Chapter 4
Interaction and discourse
Formulate the locution and the illocution of the following NGT speech act.
‘Can you close the window?’
| Locution: | a question, as is evident from the NGT non-manuals. |
| Illocution: | It is most likely that this is a request for action since this is the most common use of such a question in a conversation (that is, it would be awkward to reply “Yes” without further action). However, the performative verb request is not used, and the non-manual used is that of a yes/no question and not of an indirect request (ir) (see example (10b) in the chapter). |
Still, in principle, the question could also be a request for information, i.e. the signer would be asking if it is physically possible for the interlocutor to close the window. More information from the context is necessary to be absolutely sure.