The Speech Acts of Irish - Utterance, Situation, and Meaning - Brian Nolan

The Speech Acts of Irish - Utterance, Situation, and Meaning - Brian Nolan

The Speech Acts of Irish

The Speech Acts of Irish - Utterance, Situation, and Meaning - Brian Nolan

Brian Nolan [+-]
Technological University Dublin (retired)
Dr. Brian Nolan is a retired Head of School of Informatics and Engineering at the Technological University Dublin, in Ireland. His research interests include linguistic theory at the morpho-syntactic semantic interface, argument structure and valence, constructions in grammar, event structure in language, the architecture of the lexicon and computational approaches to language processing, computational linguistics, speech act theory, context and common ground. His linguistic work has been in the functional linguistic model of Role and Reference Grammar and he has published extensively internationally. In 2012 Dr. Nolan published his book with Equinox on the linguistic structure of Irish in a Role and Reference Grammar account entitled The structure of Modern Irish: A functional account. In 2013, Benjamins published his co-edited volume Linking constructions into functional linguistics – The role of constructions in grammar in their Studies in Language Companion series. His co-edited Benjamin volume on computational linguistics and linguistic theory, Language processing and grammars: The role of functionally oriented computational models was published in 2014, also in their Studies in Language Companion series. He also co-edited a Benjamins book on ‘Causation, transfer and permission’ in linguistic theory, which appeared in early 2015. In January 2017, Benjamins published his co-edited book on complex predication entitled Argument realisation in complex predicates and complex events: Verb verb constructions at the syntax semantic interface. In 2019, Dr. Nolan co-edited a volume with Cambridge Scholars Publishing on the ‘Linguistic perspectives on the construction of meaning and knowledge: The linguistic, pragmatic, ontological and computational dimensions’.

Description

This study is about characterising the different types of speech acts as they are expressed in Irish. We apply speech act theory to a wide range of syntactic constructions underpinning Irish speech acts. Importantly, we formalise the situation of an utterance such that those parts of context and common ground important for the resolution of utterance meaning are reflected in the model of the various speech acts. While the theory of speech acts proposed by Searle (1969), Searle & Vanderveken (1985), and Vanderveken & Kubo (2001) motivate the analysis, the model of speech acts proposed here is extended to include context and common ground of the interlocutors, framed within a situation. The theme of this book is the characterisation of speech acts of Irish, and that the situation, as a cognitive framing mechanism, is at the heart of utterance interpretation. Throughout the study, the situation is shown to provide a systematicity that contributes towards pragmatic utterance interpretation and understanding. Additionally, the situation is demonstrated to have a dynamic structure and to act as a template for understanding, functioning as a templatic schema, to differentiate between speech act utterances in real-time language use, while encapsulating relevant context and common ground.

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Citation

Nolan, Brian . The Speech Acts of Irish. The Speech Acts of Irish - Utterance, Situation, and Meaning. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 1-12 May 2024. ISBN 9781800504288. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=44642. Date accessed: 20 Apr 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.44642. May 2024

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