Felicity Conditions for Directive Speech Acts

Posted on Apr 1, 2025 in History and Music Sciences

Understanding Directive Speech Acts

For a directive speech act (such as an order, suggestion, or request) to be felicitous, certain conditions must be met. Consider these examples:

  • “Open the window.” (Imperative sentence) – This is typically a command or order.
  • “Would you mind opening the window?” – This is often a suggestion or polite request.
  • “I’d like you to open the window.” – This is clearly a request.

Felicity Conditions for Directives

There are three main types of felicity conditions:

1. Sincerity Condition

This condition establishes that the speaker (the producer of the act) must possess the required beliefs, intentions, or feelings. If this condition is not met, it constitutes an ‘abuse’, and the act (like a promise or, in this case, a directive) is infelicitous.

  • Requirement: The speaker genuinely wishes or needs the hearer to perform action A.

2. Preparatory Conditions

These conditions relate to the social context, the situation, the speaker, and the hearer. They are requirements concerning the real world that must be met for the illocutionary act (the speech act) to be carried out successfully. The people and circumstances must be appropriate.

Hearer’s Ability
  • Requirement: The hearer is able to perform action A.
  • Example 1:
    • A: “Answer the phone!”
    • B: “I can’t. (I’m in the shower)”
  • Example 2:
    • A: “Eat your vegetables!”
    • B: “I can’t.” (Perhaps due to allergy or physical inability)
Hearer’s Willingness
  • Requirement: The hearer is willing (or at least not overtly unwilling) to perform action A. (Note: Willingness is complex and context-dependent, especially for orders).
  • Example 1:
    • A: “Answer the phone!”
    • B: “I don’t want to. It will probably be a salesperson.”
  • Example 2:
    • A: “Wash the dishes.”
    • B: “I don’t want to. I’m tired. I prefer to set the table. Why don’t you do it?”
Non-Obviousness
  • Requirement: It is not obvious to either the speaker or the hearer that the hearer will perform action A in the normal course of events (i.e., the hearer wouldn’t do the action without being told).
  • Example 1:
    • A: “Make your bed!”
    • B: “It’s already made!” (The directive is infelicitous because the action is already done).
  • Example 2:
    • A: “Get dressed!”
    • B: “I’m already dressed!” (Similarly infelicitous).
Conditions for Subtypes (Authority, Benefit)

In some specific subtypes of directives, the following preparatory conditions must also be met:

  • The speaker has (or doesn’t have) authority over the hearer (H). (Relevant for orders vs. requests).
  • The speaker is (or isn’t) benefited by action A.
  • The speaker will (or will not) be indebted or grateful to H when H performs A.

3. Essential Condition

By uttering the utterance (T), the speaker publicly commits themselves to certain beliefs, wishes, or intentions.

  • Requirement: The speaker intends that their utterance of T will count as their attempt to get the hearer to perform action A.
  • Example 1:
    • T: “Don’t prepare Unit 5.” (Speaker intends this to stop the hearer from preparing Unit 5).
  • Example 2:
    • T: “Prepare Unit 2 very well.” (Speaker intends this to cause the hearer to prepare Unit 2 well).

Direct vs. Indirect Directive Speech Acts

What is the typical linguistic form of a directive?

Linguistic Indicators for Direct Directives

Linguistic form = linguistic indicators: These signal that the speech act being performed is a directive.

  • Sentence Types: Imperative (e.g., “Go!”)
  • Particles: “please”
  • Constructions: “Let’s…”, “Shall we…?”
  • So-called ‘Speech Act Verbs’: Verbs like to request, to order, to advise, to suggest, to dare, to recommend, etc.

Direct Directives

When the relationship between the linguistic form of the utterance and the directive function (the speech act performed) is straightforward, we have a direct directive speech act:

  • “Turn the music off.” (Imperative sentence form; direct directive – likely an ‘order’ or ‘request’ depending on context).
  • “Please speak louder.” (Imperative sentence form, indicator ‘please’; direct directive – ‘request’).
  • “Let’s go to the cinema.” (Indicator ‘Let’s’; direct directive – ‘suggestion’).
  • “I suggest we go home.” (Indicator ‘speech act verb’; direct directive – ‘suggestion’).
  • “The bill, please.” (Indicator ‘please’; direct directive – ‘request’).

Indirect Directives

However, the linguistic form does not always determine the function of the speech act. In such cases, the relationship between the form of the utterance and the directive function it performs is NOT straightforward, and we have an indirect directive speech act:

  • “I like these trousers.” (Declarative sentence form. Can function as an indirect directive, e.g., a hint to buy them).
  • “¿Quieres callarte?” (Spanish: Interrogative sentence form, literally “Do you want to be quiet?”. Functions as an indirect directive – a ‘request’ or ‘order’ to be quiet; this is a very frequent form for indirect requests in Spanish).