DIRECTIVE SPEECH ACT ORDER IN GERMAN LINGUOCULTURE (BASED ON THE WORK OF FRITZ HOCHWÄLDER «DER BEFEHL»)

Abstract

The article focuses on the study of the directive speech act “order” to identify attributes that characterize it. There are given the definitions of directive speech acts and the directive speech act “order”. There are compared different kinds of directive speech acts. The used material serves to highlight the most widespread means of performing order. While performing a directive speech act the speaker tries to have an impact on his interlocutor. To influence the interlocutor using speech acts, one has to use a number of language means. Communication is successful if language means are selected correctly and the conditions of the speech act implementation are observed. The interlocutor’s reaction will testify to this success. Of great interest for us is indirect directive speech act “order” because in order to make communication smooth, certain conditions should be observed. Using the methods of content-analysis, semantic analysis, the analysis of the pragmatic context and the method of modeling in this article, we have tried to identify conditions that influence communication in the process of the directive speech act “order”. Our model of the analysis of this speech act may be of use in a further speech acts study. The usage of the model presupposes the comparison of the direct and indirect speech acts. The model can help to reveal the dependence of direct and indirect speech acts on the type of the sentence, on the time form, the explicit use of performatives and on the intonation. The model gives an opportunity to differentiate between the categories describing social contexts. With the help of this model there can be worked out an algorithm of actions, typical for certain kinds of speech acts.