Nonliteral Meaning - Assignment 7 James Madison University

Instructions: [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. After (re-)reading the appropriate part of "Talk and Action," attempt to analyze the speech acts in a small discourse -- very small conversational exchange between friends, an advertisement, a few lines of dialogue from a TV show, etc.)
   More specifically, use John Searle's distinctions between the locution of an utterance (ie. it's basic semantic meaning), the illocution (illocutionary act/force) associated with it, and the subsequent perlocutionary act/force of that utterance (if that is made clear in the context). Also note how direct or indirect the connection is between the locution and the illocutionary force of each utterance -- in other words, look at what context is needed to derive each intended illocutionary act. Submit a clean copy of the conversational exchange you examined along with your analysis.
2. Which of the following verbs is (under the right felicity conditions) a performative verb? PROVE or CONFESS? Explain your answer and give an example of a performative speech act with the right verb.