Pragmatic Functions Of Speech Acts In Grammatical Framework

Speech acts play an important part in human being·s daily communication. Ifspeech acts could not be properly understood and used, unnecessarymisunderstanding may occur. Although many linguists and scholars have studiedspeech act theory in different aspects, studying of the pragmatic functions of thespeech acts in the grammatical framework is rare. Therefore the author of this paperintends to study it from the perspective of grammars.John L.Austin·s speech acts discussed the classification of the illocutionary act.He divided the speech act theory into five parts which are verdictives, exercitives,commissives, behabitives and expositives. But because the classification of hislacked some obvious limitations, therefore it was not widely received and recognizedby many linguists and scholars. Searle later modified and developed the theory ofspeech acts. He made the classification of speech acts more scientific, systematic andspecific. Searle·s theory of speech acts and his classification of illocutionary, which,in fact, play an important part in the analysis of the pragmatic functions of thespeech acts in the grammatical framework.Based on the speech act theory and the classification of it, the author of thispaper discussed the pragmatic functions of speech acts in the grammaticalframework. Ways of realizing the speech acts from the perspective of clause typesare listed, including: declarative, interrogative imperative and exclamations. Someexamples are used to explain how the clause types function when speech acts areperformed. In chapter five, the ways and phenomenon of realizing speech acts areanalyzed from the perspective of modal verbs and non-modal verbs.In the conclusion of the thesis, a conclusion about the previous chapters isbriefly given. Normally, the ways to perform speech acts are clause types, modalverbs and non-modal verbs successively. Apart from those mentioned above,politeness is also a very important part of realizing speech acts. Understandingdifferent ways of realizing speech acts is of great importance for the successful and harmonious communication. Speech acts should be properly understood in order toavoid the unnecessary misunderstanding in our communication.