A Metonymic Analysis Of Directive Speech Acts

The Speech Act Theory has always been a research focus in the field of linguistics. Traditional studies of speech acts, though rich in numbers, fail to explain why the speaker can work out the communicative intentions quickly and effortlessly and also do not offer a systematic description on the inference patterns involved and their cognitive grounding.This paper aims to study the directive speech act in the drama Sunrise from the perspective of Speech Act Metonymy Theory, including the analysis of the phases that some main characters use in the dram Sunrise and distributions of these phases in different types of directives, as well as some pragmatic parameters that would exert influence on the choice of structures or phases for characters. The corpus is from the six characters’directive speech acts in the drama Sunrise.With the analysis, these conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, the phases of directives used can be divided into four categories:Core, Before, After and Combined phases. Secondly, the most frequently used phase is CORE, followed by Before and Combined structure, then the After structure. Thirdly, the extent that the phases are used by different characters is also different. This may be due to their different personalities, social status, and power relationship. Those with high social status such as Pan Yueting and Chen Bailu, use more Core phase; Huang Shengsan and Shrimp, who typically represent the lower class in the drama, use more beggings. At last, the phases distribute differently in different types of directives. Specifically, the phase BEFORE enjoys a great frequency in advising and request; the phase CORE accounts for the most frequency in orders and the AFTER phase is dominant in threatening.The present study has some theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, it could shed some new light on the study of both the Speech Act Metonymy Theory and the directive speech acts. Practically, it could offer a new approach to the research of communicative intentions, tracing the cause of misunderstandings, and ensuring successful communication. It is also helpful for language teaching, providing a new perspective for the research of literary language.