This study is about characterising the different types of speech acts as they are expressed in Irish. We apply speech act theory to a wide range of syntactic constructions underpinning Irish speech acts. Importantly, we formalise the situation of an utterance such that those parts of context and common ground important for the resolution of utterance meaning are reflected in the model of the various speech acts. While the theory of speech acts proposed by Searle (1969), Searle & Vanderveken (1985), and Vanderveken & Kubo (2001) motivate the analysis, the model of speech acts proposed here is extended to include context and common ground of the interlocutors, framed within a situation. The theme of this book is the characterisation of speech acts of Irish, and that the situation, as a cognitive framing mechanism, is at the heart of utterance interpretation. Throughout the study, the situation is shown to provide a systematicity that contributes towards pragmatic utterance interpretation and understanding. Additionally, the situation is demonstrated to have a dynamic structure and to act as a template for understanding, functioning as a templatic schema, to differentiate between speech act utterances in real-time language use, while encapsulating relevant context and common ground.

In chapter 2, The role of situation, common ground and context in speech acts, we discuss context, common ground, and the situation of utterance of the speech act. A speech act within a dialogue is part of a collective behaviour that evolves within the context of a social environment and is grounded in the situation of the utterance. The interlocutors draw on the associated context, and a shared common ground is established. This chapter examines the questions: What are context and common ground? How do context and common ground relate to the situation of utterance in support of a felicitous speech act?

Chapter 3, Understanding speech acts, briefly summarises some approaches to speech act theory, including the approaches of Austin (1962), Searle (1969), Searle & Vanderveken (1985). It is argued that meaning and language are related through use, and it is through the performance of illocutionary acts that speakers, using language, communicate their thoughts in discourse. Searle (1979) proposed a taxonomy of speech acts. Along with this taxonomy, Searle also proposed a typology of possible illocutionary points of performative verbs and a classification of illocutionary forces of utterances. We draw upon these insights in this study.

In chapter 4, The assertive speech act, the assertive speech act of Irish is examined. This includes a review of a number of assertive verbs of Irish. We explore the expression of the assertive speech act and its intended meaning, over and above what is simply said, and in this, we will appeal to belief, desire and intention of the speaker (and hearer, as appropriate) as component parts of the speech act. The convention of denoting the speaker as S and the hearer as H is adopted and we will employ this throughout the study, on the understanding that these roles will invariable swap during the course of a discourse exchange. We apply the formalism of the model in the representation of the speech act. An assertive commits S to a proposition being true such that, in uttering the assertive, S asserts that proposition if S expresses a) the belief that the proposition holds, and b) the intention that H believes that proposition.

Chapter 5, The evidential construction as a type of assertive speech act, examines the evidential as found in modern Irish as a type of assertive speech act. Irish uses a combination of lexical syntactic, and potentially adverbial, means within an evidentiality strategy to signal information about knowledge source. The language also has a rich repertoire of evidential adverbials that are frequently deployed. The conceptual domain of evidentiality, based on (Aikhenvald 2003:1), is understood as stating the existence of a source of evidence for some information; that includes stating that there is some evidence, and also specifying what type of evidence there is. In the evidential strategy of Irish, the evidential reporting of facts in the world based on a knowledge source is understood as stating the fact plus the existence of a source of evidence for some information, including that i) there is evidence, and ii) specifying the actual type of evidence. A mix of lexical, syntactic and adverbial means is used in this strategy within Irish to encode this asserted evidential information.

The aim of a directive speech act is to cause the hearer H of the directive utterance to perform some action, and this is explored in chapter 6, The directive speech acts. This communicative function of a directive speech act is indispensable to human interaction. Directives express the attitude of speaker S toward some prospective action by the hearer H. That is, a directive expresses an attitude of S toward some prospective action by H and reflect S’s intention that the utterance, or the attitude it expresses, is to be taken as a reason for H’s to undertake the action. The term directive is due to Searle. Directive speech acts are satisfied, and complied with if the world comes to match its propositional content. They have a world-to-word direction of fit.

Questions are directive speech acts and an attempt by S to get H to provide an answer to the question. In chapter 7, The question as a type of directive speech act, we characterise in substantial detail the pragmatic dimensions of the question forms of Irish and the various functions of these questions. When S asks a question of H, S requests that H perform a speech act of providing an answer-response to S’s question. Importantly, the form of the response is determined by the propositional content of the question. Irish has three questions forms: alternate questions, polar yes-no interrogatives, and information questions. Questions are best understood as part of a dialogue with a chain of speech acts. The required response to one of these question forms may be constrained in certain ways depending on the nature of the question. Therefore, to gain a more complete insight into the question forms and their functions, we consider the nature of answers given in response.

In chapter 8, The commissive speech act, we examine a) the form the commissive takes as a speech act and its manifestations in Irish, b) the felicity conditions under which these commissive speech acts can be successful, and c) the range of commissive speech acts of Irish and their distinguishing features. The commissive speech act can take on a range of linguistic manifestations. While a commissive commitment can be made to oneself, typically, it is made to another person. In this instance, the role of H, then, is essential as, if the commitment is made by S to H, and H does not understand, hear or accept the commitment made, then it is taken as invalid. In other words, one needs H’s as a cooperating discourse partner. We specify a variety of conditions necessary for the success of the commissive speech act. Importantly, these conditions rely on extra-linguistic knowledge, both from context and from common ground. Therefore, context and the shared knowledge in common ground function as an extra-linguistic knowledge source for the success of the commissive speech act.

In chapter 9, The expressive speech act, we examine how expressive speech acts communicate S’s feelings about themselves or the world. Searle & Vanderveken (1985:211) find that expressive speech names expressive forces, and they argue that expressive speech acts are typically hearer centred. Therefore, expressive speech acts are public expressions of emotional states. Our discussion in this chapter includes consideration of how thanking, apologising, congratulating, greeting, amongst other expressions of emotion, are expressed in Irish. The use of expressive speech acts can be found with several types of speaker-hearer interactions.

In chapter 10, The declarative speech act, we examine the declarative speech act of Irish, including declare/pronounce, adjourn, resign, approve, confirm, and name. In their successful performance, declarative speech acts bring about a correspondence between the propositional content and actual reality such that their successful performance guarantees that their propositional content corresponds to the world. The declarative speech acts have a single illocutionary point that has two directions of fit consisting simultaneously of word-to-world and world-to-word. This is because the point of a declarative is to bring about a change in the world. The declarative speech acts are seen to require an appropriate context for their successful realisation. In turn, as an illocutionary act, declaratives are a special kind of action where the expression of the intention to perform the action in the correct context is sufficient for the performance of that action. The core function of the declarative speech act is therefore to establish social facts during its performance.

Indirect speech acts as they occur in Irish are considered in chapter 11, Indirect speech acts. An indirect speech act (ISA) is an utterance that contains the illocutionary force indicators for one kind of illocutionary act but which is uttered to perform another type of illocutionary act. A (non-exhaustive) selection of ISAs are considered: a) Question on ability à yielding a request for action X; b) Yes-no question à yielding a directive request for action X; c) Assertion with proposal à yielding a directive yes-no question; and d) Assertion à yielding a request for information. While ISAs are a puzzle consisting of two speech acts in one, they still arise from general principles of collaborative discourse under the reasonable assumption that the interlocutors are rational and cooperate with each other. A way to treat utterances whose force differs from what their force indicators (IFID) is to assume that they have both a literal force, and an indirect force that is inferred in virtue of knowledge available to the interlocutor H. Our account makes use of the notion of a mental model, represented as a conceptual graph, over which H traverses in search of a relevant meaning once the initial literal meaning of the utterance has been evaluated and found wanting in context. Along with relevance, the cognitive operations of salience, prominence, attention, and expectation, play also an important role in guiding the traversal of the conceptual graph of the situation. The situational context plays a decisive role in the interpretation of an ISA utterance.

In chapter 12, Final comments on the speech acts of Irish, we provide some concluding comments of the (direct and indirect) speech acts of Irish, the critical role of the situation, common ground, and context.