This essay examines Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s tweets during the early phase of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The method is mixed with both quantitative and qualitative studies and is based on content analysis. The analysis reveals that Zelensky has actively utilized Twitter to convey messages to the global community during the war. This study aims to analyze Zelensky’s Twitter communication through the lens of speech act theory and specifically focuses on Searle´s classifications of speech acts. By examining the messages posted on the Twitter account @ZelenskyyUa during the specified timeframe, the study explores the types of speech acts used by Zelensky and their intended audience. The study contributes to an understanding of Zelensky’s Twitter communication strategies during times of crisis. Findings from the analysis show that Zelensky effectively utilizes Twitter to advocate, inform, and influence others, using concise messages to reach a wide audience swiftly. It also reveals that Zelensky's communication style aligns with intercultural factors, effectively conveying his messages to the intended audience.

In the current ‘Age of Apology’, public apologies have become everyday occurrences; from corporate CEOs to Hollywood celebrities to political figures, the adage of ‘never apologize, never explain’ has been eschewed in favour of ‘always apologize, always explain’. In a society where news travels at the speed of the internet, and content can go ‘viral’ in hours, there are new pressures for all public figures to apologize when things go wrong. These public apologies are available for public consumption almost immediately after an offense, released through mainstream media (e.g. broadcast news, physical/online newspapers) or, as is becoming more frequent, over social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). Some researchers (e.g. Kampf, 2009; Thaler, 2012) have suggested that public apologies are not true apologies as defined by Speech Act theory – that they may serve another social function, but not to apologize. Such ‘fauxpologies’ are made without meeting the traditional felicity conditions for the speech act of apology (Ogiermann, 2009). If this is the case, what makes a public apology (in)felicitous? The aim of this thesis is to describe what makes a public apology felicitous. I present a critical analysis of the discourse strategies used in three types of public apologies – corporate, celebrity, and historical political – examining how these discursive strategies are used according to varying contextual factors using Critical Discourse Analysis and Speech Act theory as a framework. To counter the claim that the discourse strategies used in public apology do not meet the felicity conditions for the speech act of apology, I present evidence that, despite using some non-apology strategies, many public apologies are felicitous. However, I argue for the adoption of a revised set of felicity conditions as laid out by Murphy (2014, 2015), which can properly encompass public apology as a performative speech act. This study also extends the framework of semantic formulae previously used in apology analysis (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983) to include ‘fauxpology’ strategies particularly useful in examining public apologies, which provides a more robust description of how public apologies are performed. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

With the increase and popularity of the use of internet, hate speech has reached wider dimensions in societies. This thesis will provide empirical examples to show the relation between speech and actions. This paper will use speech-act theory and social movement theory to portray the relation between hate speech on social media and domestic terrorism inspired by far right extremist. Even though, there has been a lot of work for counter terrorism, domestic terrorism is still overlooked. Empirical sources say that domestic terrorism poses a threat as much as international terrorism. This thesis will bring light over the connections of hate speech and domestic terrorism inspired by far right extremists. It will conclude that there is an evident relation that hate speech on social media is contributing to domestic terrorism actions encouraged by far right extremism.

Die folgende Arbeit macht es sich zur Aufgabe, die Übertragbarkeit der Sprechakttheorie nach Austin und Searle auf komplexe aktuelle politikwissenschaftliche Kommunikationssituationen zu untersuchen. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden die Grundlagen und Implikationen der Sprechakttheorie analysiert und erklärt. Daran anschließend erfolgt ein Transfer grundlegender Überlegungen der Sprechakttheorie auf den politikwissenschaftlichen Kontext. Hierbei soll die Übertragbarkeit der Sprechakttheorie auf komplexe politische Kommunikationsprozesse am Beispiel des performativen Selbstwiderspruchs deutlich gemacht werden. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die Bedeutsamkeit der Sprechakttheorie anhand konkreter Beispiele differenziert zu reflektieren. Dabei soll der performative Selbstwiderspruch, der eine Verbindung zur Lehre von Austin und Searle besitzt, eine zentrale Rolle spielen.

Road signs form a non-verbal semiotic system – by many encountered on a daily basis – that dictates the actions of the users of the road, in order to create a safe and efficient traffic environment. It is clear that road signs are not just ‘saying’ things but ‘doing’ something. This study examines the commanding and performative aspects of a set of Swedish road signs. The first part of the analysis is a detailed investigation of (the ‘grammar’ of) the warning sign, drawing on a theoretical framework of semiotics and Grice’s cooperative principle. The second part investigates the speech act status of warning signs, priority signs and prohibitory signs, by applying Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts. Results show that the warning triangle is not arbitrary but iconically motivated, both in color and in form, and that the silhouettes vary on a number of parameters, including the perspective of their mapping, the degree of iconicity and the degree of ‘danger reality’. Warning signs, just like verbal warnings, are best categorized as directives, whereas priority and prohibitory signs, unlike verbal prohibitions, emerge as declarations. Ultimately, this raises questions regarding the limits of and the ‘translatability’ between verbal and non-verbal language.

This essay provides an analysis of five examples of written feedback on a speech assignment completed for an English as a foreign language (EFL) class by second-year students of upper secondary school. The essay aims to shed light on how feedback is formulated and how it is interpreted as a part of a textual dialogue between teacher and student. The analysis focuses on three separate sources of data: an interview with the students, examples of feedback and a short teacher interview. This dataset provides an insight to the process of the students’ reception and interpretation of the feedback and allows an analysis of the correspondence between what the teacher tries to communicate and what the students in their turn understand from the feedback. Two theories applied in this research include 1) attribution theory and 2) speech act theory, which attempt to show how the students reflect on their achievements and apply feedback to their own development. The feedback is interpreted on two different occasions. First, the textual feedback was coded, and an analysis model was developed based on two characteristics of in-text feedback: directive and expressive functions. The findings suggest that more specific feedback should be provided, and a deeper awareness among teachers of how students interpret their feedback would aid the students’ learning process. / <p>The presentation was held online due to Corona.</p>

This essay utilizes Speech Act Theory to assess Donald Trump’s role in inciting the riot that took place in Washington D.C. on the 6th of January, 2021 and culminated with the attack on the Capitol building. For the purposes of the study a corpus was created with tweets collected from the Trump Twitter Archive. The tweets cover the span between the latest presidential election, on the 3rd of November, 2020, to the day of the attack. The corpus was read manually and sorted into themes. The themes that emerged show that: a) Trump was convinced of his victory, b) felt that the election was rigged, c) accused news networks, the Democrats and even prominent Republicans for his loss, and d) called the people for action. A quantitative method that identified the most common words in the corpus corroborated the identification of the described themes. The themes were compared to Speech Act Theory’s felicitous conditions for directive speech acts. The study found that Trump’s tweets satisfy the conditions for the successful directive speech acts of Order and Command, thus providing grounds to make the case that he was responsible for inciting the attack.

本論文藉由檢視臺灣政論節目中所使用的語用策略（直接或間接）、語言行為類別、及語言行為目的，探討政治意識型態對於語言行為產生的影響。本研究以Grice（1975）的合作原則與Searle（1969）的語言行為理論作為分析框架，並以Leech（1983）的禮貌原則解釋語用策略及語言行為在不同政論節目中的分布差異。 　　本研究從臺灣主流的政論節目當中，政治光譜兩極的政論節目「大話新聞」（泛綠）與「2100全民開講」（泛藍）採集語料；並以Searle（1965年）的語言行為理論進行分析，總共識別12類直接語言行為和26類間接語言行為。 　　研究結果顯示，（一）語用策略方面，說話者在政論節目中使用間接語言行為的頻率比直接語言行為頻繁。（二）語言行為類別方面，直接語言行為中，排序則為：斷言（Assertive）、表述（Expressive）、指示（Directive）；而間接語言行為中，各類別使用頻率由高至低排序為：表述（Expressive）、斷言（Assertive）、指示（Directive）。（三）在政治意識型態的影響方面，支持執政黨的政論節目行使較多「直接且事實導向」的語言行為，而支持反對黨的政論節目則有較多的「間接且評論導向」的語言行為。（四）「譴責」是政論節中最常使用的語言行為，並且以間接方式表達居多。（五）推論過程中，推論步驟較多的「間接譴責」語言行為在政論節目中較常被使用。（六）「大話新聞」與「2100全民開講」雖偏向不同的政治意識型態，但是它們皆以斷言類（Assertive）或指示類（Directive）的語言行為來包裝，藉以間接達到「譴責」執政黨疏失的目的。 / This thesis investigates the political-ideological influence on speech acts in Taiwan political talk shows by examining the pragmatic strategies (directness and indirectness), the speech act categories, and the illocutionary purposes performed in the talk shows. In this thesis, Gricean maxims (1975) and Searle’s theory of speech acts (1969) are adopted as the analytic frames to study how speech acts are conducted, and Leech’s (1983) notions of politeness are the theoretical basis for explaining the distributional difference of pragmatic strategies. 　　The data analyzed in this study is composed of dialogues extracted from 6 episodes of two political talk shows with opposite stances on political issues, namely DaHuaXingWen (大話新聞), the pan-green talk show, and QuanMinKaiJiang (2100全民開講), the pan-blue one. Following Searle’s scheme of speech acts (1965), this study identifies the illocutionary act of every clause in the data and recognizes 12 types of direct speech acts and 26 types of indirect speech acts in the collected data. 　　The results of quantitative analysis show that, (1) indirect speech act is generally performed more frequently than indirect speech act in political talk shows. (2) The order of frequency in direct speech acts represents as: Assertive > Expressive > Directive; and in indirect speech acts, the order of frequency is: Expressive > Assertive > Directive. (3) In terms of the political-ideological influence, the political talks show supporting the ruling party (QuanMinKaiJiang) performs direct fact-orientated speech acts more, while the show that standing in the opposition to the ruling party (DaHuaXingWen) has more indirect opinion-oriented speech acts. (4) Condemnation is the most often used illocutionary act in political talk shows, and mainly done indirectly. (5) Indirect condemnations with longer length of inferential process are preferred in political talk shows. (6) Despite that DaHuaXingWen and QuanMinKaiJiang held different political stance, they share the same pattern of expressing indirect condemnation—wrapping it in speech acts of Assertives or Directives.

I have been for years now teaching homiletical theories and methods to students at World Mission University in Los Angeles, California. I have been aware of certain problems in the theory and practice of preaching prevailing in the Korean church. One of the most critical issues is that Korean preaching largely consists of the topical-deductive method. Another is that a hierarchical structure enforces the gap between the preacher and the congregation. The study explores, within the framework of the theologian Johannes van der Ven’s empirical-theological research program, text-guided preaching, based on the American homiletician Thomas G. Long’s theory that the sermon should regenerate the impact of the biblical text, in the context of the Korean church and its tradition of preaching. The study looks at the history and characteristics of Korean preaching (Chapter 2) and also at the emergence, characteristics, and styles of new American preaching (Chapter 3). The empirical component of the study deals with a case study involving a preaching workshop for theological students as an illustration of the reception by Korean preachers of the proposed theory for preaching (Chapter 5). My proposal is that text-guided preaching (described in Chapter 4) will benefit those Korean preachers and students willing a homiletical exploration. The basic premise of this model of preaching is that a text seeks to impact its reader; or, to use Paul Ricoeur’s words, confronts its readers with a particular world of understanding; or, from the standpoint of speech-act theory, performs multiple illocutionary acts. Text-guided preaching as it is presented in this study incorporates the notion of application, a notion introduced to hermeneutics by Hans-Georg Gadamer that says that understanding a text always aims at some practical application. Homiletically refined by H. J. C. Pieterse and C. J. A. Vos, it means that the preacher’s understanding of a biblical text is partly determined by the particular, historically contingent situation of the congregation. This study adopts an empirical-theological approach to practical theology. As a part of the theological induction phase of the empirical-theological cycle, a preaching workshop was conducted with eight student-participants. The case study produced some significant results. The clearest finding has to do with the task of interpreting the life situation of the congregation. It leads to the conclusion that theological education at World Mission University has to be modified to include trainings that would produce competent interpreters of the cultural context of Christian life. / Thesis (PhD (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Practical Theology / PhD / unrestricted

當談到外語教學時，教材具有相當重要性。其中，教科書更被視為重要的一環，是教師教學的主要資源，也是學生學習的重要指引。因此，教科書評鑑自然地受到重視。透過教科書評鑑，教師能對於教科書有適當認知並妥善利用教科書，另一方面，教科書評鑑能作為編撰者和出版商檢討與改進的參考。然而，文獻有許多有關教科書評鑑的研究，卻很少是從語言行為方面檢視臺灣高中生所使用的英文教科書。 本研究之主要目的為分析讚美、拒絕、請求三種語言行為如何呈現在三民、龍騰、遠東三套不同版本高中英文課本內的對話教材中。首先，統計三種語言行為在三套教科書內的對話中出現的頻率。接著，檢視這三種語言行為在三套教科書呈現的方式並判斷他們是否主要以美國觀點呈現。最後，探索三套教科書和教師手冊是否有提供相關語言行為的跨文化解釋。 研究結果顯示，三套教科書皆呈現三種語言行為，但是各版本著墨不一。另外，三種語言行為在三套教科書呈現的方式並不是完全採用美國觀點。更重要的是，三套教科書和教師手冊中幾乎沒有提供跨文化解釋。 本研究的發現能提供給對語言行為教學有興趣的老師和研究人員參考。研究結果希望激勵教科書編撰者、出版商以及教師重視語言行為教學，並期盼能協助教科書編撰者在未來補強三套教科書中對話教材不足之處。 / When it comes to foreign language teaching, teaching materials, without doubt, have been of vital importance. Textbooks, for teachers, serve as the major teaching resources. They are identified as important guidelines for students as well. Therefore, textbook evaluation has naturally received attention. Through textbook evaluation, for one thing, teachers can gain a proper understanding of textbooks, then making good use of them. For another thing, it enables textbook editors and publishers to examine and improve on textbooks. Although there have been many studies regarding textbook evaluation, few of them have been done on speech act behavior in senior high school English textbooks in Taiwan. The main goal of the current study is to analyze how the three speech acts, compliments, refusals, and requests, are presented in the conversation sections of the three series of the senior high school English textbooks, published by San Min, Lung Teng, and Far East. First of all, the frequency of compliments, refusals, and requests in the three series of the textbooks was examined. The next part was to look at how the three speech acts were presented in these textbooks and whether they showed American preference. Lastly, cross-cultural comparisons and contrasts in the textbooks and their corresponding teachers’ manuals were scrutinized. The results revealed that the three series of the textbooks examined presented the three speech acts in different proportion. Additionally, they were not completely presented in American ways. More importantly, there were few cross-cultural explanations found in the textbooks and their corresponding teachers’ manuals. The findings of the present study can work as reference for teachers and researchers interested in the teaching and learning of speech act behavior. They may motivate textbook editors and writers as well as teachers to place great emphasis on how to teach speech acts well. Last but not least, textbook compilers can compensate for the limitations of the conversation sections of senior high school textbooks in Taiwan in future materials development.