Most of the time our utterances are automatically interpreted as speech acts: as assertions, conjectures and testimonies; as orders, requests and pleas; as thre

Pragmatics is the study of human communication: the choices speakers make to express their intended meaning and the kinds of inferences that hearers draw from a

In the study of language, as in any other systematic study, there is no neutral terminology. Every technical term is an expression of the assumptions and theore

'This small but tightly packed volume is easily the most substantial discussion of speech acts since John Austin's How To Do Things With Words and one of the mo

Speech Act Theory: A Univen Study was undertaken to investigate the pragmatic value of the utterances of selected students at the University of Venda, South Afr