REACTIONS TO THE SPEECH ACT OF THREAT IN THE MODERN ENGLISH DIALOGICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to establish the types of reactions to the speech act of threat in modern dialogical dis­course, in particular on its commission and policy components. The object of the study is the speech acts of threat, imple­mented in the modern English dialogical discourse, which are studied for the subject of the perlocative effect reflected in the reactions to it.

The research methods are discourse analysis, context-situational and pragmalinguistic methods, the method of anal­ysis of non-verbal communication components, quantitative calculations, and the method of continuous sampling.

The research results indicate that the threat is considered as a hybrid illocutionary type, which combines equal inherent components – directives and commissives. The directive component is the requirement to carry out a certain action expressed by the speaker to the addressee, the commissive component is the speaker’s obligation to perform a certain action against the addressee’s interests in the future in case of non-fulfillment of the requirement. The hybridity of the speech act of threat in the English dialogical discourse determines the specificity of the reactions to it. By criterion of the means of expression, these reactions are divided into non-verbal and verbal, according to the criterion of component of the threat – in reaction to commissive and reaction to derective components of the threat. The share of verbal and nonverbal reactions is in equilibrium, but the reaction to the directive component of the threat prevails. Verbal reactions to the speech act of threat by criterion of displaying its felicity rules demonstrate the following types: 1) reaction to the preparatory con­dition; 2) reaction to the proposition (explicit or implicit); 3) reaction to the condition of sincerity; 4) reactions to perlocution; 5) the reaction to illocution.

As a conclusion it can be noted, that the most frequent are reactions to the preparatory condition of the speech act of threat.