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.
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