Evaluación de la posibilidad y utilidad de los mecanismos de mercado

We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal. The act of speaking or using a language such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions and making promises are actually performing speech act (Searle, 1985, p. 16). In the classroom, teachers are bound to use certain types of speech act in order to control their students‟ behaviour and also to solicit cooperation from the students (Bach and Harnish, 1979). Since the functions of these acts may vary, teachers need to know how to use speech act accordingly while the students need to learn how to interpret the teacher‟s use of speech acts.

Speech act can perform actions. According to Searle (1979, p. 39), speech act is “the production of the sentence token under certain conditions”. Speech act does not function to convey information but rather they can influence changes. For example, the

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sentence „You are fired‟ can mean, the hearer is no longer welcome at the workplace hence it can be a prohibitive. Searle (1969, p. 12-19) classified five types of speech acts and they are assertives, directives, commisives, expressives and declaratives. Assertives are statements that may be true or false and the function is to describe or to give information. The example for this class is a claim or a report. Directives are statements that will make the hearer to do a specific action like a request or a command. Commisives are the statements that commit the speaker to a future action. For example, it can be a promise or a vow. Expressives are the statements that show the speaker‟s sincerity. For example, it can be an apology, a complaint or praise. Declaratives are statements that can bring change to the world. An example of declarative is a declaration.

Searle then elaborated that there are three levels in which an utterance which can be analysed and they are locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary (May, 2009, p. 1011):

 Locutionary - „The act of using words to form sentences, those wording making sense in a language with correct grammar and pronunciation‟. It is basically to say something that carries certain meaning.

 Illocutionary - „The intended action by the speaker, the force or intention behind the words within the framework of certain conventions‟. For example, the speaker may be informing, ordering or giving a warning to the hearer. Statements, requests, promises and apologies are examples of the four major categories of communicative illocutionary acts: constatives, directives, commissives and acknowledgments. This is the nomenclature used by Kent Bach and Michael Harnish (1979, p. 39-57), who developed a detailed taxonomy in which each type of illocutionary act is

individuated by the type of attitude expressed:

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(1) Constatives: A constative is an utterance used to express the speaker‟s belief and his intention or desire that the hearers have or form alike belief. Constatives can serve assertives, predictives, retrodictives, descriptives, ascriptives, informatives, confirmatives, concessives, retractives, assentives, disentives, disputives, responsives, suggestives, and suppositives functions. (2) Directives: A directive is an utterance used to express the speaker‟s attitude toward some prospective action by the hearer and his intention that his utterance, or the attitude it expresses, be taken as a reason for the hearer action. Directives are concerned with getting people to do things. Directives can be used to serve requestives, questions, requirements, prohibitives, permissives, and advisories functions

(3) Commissives: A commissive is an utterance used to express the speaker‟s intention and belief that his utterance obligates him to do something (perhaps under certain conditions). Commissives serve two main functions namely (1) promises (contract, bet, swear that, guarantee that, guarantee), (2) offers (volunteer, bid). A promise function is an utterance used to promise, to swear, to vow. An offer functions is an utterance used to offer, to propose.

(4) Acknowledgments: An acknowledgment is an utterance used to express feelings regarding the hearer or, in cases where the utterance satisfies a social expectation to express certain feelings and his belief that it does. Acknowledgments can serve apologize, condole, congratulate, greet, thank, accept (acknowledge and acknowledgment), and reject functions. Apologize function is an utterance of acknowledgment used to apologize. Condole

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function is an utterance used to commiserate, to condole. Congratulate function is an utterance used to compliment, to congratulate, to felicitate. (5) Didactives: A didactive speech act is speech act which is mostly used in teaching and learning context. Didactives speech acts is the term used by Edmonson-House (see Trosborg, 1994) In this research, it is found didactives speech acts. They are correct, repeat, and evaluate.

 Perlocutionary - „The effect that an utterance has on the thoughts, feelings, attitude or action of the hearer‟

Throughout the interactions with children, teachers also use certain types of speech act to control behaviour and solicit cooperation. Because the functions of these acts may vary from one context to the other, children have to learn how to interpret their teacher‟s use of these acts (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). For example, some teacher may pose a command as a question (eg: could you please close the door?). Thus, the students need to be able to know how to respond to this type of command. Usually there are students respond to it literally, interpreting it as a request that can be denied and not a command (Delpit, 1988; Heath, 1982).

Thus the analysis of speech act can be very helpful to explain the teachers‟ communication in dealing with special education students. Illocutionary act is the focus of speech act analysis of this study since it emphasises on the interactional strategies used by teachers in teaching special education classroom.

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