The use of english modals by first-year students of the department of anglophone studies

I.3.3 - Implicature

The term «implicature» is used by Grice (1975)^4(*) to account for what a speaker can imply, suggest, or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says. In conversational implicature the speaker means more than what he says.

For instance if a teacher says to his student: «You shall not go out before I tell you», the student knows that «shall not» expresses prohibition. He understands that if he trespasses, he will be punished. So, the student will not do so. His attitude will be deferent if the teacher says: «You may not go out before I tell you so». The student will not be afraid to go out. By using «shall» instead of «may», the teacher need not add: «If you go out, I shall punish you». He makes economy of words.

I.3.4 - Inference

The term inference is used by Brown and Yule (1983:256) to «describe that process which the reader (hearer) must go through to get from the literal meaning of what is written (or said) to what the writer (speaker) intended to convey». In fact, there is no concrete relationship between what is heard or read and what is meant. It is the hearer (reader) who establishes a connection between utterances and the context. In this regard, references, presuppositions and implicatures are kinds of inferences.

Inference is of paramount importance in the understanding of the epistemic meaning of modals.

For instance, if A says, «The man may be there»; B infers that A is not sure the man is there. The implicature is that the man may not be there.

I.3.5 - Speech act theory

All the terms we have defined (reference, presupposition, implicature) are used to indicate the relationship between discourse and discourse context. Knowing the real world, the participants and their expectations we can predict what they are likely to say and study the relationship between what they say and what they think of their utterances. The relation between the utterance and the speaker is studied within Speech Act Theory.

Austin (1962)^5(*) observes that some declarative sentences are not used just to say things, i.e. describe states of affairs, but rather actively do things. He suggests that the sentence «I declare you married» is not simply asserting something but it is making something happened. Before the sentence is pronounced you were a bachelor, but as soon as it is pronounced, your matrimonial status has changed. Austin calls these kinds of sentences, i.e. sentences used to make things happen, performatives.

Austin distinguishes two kinds of performatives: explicit performatives and implicit performatives. In explicit performatives the speaker avoids to be ambiguous by describing what he is performing. Hence, instead of using some specific items like modals (as in «You must be back at ten o'clock») or adverbs (as in «I shall be there without fail») the speaker uses expressions like «I impose the obligation on you to be back at ten o'clock» or like in «I promise Ishall be there».

On the contrary, in implicit performatives, short statements are used, with specific grammatical devices. But many problems of identification arise. For instance, how to know that «go» performs an order or a daring or advice. This raises a context issue.

Austin identifies three basic senses in which when one is saying something one is doing something and whereby three kinds of acts that are simultaneously performed:

(i) «locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with

determinate sense and reference

(ii) illocutionary act: the making of statement, offer,

promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional

force associated with it (or with it's explicit performative paraphrase)

(iii) perlocutionary acts: the bringing about of effects on the

audience by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special

to the circumstances of utterance.» (in Levinson, 1983:236)

Austin's illocutionary act has come to refer only to speech act. In the example «Shoot her» Levinson (1983:236) comments, «In appropriate circumstances, it had illocutionary force of variously, ordering, urging, advising the addressee to shoot her; but the perlocutionary effect of persuading, forcing, or frightening the addressee into shooting her».

Austin's three kinds of acts that one can perform in speaking are improved by Searle (1976)^6(*). He lists five types of utterance:

(i) «representatives, which commit the speaker to the truth of the

expressed proposition (paradigm cases: asserting, concluding, etc.)

(ii) directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee

to do something (paradigm cases: requesting, questioning)

(iii) commissives, which commit the speaker to some future course of

action (paradigm cases: promising, threatening, offering)

(iv) expressives, which express a psychological state (paradigm cases:

thanking, apologizing, welcoming, congratulating)

(v) declarations, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state

of affairs and which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions

(paradigm cases: excommunicating, declaring war, christening,

firing from employment)»

Searle's theory demonstrates that speech act deals with the relation of the speaker to the utterance and specifically his attitudes towards the utterance (asserting) or his commitment to the utterance (promising, threatening). It also refers to the context of sentences especially to participants, because depending on the addressee, «You can go» expresses permission (if the addressee is of lower social status) or advice (if the addressee is peer). In this regard, modals will be treated within speech act. The relationship between speech and context needs a larger development. We deal with it in our next section.

* ⁴ Ibid.

* ⁵ Levinson,op.cit.

* ⁶ Ibid.