FUNCTIONING OF THE SPEECH ACT COMMISSIVE IN IN VARIOUS SITUATIONS

Introduction

The development of pragmatics is closely related to the study of the theory of speech acts and postulates of communication. There are various approaches to the classification and subclassification of speech acts, the reason lies in the different interpretation of the type of speech impact. J. Searle distinguishes assertives, directives, commissives, declaratives, expressives and questions as an independent class [1, P. 1]. All these speech acts can be expressed both directly and indirectly. In the system of speech acts, a class of commissives is traditionally distinguished - the main intention, which is to convince the addressee of the speaker's intention to perform or not to perform any action. The communicative situation is a fundamental factor in the choice of a speech act, from the point of view of the speakers, on the one hand, and the communicative means used by them, on the other hand. Relations between participants in a communicative situation, social distance, norms and rules of behavior help to understand the issue of choosing one or another speech option. In this article we consider the semantic and pragmatic features of the use of the speech act of the commissive in a specific situation, namely in the epistolary genre, since it is characterized by certain social and cultural norms and rules.

The purpose of commissives is to oblige, force the speaker to do something. Commissive statements can function in two varieties of a given speech act: commissive in response to the addressee's request and commissive in response to a stimulus emanating from the situation.

The promise refers to commissives and does not contain any additional semantic loads. In order for the speech act of the promise to be successfully and harmlessly carried out in the process of verbal communication, it is necessary that the addressee and the addressee satisfy its preparatory conditions, namely: the addresser's ability to fulfill the promised, the addressee's interest in the promised. The "sincerity" condition specifies the psychological state inherent in the addressee when making a promise.

The propositional content of a promise is determined by all other conditions. Promising, the addressee expresses the corresponding proposition - the object of the promise, which may be the future action or state, a series of actions in the future, or refraining from performing an action [2, P. 135].

Direct speech acts of a promise include statements with the performative verb to promise. The focus of the act of speech on the implementation of the designated action constitutes its illocutionary force. That is, a statement with the verb to promise forms a performative speech act of promise.

The direct speech act of a promise is a two-part construction, the first part of which is represented by a performative verb, and the second part presupposes the presence of indicative or infinitive tenses. Speech acts in the structure of which two elements are connected and present, expressed in an explicit way, we call direct speech acts. By indirect, we mean a speech act in which there is any deviation from the semantic model described above [3, P. 196]. Indirect use can be caused by various transformations of the direct promise semantic model. Let us consider examples of various types of indirect expression of the speech act of promise, depending on the communicative situation.

Promises can be made in response to a request.

Next time I am in Princeton I will take the privilege of coming to see you [4, P. 463].

Next Saturday is the Brown game. I shan’t go though, but shall save my money for the Princeton game [5, P. 153].

These examples are taken from private correspondence, the social distance in the first example is distant, the elder refers to the younger, and in the second is close, the role relationships are equal, so the social distance in both examples is different.

In business correspondence, such examples are found in letters - responses to a client about orders, bank loans. In order to write a letter - a refusal to receive a loan, many companies resort to promises in such cases.

After one full year of full time employment we would be pleased to review your application again [6, P. 318].

From these examples, covering both business and personal correspondence, we see that indirect promises can be carried out using statements that assert the future action of sender in favor of a person to whom the promise is addressed.

It should be noted that the speaker's statement about future action can be understood as an indirect promise only if the subject correlated with the subject of speech is an agent, and the verb is used in the form of an active voice. All these examples have essentially the same propositional content, characterized by intentionality and subject orientation.

 By asserting the ability to perform any action, the speaker can thereby make an act of promise. The fulfillment of this condition determines whether the addressee can count on the execution of the expected action.

Such requests can very often remain unanswered, due to the confidentiality of information, in these cases, cooperation is destroyed and the sender tends to prevent the addressee from realizing intentions. This type of promise is situationally limited, but since the purpose of business cooperation is to reach an agreement, they are still aimed at further cooperative development of communication.

An analysis of examples showed that in business correspondence, along with promises, there are promises-assurances.

 As we have a good supply of these machines we can effect shipment within 5 days [7, P.30].

Emotionally assurance promises are stronger than promises. In these examples, commissive statements are given in response to a stimulus from the situation.

I return to town tomorrow for a few rehearsals to get “Barbara” straight for the evening bill on the 1^st [8, P. 591].

However, only in some activity contexts do these statements express promises; normatively, they are a direct explication of the speech act of intention.

If the addressee is not clear how he should perceive the statement (as a promise or as an intention), then in the reply letter he can ask the question "Is this a promise?" and get the answer "Yes, I promise you that" explicitly and unambiguously, expressing the illocutionary force of the statement [2, P. 137].

The next subclass of commissives is guarantees-pledges. The sender declares the intention to perform the desired action for the addressee. This guarantee is given with a greater degree of responsibility to the sender. Most often they are found in the business sphere of communication, in letters of proposals, responses to inquiries.

You can count on a brisk turn over If prices are competitive and deliveries promt [9, P. 21].

As for another subclass of commissives - oaths, it should be noted that for their expression, the direct form is always used, clearly and unambiguously expressing the illocutionary function of the utterance. The addressee uses such statements only in special cases in order to simply assure the addressee of something and thus eliminate any possible ambiguity regarding illocutionary force [10].

And, finally, threat is an illocutionary act that occupies a peripheral position in relation to directives and also reveals the properties of a commissive. The illocutionary component merges with the emotional component, forming a single whole in this speech act. The emotional component is a prerequisite for a continuous speech act, and varies from anger to mild irritation
[11, P. 72].

We cannot possibly allow this situation to continue, and are sorry to have to tell you that unless you can guarantee to deliver supplies by the dates specified in future orders, we will be forced to look for another supplier [9, P. 138].

This is an indirect threat, since there are all the compound threats - there is an action that, according to the addressee, must be performed - a typical threat condition, and the second part contains a promise to take any action if it is not fulfilled. The first part is a directive, the second is a commissive. However, at the same time, the whole statement is kept in such a polite form that it takes the form of a warning (We are sorry ... we will be forced ...)

Thus, promises, assurances, guarantees, threats are very widespread in the epistolary genre. This is explained by the fact that the purpose of using an indirect act of a commissive type is to strengthen the communicative intention of a speech act (guarantees, assurances), in some cases, to relieve oneself of responsibility for words (answers to requests).

In an official setting, promises-assurances are mainly used at a distant and close distance, and guarantees only at a distant one [12, 13]. This comes from the fact that such speech acts are emotionally stronger than promises, that is, they justify the purpose of business communication. In an informal setting of communication, promises, regardless of the status-role relations of communicants and social distance, are expressed by speech acts, in which the form is represented by a literal speech act, and the content is literal and relevant.

The emergence of indirect commissives is pragmatically motivated. This is due to the fact that the speaker counts not only on the interlocutor's linguistic knowledge, but also on the non-linguistic competence, knowledge of the conditions for the success of the commissive speech act. An important role in determining the illocutionary intention when the speaker makes a promise is played by the context and situation of communication.