Stylistic of Indirect Speech Act in Business English

Abstract. The indirect speech acts are cases in which “one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another”. it is the utterances that get illocutionary meaning of sentences themselves, Business English mainly refers to the language (such as oral negotiation, etc.) used in the business situation, the application of style color in indirect speech act make the conversational connotation in business more rich, more expressive, and more appropriate.

Key words: Indirect Speech Act; conversational implicature;Stylistic.

1. Introduction

From John Searle’s opinion, understanding indirect speech act must understand the two concepts: literal force and illocutionary force. Literal force expresses the literal meaning conveyed by words and construction of an utterance, while illocutionary force is equal to the function of illocutionary act. The listener can infer the speaker’s real intention with the aid of his own knowledge about the context and the shared information. As a matter of fact, John Searle’s theory of indirect speech act significantly contributes to the improvement of speech act theory.

The Chinese linguist professor Cheng Yumin says that language style is refers to the same language users typically use the language varieties in different places. Language style can be divided into two forms, they are spoken language and written language from the means of communication, spoken English is mainly refers to spoken English conversation and negotiation in business situations. Business English major students need to master these stylistic features, and employ these language features in the business conversation effectively. While the language style research should take the language as the object, but the language study aims at the research of action and behavior that produced by human speech, and how they convey information. Therefore, whether the speech acts in business situations can be understood or not, and whether they can indicate certain proper extent expression or not, all these depend on the speakers’ mastering and use of language style knowledge properly. The essay focuses on the research of style color of indirect speech act in business conversation, the purpose is to promote our business oral English teaching effect.

According to the speech act theory which was put forward by British philosopher John Austin, people speak out a sentence, at the same time, three acts are finished, and they are: locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act . It is the illocutionary act that can be really able to express the meaning according to Austen's speech act theory. Therefore, the illocutionary act is an important category of linguistic study. According to sentence meaning, illocutionary act style can be divided into three categories: primary locutionary act, primary explicit illocutionary act and indirect illocutionary act. There is no special style color for primary illocutionary act, which belongs to the neutral. Explicit language is derived from the nature of the action, so its style is distinct, generally speaking, formal and careful. Indirect illocutionary act requires a process of reasoning, so it is generally mild and indirect. Because the indirect wording has great power in the context, the paper mainly focuses on the language style color of indirect illocutionary act in business context.

What kinds of stylistic indirect illocutionary acts get in the business environment? How can we employ it in business communication? The followings are detailed explanation of the issue.

2. three kinds of stylistic indirect illocutionary acts get in the business environment

2.1 Simple and indirect

When we convey the information in business communication, direct and explicit expressions are always there, it is the same as conveying information through conversational implicature and indirect language behaviors, in this way, differences of language style are produced. When we really want to transfer information to everybody, short sentences are most efficient, such as:

A: Can you go to Moscow to spend your holiday tomorrow?

B: It snowy there

What B said is- It snowy in Moscow. On the surface, His words have nothing to do with the question, giving an irrelevant answer, he didn’t answer whether he can go to Moscow or not, but according to the cooperation principle, what he said must be " relevant ", therefore, the indirect meaning of “ It snowy in Moscow”, can be understood as “I can’t go there to spend my holiday”. While “It snowy there” is a shortened pattern of sentence, and the expression is suitable and exact. However, even if the sentence can be fully finished, there still have several factors that didn’t take into account. For instance, snowing in Moscow isn’t necessarily so good; perhaps we can have more fun for the holiday in a snowy city. Thus, at least the above sentence includes: I just want to spend my holiday when it is sunny in Moscow, furthermore, I can say, I hate snow, but unfortunately it is snowy in Moscow, so I had to cancel the vacation plans to there; but all the illocutionary meanings are omitted in the language. In the case, if when two customers talk about the upcoming holiday, one of them does not consider the importance of simple expression, he might say:

“No, because, I can’t, you know, I hate bad weather, especially the bad weather in Moscow, I dislike spending my Holiday in Moscow, but just now, I happened to hear that it is Snowy”.

If it is a fabricated sentence, then the following dialogue is so common that we often hear

A: When will you leave for Singapore tomorrow?

B: The train on which we have bought tickets will start from the North Station at 5 minutes past seven o’clock

In fact, as long as we say: We’ll take the 6.05 train, that’s enough.

In business activities, violating the quantity principle is very common, we should consider the feelings of sellers and buyers when we concern with language succinctness, we should abide by the Politeness Principle, for example:

A: will your company deal in soybean?

B: No. sorry, Sir.

C: Sorry. But you can contact CPP Agriculture Company.

We can see from the example, B abided by the maxim of quantity, What A needed was provided by the direct speech, the language is concise and appropriate. While B is in violation of the maxim of quantity, and take the indirect speech act, there is no direct positive or negative answer to A's question, but he offered a reply by the indirect speech act ,providing A more information that A expected, he said “But you can contact CPP agriculture Company ". It is not difficult to see that, C's answer is also consist with the appropriate criterion, generous criterion, humble criterion, and sympathy criterion in Politeness Principle, in this way, A wouldn’t feel so disappointed and awkward, and at the same time, C provided A a clue to solve the problem, bring benefits to each other, complying with appropriate criterion and generous criterion. He didn’t boast, but he made an honest impression on buyer and seller. Although the speech act didn’t abide by the maxim of quantity, A can feel C’s consideration, following the sympathy maxim.

It is not difficult to see that the violation of the maxim of quantity can make a good impression on buyers or sellers, as the saying goes, “Friendly relations should exist between buyer and seller even if they fail to clinch a deal”. In business activities, businesses should put and end to follow “one-off deal”, maintaining long-term mutual cooperation prospects should be focused on. C’s indirect speech acts in business activities achieved better pragmatic effects than the direct speech acts used. However, in the real business context, if B's answer is “Sorry. But you can contact CPP agriculture Company, because the general manager in that company is my friend." Then, the amount of information is too large, it will bring a bad impression on A, maybe A would feel B is promoting soybean in his friend’s company, we may sense from here that we should consider the maxim of quantity when indirect speech acts are adopted in certain context.

2.2 Euphemism

Business English conversation gets the features of clarity (clear communication). In order to achieve its purpose (sense of purpose) and communication (social aspects), we also need to express the elegance and moderation. “Business English communication may need more rhetoric to strengthen trade relations, expand the business scope, increase business opportunities, expand business channels, so as to maximize the economic benefits." In Business English conversation, because of the difference of the speakers, conversation content, time, occasion, atmosphere etc., some words can’t be said directly, in some occasions, euphemism has to be adopted, the purpose is to ease the tense atmosphere of the conversation effectively, break the deadlock, get rid of distress, or avoid conflict and embarrassment. Conversational implicature and indirect speech acts are also important means of conversation. Now we take one of international trade enquiries as an example:

(1) Could I ask you to quote 100kg of Red Tea CIF Shanghai?

(2) Would you mind quoting100kg of Red Tea CIF Shanghai?

These two inquiries are assumed to be the construction of indirect speech acts. Specifically speaking, the first sentence experienced several euphemistical processes:

A. I ask you to...

B. Can I ask you to...?

C. Could I ask you...?

For the third sentence, we can say, it has been milder and more indirect by application of rhetorical devices:

A. Quote 100 kg of Red Tea CIF Shanghai.

B. Will you quote...?

C. Would you quote...?

D. Would you mind quoting...?

Why can we achieve the indirect effect by use of indirect speech act? That is because “could I ask you to... “or “would you mind...”, all these expressions, generally speaking, literally are merely asking questions, asking if you can, or if you are willing to, and they didn’t suggest a request for you, the illocutionary indication have to be sensed by yourself, in the business communication, we have to consider euphemism whenever and wherever we are, if we can’t meet each other’s requirements, or we do not agree with each other, indirect speech can be used in a mild way. For example, one of negotiating speakers suggests a price discount, he would say:

I’ m afraid the discount is not big enough, how about 20%?

In this case, if the other wanted to reject this suggestion, he would not use a direct expression, such as "I refuse your proposal", he would say "I m afraid we have to set aside the proposal". By using the second way, the rejection didn’t sound too harsh, in addition, its implication make an effect of emphasis, and the indirect meaning is --if you continue to adhere to the discount price, we "have to " "set aside" the proposal, and “we really want to make a deal, but we cannot accept your proposed conditions, so we have to give up".

2.3 Mild Language

From the perspective of pragmatics, the eumphemism and mild language get a fundamental common ground in business conversation, which is moderate tone and keep each other's face, in this way, effective sustained business communication can be achieved. In order to indicate the advantages and value of goods and services, in the business conversation or negotiation, we should minimize the use of indirect speech acts which are connected with interjective tone and imperative type, for instance:

(1)What an excellent quality of our products compared with others!

(2) Our products are superior quality compared with others.

In the example 1, the speaker used interjection when he introduced the product quality, and we may sense the pretentious meaning from the speech act, in this case, it would make the other feel rude and offensive, in contrast, the speech act in example 2 seems plain and mild. For example,” I shouldn’t mind (=I should like)”,”I shouldn’ t be surprised (=you may be right) “are the proper polite expression:

3. Conclusion

Different schools of linguists describe the language indirectness, and attempts to find the reason why people want to abandon a direct expression of the speech act and use indirect behaviors. It is not absolute for us to employ the direct speech act or indirect speech act, when the purpose of perlocutionary act is maintaining good relations of cooperation in business communication, the indirect speech acts are usually used, without considering the violation of the Quality Criterion, Quantity Criterion and Manner Maxim of the CP, but when the perlocutionary act and the "price, delivery time, order quantity, quality standards" are related, direct speech act would be used, which abide by Manner Criterion strictly, so as to avoid ambiguity.

To sum up, the style color of indirect speech act in business conversation has the characteristics of concision, indirection and moderation. The use of language depends on theoretical basis, furthermore, practice should be more emphasized, it is necessary for us to master the indirect speech act theory in business English communication by understanding the style color of the indirect speech acts and conversational implicature. This would help us be successful in the business conversation, so as to provide better services for the international business activities.

References

[1] J.L. Austin, How to do things with words, Oxford University Press, AmenHouse, London, E.C.4, pp.92-98, 1962.

[2] J. R. Searle, Studies in the theory of speech acts, Expression and Meaning, Cambridge University Press, pp.101-105, 1985.

[3] M. Ellis, and C. Johnson., Teaching Business English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.104-120, 1994.

[4] M. Williams and R. L. Burden. Psychology for Language Teachers, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, pp.30-44, 2000.

[5] D. Wilson, Relevance and understanding. In G. Brown et al.(eds).Language and Understanding, pp.35-58, 2000.

[6] H.P. Grice, 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J.Morgan(eds). Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, pp. 43-58, 1975.

[7] Cheng Yumin. English Stylistics. Shanghai: Shanghai foreign language education press, pp.53, 1985.

[8] Li Taizhi. Business English rhetorical art. Beijing:National Defence Industry Press, pp.201-205, 2006.