A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DENSITY OF DIRECTIVE AND COMMISSIVE SPEECH ACTS IN DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the Directive and Commissive speech acts by comparing them in order to discover the density of the use. They have functions of language because directive is to direct people’s behaviour and commissive to undertake the speaker to do something. Due to the complexity of pragmatic meaning, the present study identifies and analyzesdirective and commissive speech acts in literature, especially in drama modern play because it represents fairly rich resources. The problem is that how one can distinguish between a directive and commissive speech acts where there is no explicit performative verbs in the given conversational turn. The study hypothesizes that the distinction between directive and commissive speech acts is often indeterminate, especially in the language of play which heavily relies on dialogues. Also it hypothesizes that directive speech act is used more than commissive speech act. The finding of analysis of the present stud shows that the text cannot easily recognize if a certain speech act is a directive or commissive on account of the unrecognition of their illocutionary forces. It reveals that the use of directive speech acts is larger than the commissive speech acts. This is because people in everyday language tend to make suggestions, requests and orders than threats or refusals.