Verbum Tip 4p: Bible Browser: Speech Acts

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,861
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Docx files for personal book: Verbum 9 part 1; How to use the Verbum Lectionary and Missal

Please be generous with your additional details, corrections, suggestions, and other feedback. This is being built in a .docx file for a PBB which will be shared periodically.

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Facet: Speech acts

Dataset

  • DB:SD-OT-SPEECH-ACTS: OT-SPEECH-ACTS.lbssd
  • DB:SD-SPEECH-ACTS: SPEECH-ACTS.lbssd
  • Parks, James. 2016. Speech Acts Dataset Documentation. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

Documentation

Data

This data is a simple classification of speech acts based upon a particular theory in pragmatics, a sub-discipline of linguistics. The categories are defined in the documentation as:

Informative Speech Acts

Informative speech acts are divided into two types: Assertive and Information Question. All Informative speech acts involve the exchange of information as the principle purpose of the communicative act.

  • Assertive
    An assertive speech act is one where a speaker makes an assertion or a statement, gives a description. The speaker thus provides (asserts) information to the hearer or audience.
  • Information Question
    An information question is a specific speech act which directly states that the speaker lack a piece of information.

Obligative Speech Acts

Obligative speech acts are divided into two types: Directive and Commissive. All Obligative speech acts impose an obligation on either the hearer or the speaker themself.

  • Directive
    A directive speech act is one where the speaker attempts to get the hearer to do something.
  • Commissive
    A commissive speech act is one where the speaker commits themself to some action.

Constitutive Speech Acts

Constitutive speech acts are divided into two types: Expressive and Declarative. These speech acts all constitute a social reality. A speech act is Constitutive only if it is uttered by the appropriate person at the appropriate time in the appropriate location. A judge who says, “That is out of order” while watching a football game at their house is not in the appropriate location to declare a judgment. The speech act only constitutes a social reality in the courtroom where the judge holds authority.

  • Expressive
    An expressive speech act is one that expresses a psychological state about a state of affairs specified in the utterance.
  • Declarative
    A declarative speech act is one which brings about the correspondence between the content of the utterance and reality.[1]

Bible Browser

This example replicates an example search from the documentation: {Section <Sentence ~ Interrogative>} AND {Section <SpeechAct = Info: Quest>}[2]

Interactive

none

Context Menu and Information Panel

  • The Context Menu has the standard Copy Reference and Search results
  • The Look up function links only to the documentation

I am unable to find a speech acts entry in the Information Panel – it may be that I haven’t found the right position in the text to catch the coding.

Search / Visual Filter

The first cut of a visual filter uses all the basic search arguments for Speech Acts.

However, when it is applied two problems are apparent:

  • Length of upper tagging allows it to go out of bounds
  • Multiple tags for the same text overlay each other; yes, the Context Menu affirms the double tagging.


[1] James Parks, Speech Acts Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016).

[2] James Parks, Speech Acts Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016).

Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

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