The Exchange of Talk: A Study of Speech Acts in Mahesh Dattani’s Where There’s a Will
Keywords:
Speech Acts, Locutionary Acts, Illocutionary Acts, Perlocutionary Acts, Felicity Conditions.Abstract
The study of dramatic dialogue as the discourse has caught the attention of researchers in recent times. A defining moment regarding this was the publication of John Langshaw Austin’s How to Do Things with Words and his theory of ‘Speech Acts’ in 1962, which was further modified and systematised by John Rogers Searle in his book Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language published in the year 1969. A characteristic feature of drama is that characters express themselves through their dialogues and this raises the issue of applying the theory of ‘Speech Acts’ in studying the conversational features of dramatic dialogues as it enables the interpretation of dramatic dialogues in a systematic manner. The present paper first outlines the theoretical framework of the notion of ‘Speech Acts’ put forwarded by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) before discussing the contribution that the theory of ‘Speech Acts’ makes to the understanding of dramatic dialogues. The paper then analyses some selected conversational passages from Mahesh Dattani’s first full-length play Where There’s a Will (1986) using the theoretical insights from Austin’s and Searle’s notions of ‘Speech Acts’ and shows how the theory of ‘Speech Acts’ affects the reader’s interpretation of the characters’ speech.
References
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Print.
Carter, Ronald and Walter Nash. Seeing through Language. U.K.: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1990. Print.
Culpeper, Jonathan. Mick Short and Peter Verdonk, eds. Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.
Cutting, Joan. Pragmatics and Discourse: A resource book for students. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 2000. Print.
Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.
Levinson, S. C. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.
Lowe, Valerie. “‘Unhappy’ confessions in The Crucible: a pragmatic explanation.” Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context. Eds. Jonathan Culpeper, Mick Short and Peter Verdonk. London: Routledge, 1998. 128-141. Print.
Searle, J. R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Print.
Wardhaugh, Ronald. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Print.
Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Articles are the intellectual property of the authors. The Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature does not take ownership of the copyright of any published article. Authors retain the copyright to their articles and may republish these articles as part of a book or other materials. However, while republishing an article published in JTREL, the author must ensure that the following conditions have been met:
- The source of the publication (the title, volume, number and URL of the Journal) should be acknowledged.
- The article will remain published on the JTREL website (except on the occasion of a retraction of the article) and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- We do not allow the distribution and transmission of plagiaristic works based on the articles that appear in our journal.
- Readers may not use the articles for commercial purposes unless they get the written permission of the author and publisher. To disseminate copies for commercial purposes, write to editor.JTREL@gmail.com
