Speech Acts in a Story for Learning English:

Case of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Amirudin

, Margana

Applied Linguistics Department, Post-graduate Program, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

margana@uny.ac.id

Keywords: Pragmatics, speech acts, learning English through story.

Abstract: Youtube is one of the beneficial media that can be empowered as a language learning medium in this 21st

century. It provides various kinds of channels for learning English through videos. This paper explored the

speech acts performed in a story taken from a channel standing for learning English through stories on

Youtube. This story is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The functions of speech acts found in this chosen

story were identified using Padan method and classified based on the forms of speech acts as proposed by

(Austin, 1962).The factors were described based on the context espousing the utterances showed in the

story. Finally, this paper proffers pedagogical implication for English language teaching and learning

process, in case of constructing and deconstructing texts (written or spoken) in which these are considered

very beneficial for second or foreign language learners: to communicate appropriately in real-life contexts.

This paper is also expected to be beneficial for English language teachers and material developers, to

provide proper material to be used in the classroom .

1 INTRODUCTION

In this 21

century, there has been an increasing

interest in how computers and the internet can be

best harnessed to enhance the efficiency and

effectiveness of education at all levels and in both

formal and non-formal settings (Ghasemi &

Hashemi, 2011). The development of computer and

information technology offers a favorable external

environment for English teaching (Cai, 2012).

Teachers and researchers have long shown an

increased interest in the use of these technologies in

foreign or second language teaching and learning.

As proposed by (Ghasemi & Hashemi, 2011), here

will be given most interesting reasons related to the

use of these technologies in language teaching and

learning: First, they are argued to increase the

motivation of the learners. Second, they are

frequently linked with learners’ autonomy. Third,

utilizing them gives the learners real-life contact

with and exposure to the culture of the people and

countries where the target language is spoken and

enables learners to access and search information

worldwide. Fourth, using these technologies

facilitates learners’ interaction and communication

with native speakers and other communities by

enabling them to use language for real purposes and

in real contexts. Fifth, they support and integrate

literacy skills. Sixth, they enhance interactive

teaching and learning style and provide many

opportunities for creativity. Last but not least, they

offer a powerful way of enabling learners to be fully

engaged in their own language learning process.

One of the most frequently-accessed online

media in this 21

century is Youtube. Everyone

understands that Youtube possesses enormous

information storage and equally impressive service.

This media creates a unique opportunity for foreign

language learners to use authentic texts, as well as

listening to the native speakers. (Bilyalova, 2017)

points out that using information resources on the

internet, in this case is Youtube, integrating it into

the educational process is helpful for solving various

didactic problems in the lesson: First, it can be used

to train learners’ reading skills and abilities, directly

using materials of different degrees of complexity.

Second, it is beneficial for improving learners’

listening ability on the basis of authentic speeches

192

, A. and , M.

Speech Acts in a Story for Learning English: Case of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

DOI: 10.5220/0008215600002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 192-200

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

from this media. Third, it develops the vocabulary,

both active and passive, by words of the modern

foreign language reflecting a certain stage of

development of the culture, social and

political structure of the society. Fourth, it

provides cultural knowledge of speech acts,

especially speech behavior of various people in

terms of communication, culture, and traditions

of the country of the language being learned.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is one of the

stories provided in “English Listening TV” channel

on Youtube. This channel provides language

learning materials for learning English through

stories. Various kinds of stories are presented related

to people’s activities. Each story contains

conversations talking about real-life contexts.

Therefore, it is well established that this chosen

story provides various kinds of pragmatic

competence, particularly speech acts.

There are growing bodies of literature that

recognize the importance of pragmatic competence

in foreign or second language teaching process. As

stated by (Bardovi-harlig and Griffin, 2005),

pragmatics is one of the major fields of language

study in linguistics, and now it is argued that

pragmatic competence has a significant role in

language teaching and learning process. Pragmatic

competence is proposed as an essential aspect of

communicative competence, to enhance learners’

performance ((Cohen, 2005); (Soler, 2008);

(Ifantidou, 2013); (Rajabia et al., 2015); (Witek,

2015). One of the interesting topics in pragmatic

competence is speech acts which are considered

beneficial for classroom practitioners to teach

communicative competence in their language lesson.

Thus, it is seen necessary to reveal the pedagogical

implication implied in this chosen story regarding

the use of speech acts for communicating in an

appropriate context of language use.

A related study has been done by (Alemi &

Irandoost, 2012). They aimed to evaluate the speech

acts in the English Result Series textbook which

focused on analyzing and evaluating the appearance

of compliment and complaint acts. Low variations of

strategy types in complaints and compliments are

found. Therefore, they suggested that it is very

beneficial to give more original and helpful

instructions of speech acts for a course book to

improve the learners’ linguistic performance in real-

life communication. The result of this related study

emphasizes that the use of various strategies of

speech acts in textbooks or language learning

materials is necessary to explore.

Another related study has been done by

(Kohandani et al., 2014). The focus of this study is

to explore the conversation sections presented in Top

Notch 1 textbook through the pragmatic perspective

of language functions and speech acts. This study

revealed that the conversations performed in this

textbook are not appropriately functioned based on

pragmatic perspectives. Finally, the lack of the

conversations presented in this textbook are

proposed to be counterbalanced by the teachers and

material practitioners. It gives clear evidence that

more exploration of speech act strategies in language

materials is necessary for language teachers or

researchers. Therefore, language teaching is not only

about the language use but also the pragmatic

principles, for which a language should be taught to

be used appropriately indifferent contexts.

It has been reported by (Rajabia et al., 2015) that

the lack of pragmatic competence, which is to use a

language based on the contextual factors, or

abandonment of cultural and pragmatic

understanding in cross-cultural communication

causes failed communication. When people neglect

these rules, they will produce meaningless or rude

utterances. By developing speech act principles,

learners will gain better ability in understanding

what is needed to perform various functions of

speech acts appropriately.

Speech acts are understood as functions of

language, for instance; offering, suggesting,

recommending, condoling, ordering, rejecting,

promising, and so forth. And, it is emphasized that

understanding speech acts principles influences

teachers’ awareness in the case of situational

exchange and sociolinguistic factors of using

language effectively. In addition, (Rajabia et al.,

2015) also emphasized that most linguists and

language educators argue that foreign language

learners often show significant differences from

native speakers in using and uttering particular

speech acts. It is also emphasized that learners with

excellent grammatical or perfect linguistic

proficiency might not necessarily develop equivalent

pragmatic competences. Thus, it is assumed that

more input of speech acts is needed for developing

sufficient pragmatic competence of language

learners.

The aim of this paper is to explore the speech

acts phenomena presented in a story Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy taken from the “English Listening

TV” Youtube channel as a source for learning

English through stories. The forms of speech acts as

proposed by (Austin, 1962) are revealed. The

functions of speech acts performed in the chosen

Speech Acts in a Story for Learning English: Case of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

193

story are identified and classified based on the

context influencing the utterances. The factor of

each function is described.

This paper is expected to be beneficial for

Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) related to the

understanding of pragmatic competence to be

incorporated in language learning process in which

teachers should teach the language to be used

appropriately indifferent contexts, instead of simply

teaching about the language structure. This study

also offers the pedagogical implication of language

learning, in the case of constructing and

deconstructing text (spoken or written) by language

learners for using language in real-life

communication.

2 THE SPEECH ACT THEORY

Speech acts are one of the principles of pragmatic

studies. They are language phenomena performed

around the society. They are implied in memes as

social network sites phenomena (Grundlingh, 2017),

used in written advertisements (Simon and Dejica-

cartis, 2015), and identified in Facebook Status

Messages (Carr et al., 2012). They are used for

Twitter Topic Summarization (Zhang et al., 2013),

analyzed in political discourse (Ilic and Radulovi,

2015), and developed in a dialogue game

formalization (Visser, 2017). Furthermore, they are

also evaluated in language teaching textbooks for

enhancing learners’ performance (Alemi and

Irandoost, 2012); (Kohandani et al., 2014).

Meanwhile, regarding language’s communicative

function, knowing the surface structure of linguistics

is not enough, because the interaction has to be

known also by its context. As stated by (Yule,

2010), an understandable communication depends

not only on recognizing the meaning of words in an

utterance, but also on understanding speakers’

intention from their utterances. Therefore, (Yule,

2010) emphasizes that when people communicate

through a text (oral or written), two steps are

needed: knowing the meaning of each word in an

utterance, and understanding the speakers’ intention

in communicating the message by knowing the

contexts. However, even though teachers can teach

pragmatic competence, it is often only mastered

through experiences in real contexts. Therefore,

experiencing the real context of language use can be

done through discourse, namely: learning language

through stories providing authentic contexts.

(Rajabia et al., 2015) assert that pragmatic

competence is valuable knowledge used by speaker-

interlocutor to engage in communication.

Furthermore, it is claimed that speech acts are

knowledge of communicative action, concerning

with how to carry them out and the ability to

communicate with language properly in accordance

to the contextual factor. Moreover, it is argued that

foreign or second language learners require more

exposures of real-life discourse to let them acquire

pragmatic competence, and practically use them in

real communication (Alemi & Irandoost, 2012).

Furthermore, (Fromkin et al., 2014) state that

people use language to do an act: promising,

warning, complaining, asserting, offering,

pardoning, and so forth. In studying speech acts,

context is one of the important aspects to be

considered. It means that speech acts for enhancing

learners’ pragmatic competence can be given to the

learners by appropriately espousing the real context

of the language. All the acts in conveying utterances

will be known if the contexts are clearly understood

by the interlocutors. Therefore, more discourses on

the real contexts of language use are needed to be

emphasized in order for the learners to use language

accurately based on the contexts.

Moreover, (Bayat, 2013) emphasizes that speech

acts are performed in real language use situations.

The performance of particular types of acts is

assumed as the smallest unit in human

communication from the perspective of speech acts

theory. In communication, speech acts are correlated

to the functional aspects of a language. As compared

to morphology, syntax, and rhetorical aspects

concerning forms of language structures, pragmatic

aspect is related to the production and the mastery of

speech acts. These two aspects of language are

operated mutually in communication. This theory

leads to a conclusion that it is essential to both learn

the language and have the knowledge of language

use in order to communicate in real-life contexts.

It has been demonstrated that the language of

real-life discourse can draw better understanding on

how native speakers of a language actually realize

the use of speech acts in various kinds of contexts

(Koester, 2002); (Cohen, 2005). In addition, as it is

proven by (Koester, 2002), the use of real-life

discourse can provide numerous grammar and

vocabulary uses regarding pragmatic and

sociolinguistic competences.

As proposed by (Austin, 1962), when people

convey utterances, they are not only saying

something, but intending to do an act; promising,

apologizing, and commanding, for instance. Austin

divides speech acts into three forms: first,

locutionary acts which are the presentation of the

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sounds and words;second, illocutionary acts which

are the act of saying something; andthird,

perlocutionary acts which are the effect of saying

something (intentionally or unintentionally).

2.1 Locutionary Acts

The locutionary acts concern with the production of

sounds and words. As stated by (Yule, 1996),

locutinary acts are actions in speaking by using

words, phrases, and sentences in accordance with the

meaning presented in the words, phrases and

sentences. In locutionary acts, speakers’ intentions

are undetected; all the utterances are known as in the

reporting level. Another aspect to be known as

locutionaryacts is when a speaker conveys

utterances without any interlocutors to be addressed.

Furthermore, (Akmajian et al., 2001) argue that

locutionary acts are simply acts of uttering sounds,

syllables, words, phrases, and sentences from a

language. Locutionary acts are acts of speaking, acts

concerning about the construction of speech, such as

uttering certain sounds or making certain marks,

using certain words and using them in harmony with

the grammatical rules of a certain language and with

certain senses and certain references as established

by the convention of the language from which they

are gained ((Horn & Ward, 2006).

2.2 Illocutionary Acts

The illocutionary acts are related to performing one

of the language functions: the act of saying

something. Illocutionary actis an act to do something

with a particular intention and function of language

use (Yule, 1996). It means that an utterance is

conveyed by following the structure of language and

also uttering an intended act addressed to the

interlocutor. The success of illocutionary acts is

determined by the existence of interlocutor as the

target of speaker’s utterances.

(Akmajian et al., 2001) emphasize that

illocutionary acts are acts performed in saying

something related to the language use in

communication; acts done in speaking, e.g.

promising, apologizing, suggesting, ordering,

requesting, predicting, and so forth. Additionally,

illocutionary acts are acts used for apparent purposes

by using performative sentences, e.g. christening,

marrying, and so forth (Horn & Ward, 2006).

2.3 Perlocutionary Acts

The perlocutionary acts concern with the effect

(intended or unintended) of saying something. As

defined by(Yule, 1996), perlocutionary acts are acts

performed to grow influence to the interlocutor.

Perlocutionary acts are mostly expected to have

effects on the interlocutor to do something as

intended by the speaker through utterances. The

intended effects will be known by the interlocutor by

also knowing the contexts of the utterances.

Meanwhile, (Akmajian et al., 2001) define

perlocutionary acts as acts of persuading someone to

do something; causing the interlocutor to feel a

requirement to do something by saying utterances.

Perlocutionary acts concern with the production of

effects toward the thoughts, feelings, or actions of

the interlocutor, e.g., commanding, suggesting,

persuading, and so on. It can be highlighted then that

understanding the strategies for conveying

perlocutionary acts is a valuable knowledge for the

speaker in order to ensure the clarity of the

utterances so that the purposed intention of

conveying an utterance will be understood by the

interlocutor.

3 METHOD

3.1 Data Source

The data of this paper are taken from “English

Listening TV” channel on Youtube which presents

materials for learning English through stories. A

story was chosen, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

The utterances produced by each character in this

chosen story are the main data of this paper.

Meanwhile, the narration presented in the story is

considered as the context espousing each utterance.

This story contains ordinary conversation related to

daily activities and actions conveyed by the

characters in the story.

In conducting the research, the present study

uses the descriptive qualitative method. It was done

to describe the phenomena of speech acts performed

in the chosen story.

3.2 Data Collection

In order to collect the data, Simak method is used. It

is done by observing the chosen story in which the

story video is watched carefully and repeatedly, and

then the conversations found are transcribed. The

utterances conveyed as the main data are then

Speech Acts in a Story for Learning English: Case of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

195

identified, classified, and analyzed (Sudaryanto,

2015, p.203).

3.3 Data Analysis

In order to analyze the data, Padan method

(Sudaryanto, 2015, p.15) is used. It is done by

identifying the functions of speech acts performed in

the utterances conveyed in the story. Then, the

functions are classified based on the forms of speech

acts as proposed by (Austin, 1962). The functions

are considered based on the context of the utterances

by using pragmatic analysis. In the last stage, the

data are analyzed by offering the factors espousing

each kind of functions of the speech acts.

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

(Austin, 1962) proposed a trichotomy of speech

acts to distinguish between the different levels of

speech acts. This trichotomy consists oflocutionary

acts, which are established as the production of

sounds and the production of words; Illocutionary

acts, which are performed by conveying one of the

functions of language, that is, the act of saying

something; and the perlocutionary acts, which are

performed for giving effects (intended and

unintended) that result from saying an utterance,

bringing about changes in people’s thoughts,

attitudes, actions, and feelings. As suggested in this

paper, forms of speech acts proposed by Austin

performed in this chosen story are revealed.

4.1 Identification and Classification of

the Functions of Speech Acts

Performed in the Story

To determine the first result, the functions of each

level of speech acts performed in the story are

identified and classified based on the trichotomy of

speech acts proposed earlier. The result of

identifying and classifying the functions is described

as follows:

Table 1: Number of data in the chosen story.

Forms of speech acts Functions of acts

Number of utterances appearing

in the story

Locutionary acts Murmuring

Shouting

Whispering

Illocutionary acts Confirming

Requesting

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Questioning

Predicting

Offering

Admitting

Informing

Praising

Suggesting

Promising

Condoling

Asserting

Greeting

Apologizing

Forgiving

Thanking

Expecting

Agreeing

Prohibiting

Inviting

Rejecting

Advising

Disputing

Threatening

Perlocutionary acts

Commanding

Questioning

Suggesting

Requesting

TOTAL 189

4.2 Identification and Classification of

the Functions of Speech Acts

Performed in the Story

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9-point of font size and the font style set to italic.

The factors of each function found above are

then described based on the contexts espousing

each utterance from the chosen story. The

result of establishing the factors isillustrated as

follows:

Locutionary acts

 Murmuring, which is reporting or

expressing

an idea or opinion without any interlocutor

to be addressed;

 Shouting, which is saying something

very loudly to the interlocutor;

 Whispering, which is speaking

extremely

quietly so that other people cannot

hear.

Illocutionary acts

 Confirming, which is constative:

expressing

true news or information for emphasizing a

situation, events or accidents to the

interlocutor, to make news or information

stronger or more certain;

 Requesting, which is directive: asking

for something to the interlocutor, sometimes,

politely or formally;

 Questioning, which is directives:

questioning something without strong feeling

to get feedback from the interlocutor;

 Predicting, which is constative:

making predictions for an event or accident,

to say what the speaker thinks happened

from another perspective;

 Offering, which is commissive:

speaker’s commitment to stand to do

something for interlocutor;

 Admitting, which is an

acknowledgment: confessing an answer or

information to the interlocutor;

 Informing, which is constative: describing

an event or accident to the interlocutor;

providing the essential quality of

something to the

interlocutor;

 Praising, which is an

acknowledgement: expressing good things

about something or someone, to say good

Speech Acts in a Story for Learning English: Case of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

197

characters or attitudes about someone to the

interlocutor;

 Suggesting, which is constative: stating

an argument to express an idea or plan for

the interlocutor to consider;

 Promising, which is commissive:

committing to the interlocutor that an act

will be done by the speaker in the

future, to tell the interlocutor that the

speaker will definitely do something;

 Condoling, which is an

acknowledgment: expressing sympathetic

sorrow;

 Asserting, which is constative:

stating something in a strong and definite

way, when the speaker says that something is

certainly true;

 Greeting, which is an

acknowledgments: expressing a good feeling

to meet or see the interlocutor;

 Apologizing, which is an

acknowledgment: expressing regret for doing

or saying something wrong, to give an

apology;

 Forgiving, which is an

acknowledgment: expressing willingness to

forgive the interlocutor, to stop feeling anger

toward the interlocutor who has done

something wrong;

 Thanking, which is an

acknowledgment: telling the interlocutor that

the speaker is grateful for something that he

or she has done or given;

 Expecting, which is constative: thinking

that something will probably or certainly

happen, to think that the interlocutor will do

something as the speaker expects;

 Agreeing, which is an

acknowledgment: expressing the same

opinion with the interlocutor, to say that the

speaker accepts or allows something that is

suggested or requested;

 Prohibiting, which is directive: saying

that something is not allowed, to make

something impossible to be done by the

interlocutor;

 Inviting, which is directive: attracting

the interlocutor to go somewhere, in this

case, no response is given by the interlocutor;

 Rejecting, which is an

acknowledgment: refusing to believe, accept,

or consider an idea or opinion given by the

interlocutor;

 Advising, which is directive: giving an

opinion or suggesting to interlocutor

about what should be done, to give advice

to the interlocutor, in this case, response is

not given by the interlocutor;

 Disputing, which is constative: arguing

about something; to say or show that

something may or may not be true;

 Threatening, which is constative: to

cause harm or damage to the interlocutors if

they do not do what the speakers want.

Perlocutionary acts

 Commanding, which is getting the

interlocutor do something in a forceful and

often official way;

 Questioning, which is gaining

information from the interlocutor;

 Suggesting, which is getting the

interlocutor believe or do something the

speakers propose;

 Requesting, which is politely or

formally getting the interlocutor do

something.

4.3 Data Interpretation

This paper identified and classified all the utterances

in the chosen story based on the functions based on

the Trichotomy of speech acts proposed by (Austin,

1962). This paper reveals that various kinds of

functions of speech acts are found as shown in

Figure 1.

As presented in table 1, the result shows that the

number of utterances found in the story is 189.Three

functions of locutionary acts are performed in

twenty-five utterances. The findings assert that most

locutionary acts found are used for murmuring as the

characters in the story express their feeling without

any interlocutor to be addressed. Meanwhile, a

number of functions of illocutionary acts are

performed in over a hundred utterances. Several

studies have suggested that illocutionary acts are the

most recommended level of speech acts to be used in

learning and teaching process (Bayat, 2013);

(Ifantidou, 2013); (Hu, 2014); (Rajabia et al., 2015);

(Witek, 2015). Furthermore, four functions of

perlocutionary acts are performed in thirty-three

utterances. These acts are considered as the highest

level of speech acts performed in communication.

The interlocutors’ reactions as the effect of the

speakers’ utterances make the acts perlocutionary

acts. Over all, the chosen story can be considered as

pragmatically rich,and therefore can be used as

language learning material. With this kind of

material, the language learners’ pragmatic

competence, particularly the use of speech acts for

communicating in real-life context, can be

improved.

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As reported earlier, the most frequently found

speech act in the data is illocutionary act. Various

kinds of its functions are found, i.e., admitting,

predicting, suggesting, promising, thanking,

rejecting, and so on. These illocutionary acts are

categorized based on the communicative categories

of illocutionary level proposed by (Bach & Harnish,

1979) and (Grundlingh, 2017) namely: constatives,

directives, commissives, and acknowledgements.

They also correspond to the illocutionary acts

proposed by (Searle, 1969), namely; assertive,

directives, commissives, expressive, and declarative

(in which declaratives are considered as non-

communicative category of speech acts).

Another phenomenon to be emphasized in this

paper is the result of locutionary acts which is

performed in three functions by the participants from

the chosen story, namely: murmuring, shouting, and

whispering. This locutionary level of acts is merely

known as the form of the language used in

utterances, in other words it is found that the

utterances are conveyed by the participants without

any interlocutor to be addressed. Therefore, it

becomes the lowest level of speech acts in a

discourse, due to the phenomenon that a speaker

conveys an utterance in a conversation is merely for

uttering information or something but it is not

intended to influence an interlocutor.

Illocutionary acts as communicative categories

illustrated earlier show twenty-five functions,

namely: confirming, requesting, questioning,

predicting, offering, admitting, informing, praising,

suggesting, condoling, aserting, greeting, forgiving,

thanking, expecting, agreeing, prohibiting, inviting,

rejecting, advising, disputing, and threatening.

Those functions are conveyed in a number of

utterances talking about daily activities. These

functions of utterances seem to be significant

knowledge of communication for language learners,

to associate in social community of the target

language. Therefore, the contents of this chosen

story are expected to give advantage for language

learners or English language teaching practitioners.

On the other hand, four functions of

perlocutionary acts as the highest level of the

trichotomy of (Austin, 1962) speech acts, namely:

questioning, commanding, suggesting, and

requesting. Those four functions are similarly

presented in illocutionary acts. Yet, we can

distinguish these two levels by looking at the effects

on the interlocutors. In the case of illocutionary

level, the suggesting and requesting utterances are

conveyed with no perlocutionary intention to be

forced to the interlocutor. As the result, the

interlocutor gives no reaction related to the

utterances conveyed, even though both the speaker

and the interlocutor can still communicate.

Meanwhile, the suggesting and requesting utterances

in the perlocutionary level demand reactions from

the interlocutors. In this situation, the effect shown

by the interlocutor to the speaker by following the

speaker’s intention performed in the utterances. It

can be inferred from these points that

communication can be done without having

perlocutionary intentions, which is in-line with the

Recanati (1987, p.179) and (Green, 2003). In other

words, some similar functions may be found in these

two levels of speech acts but they do not exactly

have the same level of meaning.

Finally, this paper shows that are al-life-

discourse from authentic contexts offers several

aspects of communicative competences, namely

discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence,

and pragmatic competence. As the focus of this

paper, exploring speech acts as one of pragmatic

aspects performed in a material for learning English

is necessary.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has attempted to explore the speech

acts performed in a story “Anna Karenina” by Leo

Tolstoy provided in “English Listening TV”

Youtube channel, in which this Youtube channel is

used for learning English through stories. The

functions of speech acts found in the chosen story

are identified and classified. The factors are then

described.

The result reflects that three forms of speech acts

are found. The first is locutionary acts which are

performed in three functions (murmuring, shouting,

and whispering). These acts are considered as

merely the form of language in utterances, which

means that an utterance is conveyed with no

interlocutor to be addressed. The second is

illocutionary acts, which are performed in 24

functions. These functions are identified as

communicative categories classified into:

constatives, directives, commissives, and

acknowledgments. The third is perlocutionary acts,

which are performed in four functions

(commanding, questioning, suggesting, and

requesting). These acts are considered as the highest

level of acts, in which an utterance is conveyed, and

then an effect or response is given by the

interlocutor.

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From the result of the study, it is implied that

speech act analysis reveals an understanding of how

language is used for communicating in daily life.

Speech act analysis is also expected to be beneficial

for English language learners, i.e.: constructing and

deconstructing texts (written or spoken) as a means

of communication, especially for Indonesian

learners in which English is a foreign language.

Finally, this paper suggests for further research in

order to re-validate the effectiveness discourse

to be used in English language teaching and

learning specifically for Indonesian learners.

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