Gave the distinction between constatives and performatives and gave rise to a new model:
[A speaker might be performing three acts simultaneously when speaking]
① locutionary act:（言内行为）the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses
It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology.
② illocutionary act:（言外行为）the act of expressing the speaker’s intention
It is the act preformed in saying something.
③ perlocutionary act:（言后行为）the act performed by or resulting from saying something
It is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance.
Linguists are more concerned about or interested in illocutionary act.
The classification of illocutionary act made by American philosopher-linguist John Searle
Five general categories:
① representatives:（阐述类）stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be true
② directives:（指令类）trying to get the hearer to do something
③ commissives:（承诺类）committing the speaker himself to some future course of action
④ expressives:（表达类）expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing state
⑤ declaratives:（宣告类）bringing about immediate changes by saying something
All the acts that belong to the same category share the same purpose or the same illocutionary point, but they differ in their strength or force.
All the utterances that can be made to serve the same purpose may vary in their syntactic form.
[E] Principles of conversation (Co-operative principles)
会话原则或合作原则
Proposed by Paul Grice, a logician and philosopher
The maxim of quantity: 量准则
The maxim of quality: 质准则
The maxim of relation: 关联准则
The maxim of manner: 方式准则
Significance: it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey more than is literary said.
CP is nearly always observed, while these maxims are not, which gives rise to “Conversational implicatures”, i.e. the language becomes indirect.
[F] Deixis, reference, anaphora, presupposition
① Deixis: There are some words in the language that cannot be interpreted at all unless the physical context, esp. the physical context of the speaker is known.
Person deixis
Place deixis
Time deixis
② Reference: an act by which a speaker or writer uses language to enable a listener or reader to identify something
Inference: any additional information used by the listener to connect what is said to what must be meant.
③ Anaphora: the second and any subsequent referring expression is an example of anaphora, and the first mention is called the antecedent.
Anaphora: subsequent reference to an already introduced entity
④ Presupposition: What a speaker assumes is true or is known by the speaker can be described as a presupposition
Constancy under negation: the presupposition remains true when a sentence is negated.
[G] Background knowledge
We actually create what the text is about, based on our expectations of what normally happens, i.e. using the concept of a SCHEMA.
Schema: a general term for a conventional knowledge structure which exists in memory. (Schemata)
Script: a dynamic schema, in which a series of conventional action takes place.



Chapter 9  Discourse Analysis
[A] Interpreting discourse
We, as language users, can cope with fragments, notices, or even ungrammatical sentences and texts apart from simply recognizing correct versus incorrect forms and structures.
The key element investigated in the study of discourse is that we attempt to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what the writer intended to convey.
[B] Cohesion and coherence 连接与连贯（衔接）
Cohesion: the ties and connections which exist within texts that make the texts systematic and smooth.
Cohesive links (ties)
Connectedness based on the lexical level is not sufficient enough to make a text readable, or interpretable.
Coherence: connection within meaning, or in people.
[C] Speech event and conversational interaction
Conversational interaction: take turns, when someone interrupts, the speaker will stop until the end of the intruder’s sentence
Completion point: by asking a question; by pausing
The one who keeps the turn will avoid having those two indicators occur together
Rudeness v. shyness


Chapter 10  Historical linguistics
[A] The purpose and significance of historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the subfield of linguistics that studies language change. Diachronic linguistics
① the identification of the changes enables us to reconstruct the linguistic history of that language, hypothesizes its earlier forms