Types Of Speech Acts In Harry Potter

Pragmatics, the study of language use in social contexts, finds one of its most accessible illustrations in popular fiction, where dialogue must carry both narrative weight and social function simultaneously. Communication is the most important thing on the planet earth; no human being can be fully separated from this means of interaction, because without communication we cannot convey what we want to say. Even animals use some kind of communicative channels to express their feelings. Much depends on how we communicate; communication gains the best results only when it is expressed properly so that both the speaker and the listener gain something from it, else it is just similar to blowing air from the mouth. While this process of communication is ongoing, many people have a tendency to use different types of utterances, structured words, and perform various actions while communicating. These utterances and actions during communication were termed “Speech Acts” by Yule (1996). To be more precise, speech acts are acts of communication, and when communication is expressed with a certain kind of attitude, the type of speech act being performed relates to the type of attitude which is expressed — for example, a request can express some kind of desire, an apology would express forgiveness or sorrow, and so on. A speech act is said to be successful when the audience can identify the intentions of the speaker and respond to their attitude.

Requests, apologies, and statements are some forms of speech acts. According to Tsui (1996), requests are generally very polite because they require the listener to do something, and these speech acts are an important part of pragmatic study. In this research paper we are looking at the way pragmatics approaches analysis and speech acts — specifically, the way speakers express their communication. For this research paper the chosen script is from the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Aims & Objectives of This Research

This Research Paper aims at investigating some of the Speech Acts used in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The Research Paper also aims to investigate the various other forms of Speech Acts with real-time examples, as well as conducting a thorough study of Speech Act Theory using secondary research in the Literature Review. The paper also aims at describing the actual meanings of the various speech acts used in the movie and in general scenarios.

Keywords

Speech Acts, Pragmatics, Linguistics, speech act of request

Previous Works And Analysis of The Movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Respect to Speech Acts

Many of the problems encountered in defining pragmatics can be directly connected to the relative youth of the field. In linguistics particularly, the study of pragmatics is comparatively recent. Not enough time has passed and not enough research has been done for this study to have a firm foundation. In addition, the same factors have contributed to the fact that no coherent pragmatic theory has yet been established. However, according to Crystal, there is another major factor: the sheer “variety of topics it has to account for,” including aspects of deixis, conversational implicatures, presuppositions, speech acts, and discourse structure. Many of these will be discussed below.

In Pragmatics, Levinson pronounces that “there is reason to think that the whole area may be reducible to a number of different factors: to matters of presupposition and implicature on the one hand, and to the discourse functions of utterance-initial (and other) positions on the other.” Let us now discuss some of the themes that make up pragmatics.

Philosophers have used presupposition for many years; however, linguists have only recently begun analysing it in relation to both semantics and pragmatics. Presupposition includes two types of information in a statement or utterance. The first is the information that is the focus of the statement; the second type is information that is presupposed, or assumed, as when “Where is the salt?” presupposes that the salt exists and cannot presently be seen.

Speech acts, according to Jean Aitchison, are “actions.” According to speech act theory, utterances are types of actions through which we communicate what we want. Examples of speech acts are requests, commands, and promises. Crystal further clarifies the topic by referring to speech act theory as “a theory which analyses the role of utterances in relation to the behaviour of speaker and hearer in interpersonal communication.”

The usage of speech acts in the movie is highly appropriate because it is a kind of representation of what happens naturally in common day-to-day life, as Allen and Gumery (1998) also state; they note that the art of filmmaking has various social dimensions as well. J. L. Austin (1911–1960) also argued that utterances, what people say, are almost equivalent to their actions; for example, if somebody says “I name this stadium,” this utterance creates a new kind of social or psychological event.

According to speech act theory, utterances have three different aspects:

Locutionary acts, which are simple types of speech acts that have just taken place;

Illocutionary acts, which are real actions actually performed by any utterance, where saying is like doing;

Perlocutionary acts, which are the results of the utterances on the listener.

R. Searle gives five categories of illocutionary acts:

Representatives — Deny, Reporting

Directives — Challenge, Invite

Commissives — Pledge, Guarantee

Expressives — Appreciate, Apologize

Declarations — I declare, I say

A speech act is said to be successful when the audience can identify the intentions of the speaker and respond to their attitude. Requests, apologies, and statements are some forms of speech acts. According to Tsui (1996), requests are generally polite because they require the listener to do something, and these speech acts are an important part of pragmatic study.

The face and politeness strategies of speech acts: “face” here refers to the speaker’s sense of social identity and their linguistic presentation. A speech act can impose on this sense and therefore can be face-threatening; hence, speakers use strategies to lessen this threat. There are two types of politeness, positive and negative, each of which can have distinct effects on the listener.

Some examples commonly used in this scenario are:

Pessimism: “I don’t suppose you could open the doors, could you?”

Hedging: “Er, could you, er, perhaps, open the, ee, door?”

Indicating Deference: “Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I asked you to open the doors?”

Impersonating: “The boss requires all the doors to be opened.”

Apologizing: “I’m terribly sorry, can you open the doors?”

The Harry Potter film has various speech acts as well as expressive acts, but the focus here is on requests specifically. Here are some conversations from the movie script:

Scenario One from the Script

EXT. GRASSLAND

HARRY: Where are we actually going?

RON: Don’t know. Hey Dad! Where are we going?

ARTHUR: Haven’t the foggiest, keep up!

AMOS: Arthur! It’s about time son.

ARTHUR: Sorry Amos. Some of us had a bit of a sleepy start. This is Amos Diggory everyone, he works with me at the ministry. And this strapping young lad must be Cedric, am I right?

CEDRIC: Yes sir.

AMOS: Merlin’s beard, you must be Harry Potter.

HARRY: Yes sir.

The bold highlighted line “Where are we actually going?” is a speech act of question which can also be classified as surprise, based on how it is asked, making it classifiable as a speech act of question. Arthur’s apology to Amos for the slow start is a speech act of apology.

Scenario Two from the Script

INT. BEDROOM

HERMIONE: Harry! Are you alright?

HARRY: Hermione. Bad dream. When did you get here?

HERMIONE: Just now. You?

HARRY: Last night.

HERMIONE: Wake up. Wake up Ronald!

RON: Bloody hell.

HERMIONE: Honestly. Get dressed, and don’t go back to sleep. Come on Ron! Your mother says breakfast’s ready.

There is a sudden command from Hermione for both Ron and Harry. The dialogue “Get dressed and don’t go back to sleep” is uttered by Hermione in an impolite tone and is a speech act of directive. There are many such utterances of various types of speech acts in the movie, of which only a selection is analysed here.

Scenario Three from the Script

INT. ASSEMBLY ROOM

DUMBLEDORE: Your attention please! I would like to say a few words. Eternal glory, that is what awaits the student who wins the tri-wizard tournament. But to do this that student must survive three tasks. Three extremely dangerous tasks.

In this scenario, Dumbledore starts his speech with a Request — “Your attention please” — where he requires all the students to listen to him. As the speech progresses, the speech act of request turns into a speech act of conditions, where students are set three conditions for the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The same speech can shift between multiple speech act types as the speaker’s communicative goals change.

As Levinson (1983) argues, the study of pragmatics gains considerably from examining naturally occurring or fictional dialogue in which speakers pursue real social goals; the Harry Potter scripts provide an unusually rich corpus for examining how requests, apologies, and commands function in high-stakes interpersonal situations. For linguistics students studying speech act theory as part of an English language or applied linguistics programme, analysing popular film dialogue offers an engaging and practically relevant introduction to the distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary force, and to the politeness strategies speakers deploy when face-threatening acts are unavoidable.

Conclusion

The use and application of speech acts in socio-communicative contexts is almost inevitable. Speech acts are used in one format or another whether in films or in social life; the Harry Potter script utilised in this research is one of the clearest examples for the study of speech acts. Speech acts, conversational implicature, and presupposition are all extremely important features in pragmatics and are likely to be extremely influential in any general pragmatic theory. However, since there is as yet no coherent general pragmatic theory in existence, we cannot be sure that the concepts discussed above will not one day be refined or supplemented by other, more precise formulations.

References

Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

Tsui, A. B. M. (1994). English Conversation. Oxford University Press.

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001