speech act theory and its application in chinese efl classroom abstract： to learn a language is to learn how to communicate in that but in daily communication with native speakers， many chinese learners of english fail to use english tactfully or this article intends to analyze some basic principles of speech act theory and their application in efl it is concluded that in foreign language teaching， teachers should try to foster learners’ linguistic competence and pragmatic competence as key words：speech act，cross cultural communication，pragmatic competence introduction in our daily life， it seems that we live in a world of speeches， because we keep producing “speech acts” we have the linguistic but it doesn't mean we have the communicative competence in that communicative competence is made up three component parts: linguistic competence， pragmatic competence and cognitive and affective traditionally， in teaching english as a foreign language (efl)， the form of english has been emphasized in the efl it results in the fact that students with good mastery of english forms fail to communicate in english here is an example: a foreign guest remarked to a chinese interpreter， a young lady who had graduated not long ago from a university: foreign guest: your english is really quite chinese lady: no， my english is quite the foreign guest felt a bit the foreign guest meant to express his in response to this appreciation， the chinese lady should follow some cooperative principles by saying “thanks” but her reply violated the quality maxim of cooperative principles (grice， 1975) as a result this conversation can’t go the failure in the communication mentioned above is just an in cross-cultural communication， when we speak a foreign language， though our grammar may be correct， we cannot speak it tactfully and appropriately just because of cultural so in foreign language teaching， it is very important to help the students understand the speech acts and the cultural difference between source language and target hence in teaching efl in the chinese context， communicative approach takes priority though the forms are important as speech acts theory speech acts theory makes great contribution to cross-cultural the theory was initiated by the philosopher， austin in in his book austin’s initial distinction is between constative and performative utterances (speech) a constative one is an utterance which roughly serves to state a fact， report that something is the case， or describe what something performative utterances， on the other hand， are those that have three characteristics: (a) they are performed in saying something; (b) they cannot be performed unless language is used; (c) they have connected with them performative verbs the occurrence of which as a main verb in a present tense， indicative， active， a first person sentence marks explicit what act a speaker intends to be performing in uttering the austin suggests that statements are merely one kind of speech act， that any statements， if only they are uttered in appropriate circumstances， may be regarded as implicit this leads to his new account: any speech act comprises at least two and typically three， sub-acts: locutionary act， illocutionary act and perlocutionary according to austin， the locutionary act “includes the utterance of certain noises， the utterance of certain words in a certain construction and the utterance of them with a certain ‘meaning’” (austin， 1962: 94) in other words， it is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax， lexicon and extra-linguistic as austin puts it， the illocutionary act can be regarded as the force with which the sentence was “saying something will often， or even normally， produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings， thoughts， or actions of the audience， or of the speaker， or of other persons… we shall call the performance of an act of this kind the performance of a perlocutionary act or perlocution” (austin， 1962: 101) perlocutionary act is the consequence of， or the change brought about by， the searle (1969) improved this speech act theory by introducing indirect speech act he argues that， where a certain force is part of the meaning， where the meaning uniquely determines a particular force， these are not two different acts but two different labels for the same act， and he reached the conclusion that there are only illocutionary searle holds that (1) the basic linguistic unit is not a sign， but a speech act; (2) speech acts are controlled by two types of rules: regulative rules (dynamic rules for performing illocutionary acts in communication) and constitutive rules (basic rules recognized as for performing utterance and prepositional acts) “in contrast to austin， who focused his attention on how speakers realize their intentions in speaking， searle focuses on how listeners response to utterances， that is how one person tries to figure out how another is using a particular what we can see in both austin and searle is a recognition that people use language to achieve a variety of if we want to understand what they hope to accomplish， we must be prepared to take into account factors that range far beyond the actual linguistic form of any particular utterance” ( wardhaugh， 1998:285) on the basis of the speech act theory， some linguists have developed theories on word meaning and conversational grice (1975) develops his remarkable theory of conversational in any conversation， only certain kinds of “moves” are possible at any particular time because of the constraints that operate to govern these constraints limit speakers as to what they can say and listeners as to what they can grice calls the overriding principles in conversation “cooperative principles”: “make your conversational contribution such as is required， at the stage at which it occurs， by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are ” (grice， 1975: p45) he lists four maxims that follow from the cooperative principle: quantity， quality， relation and the most important cooperative principle in human communication is linguistic politeness put forward by leech (1983) he holds in communication， participants should follow the politeness principle of tact maxim， generosity maxim， modesty maxim， agreement maxim and sympathy but different cultures have different value of politeness and have different expressions in their speech these differences may lead to pragmatic failure in cross-cultural cross-cultural communications communication is dynamic， interactive and it usually includes the following components: behavioral source， encoding， message， channel， responder， decoding， response and successful communication involves the participants mutual understanding and tactful and appropriate verbal but the communication between people from different cultural background can more easily go wrong than that from the same culture， because “many of the meanings and understandings， at the level of ongoing processes of interpretation of speaker’s intent， depend upon culturally specific conventions， so that much of the meaning in any encounter is indirect and the ability to expose enough of the implicit meaning to make for a satisfactory encounter between strangers or culturally different speakers requires communicative flexibility” (gumperz and cook-gumperz， 1982， p14) foreign language learners need to develop this communicative flexibility， this ability to cross cultural different cultures have different expressions in their speech in cross-cultural communication， any utterances can be interpreted to have illocutionary speech however， when we want to translate an utterance with a certain illocutionary act into another language， there may be various kinds of the illocutionary force of the utterance may be for example， “你吃了吗?”(ni chi le ma? “have you eaten?”)， “你上那儿去?” (ni shang na’er qu? “where are you going?”) these utterances have the illocutionary speech acts of greeting in the chinese but if one asks american friends the same questions， the original illocutionary force doesn’t the american friends may feel confused at this “inquiry” barnett pearce (1994) analyzes the differences of the performative speech acts (especial in different cultures): (a) differences in coverage of speech acts that people can for example， the remark “you have a lovely wife” is regarded natural and highly appreciated by westerners， but in the chinese context it would be regarded (b) differences in the diversity of speech for example， people from one culture may express “i love you” in various ways， while people from another culture may express in only one or two (c) differences in rules of performing speech in some western countries， it is very common to make promise by swearing to god， but in other countries， it may be regarded (d) differences in the acceptance of new (e) differences in attitude to the doctors are sensitive to patients’ intentional runaround while some people pay little attention to speakers’ obviously， we have to overcome these differences to master the ability of speech acts in order to achieve successful however， it is very difficult to define the illocutionary force of speech acts， thus the problem is how to deal with it to serve for efl teaching olshtain and cohen offer the term “speech act set” to refer to a single function with a set of structures beyond that of the single utterance， differing from a speech act (single utterance functions) and a speech event (a conversation， a lecture， ) olshtain and cohen suggest that speech acts be studied as sets of formulas， which perform the same function by referring to the speech act of apology as an example of for example， when the offender is positively inclined to apologize， the steps of the formulas may be: step one: an expression of an apology (“i’m ” “please forgive me”， ); step two: an explanation or account of the situation (“i was caught in the ”); step three: an acknowledgment of responsibility (“it’s my ”); step four: a promise of non-recurrence (“i will never be late ”)， the study of speech acts and the sets of formulas are very useful in cross-cultural communication， because different cultures， even different communities in the same culture have different rules in performing the speech so sets of formulas of speech acts are important for foreign language learners to perform appropriate speech acts vary in cultures， gender， occupation， ， which causes great difficulties in our daily it is very important for foreign language learners to understand the cultural differences between the source language and the target how to help learners to develop this communicative ability in classroom setting? is it possible to conduct an effective pedagogical approach in efl teaching in nonnative background? this is a challenge to traditional way of foreign language communicative approach in teaching efl teaching efl in the chinese context is traditionally related to the form of english (phonological， grammar and vocabulary)， which a person needs to know about in his “but a knowledge of the form (even when that knowledge is perfect) does not enable a person to communicate” (li， 1987) any language course should aim to help the students acquire not just knowledge of the form but communicative communicative competence in english is made up of three component parts: linguistic competence， pragmatic competence， and cognitive and affective traditional english course focus only on one dimension of the communicative competence， ignoring the other the structuralists believe that “teachers should teach the language， not about the language” ( richards & rodgers， 1986) on the ‘stimulus-response’ basis， they claim that foreign language learning is a mechanical habit-formation by doing pattern drills and reciting dialogues， the learners are expected to minimize the chances of making mistakes so that they can form a good typical pattern drills include : “ask me if i have seen any movies lately”， “ask me who the screenwriter is” the students respond grammatical correctly: “have you seen any movies lately?”， “who is the screenwriter?” (yang， 1998) yet， language is not just words and there is always content when people “in fact， language is best learnt when it is a medium for learning some other subject or an exchange for affective or humanistic purposes” (li， 1987) students are human they have their cognitive and affective pragmatic competence (the use of language) is also neglected in traditional and structuralist language actually， this competence “enables students to know how different communicative functions are realized in english， and who can say what to whom， how， when， why， under what circumstances and in what context” ( li， 1987) in efl classroom of the chinese context， teachers should help the learners to develop the communicative competence from the dimensions of linguistic competence， communicative competence and cognitive and affective while teaching the knowledge of forms of english， teachers should also provide information about the usage of english for example， the utterance “sit down please” has the illocutionary force of it’s improper to address to a visiting foreign instead， the chinese host should make another utterance with the illocutionary acts of invitation， such as “please take a seat” or “be seated please” in order to learn standard， decent and universal english， efl learners should be exposed to “authentic language” (li， 1984) of “authentic language” is the language that a person uses in real life to achieve communicative let’s look at the following dialogue: billy: excuse me， miss， could you please tell me if this is the way to the business department?
