A study of indirect speech acts in “12 year a slave”

27 4.1.Structural features of indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave” .... Functional features of indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon N

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

The thesis “A study of indirect speech acts in “12 years a slave”” is

conducted by myself, and no other person‟s work has been used without acknowledgement in the research Moreover, this research has not been submitted for any other degree or diploma at any university

Quy Nhon, 2021

HO THI THANH THUY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Long, who provides me with his endless patience, thoughtful guidance and critical suggestions so that I can complete this thesis in time

Secondly, I am so grateful to all the lecturers of the Department of Foreign Languages for providing me with precious materials and experience during the process of writing the thesis

Last but not least, I would like to give my special thanks to my beloved family, friends, and colleagues who encourage me and give me the motivation

to accomplish this thesis

ABSTRACT

Due to the significant contributions of indirect speech acts to comprehending language and the success of communication in daily life, the researcher decided to research with the aim of applying speech act theory into the analysis of indirectness in English discourse This thesis aims to conduct the linguistic features of indirect speech acts collected from conversations in

“12 years a slave” Indirect speech act structures and indirect speech act

functions are investigated with the help of quantitative and qualitative approaches as well as a combination of analytic, synthetic, descriptive and contrastive methods Some noticeable findings were presented in this thesis There are 116 samples of indirect speech acts selected in the conversations of

slaves in this movie In terms of structure, the surface form matches the

interactional function, but the literal meaning and intended meaning are different attains the most predominant frequency type in the total of structures

of indirect speech acts realized in this film As regards function, there are 26 indirect speech act functions examined in the chosen conversations of the

movie Some functions are used popularly, namely to refuse, to convince, to

defend, to order, to protest, to insist, to promise, to express one’s anger and

so on These findings are expected to contribute significantly to the better

understanding of indirect speech acts uttered by slaves as well as the success

of communication in “12 years a slave”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aim and Objectives of the Study 3

1.2.1.Aim 3

1.2.2.Objectives 3

1.3 Research Questions 3

1.4 Scope of the Study 3

1.5 Significance of the Study 4

1.6 Organization of the Thesis 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 An overview of the Speech Acts Theory 6

2.1.1.Definition of Speech Acts 6

2.1.2.Level of Speech Acts 7

2.1.3.Classification of Speech Acts 9

2.1.4.Direct and Indirect Speech Acts 10

2.1.5.The role of context in studying Speech Acts 13

2.2 An overview of Indirect Speech Acts 14

2.2.1.Definition of Indirect Speech Acts 14

2.2.2.Characteristics of Indirect Speech Acts 14

2.3 Sentence Structures 16

2.4 A Review of Previous Relevant Studies 19

CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES 22

3.1 Research design 22

3.2 Research methods 22

3.3 Research procedures 23

3.4 Data Collection 23

3.5 Data Analysis 24

3.5.1.Analytical Framework 24

3.5.2.Analytical methods 26

3.4 Reliability and validity 26

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

4.1.Structural features of indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave” 27

4.1.1.Declaratives 29

4.1.1.1.A declarative structure for a question 29

4.1.1.2.A declarative for a command/request 30

4.1.1.3.A declarative structure for an exclamation 31

4.1.2.Interrogatives 32

4.1.2.1.Interrogative structure for a statement 33

4.1.2.2.Interrogative structure for a command/ request 34

4.1.2.3.Interrogative structure for an exclamation 35

4.1.4.Exclamatives 37

4.1.5.Others 37

4.2 Similarities and differences in structures of the examined indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves 39

4.3 Functional features of indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave” 40

4.3.1.To refuse 41

4.3.2.To convince 43

4.3.3.To defend 44

4.3.4.To order/ Command/ Request 46

4.3.5.To warn 47

4.3.6.To protest 48

4.3.7.To insist 49

4.3.8.To promise 50

4.3.9.To apologize 52

4.3.10.To deny 52

4.3.11.To beg 53

4.3.12.To agree 55

4.3.13.To thank 56

4.3.14.To express one‟s sadness 57

4.3.15.To desire 58

4.3.16.To accuse 59

4.3.17.To complain 59

4.3.18.To explain 61

4.3.19.To ask for permission 61

4.3.20.To hesitate 62

4.3.21.To advise 63

4.3.22.To disagree 63

4.3.23.To express one‟s anger 64

4.3.24.To joke 65

4.3.25.To predict 66

4.3.26 To suggest 67 4.4 Similarities and differences in functions of the examined indirect

speech acts uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves 68

4.5 Summary 69

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 70

5.1 Conclusions 70

5.1 Conclusions relating to indirect speech act structures 70

5.1.2 Conclusions relating to indirect speech act functions 71

5.1.3 Conclusions relating to main similarities and differences 72

5.2 Implications of the study 74

5.3 Limitations of the Study 75

5.4 Suggestions for Further Research 75

REFERENCES 76 APPENDIXES

LIST OF TABLES Table

2.1 Comparisons of speech acts classification by Austin and

Distribution of structural features of indirect speech acts

uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years

a slave”

28

4.2

Distribution of functional feature of indirect speech acts

uttered by Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years

a slave”

40

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides all the preliminaries of the research It starts with the

rationale, aims and objectives of the study After that, it presents research

questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the research, and the

thesis's organization

1.1 Rationale

Speech acts have been receiving a great deal of attention from linguists

across the globe due to their essential role in studying language, especially in

terms of pragmatics and sociolinguistics Additionally, speech acts are the

solid foundation for the analysis of some pragmatics topics such as the

principle of politeness, presuppositions, etc For this reason, there have been

numerous researches into speech acts Some studies focus on the functions of

speech acts like complaints, refusals, promises, etc In contrast, others

concentrate on some sub-types of speech acts, namely directives, direct

speech acts and indirect speech acts in comedy films, animated television

series, etc However, there has been a lack of research emphasizing indirect

speech acts produced by slaves in historical drama films During the process of studying indirect speech acts, the researcher tried to

find a film not only containing indirect speech acts but also inspiring a

meaningful message to the viewers “12 years a slave” is chosen as the main

source of data There are two reasons why the researcher pays more attention

to this film

The first one is that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in March

2014 This astonishing achievement opens the opportunities for the British

film director, Mc Queen, to become the first black producer to win the

Academy Award for the Best Picture

Secondly, the context that slaves manage to escape from the plantations influences the use of language in different conversations, and using indirect speech acts to conceal hidden messages is unavoidable 12 Years a Slave is based on Solomon Northup's memoir Northup was a free African-American man and was born in New York State He was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Washington, D.C by two conmen Before being liberated, Northup was forced to work on plantations for 12 years Besides, in terms of the main characters, master Epps, master Ford, as well as poor slaves like Eliza and Patsey are genuine people who appeared in the film Black slaves namely Solomon Northup, Patsey, Eliza and so on are strong personalities facing their troubled life and slavery as the form of human right violations Interestingly, they use language effectively in a particular situation in the period, where

slavery is the number one issue in “12 years a slave” Therefore, it is

necessary to understand more about the intention of an utterance uttered by the main characters including Solomon Northup and other slaves in the movie

so that at the end of this study, the researcher hopes that readers will not just watch the movie for entertainment but also have a fuller and deeper knowledge of what the movie is trying to convey through interpreting the intention of the utterances correctly Then, the researcher decides to choose conversations uttered by Black slaves as the object of the research

In addition, as far as I know, there has been no study on indirect speech

acts in “12 years a slave” Therefore, this thesis is conducted with the hope

that it will become a source of research data regarding indirect speech acts

It also facilitates teachers to raise awareness among students about racism and to have much sympathy for the slaves across the globe For all reasons,

the researcher decides to research the topic “A study of indirect speech acts

- To clarify the structures of the examined indirect speech acts uttered by

Black people including Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a

slave”

- To clarify the functions of the examined indirect speech acts uttered by

Black people including Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a

slave”

1.3 Research Questions

To achieve the above aim and objectives, the researcher will collect data and analyze it to answer the following questions

- What are the structures of indirect speech acts introduced in conversations of

the movie “12 years a slave”, and how often are they realized?

- What are the functions of indirect speech acts introduced in conversations of

the movie “12 years a slave", and how often are they realized?

1.4 Scope of the Study

This study concentrates on identifying and analyzing the examined

indirect acts found in “12 years a slave” To be more specific, this study

focuses on the structures and functions of indirect speech acts in the main

character's conversations, Solomon Northup It also pays more attention to indirect speech acts produced by the others slaves who try to escape from the cruelty and injustice of slavery

1.5 Significance of the Study

The study is expected to contribute data on slavery through analyzing indirect speech acts realized in the conversations among enslaved people Moreover, many campaigns have increasingly launched to protect Black people from slavery worldwide over the past decades Providing students with

a deep comprehension of racism from the victim's perspective is a significant concern worldwide As a result, a better insight into the use of indirect speech

acts produced by slaves in “12 years a slave” is expected to make valuable

contributions to the success of communication in English conversations Additionally, the spoken data is believed to enrich the knowledge of the English language and English-speaking cultures as well

1.6 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters

Chapter one, introduction, includes the rationale, the aim and objectives,

research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study

Chapter two, literature review and theoretical background, comprises the

relevant theoretical aspects and the previous relevant studies

Chapter three, research methodology, reveals the research design, research

methods, data collection and analysis, research procedures, validity and reliability

Chapter four, findings and discussion, presents the research findings and

discussion based on the theoretical background and analytical frameworks presented in chapter two and chapter three

Chapter five, conclusions and implications, is the final part that summarizes

the study's major findings, draws conclusions, limitations, and suggests some ideas for further research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter starts with speech acts theory, followed by classification of speech acts, indirect speech acts, sentence structures Finally, a review of previous studies is presented

2.1 An overview of the Speech Acts Theory

2.1.1 Definition of Speech Acts

Speech acts focus on the actions expressed by utterances in conversations Numerous prestigious researchers defined speech acts, and Austin is the first philosopher to provide initial explanations related to the relationship between

words and acts In his book How to do things with words (1962: 6), he stated:

“the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action” That is to say,

when uttering an utterance, speakers also want to perform actions through utterances, and the intentions of speakers are interpreted by the hearers, which depends on the context or circumstances of conversations To illustrate, when

a speaker produces something containing a certain sense and reference, he often does something such as a request, a promise, a regret, etc

It is totally agreed with the comment made by Yule (1997: 17) “Actions

performed utterances are generally called speech acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request” For instance, the sentence “I promise I will come back soon” is an example of speech acts As can be seen

from this example, a speaker not only utters a meaningful utterance but also does an act of making a promise

The American philosopher J R Searle brings the speech act theory into

much higher dimensions He considered “speech acts are the basic or

minimal units of linguistic communication” He also suggested that when a

speaker utters an utterance, he often produces it with different functions in his mind and actions That is to say, an utterance with a well-formed grammatical structure can perform various speech acts Searle (1969) gave an example

about a reported statement of a wife to her husband, “It’s really quite late”

“Suppose at a party my wife says “It’s really quite late” That utterance may be

at one level a statement of fact; to her interlocutor, who has just remarked on how early it was, it may be (and be interested as) an objection; to her husband, it may be (and be intended as) a suggestion or even a request (“Let’s go home”)

as well as a warning (“you’ll feel rotten in the morning if we don’t”)”

According to the theoretical study of speech acts by Austin (1962), Searle (1969), Yule (1997), speech acts are actions performed by utterances in the process of making conversations What is more, one utterance often performs

a great number of actions with a variety of the speakers‟ intentions Moreover, some typical speech acts are making an apology, a promise, a request, an invitation, etc

2.1.2 Level of Speech Acts

The division of speech acts into three kinds, namely locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary acts is introduced by Austin (1962), Searle (1979), Bach and Harnish (1979), Mey (1993) and Yule (1997)

Locutionary act is the basic act of uttering something In other words, according to Austin (1962), it is the surface meaning of an utterance Moreover, the utterance performing locutionary act must be meaningful in terms of lexis, grammar and pronunciation For instance, the utterance “Adb monwhk” does not count as a locutionary act, whereas “It is very hot” does However, people use locutionary act for different purposes because they have some kinds of functions in mind when forming a linguistic expression

Yule (1997) claimed that illocutionary act is performed through the communicative force of an utterance such as stating, questioning, explaining, giving commands, threatening and many others According to Mey (1993), to decode the illocutionary act successfully, the hearer is believed to consider the context of the utterance It is similar to the view of Bach & Harnish (1979) that to communicate illocutionary speech acts successfully, the speaker‟s illocutionary intention should be recognized by the hearer In addition, Searle (1979) suggested some purposes that are often performed through utterances, namely making an assertion, asking a question, giving an order and expressing a wish or desire

The last one is the perlocutionary act which is the effect of an utterance on the hearer, including convincing, persuading, deterring, etc To be more specific, it is the reaction of the hearers to the utterance said by the speakers

As stated by Bach and Harnish (1979), three kinds of speech acts have a

close-knit relationship “S says something to H; in saying something to H, s

does something; and by doing something, S affects H”

To a certain extent, according to Yule (1996), of all three kinds, illocutionary act is the most discussed because the same locutionary act can count as many illocutionary forces such as a promise, a warning, a demand,

advice, a refusal, etc To be more specific, let‟s consider the example “I’ll

meet you tomorrow” The utterance can be understood as a prediction “ I predict that I will meet you tomorrow”, a promise “I promise that I will meet you tomorrow”, or a warning “ I warn you that I will meet you tomorrow” in

different contexts Similarly, the same illocutionary act can have many locutionary acts To illustrate, these sentences “Can you close the door?”, “ Will you close the door?”, “Could you close the door?”, “Would you close the door?” perform the same illocutionary force, requesting

2.1.3 Classification of Speech Acts

Searle (1976) divided speech acts into five types, including Declarations, Directives, Commissives, Expressives and Representatives, which quite correspond to Austin‟s classification (1962), namely Verdictives, Exercitives, Commissives, Behabitives and Expositives The table below is the comparisons of speech acts classification by Austin (1962) and Searle (1976)

Table 2.1: Comparisons of speech acts classification by Austin and Searle

View

Functions

Get someone else to do

something

Exercitives Directives

Commit speaker to action Commissives Commissives

State what the speaker feels Behativities Expressives

State what the speaker

believe

Expositives Representatives

Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via

their utterance According to Yule (1996), the speaker has a specific role in a particular context to perform a declaration appropriately As an illustration,

the saying from the priest “I now pronounce you a husband and wife” makes

marital union happen via his words Furthermore, typical functions of this

type are endorsing, deciding, cancelling, prohibiting, permitting, granting,

lifting, classifying, forgiving and forgiving

Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker

believes to be the case or not Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, descriptions are examples of the speakers representing the world as they

believe it is Examples “It is a hot day” and “The earth is flat” below are

illustrated for this representative type

Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that reveal the speaker‟s

feelings The typical types of speech acts are thanking, criticizing,

complaining, blaming, congratulating and flattering Some paradigms of

expressive verbs are "thank", "congratulate", "apologize", "condole",

"deplore", and "welcome" The example “I’m sorry for not helping you” is

classified into this type because this sentence shows the speaker's apology or

the speaker‟s feeling through the word “sorry”

Directives are those kinds of speech acts performed by speakers to ask the

hearer to do something This class is often used with verbs including ask,

order, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat, invite, permit, and advise

Representatives of this group include forcing, asking, ordering, urging,

suggesting and commanding The example “Please open the door” expresses

the speaker‟s order, so it belongs to this type

Commissives are those kinds of speech acts produced by the speaker with

the hope of committing himself to do something with words Some typical

functions of this category are promising, swearing, threatening, offering and

vowing This class are often accompanied by some verbs like "shall",

"intend", "favour", “will” and so on For instance, the sentences “I’ll never do

it again”, “I’ll be back”, “I’m going to get it right next time” are the example

of Commissives speech acts

2.1.4 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

Speech acts can be divided into direct speech acts and indirect speech acts

As stated by Yule (1997), this division of speech acts is dependent on the relationship between the structural forms and communicative functions In other words, a direct speech act will happen if there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function Meanwhile, whenever there is an indirect

relationship between a structure and a function of an utterance, we have an

indirect speech act Yule suggested three structural forms (declarative,

interrogative, imperative) and three corresponding communicative functions (statement, question, command /request)” to clarify speech acts by the level

of indirectness

Regarding direct speech acts, Parker (1986: 17) shared the same idea with Yule by the statement that a direct speech act reflects the relationship between the syntactic form of the utterance and the direct illocutionary act Therefore,

in terms of direct speech acts, a declarative sentence has the function of making a statement, an interrogative has the function of asking a question, and an imperative has the function of making a command To illustrate, the

sentence “Bring me a book!” is an example of a direct speech act As can be

seen from the example, the function of the sentence is a command or a request because the speaker asks the hearer to bring him/ her a book This sentence is also an imperative sentence since the beginning of the utterance is the bare form of a verb, and the ending is the exclamation marks Thus, it is believed that this sentence structure matches its function, or there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function Especially, direct speech acts occur when the meaning of the utterances is in accordance with what was said

by speakers to the listeners (Haverkate, 1984)

On the other hand, in terms of indirect speech acts, the forms and the

functions do not correspondence together In other words, a declarative used

to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a declarative used to make a command or request, make a question and an exclamation is an indirect speech act Let‟s consider the example below

(1) A declarative is used to make a command: I need a little salt

(2) A declarative is used to make a question: You eat all these cakes

(3) A declarative is used to make an exclamation: You are so crazy I cannot stand you

However, the structure sometimes corresponds to the function, but it is an indirect speech act instead of a direct speech act For example, when being

asked, “Are you educated?” one can answer by saying, “I don’t have a lot of

money.” Although the structure matches the function well, this response is an

indirect speech act because it can be interpreted as “I am not educated.” In

this case, when the meaning produced by the speaker is similar to what it says, direct speech acts are performed, whereas indirect speech acts happen when the true meaning of an utterance differs from what is spoken

Moreover, indirect speech acts are polite, and indirectness is extensively utilized as a conversational strategy People prefer using indirect speech acts because it is more polite when saving people's faces during the process of speaking The reason for this is that indirect speech acts can be used to diminish the unpleasant message contained in requests and orders (Leech, 1983) Also, Levinson (1983) shared the same idea with Leech by the

statement “most usages of requests are indirect” and “ imperatives are rarely

used to command or request” Let‟s consider the following example to have a

better insight of indirect speech acts‟ politeness:

Example:

A: Let‟s go to the cinema tomorrow

B: I have an important exam tomorrow

As we can see, B successfully saves A‟s face by using indirect speech acts

to refuse the invitation without disappointing A by saying “no” directly Both speakers A and B clearly understand that the exam is more important than

going to the cinema It is more polite to use indirect speech acts (making a refusal) to hurt the speaking‟s feeling

2.1.5 The role of context in studying Speech Acts

It is not easy to distinguish whether the utterance is a direct speech act or an

indirect speech act, and according to Huang (2007), “Context is one of those

notions which are used very widely in the linguistics literature, but to which it is difficult to give a precise definition From a relatively theory-neutral point of view, however, context may in a broader sense be defined as referring to any relevant features of the dynamic setting or environment in which linguistic unit is systematically used” For example, the declarative sentence “I need a pen” is an

example of two circumstances “I need a pen” is a direct speech act used to make

a statement, “I tell you that I need a pen” In contrast, it is also an indirect speech act with the function of making a command “I command you that you lend me a

pen” Therefore, the background information and the context play an essential

role in discrimination in direct and indirect speech acts as well as enhance the better understanding of communicators in daily lives

Holmes (1992) explained the way someone speaker is affected by the situational context where the conversations appear Moreover, he also suggested some elements influencing the choice of the suitable ways of speaking in a different social context, namely social factors and social dimensions

Finnegan (1997) stated that the essential element in interpreting an utterance

is the context in which it is uttered In other words, it provides a deeper meaning

to utterances by limiting the range of possible interpretations and supporting the intended interpretation, according to Brown and Yule (1983)

Besides, Yule (1996) said that context is referred to the physical environment of a speech event, namely the participants, location, time and

other physical respects He also suggested that “our ability to identify

intended referents has actually depended on more than our understanding of the referring expression It has been aided by the linguistic material, or co- text, accompanying the referring expression.” In detail, the co-text is a

linguistic part of the environment where a referring expression is utilized Nevertheless, the socio-cultural background, the physical environment and the linguistic features surrounding an utterance are also used to analyze the context, according to Thomas (1996)

To conclude, these views are expected to ensure that contexts make a valuable contribution to the performance and interpretation of speech acts and speech acts studies

2.2 An overview of Indirect Speech Acts

2.2.1 Definition of Indirect Speech Acts

The notion of an “indirect speech act” was introduced by Searle (1969)

According to him, the indirect speech act has an essential position in speech act studies because most utterances are performed indirectly Moreover, he stated:

“In indirect speech acts the speakers communicates to the hearer more than he

actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers

of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.” That is to say, speakers

often utter their intention implicitly and communicate a different meaning from the apparent surface meaning For this reason, it is necessary to consider the indirect relationship between the form and function of an utterance

2.2.2 Characteristics of Indirect Speech Acts

Clark (1979) suggested six typical characteristics of indirect speech acts based on other researches The function of indirect speech acts is summarized

through the six properties below

Firstly, the meanings of indirect speech acts are varied They are literal meaning and implied meanings which are recognised by analyzing the context

of a conversation

Secondly, the logical priority of meaning is used to choose suitable indirect speech acts As proposed in the first characteristics, the meanings of indirect speech acts are diverse, so the most logical meaning will be chosen based on the given context

Thirdly, indirect speech acts are rational Both the speakers and hearers assume the rational characteristics of an utterance

Fourthly, indirect speech acts have conventionality Speakers tend to speak

idiomatically rather than directly Searle (1979) also stated: “In indirect

speech acts the speakers communicate to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.” The regular use of indirect speech

acts makes them conventional Therefore, the sentence “Can you open the

window” is accepted as an indirect speech act for opening the window rather

than a person's ability

Fifthly, indirect speech acts are polite Indirectness is a widely used conversational strategy Communicators frequently employ indirect speech acts mainly in connection with politeness because they eliminate the unpleasant message in requests and orders and save the hearer‟s face in refusal expression (Leech: 1983) For example, people often use the sentence

“Would you lend me some money”, an indirect speech act, to make a polite request rather than a direct speech act “Lend me some money”

Finally, indirect speech acts are purposeful When uttering an indirect speech act, the speaker often has their intention in mind Therefore, indirect speech acts are employed to suit the speaker‟s intention while also fulfilling a given societal norm of indirectness

2.3 Sentence Structures

According to Quick and Greenbaum (1973), in “a university grammar of

English", a simple sentence can be divided into four main sentence structures: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory However,

exclamatory is replaced by exclamative by Huddleston (1984)

Declaratives: Quirk and Greenbaum (1973:191) said: “declaratives are

sentences in which the subject is always present and generally precedes the verb.” For example, the sentence “I love you” is a declarative sentence In

contrast, an exceptional case of declaratives is the disappearance of the

subject The sentence “Good to see you” is an illustration of this statement The whole sentence before omitting the subject is “(It’s) Good to see you.”

This property often occurs in spoken discourse

Interrogatives: As stated by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), interrogatives

are sentences marked by one of three criteria:

a The placing of the operator immediately in front of the subject:(Example:

Do you love me?)

b The initial positioning of an interrogative or wh-element: (Example: Who

do you love?)

c Rising question intonation: (Example: You love me?)

Imperatives: are “sentences which normally have no overt grammatical

subject, and whose verb is in the imperative” (Quirk and Greenbaum (1973)

Full stops and exclamation marks can be used at the end of imperatives There

are some sub-types of imperatives such as

a Imperatives without a subject (Example: Sing!)

b Imperatives with a subject (Example: Everyone stands up!)

c Imperatives with let (Example: Let me cook dinner.)

d Negative imperatives (Example: Don‟t open it.)

e Persuade imperative (Example: Do peel banana.)

Exclamatives: In the opinion of Quirk and Greenbaum (1973:203),

exclamatory sentences (exclamatives) are “introduced by what and how”

There are some types of exclamatives such as:

a What + Noun phrase+ (…)! (Example: What a beautiful girl came!)

b How + Adjective + (…)! (Example: How pretty she is!)

c Others have a declarative structure with an exclamation mark in the end to

emphasize the speakers‟ strong emotion: He was such a bad teacher!

In addition, Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) stated “ simple sentences may be

divided into four syntactic classes, whose use correlates with different communicative functions”; therefore, to clarify the relationship between the

functions and structures of indirect speech acts, the communicative functions

of sentences should be mentioned

In terms of communicative functions, after presenting some major types of sentences (clauses) including declarative clauses, interrogative clauses, imperative clauses and Exclamatory clauses, Bache (2000) suggested that there are some typical uses such as statement, question, directive and exclamation These uses are called communicative functions (illocutionary values) The four main communicative functions are defined as follows:

-Statements give information:

Example: John was quiet

-Questions seek information:

Example: Was John quiet?

-Directives instruct the hearer to perform some action or to behave in a

certain way:

Example: Be quiet!

-Exclamations express emotion:

Example: What a nice car

The relationship between the communicative functions and their structural form is generally presented in Table 2.2

Table 2.2: The relationship between the structural form and its communicative

I have two sisters

questions, eliciting information)

Do you have any sisters?

Imperative Directive (requesting,

commanding, ordering, requesting, suggesting, )

Open the boob, please!

Exclamative Exclamation ( making an

evaluation)

What a nice dress!

Based on the previously relevant theories about indirectness of speech acts

suggested by Searle (1969), Yule (1997), Quick and Greenbaum (1973) as

well as Bache (2000), the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts and the classification of indirect speech acts are shown in Table 2.3

Table 2.3: The framework for analyzing the indirectness of speech acts

Structural

form

Function as direct speech acts

Function as indirect speech acts

1

Declarative

Statement A declarative structure is not used to make

a statement but for a question, a command/

a request, and an exclamation

2

Interrogative

Question An interrogative structure is not used to

ask a question but for a statement, a

command /a request, an exclamation

Exclamation An exclamative structure is not used to

make an exclamation but for a statement, a question, a command or a request

5 Others 5 Others The structure corresponds to the function,

but the literal meaning differs from the intended meaning, combinations of

different indirect speech acts

As we can see from the table, if there is a direct relationship between the

structure and function, we have a direct speech act If there is an indirect relationship between the structure and the function, we have an indirect

speech act

2.4 A Review of Previous Relevant Studies

The first previous study is “A study of Speech Acts in Conversation in the

New Interchange Series”, conducted by Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung (2014) It

presents linguistic features of speech acts, including speech act types, speech act structures and indirect speech acts in the conversation of New Interchange

1, 2, 3 She mainly uses quantitative and qualitative approaches and combines

descriptive, contrastive, analytic, and synthetic methods With 784 turns in 97 conversations in New Interchange 1, 2 and 3, indirect speech acts account for 20% in total Furthermore, representatives and declaratives come first regarding a speech act type and a speech act structure, respectively On the other hand, some limitations exist in her thesis One of the significant drawbacks is that she doesn‟t investigate some prosodic features such as

politeness strategies

The second previous study is “A Study of Linguistic Features of Indirect

Speech Acts in Modern Short Stories in English and Vietnamese” Đoàn Thị

Hương Hiền (2015) The research aims to examine the characteristics of indirect speech acts in English and Vietnamese modern short stories Like Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung, quantitative and qualitative approaches with descriptive, contrastive, analytic and synthetic methods are used to find out the findings related to indirect speech act structures, indirect speech act functions and significant similarities and differences in structures and functions of examined speech acts between two languages Regarding the limitations in her research, the first is that the results are not suitable for real-world communication because data is gathered from modern short stories Another is that she could not realize and explain all of the examples and investigate

linguistic features concerning politeness strategies and adjacency pairs

The third one is the undergraduate study “A contrastive Study of Indirect

Speech Acts in “Spotlight” versus “ Sai Gon, Anh Yeu Em” by Lê Thị Mỹ

Nhớ (2018) She carried out the study to examine the structures and functions

of indirect speech acts in the two films “Spotlight” and “Sai Gon, Anh Yeu

Em” as well as the similarities and differences in structures and functions of

indirect speech acts in these films She found that in terms of structures, others come in the first place with 58 utterances in English, while

interrogative structure makes up the highest proportion in the total of 117 utterances Regarding functions, to request or command is the most

predominant type in both English and Vietnamese

Last but not least, the study "Implicatures in "12 Years a Slave" and

"Spotlight"" conducted by Cao Văn Hương (2017) must be mentioned

Researchers combined qualitative and quantitative approaches to discover the conversational implicatures in two films, "12 Years a Slave" and "Spotlight"

To be more specific, his findings show that in terms of the structural features

of linguistic means to realize implicature, sentential level structures are predominant, and the upper sentential level ones come in the second place In contrast, the lower sentential level structures account for the smallest proportion Besides, regarding illocutionary acts, the acts of refusing, claiming, and convincing are used more When it comes to limitations, the researcher cannot clarify the relationship between the two films

All in all, all the previous studies above provide us with the general knowledge of speech acts This research differs from the previous studies in terms of the object and the study's objectives The object of this study is the historical drama film describing the life of slaves Moreover, with structures

and functions of indirect speech acts in “12 years a slave” have not been

investigated, and previous studies have not resolved the question of how slaves exploit indirect speech acts As a result, the researcher decides to

conduct this study, “A Study of Indirect Speech Acts in “12 years a slave””

CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES

This chapter outlines the methods and procedures of the study It begins with an introduction of research design Next, the research methods and research procedures are presented Then, it also gives the description of data collection and data analysis Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion

of the study‟s validity and reliability

3.1 Research design

Qualitative and quantitative research approaches are used in this study It is necessary to combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches

The qualitative approach helps us investigate structures and functions of

indirect speech acts in “12 years a slave” Also, it gives assistance in finding

out the characteristics of indirect speech acts

The quantitative approach analyses the data to provide the level of the frequencies of indirect speech acts structures and functions Moreover, this study used a quantitative approach to avoid relying too much on human intuition

3.2 Research methods

To complete this research successfully, synthetic, analytic, descriptive and

contrastive methods are also used in this thesis

The analytic method identifies and isolates the examined features The synthetic method allows us to view how the parts of the study work together The descriptive method is used to provide a detailed description of the data The contrastive method is employed to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in structures and functions of indirect speech acts made by

Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave”

3.3 Research procedures

During the process of doing the research, the following steps were performed:

Firstly, in order to fill the gap in this field, relevant research and theoretical

background were presented

Secondly, examples of indirect speech acts made by Solomon Northup and

other slaves were collected in “ 12 years a slave”

Thirdly, the structures and functions of indirect speech acts collected in

several conversations in “12 years a salve” were presented, described and

analyzed

Fourthly, based on the structures and functions of indirect speech acts made

by Solomon Northup and other slaves, the similarities and differences in structures and functions of indirect speech acts produced by slaves were conducted

Fifthly, a concise discussion of the linguistic features of indirect speech

acts in “12 years a slave” was presented

Finally, the first draft was written, edited and some implications were also suggested

3.4 Data Collection

The data source for this study is the transcript of the movie “12 years a

slave” 116 samples of indirect speech acts were selected in the conversations

of slaves In other words, there are 86 samples taken from the speaking turns

of Solomon Northup and 30 ones from the conversations of other slaves in this movie

It is important to clarify the criteria for choosing the data for this study For the study, the research just focuses on analyzing indirect speech acts

uttered by Black people including Solomon Northup and other slaves

collected from conversations in the movie “12 years a slave” Therefore, the

research put aside the conversations that violet the scope of the study such as (1) the conversation with some indirect speech acts but uttered by masters, (2) the conversation with just a few indirect speech acts but uttered by Northup‟s friends and his family members (his wife and children)

“12 years a slave” is the first film directed and produced by the black

director, Steve McQueen, and written by an African-American, John Ridley Moreover, this movie wins the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 86thAcademy Awards The success of this movie is highly outstanding when defeating other great works, including The Wolf of Wall Street, Gravity and American Hustle for the top honor

Indeed, “12 years a slave” is about a free man, Solomon Northup,

kidnapped and sold to plantations for 12 years He is forced into slavery with the new name “Platt” and suffers from the evil of slavery as well as different malevolent owners Due to not giving up the hope of escaping from the abusive treatment of his plantation owners, he successfully finds his true freedom and returns home with the help of an abolitionist This is a memorable landmark in the journey of achieving his freedom

3.5 Data Analysis

3.5.1 Analytical Framework

The theories about the indirect speech acts suggested by Yule (1997),

Searle (1969), and the relationship of grammatical patterns and equivalent

functions presented by Quick and Greenbaum (1973) as well as Bache (2000)

are chosen as the framework of this study There are two reasons why the researcher selects the theories of both prestigious researchers The first reason

is that it is pretty transparent to decide whether an utterance is a direct speech act or an indirect speech act when we base it on the three structural forms and three general communicative functions of an utterance The second reason is

that the theories of Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) give a complete description

of the grammatical forms and communicative functions of a sentence Therefore, using the theories of these researchers makes the recognition of indirect speech acts easier In addition, the characteristics of indirect speech acts stated by Clark (1979) is very useful to identify and analyze indirect speech acts To be more specific, if there is a direct relationship between the structure and function, we have a direct speech act If there is an indirect relationship between the structure and the function, we have an indirect speech act For instance, if an interrogative performs the function of a

question, it is considered a direct speech act (Example: What is your name?)

However, if an interrogative is used to make a command or a request, it is an

indirect speech act (Example: Can you help me?)

According to Saville-Troike (1982), direct speech acts occur when the surface form is relevant to the interactional function However, there are some exceptional cases that although the structure and function are relevant, it is

not called a direct speech act For instance, when being asked, “Are you

single?” one can answer, “I am living happily with my husband” The

response is not a direct speech act though the declarative sentence matches the

function of making a statement, “I hereby tell you that I am living with my

husband” Instead, it is an indirect speech act because the response can be

interpreted that “I am not single” Therefore, the literal and intended

meanings also need to be examined when considering whether one utterance

is a direct speech act or an indirect speech act, apart from structures and functions

3.5.2 Analytical methods

As presented above, the data is analyzed using a combination of analytic,

synthetic, descriptive and contrastive methods Firstly, the analytic method

aids in clarification and presentation of certain linguistic features of indirect

speech acts Secondly, the synthetic method is used to synthesize the findings and conclude the research Thirdly, the descriptive method is very critical for

describing the key features of indirect speech acts examined Finally, the

contrastive method is used to compare and contrast the similarities and

differences in the structures and functions of indirect speech acts made by

Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave”

3.4 Reliability and validity

Reliability and validity are the two essential criteria to guarantee the quality of data

In terms of reliability, the theoretical framework is based on the renowned works and prestigious scholars, namely Yule (1997), Searle (1969), Quick

and Greenbaum (1973) Moreover, “12 years a slave” is one of the most

renowned films with almost generations in the modern word Therefore, all the resources and data are considered to be reliable

Regarding validity, the data was analyzed by using a well-known analytical framework and various research methods as described in the previous parts In addition, the quantitative results were analyzed with the help of computers Therefore, the findings of the study are considered to be reliable and valid

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter shows the research findings from the collected data based on the theoretical background and the suitable research methods Moreover, the discussion about the results is also presented Firstly, the structures of indirect

speech acts in “12 years a slave” are presented, then the functions of indirect

speech acts are shown Finally, the discussion about the similarities and differences in structures and functions of indirect speech acts made by Solomon Northup and other slaves in this movie is given

4.1 Structural features of indirect speech acts uttered by Solomon

Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave”

According to the theoretical background presented in chapter two, the structure

of indirect speech acts in “12 years a slave” is determined as five groups, including declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives, exclamatives and others Firstly, declaratives comprise three supplement kinds such as a declarative

structure for a question, a declarative structure for a command/ request, and a declarative structure for an exclamation; interrogatives also include three small

types like an interrogative structure for a statement, an interrogative structure

for a command or request, and an interrogative structure for an exclamation

Besides, three kinds of imperatives are an imperative structure for a statement,

an imperative structure for a question, and an imperative structure for an exclamation Exclamatives consist of an exclamative structure for a statement, an exclamative structure for a question, and an exclamative structure for a command/ request Finally, the group Others comprise two sub-types like a structure for two different functions and a structure that matches its function, but its intended meaning is different from the literal meaning The results of indirect

speech act structures are given in Table 4.1

Table 4.1: Distribution of structural features of indirect speech acts uttered by

Solomon Northup and other slaves in “12 years a slave”

STRUCTURE

Uttered by Solomon Northup

Uttered by other slaves

As we can see from Table 4.1, with utterances uttered by Solomon

Northup, others account for the highest proportion with 70.93% of the total (61 utterances), whereas declaratives rank second with 11.63 % (10

utterances) Moreover, the next position is interrogatives making up 10.46 (9

utterances), then imperatives come in the fourth place with 5.81% (5 utterances) There is no case of exclamatives based on the structures of

indirect speech acts

However, only 30 indirect speech acts uttered by other slaves are realized

in “12 years a slave” with the predominance of others (making up 66.67%) Also, interrogatives spoken by other slaves rank second with 6 utterances (equivalent to 20%) The next position is declarative accounting for 13.34% (4 utterances) Noticeably, there are no cases of an imperative structure for a

statement, an imperative structure for a question, an imperative structure for an exclamation, an exclamative structure for a statement, an exclamative structure for a question, and an exclamative structure for a command/ request

Therefore, it can be concluded that Solomon Northup in particular and

other slaves in general rarely use exclamatives to express their intended meanings They are believed to take advantage of interrogatives and

declaratives instead of exclamatives to express emotion when being a slave

under the hands of vicious slave owners

4.1.1 Declaratives

It is clear from Table 4.1 that a declarative structure is considered to perform the function of indirect speech acts when it is employed for a question, a command/ request, an exclamation, but not for a statement To be more specific, 8 utterances uttered by Northup have a declarative structure but perform a command or a request and 2 utterances uttered by other slaves (equivalent to 6.67%) perform this function Besides, The type of a declarative structure for an exclamation is also presented below

4.1.1.1 A declarative structure for a question

It can be seen from Table 4.1 that there is no case of a declarative structure performing the function of making a question in this movie Therefore, this can reveal that English people, especially slaves, do not use declaratives to ask questions

4.1.1.2 A declarative for a command/request

Regarding this kind, there are 8 cases out of 86 cases (equivalent to 9.30%) that are in the form of declarative structure but perform a command or a request Nevertheless, only 2 utterances uttered by other slaves (equivalent to 6.67%) performing this function To be clearer, let‟s take examples below as typical ones

(4.1) Setting: Epp‟s plantation/ Armsby‟s shack

- Solomon: The proceeds of my fiddling performances Just a few picayunes, but all I have in the world I promise them to you if you do me the favour I

require But I beg you not to expose me if you cannot grant the request

- Armsby: What is it you ask?

- Solomon: First, your word, sir

In example (4.1), Solomon and Armsby have a conversation while Armsby helps Solomon apply liniments after being punished pitilessly by the master Epps Solomon decides to tell the truth and his true identity to Armsby because Armsby shares the ups and downs of his reliable jobs frankly as an overseer and the deep psychological wounds when whipping slaves day by

day Therefore, Solomon Northup makes a decision to utter, “But I beg you

not to expose me if you cannot grant the request” He intends to request

Armsby to keep a secret from the rude master if Armsby cannot accomplish the requirement Apparently, slaves in general and Solomon Northup in specific sometimes employ declaratives to make a request to show politeness when commanding or requesting

(4.2) Setting: Master Epps‟s planation- Day

- Mr Epps: Beat her Give her the whip! Give it all to her! Platt, you come here and you beat her now Platt! Come here!