Surprising things about speech acts
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008My first surprise was introducing students to the piece of ELT jargon “speech acts”, something I only vaguely remembered from my reading for my DELTA myself, but more about that when I get round to reviewing The Cambridge Grammar of English…
Some of the above were some I had never thought about, some are ones I still doubt, and the rest are just vaguely interesting (something that is worth celebrating when you are reading your way through a grammar book!) Any comments after testing these against your “native speaker intuitions” (also known as “TEFL teacher prejudices”) gratefully received:
“You must” and “you’ll have to” are often used to give non-specific invitations
“And you must come down to Barr at some stage or another”
“You’ll have to come round for a coffee”
What if…? is used for How about…? in “standard British and Irish English”
“What if I set the table?”
“What if we had it here?”
How’s about…? for How about…? in informal contexts in standard British and Irish English
Informal lexis softens a speech act:
“pop in” instead of “visit”/ “wee” in “a wee favour”
“Please” is usually used at the end of a question, but children often put it first:
“Please can I have some more bread?”
“so” and “then” are common in declarative clauses functioning as questions
“So you had a good day at work then?”
“Didn’t it just!” is part of a general pattern of interrogative structures used as explanations, like “Was I exhausted!” and “Hasn’t she grown!”
“Would you mind if one of our representatives comes and gives you a free demonstration?” Would you mind + present
“You want to sound-proof your room with egg boxes”- “want to” for advice in “standard British and Irish English”