SPEECH ACT!

I never knew what the term in subject really means when i first came across it in this course. The words 'speech' and 'act' are actually very simple English words and when broken up, it helps a little in understanding the meaning by putting two and two together. Something spoken in conjunction with something done?
Well, almost there! Now that the term has been defined there has to be some examples illustrating the meaning of this term.

And yeap, that's what we learnt in our first lecture-tutorial.

I never really gave much thought to the way we speak. I mean, why do we have to think about how we speak? We SIMPLY JUST TALK. But truth is, according to researchers, there is a certain pattern or behaviour governing the way we give our speech. This is actually what this whole course covers: Cross-cultural communication and discourse...the study of such behavioural patterns. So back to speech acts, I learnt from our first lesson that we actually use them all the time, they are familiar with us, but we are not with them. Speech Acts are actions performed via utterances.

"Move out of the way!" -a direct request; an order
"You're standing in front of the TV!" -an indirect approach to get the hearer to move
"You're fired!"

AND WE REALLY USE THEM ALL THE TIME!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yy3neW-FzA
After watching this video and listening to the number of sentences he spoke, I am wowed by how much speech acts really cover. Haha.

Hmm..i'm considering speech acts as my project option because i feel that it should be easier in terms of methodology to collect data. Questionaires can reach out to many people via the Internet. But im keeping my doors and ideas open to the later topics...who knows I may find something more intriguing along the way.

ta ta for now!

MELISSA KHOO