie in a public place; the outcome can be very damaging if he lies out of a evil motive; eventually, time tells if a politician's word is a truth or not.Austin extracted three acts from a complete speech act. And he made a classification of illocutionary acts, to which Searle made an amendment. Searle put speech acts into five basic categories: representatives or assertives, commissives, expressives, directives and declaratives by four criteria he advanced: illocutionary point, direction of fit, expressed psychological state and propositional content. Besides, perlocutionary effect, which is the objectively possible result, makes one element of speech act.The result of the analysis shows that political lies can be accommodated only by three speech acts: representatives ( assertives ), commissives, and expressives. Speech act theory is put forward on the basis of truly expressed utterances. The three kinds of speech act of political lies show no difference from their true counterparts on illocutionary point, expressed psychological state and propositional content. But when it comes to"direction of fit", it is not the case. The DOF of representatives is↑, while the DOF of representatives of political lies is↓.The DOF of commissives is↓, while the DOF of commissives of political lies doesn't exist. There is no DOF in expressives, while the DOF of expressives of political lies is↓. This thesis aims at helping the public get a clearer and deeper understanding of political lies as a speech act, and people may regard the phenomenon of politicians lying in a more objective way and have some faith in the government. Moreover, this research shows that the analysis model of speech acts of Austin and Searle can be successfully applied to the analysis of speech acts of lying, which enhances the core position of speech act theory in the domain of pragmatics.