2.5 Domains of ILP Competence in the Present Study

The present study focuses on the three fields of ILP knowledge，speech acts，implicature and routines. The following sections are the detailed description of those three fields.

2.5.1 Speech Acts

The speech act theory were first formed in the late 1930s and presented in the lectures of Austin in 1952（Cited in Huang，2007）. In 1960s，this theory was refined，systematized and developed by Searle who claims that saying is（part of）doing，or words are（part of）deeds（Searle，1975）. Austin（1962）stated that each utterance performs specific acts via the particular communicative force，in addition to mean whatever it means. Furthermore，he introduced a threefold distinction among the acts that one simultaneously performs when making utterances：1）locutionary act，the uttering of a meaningful linguistic expression；2）illocutionary act，the action intended to be performed by a speaker in producing a linguistic expression，by virtue of the conventional force related to it，either explicitly or implicitly，and 3）perlocutionary act，the bringing about of effects or consequences on the hearers through the uttering of a linguistic expression，and such effects or consequences are special to the circumstances of the utterances（Austin，1962）.

According to Austin（1962），when asking what a person is doing while he/she makes an utterance，three types of answers can be obtained. One is to describe the noises he/she makes，the grammatical construction of these noises，and their meaning. This is the locutionary aspect of the utterance which includes the uttering of certain noises，the uttering of certain words in a certain construction and the uttering with a certain “meaning”. The second understanding to the question is “He/she was complaining about something” or “He/she was conducting a refusal”. This is the illocutionary aspect of the utterance. Roughly，the illocutionary act is the act performed while uttering certain words in context. Or，the illocutionary act can be considered to be with the force which the sentence was associated. The third answer to the question could be “He/she was threatening someone”，or “He/she was warning someone of something”. This is the perlocutionary aspect of an utterance，which refers to the consequential effects of an utterance upon the thoughts，feelings，or actions of the speakers or of the hearers，or of the third party.

Searle（1975）classified all the speech acts into five types. His typology of speech acts is considered as the most influential one（Huang，2007）. The five types of speech acts are as follows.

1）Representatives or assertives，they are the kinds of speech acts that commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition，and thus carry a truth-value. They express speaker’s belief. Speech acts in this type include asserting，claiming，concluding，reporting and stating.

2）Directives，they are those kinds of speech acts that are present attempts by the speakers to get the addressee to do something. They express the speaker’s desire/wish for the addressee to do something. Speech acts in this group include advice，commands，orders，questions，and requests.

3）Commissives，they are those kinds of speech acts that commit the speakers to some future course of action. They express the speaker’s intention to do something. The speech acts in this type include offers，pledges，promises，refusals，and threats.

4）Expressives，they are those kinds of speech acts that express a psychological attitude or state in the speaker such as joy，sorrow，and likes/dislikes. Speech acts in this type include apologizing，blaming，congratulating，praising，and thanking.

5）Declaration（or declaratives），they are those kinds of speech acts that affect immediate changes in some current state of affairs. Because they tend to rely on elaborate extralinguistic institutions for their successful performance，they may be called institutionalized performatives. Speech acts in this type include bidding in bridge，declaring war，excommunicating，firing from employment and nominating a candidate.

Pragmatics researchers are concerned about how speakers express their intentions and how listeners identify those intentions. Interlanguage pragmatics researchers’ interest lies in whether language learners can interpret an utterance or conduct a speech act appropriately in a particular context.

2.5.2 Implicature

In communications，it is a frequently happened phenomenon that what a speaker says is not what he means，and this is what implicature is all about. The speaker’s intention communication is far richer than what he/she utters directly（He，2003）.

Grice（1975）distinguished between conventional implicature and conver-sational implicature. In conventional implicature，the inferences are based on the conventional meanings of lexical items with no influence of the context. In contrast，the inferences of conversational implicature strongly rely on context features. In conversational implicature，conversational principles are assumed to be shared mutually.

Bouton（1999）distinguished between idiosyncratic implicature and formulaic implicature in conversational implicature，and both of them are in the concern of EFL researchers. In idiosyncratic implicature，a Gricean maxim is violated and the hearer is forced to infer meaning beyond the literal meaning of the utterance with his/her background knowledge. In formulaic implicature，a routinized schema is followed. An indirect criticism is normally conducted with a focus on a minor，irrelevant aspect. “Pope Question” also belongs to idiosyncratic implicature. Although formulaic implicature follows the same basic principles with idiosyncratic implicature，it is more patterned，which makes it possible for hearers who know the pattern to decode the implicature but almost impossible for those who do not.

Interlanguage pragmatics researches put focus on illocutionary meanings，or language functions（Ellis，1994）. People with different backgrounds and cultures may interpret an utterance variously，and researchers in this field are absorbed in the variations of understanding the implicature with different languages as in conversational implicature instead of the similarities of it as in conventional implicature.

2.5.3 Routines

Routines are more or less with a fixed meaning in a situation and a communicative function（Coulmas，1981；Wray，1999，2000）. Routines can be either tightly or loosely bound to situations. Rover（2005）distinguished between situational routines and functional routines. Situational routines are limited in their appropriate occurrence to fulfill situational conditions i.e.，many of the context factors are fixed，and the occurrence of the routine is limited to a small number of situations that satisfy the context requirements（Rover，2004）. In contrast，the occurrence of functional routines is with a wide variety of different situations and allows variation in context conditions. One central function of functional routines is to serve as part of speech acts，in which users are allowed to manage discourse and conversations.

Interlanguage pragmatics researchers have most often concentrated on functional routines and their usage in conversations（Wildner-Bassert，1984，1994；Aijmer，1996），but in recent years，situational routines have also been in the concern of the interlanguage pragmatics research（Rover，2006；Taguchi，2013）. Research indicates that inappropriate use or non-use of routines by EFL learners is common（Kasper，1995），even for advanced language learners（House，1996）.