Discourse Analysis by Using Speech Act

Theory and Hallidayan Cohesion

SALMA NOURI BIANKU
 Introduction

The aim of this paper is to describe and evaluate two approaches to discourse
analysis, Hallidayan cohesion and speech act theory. The intention is to clarify these two
approaches to discourse analysis in such a way that they can be interrogated as
frameworks for analyzing a text. At first it is helpful to begin by briefly defining the word
discourse, examining the different approaches to discourse analysis and justifying the
choice of the functionalist approaches to discourse explored in this paper. This will be
followed by a brief summary for each of both approaches selected as frameworks for
analysis, after which two texts will be analyzed using these approaches. The paper
concludes with a critical evaluation of which of the two approaches is more suitable for
the two texts in question,

Two paradigms in linguistics are based on various premises about the aim of
linguistics and the general nature of language. These paradigms are the functionalist
paradigm and the formalist paradigm. These two paradigms have various underlying
suppositions about the aim of linguistic theory, the techniques for examining language,
and the characteristic of data and experimental evidence, These variations in paradigm
affect definitions of discourse. Discourse can be defined in several ways, firstly as a
specific unit of language and secondly as a specific focus on the use of language. A third
definition of discourse tries to reduce the formalist - functionalist differences. The
differences between structure and function are relevant to the relationship between
context and text. Functional definitions concentrate on context while structural
definitions concentrate on text (Schiffrin 1994). She also highlights the issue of how
linguistics views communication "Structural definitions take a narrower view of
communication than do functional definitions, and place a higher priority on the role of
the code in communication" (Schiffrin 1994:42).

In this paper I have chosen to focus on the functionalist approaches to discourse

for two main reasons. Concentrating on function rather than structure makes it easier to
recognize and examine actions accomplished by people. In addition, dealing with both
these various paradigms involve us into two various analytical worlds which can often be
hard to unite.

There are several different approaches within the functionalist paradigm; some of the
main ones are speech act theory, pragmatics, conversation analysis and cohesion.

1. Speech act theory starts with John Austin's work. His thoughts are spread and
integrated into the theory of linguistics by John Searle, whose work also poses
significant questions relating to the inventory and categorizing of acts about
people and the way that one utterance can be linked with several acts (Schiffrin
1994)
2. Pragmatics is the study of the use of language in communication; it is also the
study of the connections between languages and their speakers (ibid.)
3. Conversation analysis is the examining of speech in interaction. CA generally
tries to identify the system, structure and successive patterns of interaction, if this
conversation is causal or institutional (ibid)
4. Cohesion: the notion of cohesion is a semantic concept, it indicates to meaning
relations which be within the text, and that identifies it as a text (Halliday and
Hasan 1976) .

Speech act theory considers utterances; it is a great deal connected with the use of
language that is utterances made in particular discourse have a particular effect, not
required to be connected with the utterance form, but surely distinctive from it. Austin
(1962) points out that the releasing of the utterance is the doing of an action. For Austin
the illocutionary act is the creating of a coherent and grammatical utterance, the
illocutionary act is the bringing out of an utterance with an illocutionary effect and the
perlocutionary act is the intended effects achieved by the speaker in his/her hearer. The
analytical power for speech act theory is derived from its ability to justify the deductive
bases which people use to infer various kinds of utterances (Fitch and Sanders 2005).
 A speech act approach to discourse result to specific perspective of coherence and
the procedure by which coherence is existed. Coherence is the consequence of underlying
rules that link the actions (Schiffrin 1994) .

Brown and Yule (1983) have criticized Halliday and Hasan (1976) for seeming to
suppose that it is required for a text to expose some of the aspects of cohesion in order to
be distinguished as a text. They provide models of texts which exhibits few markers of
cohesion, and think the hearer or reader will presume that the sentences succession forms
a text. Brown and Yule (1983) argued that Halliday and Hasan are uncertain about the
difference between the relations of meanings that link between items in a text and the
obvious expression of those relations within a text. This difference is the implicit
semantic relation which really has the cohesive power. Brown and Yule have posed a
question is whether the explicit relations of meanings are needed to recognize a text as a
text. According to them Halliday and Hasan seem to assert that such obvious relations are
required when they create expressions like "a text has texture, and this is what
distinguishes it from something which is not a text" (Halliday and Hasan 1976:2), and
"cohesive ties between sentences stand out more clearly because they are the only source
of texture" (Halliday and Hasan 1976:9). In such expressions Halliday and Hasan appear
to be speaking about spoken components which appear in the spoken record not of
implicit semantic relations (Halliday and Hasan 1976).

Brown &Yule (1983) have raised questions considering whether formal cohesion
adequate to ensure identification as a text? What does form a text? Is it easy for a reader
to understand the recent constituted series of sentences? "Their answer to the previous
questions was formal cohesion will not guarantee identification as a text, nor to answer
the subsidiary question, will it guarantee textual coherence" (Brown & Yule 1983:197).

Brown and Yule (1983) have mentioned that Halliday and Hasan are not
interested in displaying a description which describes how to understand texts. They are
rather interested in studying the resources of linguistic accessible to the speaker to point
cohesive relationships. They mentioned that speakers' and listeners' discourse
representations are unlikely to be matched completely. If the listener has to build an
interpretation from what the speaker says, then the understanding of pronouns may
exhibit particular problems. Also Chomsky disagrees with Halliday's thoughts of
language and says "it clear that grammar is not to be understood as a system of
meanings” (Chomsky 1957:93).

Speech act theory

Austin starts by observing that some utterances miss what is thought to be an

essential property of statements - a truth value. "Not describe or report but the uttering of
the sentence is the doing of an action" (Schiffrin 1994:50). Austin names these
performatives and differentiates them from constitutes. Performatives demand not only
the proper circumstances, but also appropriate language. The performative verb is the
present tense. Then Austin continues to categorize the circumstances which allow
utterances to function as performative. The range of circumstances which allows an act
includes the existence of recognized conventional procedure holding a definite
conventional effect. The concentration of attention is no longer sentences, but the
releasing of an utterance in a speech act situation. Speech acts are performed by
utterances, which are made up of a locutionary act, an illocutionary act and a
perlocutionary act (Schiffrin 1994). "Austin also raises the possibility that performatives
can be realized without verbs" (Schiffrin 1994:52). According to Schiffrin, Searle
suggested that the speech act is the fundamental unit of communication. "Speech act
theory analyses the way meanings and acts are linguistically communicated" (Schiffrin
1994:57). Searle suggested five classes of speech acts: declarations, expressive,
representatives, directives and commissives. Searle pointed out that there are a restricted
number of things that people do with language (Searle 1979).

Language can be used to inform people how things are, attempt to get them to
commit things, express their emotions and attitudes and make changes through their
utterances. Speech act theory deals with utterance-types rather than actual utterance. It
also places greater emphasizes on the sort of knowledge that speakers and hearers can be
presupposed to bring to talk, than with the ways they build upon inferences in speech.
Acts can be performed through language because constitutive rules, which create the acts,
are shared by people (ibid).
 Having finished the summary of speech act theory, it is appropriate next to
analyze how a single utterance fulfils the conditions of a question, then to see if the same
utterance could also act as a request and as an offer. Afterwards to analyze the following
utterances in terms of their relationship with the first utterance and their speech act
succession. The data, which will be used for analysis, is a conversation among two
people (Jodie and Flicka). This text is taken from Dr. Jodie Clark's lecture what is
discourse? During my analysis to the following text I will use Schiffrin (1994) speech act
theory sample as a guide for analysis. Also I have chosen only two utterances for analysis
because they give all the rules and the interpretations which speech act theory applies for
analyzing a text.

1. Jodie: Um: Cup of tea, cup of coffee?

2. Flicka: Tea please

The sentence in line (1) can be identified as a question, a request and as an offer. At
first I need to consider Searle's rules for questions. These rules are; "the speaker lacks
knowledge of a particular state of affairs (preparatory rule) and wants to gain that
knowledge (sincerity rule) by eliciting information from the hearer ( essential rule)"
(Searle: 1969 cited in Schiffrin 1994:64)

First, ‘cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ could be regarded as a reduced form of an

interrogative. Interrogative utterances are suitable to the question function. This is due to
the fact that interrogatives are incomplete propositions: they meet the first preparatory
rule for Searle," the speaker lacks knowledge as to how to complete a gaps in speaker's
knowledge: speaker can lack either knowledge of the truth of a proposition or
information needed to complete a true proposition" (Schiffrin 1994:65). The connection
of the form-function between Searle's preparatory rule and the sentences of interrogative
often guide to the opinion that "interrogatives are unmarked syntax for question asking"
(ibid). If 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?' is an interrogative, it would then be easy to say it
fulfills the question's preparatory rule. But we cannot be sure that ‘cup of tea, cup of
coffee?’ is an interrogative. It may be a reduction of Do you want/would you like a ‘cup
of tea, cup of coffee?’’ (and thus an incomplete proposition), its surface syntactic form is
a declarative sentence - a complete proposition that seems not to fit the preparatory
condition of questions at all’’ (Schiffrin 1994:65)

We can note that "cup of tea, cup of coffee?" ends with a question mark: this reflects
its final rising intonation. Schiffrin, in previous work, "identified declarative sentences
with final rises as questions" (ibid). However, "other scholars have identified sentence
fragments as questions even when a fuller interrogative form of those fragments is not
unequivocally recoverable" (ibid) such analyses put more weight on final rising
intonation instead of depending on syntax for the criteria of question. Research, which
has been conducted on intonation, suggests that final rising intonation may be an
illocutionary force for some kinds of questions.

According to Schiffrin, one analyst proposes that the final rises convey
incompleteness (the first preparatory rule), whilst others propose that the final rises
convey uncertainty in domains. Another group of analysts propose that final rises need a
response (the essential rule). As a result, some of the meanings which have been
accompanied with final rises can be in harmonious with rules which underlies questions
(Schiffrin 1994). The propositional content of' cup of tea, ‘cup of coffee?’ helps the
discourse analyst to understand the preparatory, sincerity, and essential rules of questions
and say that all these rules are illocutionary force indicating devices. When the speaker
asks the hearer about his/her wish for tea or coffee, then it is up to the hearer to accept or
refuse the offer. Then ‘cup of tea, cup of coffee?' illustrates the speaker's lack of
information (the first preparatory rule) and it can be regarded as an attempt to get the
hearer to give that information (essential rule). Once commencing to think about the
responsibility of the hearer to give information to the speaker, this essential rule of
questions - arguing, that ‘cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ can be regarded as speaker's attempts
to get information from hearer. As a result, an expression of uncertainty does not tell the
analyst that 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?' should be regarded as an attempt to get
information from hearer; people often express their uncertainty about concerns without
attempting to get information from others who would be able to solve the uncertainty.
Rather, it is up to the hearer to accept or refuse the speaker’s offer which is 'cup of tea,
cup of coffee?'. Searle argues that "it is not obvious to both S and H that H will provide
the information at that time without being asked" (Searle 1969:66). We do not know for
sure that Flicka would not tell Jodie directly that she wants a cup of tea/coffee if Jodie did
not ask her about cup of tea/coffee. But we cannot be sure that Flicka would not ask Jodie
to give her something to drink. As a result, all we can say that 'cup of tea, ‘cup of
coffee?‘ conveys Jodie's desire (the sincerity condition) that Flicka give information that
she might not otherwise give (the second preparatory condition). "Finally, we could
construct contextual arguments for the fulfillment of the felicity conditions" (Schiffrin
1994:69). There are social customs and reasons for arguing that Jodie wants this
information. First, Jodie and Flicka are friends. Second, it is impolite to invite people to
your home without finding out if they would like to drink something.

In addition to identifying 'cup of tea, cup of coffee’ as a question, I would also

identify it as a directive, especially a request for information. Searle's (1969) felicity
conditions for questions are similar to request conditions. They are the preparatory,
sincerity and essential conditions. But the difference between questions and requests rules
is that speaker wants through a request from hearer to do a speech while he wants through
a question to get information. This is suggests that questions are specific kind of requests.

So ‘cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ is both a request and a question. It enacts a request for
Flicka to undertake a verbal action and to inform Jodie if she does or does not want cup
of tea/coffee. This act (the propositional content condition) will solve Jodie's uncertainty
about what Flicka wants (the preparatory condition for questions) (Schiffrin 1994) .

‘Cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ it can also be identified as an offer. Jodie is using this
sentence to make something available to Flicka. "The relationship between question,
request and an offer illustrates the application of important aspects of speech act theory to
discourse: both the principles by which speech acts are classified, and the view that
utterances are multifunctional because of relationships between their underlying
conditions, can be incorporated into speech act applications to discourse." (Schiffrin
1994:72). The distinction between commissives and directives is that: commissives are
obligations from speaker to do speech for hearer while directives are endeavoring by
speaker to have hearer to do speech (Schiffrin 1994). Searle defines commissives as
"illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action."
(Searle 1979: 11). We may paraphrase 'cup of tea, cup of coffee’ as ‘I intend to give you
cup of tea or cup of coffee if you want'. In this sentence speaker does not know if hearer
wants tea/coffee (a preparatory condition of questions) that speaker wants hearer to
inform speaker if hearer wants tea/coffee (a preparatory condition of requests). When
hearer answers the question, the speaker's uncertainty is reduced and speaker can
undertake an obligation to do speech for hearer. The relationship between offers and
requests proposes that people can make offer with one utterance or more than one. Also
the questions can work as offers (Schiffrin 1994). Retuning to 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?',
it can receive more than one response to an offer, request for information or it questions
if hearer wants speech. "the availability of more than one response type shows that a
single utterance performs more than one speech act’’ (Schiffrin 1994:75) so the response
to 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?' depends on its literal meaning as a question or request, and
it depends also on its indirect use as an offer. These two possibilities underline the
multiple identities of speech act to the utterance 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?' Thus, when
Jodie says ‘cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ she is making an offer to provide Flicka with
tea/coffee. However, her offer is questioning and also requesting Flicka to tell Jodie
whether she wants tea/coffee.

‘Built into the felicity conditions of questions, requests and offers is a need for hearer
response. What this need for response suggests is that an analysis of a single utterance as
a question, request or offer leads naturally to an analysis of the utterance(s) that follow'
(Schiffrin 1994:76). We concluded from the text that Flicka's answer 'tea please', after
Jodie's 'cup of tea, cup of coffee?’ can be identified as an answer; although it is elliptical,
but we rely on the content of the previous question to interpret 'tea, please' and
understand that it gives the answer. In addition to answering Jodie's question; Flicka
complies with Jodie's request for information: Flicka gives the information that she wants
tea. Finally, she also responds to Jodie's offer of tea/coffee; she does accept the offer of
tea (Schiffrin 1994) .

Hallidayan Cohesion:

It would be easy for English hearer or reader of a passage to decide if this passage
is well linked or just a group of unconnected sentences. In linguistics the word Text is
used to mention any passage, written or spoken, which form a united whole. A text is a
semantic unit of meaning. Thus it is linked to a sentence or clause by Realization. The
property of being a text is best expressed by the concept of Texture, and what
differentiates a text from something which is not a text is having a texture. It takes this
texture from the fact that it acts as a unity (Halliday and Hasan 1976). "The concept of a
tie makes it possible to analyze a text in terms of its cohesive properties, and give a
systematic account of its patterns of texture" (Halliday and Hasan 1976:4). Cohesion is
the internal continuity or network of points of continuity within a text. As Halliday and
Hasan say (1976:299) "The continuity that is provided by cohesion consists, in the most
general terms, in expressing at each stage in the discourse the points of contact with what
has gone before. It is continuity provided by cohesion that enables the reader or the
listener to supply all the missing pieces, all the components of the picture which are not
present in the text but are necessary to its interpretation." Halliday and Hasan identify
types of cohesive relation: Substitution and ellipsis, lexical collocation, reference, lexical
reiteration and conjunction. They also classify comparison as a form of cohesive
(Halliday and Hasan 1976). They summarize a taxonomy of kinds of cohesive
relationships which can be found within a text, giving cohesive ties which connect a text
together. The taxonomy of kinds of explicit markers of conjunctive relation is: temporal,
causal, additive and adversative (Brown &Yule 1983) .

Having given a brief summery to the Hallidayan Cohesion, it is appropriate next to

analyze a text from (the weakest link program 2003). This modified text is taken' from
Dr. Jodie Clark's lecture Politeness.

1. Anne: So, Kelly.

2. Kelly: yes Anne
3. Anne: You're on probation, are you?
4. Kelly: Sometimes I feel that way. I'm a probation officer.

In the above text there are two speakers (Anne & Kelly). Anne is trying to start a
conversation with Kelly and to draw her attention by saying so Kelly. So is a conjunctive
marker. It is a causal and it occurs at the beginning of the clause. It connects this sentence
with the next one. Halliday and Hasan (1976) insist that textness is formed by the
existence of the cohesive markers. This sentence is also cataphoric. Because it invites
Kelly to look at the following sentence to know what Anne wants from her. The word
Kelly is a proper name for a female; it is used also as a referring expression to refer to an
entity in the world. Sometimes it is used to identify individuals uniquely. It identifies a
particular individual in a particular context (Brown & Yule 1983). Then Kelly replies by
saying yes as an answer. Next, Anne asks her by saying you're on probation. (You) is a
subject pronoun; it is a pronominal expression and refers back to Kelly in the first
sentence. The use of you is also anaphoric. Because hearer or reader needs to look back to
the previous sentence to infer the meaning of you. "This anaphoric function of you give
cohesion to the two sentences, so we interpret them as a whole, the two sentences
together constitute a text" (Halliday & Hasan 1976:2). The cohesive relation; that exists
between Kelly and you, provides the texture. Halliday and Hasan (1976:45) says "the
significance of the person system is that it is the means of referring to relevant persons
and objects, making use of a small set of options centering around the particular nature of
their relevance to speech situation". They refer to pronouns as 'speech roles', they are the
speaker role and the addressee role.

Returning to ‘you’re on probation,' it is a subject noun phrase and it is a referring

expression. The hearer can understand and build in his representation of the discourse;
which contains entities introduced by Anne through her use of this referring expression
that Kelly works as a probation officer (Brown & Yule 1983). Kelly answers Anne by
saying ‘sometimes I feel that way’ the subject pronoun (I) is a pronominal pronoun and
refers back to Kelly. The use of the pronoun (I) is anaphoric to Kelly.

The use of anaphoric function of [I] gives cohesion to the two sentences (Halliday &
Hasan 1976). ‘I feel that way' that way is a substituted form stands for (on probation) the
speaker used 'that way' instead of repeating the same word. Halliday and Hassan (1976)
adopt an uncomplicated substitution view where an expression could simply be
substituted by another expression in the text; substitution is a another type of cohesive
relation. It is a relation between words or phrases. Substitution is a relation within the
text. It is used in place of repeating the same word. ‘I feel that way' is also a cataphoric. It
refers forward to probation officer The hearer needs to look at the following sentence to
interpret the first one and connect them in his mental representation of a world created by
discourse. Halliday and Hassan (1976) have regarded cohesion as a cataphoric relation
which supposes something that has come after it.

Conclusion

To sum up, speech act theory is more suitable for analyzing a text than Hallidayan
cohesion. It considers utterances and deals with the use of language that is utterances
made in particular discourse have a particular effect. The analytical power for speech act
theory is derived from its ability to justify the deductive bases which people use to infer
various kinds of utterances. Its coherence is the consequence of underlying rules that link
the actions. While the Hallidayan cohesion supposes, that it is required for a text to
expose some of the aspects of cohesion, in order to be distinguished as a text. Halliday
and Hasan provide models of texts, which exhibit few markers of cohesion. They think
the hearer or the reader will presume that the sentences succession forms a text. They are
not sure about the difference between the relations of meanings that link between items in
a text and the obvious expression of those relations within a text. This difference is the
implicit semantic relation which really has the cohesive power.
 References

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4. Fitch, K.:L. and Sanders, R. E (2005). Handbook of Language and Social

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5. Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman.

6. Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.

7. Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8. Searle, J. (1979). A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts. In Expression and Meaning.

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9. The Weakest Link.' (2003). [online]. Last accessed 17 November 2008 at: