Лекции по теоретической грамматике английского языка для студентов

Preparatory conditions
include the status or authority of the speaker to 
perform the speech act, the situation of other parties and so on. Only certain people 
are qualified to declare war, baptize people or sentence convicted felons. 
The situation of the utterance is important. If the US President jokingly 
“declares” war on another country in a private conversation, then the USA is not 
really at war. This, of course, happened (on 11 August 1984), when Ronald 
Reagan made some remarks off-air, as he thought, but which have been recorded 
for posterity: “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed 
legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” 
One hopes that this utterance also failed in terms of sincerity conditions. 
Conditions for execution
require that external circumstances must be 
suitable. “Can you give me a lift?” requires that the hearer has a motor vehicle and 
is able to drive it somewhere and that the speaker has a reason for the request. 
Sincerity conditions 
show that the speaker must really intend what he or 
she says. In the case of apologizing or promising, it may be impossible for others 
to know how sincere the speaker is. Moreover sincerity, as a genuine intention 
(now) is no assurance that the apologetic attitude will last, or that the promise will 
be kept. There are some speech acts – such as plighting one’s troth or taking an 
oath – where this sincerity is determined by the presence of witnesses.
 

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2. Pragmatic transposition of sentences 
Sometimes a sentence characterized by formal features of some pragmatic 
type in speech acquires illocutionary power of sentences of another type. Such 
cases are referred to as 
indirect speech acts
. Indirect speech acts are commonly 
used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example a speaker asks, 
“Would 
you like to meet me for coffee?”
and another replies, 
“I have class.”
The second 
speaker used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because 
the literal meaning of 
“I have class”
does not entail any sort of rejection. Typical 
cases include: 
o
constative >> requestive: 
e.g. It is rather cool here. (Please close the 
window.) 
o
quesitive >> requestive: 
e.g. Do you have any cash on you? (Please lend 
me some.) 
o
constative >> offertive: 
e.g. There is some chocolate on the tea table. 
(Have some.) 
A sentence used transpositionally still retains its original meaning. The two 
meanings co-exist, the indirect one being layered upon the original one.
It is obvious that there are some restrictions as to types of sentences that can 
be transposed. A sentence of any pragmatic type cannot be transposed into any 
other pragmatic type. 
Apparently, pragmatic transposition of sentences is socially motivated. The 
choice of an indirect pragmatic type is explained by extralinguistic conditions of 
the communicative situation.

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