Definitions of the Categories

of company performance or market research findings, stating statistics and trends, recounting the history of a company, describing the features of a newly developed product.

Such acts can contribute to a highly monologic form of presentation and signal less personal involvement on behalf of the presenter. If a speech act is deemed to have the dual function of both passing on information and achieving an interpersonal goal, then it should be classified as either territorial or cooperative, depending on the direction of the interpersonal goal.

c) TERRITORIAL – These are interpersonal strategies used to protect the territory of the individuals and maintain their independence. Territorial acts distance the discourse participants by focusing on the negative face wants of the speaker, namely, “the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions” (Brown & Levinson, 1978, p. 13). From an anthropological point of view, these acts are used to express the speaker’s claim to individual territories and personal preserves as well as asserting the rights to non-distraction and freedom. This category is named after Widdowson’s (1983) Territorial Imperative, and examples usually include threats, criticisms and warnings, as well as evasive, aggressive and offensive tactics. If information in the presentation is provided in a critical or judgemental way, then the act is classified as territorial and not informative. A warning is territorial if the consequences of not heeding it are not in the interest of the listener (e.g.,: Be careful, if you don’t do it like this, we’ll sue you.). Conversely, if a warning is deemed to be in the interest of the listener and the speaker is helping the listener, then it would be cooperative (e.g.,: Without good advertising you won’t sell so many products.).

Territorial speech acts are not usually frequent in business presentations unless the power relations of the participants and the circumstances of the occasion warrant resorting to these strategies. Some of these acts might be used when delegating tasks at internal company presentations, or pressuring potential customers into buying or dealing with questions that the speaker would not like to answer. However, in most cases, the territorial strategies are considered to be face threatening acts (FTAs according to Brown &

Levinson, 1978), and the risk of face loss would probably not be in the interest of any of the participants. This makes it highly likely that such acts would either be completely avoided or at least be hedged and softened when used. It is these acts that cause particular difficulty in gauging appropriateness, since they can also frequently occur in situations where the participants are on equal power footing and are very close, which would reduce the face risk of the territorial acts.

However, some territorial acts may be used very skilfully by expert presenters in the sixth move of promotional genres, where pressure tactics are employed. Presenters will often claim that the product is not available elsewhere, that stocks are running low or that the discount period will end soon in order to urge the audience to buy soon and to force them to make a decision. These hard sell tactics are also culturally dependent, and one might expect American presenters to resort to them somewhat more frequently than European speakers.

d) COOPERATIVE – These are the opposite of the territorial category and are interpersonal strategies used to bridge the gap between the speaker and the audience, focusing on same group membership and solidarity. This category is named after Widdowson’s (1983) Cooperative Imperative. Typical examples include compliments,

offers, suggestions, jokes (but not at the expense of the audience), techniques for engaging the audience and creating rapport, real or rhetorical questions, thanking, agreeing and expressions of support and understanding. Positive face (Brown & Levinson, 1978) politeness strategies also belong to this category. A high frequency of cooperative speech acts throughout the speech contributes to an atmosphere of friendly collaboration, and they are characteristic of promotional talks, where it is in the speaker’s interest to win the audience’s approval, as well as of internal corporate motivational presentations.

Some of these techniques, together with linguistic methods for keeping the emphasis on the positive, are included in Presentation Skills textbooks (particularly Powell, 1996) as features of successful presentations. In fact, interview data indicates that many presentation instructors take the use of techniques, primarily cooperative speech acts, as a criterion in the assessment of student performances, awarding higher grades to talks that are rich in rapport.

A list of speech acts divided into the four categories of the speech act taxonomy can be seen in Table 1 (the speech acts with numbers next to them are explained in further detail in Appendix A because they were deemed to be ambiguous by fellow researchers).

The list provided in the table is not exhaustive. Each of the four categories is open to the inclusion of hundreds (or perhaps even thousands) more speech acts. The ones included here have been found in the first several presentations that were coded and are listed as illustrative examples only. The list can be extended, but there is basically no need to do so, because when coding a presentation it is sufficient to label just the category that the speech act belongs to in order to obtain a speech act frequency count of the four basic categories.

ORGANISATIONAL INFORMATIVE TERRITORIAL COOPERATIVE Recommendation

request

Giving alternatives Intensifying, strengthening

Euphemism

Question invitation Adding Avoiding 1 Being ironic

Focus shift 2 Referring Criticising Joking

Repetition request Explaining Regret Enticing 11

Opinion request Opinion stating Layered question 4 Welcoming

Explanation request Quoting Generalising Addressing

Referring back Exemplifying Being vague 5 Greeting

Link (for discourse parts)

Defining Escaping 6 Announcing

Leave taking Listing Negating Congratulating

Information request Narrating (story) Refusal Agreeing

Delaying Describing Acknowledging Confirming

Giving up the floor Excluding Posing a problem Thanking

Taking the floor Including Disclaimer Hoping 14

Focus narrowing Comparing Probing Proposing a solution

Solution request Contrasting Contradicting Recommendation

Indicating (showing on visuals)

Reporting statistics

Calling on higher authority 7

Hypothetical question Summarising Stating topic Pushing for an answer Suggesting

Proposal request Stating purpose Passing responsibility Complimenting Waiting request 10 Stating condition 13 Warning Proposing

Definition request Stating result if/then Conceding Engaging audience

Demonstrating Naming Relativising 8 Rhetorical question

Help request Predicting Challenging 9 Answer to Rh. Qu.

Self-correction Clarifying Distancing Surprise

Outlining Stating cause Doubting 15 Rapport

Grouping, categorising Stating effect Commanding Offer Paraphrase Stating relation Ordering (task) Consolation Concluding Stating origin Requesting (task) Simple solution

Demonstrating Stating reason Complaining Pleading

Giving context / focus Wanting Hedging, mitigating 3

Ultimatum Softening

Dismissing Emphasising

Demand Excusing

Admitting Apology

Disbelief Appointing

Claiming uniqueness Assuring Uncertainty Introducing 12 Reminding Divulging a secret Regulating (rules) Instructing (how to) Threatening Supporting (person) Worrying / concern Understanding Restricting (if)

Table 1. Speech act taxonomy.

Figure 5. Speech act taxonomy and hierarchy

Figure 5 illustrates the pragmatic content of a presentation which contains a speech act taxonomy and hierarchy. The taxonomy has four speech act types (organisational, informative, cooperative and territorial) and the hierarchy of intentionality reflects the subordination of speech acts into superordinate, macro acts, and subordinate micro acts.

This illustration, together with Figure 2, which shows the rationale of business presentations, combines into a single framework constituting the Intentionality Model.