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This study aimed to analyse organised interaction and assigned discussions occurring between students in EFL classrooms. It was conducted in order to identify the value-added in terms of learning by using discussion groups. Secondly, this study aimed to analyse how the contribution of models and approaches from pragmatics and discourse analysis can explain what is occurring during such conversations. Lastly, the structural and linguistic similarities and differences between teacher-to-student and student-to-student talk were also discussed. These questions were answered by examining four groups enrolled in English 6 in an upper secondary school located in the south part of Sweden. The qualitative data was collected through recordings from the students' discussions when they participated in a group speaking task as a part of the module of surveillance. The analysis of the data was conducted with the help of some of the aspects of conversation analysis. The results showed that not all of the participants in the group discussions sufficiently benefitted from the speaking task since, in most of the group, the need for the teacher's support was crucial in order for the students to use the target language and develop their speaking skills. In terms of the Speech Act Theory, the illocutionary acts identified in the conversations between students were that of the directive and assertive illocutionary acts used to pass the speaking turn to the other participants or to demonstrate agreement with the views of the previous turn. The conversational exchange was initiated by an opening framing move, followed by a response, but lacked follow-up moves in the form of feedback. Finally, there were some similarities and differences between teacher-to-student and student-to-student talk. The results showed that even if some of the students appeared to adapt to the role of the facilitator, they were not able to do so due to lack of knowledge to sufficiently support all the participants in order to be more active during the conversations and use the target language during the speaking task.

This master thesis asks the question “Why are confessions so convincing?”. To provide an answer, I use Austin’s speech act theory to investigate how confessions work within the context of Swedish law. This model was fit for purpose; however, the theory lacks a temporal dimension necessary to understand the mechanisms in play when confessions convince someone. To account for this discrepancy, I use Derek Beach’s process tracing. Given the sometimes-strained relation between law and rhetoric I completed extensive reviews of literature on judicial rhetoric, both historically and contemporary. The current literature suggests that Swedish scholars of law use rhetorical theories more often than expected, however, Swedish scholars of rhetoric seem to interact with law a lot less. One of the findings of this thesis is that a rhetorical perspective, and the perspective from someone outside the field of law, may add significantly to understandings of confessions. Confessions are culturally important and often misunderstood, initially perceived as an unavoidable part of human nature. However, as discussed in this text, confessions are not rooted in human nature, but in cultural conventions, with a historical tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. When researching confessions in general, this paper identifies tensions between three kinds of confessions: religious confessions, juridical confessions, and psychotherapeutic confessions. Ten Swedish judges were interviewed, and 1599 court decisions were analyzed for this paper. Through this material an agreed upon ritual in which confessions become convincing appears. This ritual is however not the only reason why confession become convincing. Confessions can be detailed, coherent, and nuanced, which makes them more believable. The power to convince through confession consists of a complex net of different mechanisms, some based in the law system, and some based in rhetoric.

This study examines explicitness and implicitness in the instructions of eight English baking recipes and their translations into Swedish. The aim is to investigate whether the degree of explicitness changes in the translation. Additionally, the translation of reader address is examined to determine if it leads to an increase or decrease of the recipe explicitness. Illocution and speech act theory provide a theoretical framework for the analysis. In the examination of translated instructions, the study presents five analyzed verb constructions: the imperative, the passive, the modal auxiliary, the finite verb and the adverbial -ing-clause. In the examination of reader address, the study analyzes the translation of the English subject pronoun you. The results show that the translation keeps close to the ST structure and often renders the instructions with the same verb construction. However, there are instances for each analyzed feature where the translation provides more explicit instructions than the ST. Further, the results indicate that the translation of reader address is closely linked to the translation of the instructions; if the ST verb construction is altered in the TT, the ST reader address may either be translated or omitted in the TT. Additionally, the translator needs to interpret whether the address is aimed at a specific reader or a group of readers, as Swedish can translate the English pronoun you into either du, man, ni or det. The translation of the recipes was performed by the author of this paper, a beginner translator, which may have affected the results.

This dissertation examines the dynamics of the oral communication which takes place in the Easter Vigil at St. Augustine's Anglican Church, Thaba 'Nchu. The study uses an analytical framework drawn from Orality Theory and Speech Act Theory, to analyse oral communication in the preaching and singing of the Vigil. Through an approach of Participant Observation, details were obtained of the Easter Vigils of 1994, 1995 and 1996. The historical and cultural background of this All-Night Vigil is traced in European Church History and African Traditional Religion. The roles of the Mothers' Union, the St. Agnes Guild and the Guild of Bernard Mizeki are also highlighted. / Missiology / M.Th (Missiology)

人們常因為禮貌或其他因素避免對立的情況發生。然而，異議在我們日常溝通中又扮演了不可或缺的角色。之前，眾多對於異議及其相關語言活動的研究均未曾探究異議內容的本質(對於事實內容的異議或對於議題評估的異議)與異議的建構有何關係。此外，台灣鮮少研究社會因素對異議建構方式的影響。基於上述不足，本研究旨在探討何種異議(內容異議或評估異議)在日常生活中較常出現，不同異議類別的語言形式與語用策略為何，以及年齡是否會影響異議的數量多寡與建構方式。本研究採用言談分析(conversational analysis, CA)作為研究框架，並以言語行為理論(speech act theory),合作原則(Cooperative Principles)及禮貌理論(Politeness Principles)為理論基礎。 本研究以12份日常交談為語料，進行異議分析。在這12份語料中，8組對話者為同齡(4組年長者，4組年輕者)，4組對話者為跨齡。在分析過程中，先依異議的本質進行分類，進而分析討論異議中所使用的語言形式、語用策略、社會因素(年齡)，以及四者彼此之間的互動。 研究結果顯示，第一，人們使用評估異議的頻率為內容異議的兩倍之多。個人主觀式遠多於社會文化評估的異議。第二，就語言形式而言，在異議的建構中，否定句、預告詞及肯定句(依此順序)的使用頻率高於其他語言形式。然而，語言行式的選擇會隨異議的本質而有所改變。內容異議通常使用直接句型，如否定句與肯定句；評估異議則平均使用直接性的否定句與間接性的預告詞。第三，就語用策略而言，更正、解釋與質疑(依此順序)的使用頻率高於其他語用策略。語用策略的選擇亦隨異議本質的不同而有所改變。超過一半的內容異議使用更正策略，但在評估異議中，更正、解釋與質疑的使用頻率相當。第四，在評估異議中，在各個語用策略中，語言形式的種類比內容異議多。這個結果影射著評估異議對面子的威脅程度可能比內容異議來得嚴重。因此，在進行評估異議時，語言形式與語用策略的挑選用必須格外注意。第五，年齡與異議的建構有顯著的相關性。同齡組比跨齡組更容易產生異議。最後，在異議中，聽話者的角色比說話者的角色更具有影響力。 / Although people try to avoid opposition for the sake of politeness or other reasons, disagreement, which may threaten interpersonal relationship and the success of communication, is inevitable in our daily life. Previous studies on disagreement (including dispute, argument, conflict, etc.) have not probe into the nature of the referential content—whether it is content-based (in this study, C-disagreement) or evaluation-based (in this study, E-disagreement), and the influences of social factors on disagreement have rarely been examined in Taiwan. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to see what type of disagreement are most likely to occur in daily conversations and to examine whether age is an influential factor on linguistic choices for in disagreement in Chinese society. This study uses the framework of conversational analysis (CA), and adopts speech act theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1975), Cooperative Principles (Grice, 1975) and Politeness Principles (Brown and Levinson’s, 1978, 1987; Leech, 1983) as the theoretical foundations. 12 conversations by speakers of 8 same-age groups (including 4 old groups and 4 young groups) and 4 cross-age groups were examined for disagreement. Related data are categorized, analyzed, and discussed by types of disagreement, linguistic markers, pragmatic strategies, social variable (in this study, age), and the interaction among the four. The results of the data analyses show, first, people adopt nearly twice more E-disagreement than C-disagreement; moreover, E-disagreement based on personal judgment emerges more often than E-disagreement based on socio-cultural evaluation. Second, for linguistic markers, negation, pre-announcement marker, and affirmative (in this order) are adopted more in disagreement. However, preferences for linguistic markers change according to types of disagreement. In C-disagreement, direct syntactic markers, such as negation and affirmative, are used more frequently than the others; however, in E-disagreement, direct negation (syntactic) and indirect pre-announcement (lexical) are used with equal frequencies. Third, among pragmatic strategies, correction, account, and challenge (in this order) are adopted more frequently than the others. The usage of pragmatic strategies varies with types of disagreement. In C-disagreement, correction is highly adopted. But in E-disagreement, correction, account, and challenge are used with equal percentages. Fourth, the fact that more varieties of linguistic markers are used in each pragmatic strategy in E-disagreement than in C-disagreement may imply impoliteness, since face-threatening force is more serious in E-disagreement than in C-disagreement, which, in turn, indicates that more careful manipulation is needed in using E-disagreement. Fifth, age is influential in disagreement. More disagreements are found in the same-age groups than in the cross-age groups. Last, the hearer’s role is found to be more influential than the speaker’s role.

Der Begriff Performativität geht zurück auf die Sprechakttheorie und wurde von dem Sprachphilosophen John L. Austin "ins Spiel" gebracht. Er verweist mit dem Terminus auf die handlungspraktische Dimension des Sprechens, d.h. dasjenige zu vollziehen oder zu produzieren, was im Sprechen benannt wird, und es nicht lediglich zu bezeichnen. Vor dem Hintergrund von Derridas Iterabilitätsbegriff hat insbesondere Judith Butler das Konzept in die Gendertheorie eingeführt. Das Sein oder So-Sein eines Geschlechtes ist demnach kein ontologischer Status, der aus einer vordiskursiven Wirklichkeit schöpft, sondern das Ergebnis (sich wiederholender) performativer Inszenierungen, die sich selbst erfolgreich als Sein darstellen.

The purpose of this dissertation is to inquire into the application of the Speech act theory in the field of theology. First, philosophical part introduces distinctive topics of language-philosophy found in Wittgenstein, Austin and Searle. The main focus of this summary lies on Searle`s categorization of speech acts. If we approach Searle`s categorization from the perspective of Wittgenstein`s philosophy, we could understand his categorization in functional and not ontological terms and therefore we find a certain liberty to modify Searle`s categorization with regard to analysed phenomenon. In the beginning of the theological part we analyse the limits of the application of the speech act theory in the case of the confession of faith. Consequently we construct categorization of the speech acts of faith discourse based on its communicative and transformative dimensions. Afterwards we focus on one of the main types of faith discourse, namely the petitionary prayer. During analysis of the petitionary prayer in the Old and New Testament we gradually introduce considerable insights of theologians who applied Austin`s and Searle`s concepts in their work. These are followed up by our own observations. Second section of the theological part of the dissertation is concerned with the application of speech act theory in exegesis of particular texts, namely those passages in Mark`s gospel which speak about Jesus as the Son of God. Speech act theory evidently could not serve to settle exegetical disagreements by always locating the precise illocutionary point of every speech act, however it proves itself as a good tool for conceptual orientation and its application brings valuable insights.

ix, 213 p. / The attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, prompted scholars in a variety of fields, such as history, philosophy and literature, to re-examine the topic of terrorism, including the emergence of terrorism in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. The challenges that arise when dealing with the topic of terrorism derive in part from a lack of consensus on a definition for terrorists and terrorist attacks. One element that I found in my research is that there is a connection between terrorism and communication. This dissertation examines that connection in Volker Schlöndorff's filmDie Stille nach dem Schuss Gregor Schnitzler's film Was tun wenn's brennt Leander Scholz's novel Rosenfestand Ulrike Edschmid's biographical narrativesFrau mit Waffe: Zwei Geschichten aus terroristischen Zeitenin the context of Speech Act Theory. The films and texts show how West German terrorism is represented as a form of communication, through which fictional terrorists are trying to accomplish the impossible statement "I hereby persuade you." The act of persuasion has an element of freedom, because one can either be persuaded or not. However, the terrorists represented in the works mentioned above want to eliminate the element of choice and force the interlocutor to be persuaded. In order to achieve this they introduce violence, which in turn causes them to be labeled as terrorists. The more they try to use violence to achieve their goals, the more they cement their condemnation as terrorists. This dissertation frames its investigation within ideas about performative speech acts, concepts of power, violence, identity and discussions about "terrorist" narratives in German literature and film. / Committee in charge: Susan C. Anderson， Chairperson； Alexander Mathäs， Member； Dorothee Ostmeier， Member； Bonnie Mann， Outside Member

This dissertation examines the dynamics of the oral communication which takes place in the Easter Vigil at St. Augustine's Anglican Church, Thaba 'Nchu. The study uses an analytical framework drawn from Orality Theory and Speech Act Theory, to analyse oral communication in the preaching and singing of the Vigil. Through an approach of Participant Observation, details were obtained of the Easter Vigils of 1994, 1995 and 1996. The historical and cultural background of this All-Night Vigil is traced in European Church History and African Traditional Religion. The roles of the Mothers' Union, the St. Agnes Guild and the Guild of Bernard Mizeki are also highlighted. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th (Missiology)