David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

, UNIT 3

THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS.

FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE. LANGUAGE IN
USE. THE NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.

By David Navarro Sarabia

1
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. MODELS OF COMMUNICATION.

3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE.

4. NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.

5. PRESENT-DAY DIRECTIONS IN THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS.

6. CONCLUSION.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

2
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

1. INTRODUCTION.
Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all
sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask questions, give
orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, and so on. Moreover, almost any
speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different
aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in
saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience.
Communication is traditionally defined as the exchange of meanings between
individuals through a common system of symbols. More recently, questions have been
raised concerning the adequacy of any single definition of the term communication as it is
currently employed. The American psychiatrist and scholar Jurgen Ruesch has identified
40 varieties of disciplinary approaches to the subject, including architectural,
anthropological, psychological and many other interpretations. In total, there exist at least
50 modes of interpersonal communication that draw upon dozens of analytic approaches.
Communication may therefore be analyzed in at least 50 different ways.
How language represents the world has long been, and still is, a major concern of
philosophers of language. Many thinkers, such as Leibniz, Frege, Russell, the early
Wittgenstein, and Carnap (q.v.), have thought that understanding the structure of language
could illuminate the nature of reality. However noble their concerns, such philosophers
have implicitly assumed, as J. L. Austin complains at the beginning of How to Do Things
with Words, that 'the business of a [sentence] can only be to "describe" some state of
affairs, or to "state some fact", which it must do either truly or falsely'. Austin reminds us
that we perform all sorts of 'speech acts' besides making statements, and that there are
other ways for them to go wrong or be 'infelicitous' besides not being true. The later
Wittgenstein also came to think of language not primarily as a system of representation but
as a vehicle for all sorts of social activity. 'Don't ask for the meaning', he admonished, 'ask
for the use'. But it was Austin who presented the first systematic account of the use of
language. And whereas Wittgenstein could be charged with having conflating meaning and
use, Austin was careful to separate the two. He distinguished the meaning (and reference)
of the words used from the speech acts performed by the speaker using them.
At classroom level, the content of this unit connects with the necessary background
the teacher must have to solve the problems arising from the special characteristics of the
group he/she is working with. The knowledge of any particular feature will encourage the
students’ motivation, which is why, ‘the negotiation of meaning and contents’ is one of the
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

principles regulated in the New Education System, to achieve a much better understanding
and use of the target foreign language.

2. MODELS OF COMMUNICATION.
Fragmentation and problems of interdisciplinary outlook have generated a
wide range of discussion concerning the ways in which communication occurs and
the processes it entails. Most speculation on these matters admits, in one way or
another, that the communication theorist’s task is to answer as clearly as possible
the question. ‘Who says what to whom with what effect?’ Obviously, all of the
critical elements in this question may be interpreted differently by scholars and
writers in different disciplines.
▪ The Linear Model.
The simplicity of this model, its clarity, and its surface generality proved
attractive to many students of communication in a number of disciplines, although
it is neither the only model of the communication process extant nor it is
universally accepted. As originally conceived, the model contained five elements -
an information source, a transmitter, a channel of transmission, a receiver, and a
destination - all arranged in lineal order. Messages (electronic, messages initially)
were supposed to travel along this path, to be changed into electric energy by the
transmitter, and to be reconstituted into intelligible language by the receiver. In
time, the five elements of the model were renamed so as to specify components
for other types of communication transmitted in various manners. The information
source was split into its components (both source and message) to provide a wider
range of applicability. The six constituents of the revised model are: (1) a source,
(2) an encoder, (3) a message, (4) a channel, (5) a decod er and (6) a receiver. For
some communication systems, the components are as simply as to specify as, for
instance (1) a man on the telephone, (2) the mouthpiece of the telephone, (3) the
words the man speaks, (4) the electrical wires along which the words travel (5) the
earpiece of another telephone, and (6) the mind of the listener.
In other communication systems, the components are more difficult to
isolate; e.g. the communication of the emotions of a fine artist by means of a
painting to people who may respond to the message long after the artist's death.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

▪ Types of Communication.
✓ Non-Vocal Communication.
Signals, signs and symbols, three related components of communication
processes found in all known cultures, have attracted considerable scholarly
attention because they do not relate primarily to the usual conception of words or
language. Each is apparently an increasingly more complex modification of the
former, and each was probably developed in the depths of prehis tory before, or at
the start of man's early experiments with vocal language.
– Signals: The basic function of such signals is to provide the change of a
single environmental factor in order to attract attention and to transfer
meaning. A code system that refers interruptions to some form o f
meaningful language may easily be developed with a crude vocabulary of
dots, dashes, and other elemental audio and visual articulations.
– Symbols: The symbol has been defined as any device with which an
abstraction can be made. The abstractions of the val ues that people imbue
in other people and in things they own and use lie at the heart of
symbolism.
– Signs. The main difference between a sign and a signal is that a sign (like
a policeman's badge) contains meanings of an intrinsic nature; a signal
(like a scream for help) is merely a device by which one is able to formulate
extrinsic meanings. Their difference is illustrated by the observation that
many types of animals respond to signals but only a few intelligent and
trained animals (usually dogs and apes) are competent to respond even to
simple signs.
✓ Vocal Communication.
Significant differences between non-vocal and vocal communication are
matters more of degree than of kind. Signs, signals and symbols may, at time, be
easily verbalised, although most people tend to think of them as visual means of
expression. Kinesics (body language) and proxemics (cultural determined
interactions as the physical distance maintained between individuals, angles of
vision...) may also, in certain instances, involve vocalis ations as accompaniments
to non-verbal phenomena or as somehow integral to them.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE.
Jakobson's1 model of the functions of language distinguishes six elements, or
factors of communication, that are necessary for communication to occur: (1) context, (2)
addresser (sender), (3) addressee (receiver), (4) contact, (5) common code and (6)
message. Each factor is the focal point of a relation, or function, which operates between
the message and the factor. The functions are the following, in order: (1) referential ("The
Earth is round"), (2) emotive ("Yuck!"), (3) conative ("Come here"), (4) phatic ("Hello?"), (5)
metalingual ("What do you mean by 'krill'?"), and (6) poetic ("Smurf"). When we analyze
the functions of language for a given unit (such as a word, a text or an image), we specify
to which class or type it belongs (e.g., a textual or pictorial genre), which functions are
present/absent, and the characteristics of these functions, including the hierarchical
relations and any other relations that may operate between them.
Following Jakobson, we agree that language must be investigated in all the
variety of its functions. An outline of these functions demands a concise survey of
the constitutive factors in any speech event, in any act of verbal communication.
The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To be operative
the message requires a CONTEXT referred to, possible to be grasped by the
addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalised; a CODE fully, or at
least, partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the
encoder and decoder of the message); and finally, a CONTACT, a physical
channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee,
enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication. All these factors
inalienably involved in verbal communication may be schematised as follows:
Each of these six factors determines a different function of language:
Factors of communication and functions of language

Target TARGET SOURCE FUNCTION

factor and FACTOR FACTOR
function
no.
1 Context Message Referential
2 Addresser Message Emotive
3 Addressee Message Conative
4 Contact Message Phatic
5 Code Message Metalingual
6 Message Message Poetic

1 Russian-American linguist, Roman Jakobson (1960, pp. 350-377)

David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

− Referential Function.
Although we distinguish six basic aspects of language, we could, however,
hardly find verbal messages that would fulfil only one function. The diversity lies
not in a monopoly of some one of these several functions but in a different
hierarchical order of functions. The verbal structure of a message depends
primarily on the predominant function. But even though a set toward the referent,
an orientation toward the context - briefly, the so-called REFERENTIAL,
'denotative', 'cognitive' function - is the leading task of numerous messages, the
accessory participation of the other functions in such messages must be taken into
account.
− Emotive Function.
The so-called 'emotive' or 'expressive' function, focuses on the
ADDRESSER, aims at direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward what he is
speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emotion, whether
true or feigned; therefore, the term 'emotive' has proved to be preferable to
'emotional'. The purely emotive stratum in language is presented by the
interjections. They differ from the means of referential language both by their
sound pattern (peculiar sound sequences or even sounds elsewhere unusual) and
by their syntactic role (they are not components but equivale nts of sentences). The
emotive function, laid bare in the interjections, flavours to some extent all our
utterances, on their phonetic, grammatical and lexical level. If we analyze
language from the standpoint of the information it carries, we cannot restr ict the
notion of information to the cognitive aspect of language. A man, using expressive
features to indicate his angry or ironic attitude, conveys ostensible information.
− Conative Function.
Orientation toward the ADDRESSEE, the 'conative' function, fin ds its purest
grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which syntactically,
morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from other nominal and
verbal categories. The imperative sentences cardinally differ from declarative
sentences; because of in contradiction to the imperative sentences, the declarative
sentences are convertible into interrogative sentences.
− Phatic Function.
There are messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to
discontinue communication, to check whether the channel works ('Hello, do you
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

hear me?'), to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his continued
attention ('Are you listening?') and on the other end of the wire ('Umhum').
This set for CONTACT (phatic function) may be displayed by a profuse
exchange of ritualised formulas, by entire dialogues with the mere purpose of
prolonging communication. Dorothy Parker caught eloquent examples: 'Well' the
young man said. 'Well" she said. 'Well, here we are', he said. 'Here we are' she
said, 'Aren't we?', 'I should say we were', he said, 'here we are'. The endeavour to
start and sustain communication is typical of talking birds; thus, the phatic function
of language is the only one they share with human beings. It is also the first verbal
function acquired by infants; they are prone to communicate before being able to
send or receive informative communication.
− Metalingual Function.
A distinction has been made in modern logic between two levels of language
'object language' speaking of objects and 'metalanguage', speaking of language.
But metalanguage is not only a necessary scientific tool utilised by logicians and
linguists, it plays also an important role in our everyday language, in fact, we
practice metalanguage without realising the metalin gual character of our
operations. Whenever the addressee and/or the addresser need to check up
whether they use the same code, speech is focused on the code, it performs a
METALINGUAL function. 'I don't follow you, what do you mean? asks the
addressee. And the addresser in anticipation of such recapturing question inquires:
'Do you know what I mean?’ These sentences convey information merely about the
lexical code of English, their function is strictly metalingual. Any process of
language learning, in particular child acquisition of mother tongue, makes wide use
of metalingual operations; and aphasia may often be defined as a loss of ability for
metalingual operations.
− Poetic Function.
The set toward the MESSAGE as such, focusing on the message for its own
sake, is the POETIC function of language. This function is not the sole function of
verbal art but only its dominant, determining function, whereas in all other verbal
activities it acts as a subsidiary, accessory constituent. This function, by promoting
the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects.
Hence, when dealing with the poetic function, linguistics cannot limit itself to the
field of poetry. Any attempt to reduce the sphere of the poetic function, to poetry or
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

to confine poetry to the poetic function would be a delusive oversimplification. E.g.

A girl used to talk about 'the horrible Harry'. 'Why horrible?' 'Because I hat e him',
'but why not 'terrible, disgusting, awful? 'I don't know why, but 'horrible' fits him
better'. Without realising it, she clung to the poetic device of paronomasia.
The particularities of diverse poetic genres imply a different rank of
participation of the other verbal functions along with the dominant poetic function.
Epic poetry, focused on the 3 rd person, strongly involves the referential use of
language and the lyric is intimately linked with the emotive function.
* * * * *
In a proper analysis, we start by determining whether each of the functions of
language is present or absent. In theory, each factor is necessary to communication. This
does not necessarily mean that each function is always present. We will assume that while
one or more – or even all – of the functions of language may be absent in short units (such
as an isolated sign), lengthy units can activate all of them. Where more than one function
is present, we will establish either: (1) a simple hierarchy, by identifying the dominant
function and not ranking the other functions, or (2) a complex hierarchy, by specifying the
degree of presence of some or all of the functions.
Various criteria can be used to establish the functional hierarchy. For example,
Arcand and Bourbeau (trans. of 1995, p. 35) use an intention-based criterion: "The
dominant function is the one that answers the question, 'With what intention was this
message transmitted?' and [...] the secondary functions are there to support it." We must
distinguish the intention associated with each fragment from the overall intention, which is
"a sentence or series of sentences that corresponds to an intention" (1995, p. 27). Since
the intention can be hidden, the function that is dominant in terms of overt degree of
presence may not be dominant in terms of intention. Arcand and Bourbeau also distinguish
between direct and indirect manifestations of intention, which correlate to the opposition
between actual and overt functions. The appellative (conative) function is manifested
directly in "Go answer the door" and indirectly in "The doorbell rang" (which is equivalent
to "Go answer the door"), where the overt function is the referential (or informative)
function (1995, pp. 30-33). In addition, we need to distinguish between cause and effect
functions, as well as ends and means functions (the ends being the effect that is sought).
For example, when the phatic function (cause) is overactivated, it can trigger the poetic
function (effect); overactivation can be used for aesthetic ends, and in this case the poetic
function is an end and the phatic function is a means.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

The functions of language can be linked to the various possible enunciative agents:
the empirical (real) author, the implied author (our impression of the author from reading
his text), the narrator, the character, the narratee, the implied reader and the empirical
(real) reader. (For more details, see the chapter on dialogic.) To take a simple example,
sometimes the phatic function disintegrates when an interaction between characters
becomes muddled (as when dialogue degenerates into parallel monologues). This could
be a phatic dysfunction between the empirical author and reader, or it could be a way to
activate the poetic function, using the dysfunction between characters. In this case the
phatic function is thematized, and it is fictional (it is operating between characters), and the
poetic function is "real" (it originates from the real author and is meant to be perceived by
the real reader).

4. NEGOTIATION OF MEANING.
Negotiation for meaning (NfM) in second language acquisition is defined as an
attempt to overcome comprehension problems.
It has been acknowledged that when L2 learners interact with one another or with
native speakers through conversation, their language development is promoted. The
benefit of conversational interaction in the classroom has been a focus of research in the
contexts of both non-native speaker/native speaker (NNS/NS) interaction and nonnative
speaker/nonnative speaker (NNS/NNS) interaction. One area of frequent focus is
negotiation for meaning (henceforth NfM). In second language acquisition (SLA) theory,
NfM is “the process by which two or more interlocutors identify and then attempt to resolve
a communication breakdown”. It is a repair-oriented process that involves the intentional
resort to a meaning-based as opposed to a grammar-based repair, distinct from generic
negotiation of meaning.
Long (1996) suggests that by causing learners to do the work of negotiation with
native or more competent speakers, NfM triggers beneficial changes and results in a more
effective language learning experience. This is because NfM “connects input, internal
learner capacities and output in productive ways”. According to Long (1996), NfM is
defined as “the process in which learners and competent speakers provide and interpret
signals of their own and their interlocutor’s perceived comprehension, thus provoking
adjustments to linguistic form, conversational structure, and message content.”
Lightbown & Spada (2006) define NfM as “interaction between speakers who make
adjustments to their speech and use other techniques to repair a breakdown in
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

communication.” Long (1996) gives the examples of adjustments such as simplification

and elaboration. Simplification truncates complex sentences by employing fewer verb
tenses and modifiers, as well by the reduction of semantic content, whereas elaboration
makes use of repetition and paraphrasing in order to explicate semantic structure.

The Role of Negotiation: An Aid to L2 Comprehension

Krashen (1985) claims that language acquisition takes place as learners come to be
able to process input that contains language slightly above their current developmental
level of language comprehension (thus, increasing that level). Employing the notion of
comprehensible input, Long (1996) argues that input is made more comprehensible
through the NfM process. The term negotiation here refers to the modification and
restructuring of interaction between interlocutors when they experience comprehension
difficulties (Pica, 1994). The features of negotiation in this case include the listener’s
request for message clarification and confirmation; the speaker may then repeat,
elaborate, or simplify the original message (Pica, 1994).
The majority of NfM is particularly concerned with lexis, as unfamiliar words can be
substituted or defined in isolation (Pica, 1994). Consider the example below (Pica, 1993):
(1) NS: it’s a rectangular bench
NNS: rectangular?
NS: yeah it’s in the shape of a rectangle with um you know a rectangle has two long
sides and two short sides
NNS: rectangle?
NS: re-rectangle it’s like a square except you flatten it out
NNS: square except
NS: uh a rectangle is a square
NNS: uhuh
In this example, the learner (the NNS) signals with “rectangular” and “rectangle”.
The partner (the NS) tries to repair the failure in communication by providing descriptions.
When the learner interprets the meaning incorrectly, “square except,” the NS rephrases his
previous statement by positioning “square” as similar to a rectangle. In such a situation,
opportunities to negotiate meaning help language learners obtain comprehensible input
(Pica, 1994; Long, 1996).
These opportunities occur most frequently during NNS/NNS interactions (Pica,
1994; Varonis & Gass, 1985) and expert/novice interaction
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

Negotiation and Feedback

Signals (or as Long calls them “negotiation strategies”) such as repetitions,
clarification requests, confirmation checks, and recasts are examples of negative
feedback (Long, 1996). When there is a communication breakdown, negative feedback
can be implemented explicitly through overt error correction or implicitly through NfM
strategies (Long, 1996). Consider Long’s (1996) example from an NNS/NS conversation:
NNS: Uh, yes, … a woman drinking (and bottle) wine, uh, bottle and man drinking
(a) beer
NS: Yes and she’s drinking a glass or a bottle of wine?
NNS: No, uh, she? She’s drinking in (no) glass.
The NS’s question here exemplifies implicit correction. Feedback of this type is
helpful because it occurs when the NNS is unsure whether he or she has been
understood.
The learner’s error can be successfully corrected by the NS’s feedback, since the
learner understands the change the NS is trying to elicit in the previously produced
utterance, as shown in the following example (Pica, 1994):
NNS: and tree with stick
NS: you mean the trees have branches?
NNS: yes
The NS’s signal provides the learner with an alternative form and meaning by
focusing on the subject, “tree,” and by modifying it to plural form “trees,” and also by
introducing “branches,” which replaces “stick”.
Negotiation leads interlocutors to modify their output as they receive feedback on
their utterances (Pica 1994). In the following example, the NS explicitly asks the learner to
elucidate the meaning of “patton” (Pica, 1989):
NNS: we have common patton in this case
NS: I don’t know that word … can you describe what it means?
NNS: yes uh uh if I can explain the car’s nature, we understand easy because car
has a few a lot of nature
As Pica states, negotiation contributes to the processes and outcomes of L2
learning; NS’s utterance influences the learner’s modification.
Lyster and Ranta (1997) examine the effectiveness of various types of feedback in
ESL classrooms. They find that types such as negotiation strategies (clarification requests,
repetition), elicitation, and metalinguistic feedback (feedback “which contains either
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

comments, information” pertaining “to the well-formedness of the student’s utterance,

without explicitly providing the correct form”) lead to student-generated repair, while
explicit types such as correction and recasting do not. Lyster (1998) argues that recasts
(yes/no questions functioning as a confirmation check), which are mostly used by teachers
rather than learners, do not lead to negotiation and are not as effective in promoting
language learning as teachers expect.
In a similar vein to Lyster’s (1998) analysis of contexts, Oliver (2000) identifies some
cases of negative feedback through NfM and establishes how negative feedback is utilized
by learners in ways that vary by age and context. He considers interaction patterns
contextually (teacher-fronted lessons vs. pair-work tasks) and concludes that negative
feedback occurs in both contexts, and that young learners especially tend to use this
feedback in their subsequent utterances.
Furthermore, it appears that there is also another level of meaning that learners
attempt to negotiate, revealed in the form of the repetition or clarification request.
According to Grice (1975, 1989), an utterance’s meaning is composed of “what is said”
and “what is meant”; Grice’s term for the latter is “implicature”. “What is said” here refers to
the lexical-semantic meaning (or sentence meaning), rooted in linguistic knowledge,
whereas “what is meant” indicates the pragmatic meaning (or speaker meaning), which
cannot be understood on the basis of knowledge of linguistic structure alone, but also
requires knowledge of language use in context and of social norms. In some cases
negotiation of comprehensibility does not necessarily require a complete communication
breakdown (as Long (1996) Ellis (2003) and Lightbown and Spada (2006) suggest); rather,
it can also emerge and be useful in situations characterized by insufficient understanding.
To help understand the distinction of the two levels of meaning and negotiation of them,
consider the following conversation:
Peter: Did you eat all of the biscuits?
Mary: I ate some of them.
Peter: some of them?
In this conversation, Mary has a meaning such as {I had some of the biscuits}
(semantic meaning) and has another meaning in context such as <I did not eat all of the
biscuits> (pragmatic meaning). The latter is not the literal meaning of her words, but can
be conveyed in the context of conversation. Here, Peter’s concern is more in
understanding the pragmatic meaning rather than the lexical-semantic meaning. This kind
of particular meaning negotiation should also be addressed.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

5. PRESENT-DAY DIRECTIONS IN THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS.

This section looks at present-day approaches on the communication process
from an educational approach, and therefore, within the framework of a classroom
setting. This type of formal instruction in language teaching addresses the role played
by our current educational system, in providing the foundations for attempts at real
communication from an eclectic approach.
Since we are dealing with a communicative approach, it is relevant to mention
the objectives that our current educational system searches for. First, a focus on
fluency to promote an interactive groupwork in the classroom. Secondly, as
communicative approaches claim for, to provide students with genuine interactions in
order to increase their learning in the foreign language. The aim is for students to
acquire a communicative competence, where their knowledge and ability in the foreign
language will help them get the meaning of a sentence, even if the different functions of
language make it difficult. Finally, students are provided with strategies and
techniques to overcome their communicative problems in an attempt to make
communication as real as possible in a formal setting.
This authentic communicative interaction is approached within our current
educational system through specific projects and programmes proposed by the
European Community, especially designed to provide students a genuine
communicative interaction. At present, projects such as “Erasmus+” and “eTwinning”
are intended to promote international exchanges within the European Community, and
to promote the use of new technologies to communicate with other students worldwide.
These three projects are designed for students to practice and increase their learning in
the foreign language.

6. CONCLUSION.
Communication is not only a matter of making intentions clear, or
understanding the intentions of other. If understanding is, as we have argued,
dependent on the engagement of the individual's per sonal construct of reality, then
access to it could be seen as an intrusion. In order to be co -operative, one has to
encroach on somebody else's life space and leave one's own vulnerable to
'invasion'. So it is that many of the procedures we use are protective and are
directed at ensuring that what it is said is not only accessible but also acceptable
to others. It is all very well to believe in being blunt and non-spoken, but to be so is
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

to rely on tolerance that many people could be reluctant to extend, and they are
likely, in this case, to disengage from the interaction. Communication depends on
interlocutors being receptive, and this means that both propositional information
and illocutory intent has to be expressed in such a way that is both accessible and
acceptable.
In saying something one generally intends more than just to communicate--getting
oneself understood is intended to produce some effect on the listener. However, our
speech act vocabulary can obscure this fact. When one apologizes, for example, one may
intend not merely to express regret but also to seek forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is,
strictly speaking, distinct from apologizing, even though one utterance is the performance
of an act of both types. As an apology, the utterance succeeds if it is taken as expressing
regret for the deed in question; as an act of seeking forgiveness, it succeeds if forgiveness
is thereby obtained. Speech acts, being perlocutionary as well as illocutionary, generally
have some ulterior purpose, but they are distinguished primarily by their illocutionary type,
such as asserting, requesting, promising and apologizing, which in turn are distinguished
by the type of attitude expressed.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
• Alcón Soler, E. & Roderic Guzmán, J., Learning Interaction in the Language
Classroom. Universidad de La Coruña, 1990.
• Arcand, R. and N. Bourbeau, La communication efficace. De l'intention aux moyens
d'expression, Anjou (Québec): CEC, 1995.
• Austin, J. L. (1962) How to Do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. (Develops the distinction between performative and constative
utterances into the first systematic account of speech acts.)
• Bach, K. (1994) 'Conversational impliciture', Mind & Language 9: 124-62. (Identifies the
middle ground between explicit utterances and Gricean implicatures.)
• Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Commuication and Speech Acts,
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Combines elements of Austin's taxonomy and Grice's
theory of conversation into a systematic account of the roles of the speaker's
communicative intention and the hearer's inference in literal, nonliteral and indirect
uses of sentences to perform speech acts.)
• Chaudron, C., Second Language Classroom, Research on Teaching and
Learning, Series editors: Michael H. Long & Jack C. Richards, 1988.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 3 Updated Edition EPO

• Ellis, R., Understanding Second Language Acquisition, Oxford, O.U.P, 1985.

• Grice, H. P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. (The essays on meaning and conversational implicature provide a
framework for distinguishing speaker meaning from linguistic meaning and for
explaining their relationship.)
• Jakobson, R., "Linguistics and Poetics", in T. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language,
Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1960, pp. 350-377.
• Jaylor, T. J., Linguistic Theory and Structural Stylistics, Pergamon Press, 1980.
• Kllnkenberg, J.-M., Précis de sémiotique générale, Paris, Seuil, 1996.
• Rastier, F., Meaning and Textuality, trans. Frank Collins and Paul Perron, Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1997 [1989].
• Rosales López, C., Metodología de Investigación de la Comunicación Oral .
• Searle, J. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge,
Eng.: Cambridge University Press. (Presents a theory of speech acts relying on the
notion of constitutive rules.)
• Stern, H., Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching , Oxford University
Press, 1984.
• Strawson, P. F. (1964) 'Intention and convention in speech acts', Philosophical Review
73: 439-60. (Applies Grice's account of meaning to support the claim that most speech
acts are communicative rather than conventional, as Austin had suggested.).
• Tritsmans, B., "Poétique", in M. Delcroix and F. Hallyn (dir.), Méthodes du texte.
Introduction aux études littéraires, Paris: Duculot, 1987, pp. 11-28.
• Tsohatzidis, S. L., ed. (1994) Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and
Linguistic Perspectives, London: Routledge. (Collection of original essays on
outstanding problems in the field, with useful bibliography.)