Contents … … … … … 1 [612159]

1

Contents

Contents ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 1
Preface ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 3
Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 5
Part I: Theoretical Part ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 7
1. Pragmatics ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 7
1.1. Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 7
1.2. Context and Meaning ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 7
1.3. Linguistic features and problems that occur ………………………….. ………………………….. … 9
1.4. General Definitions of Pragmatics ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 10
1.5. Postulates by Leech ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 12
1.6. Pragmatics in Comparison to Other Similar Fields ………………………….. ………………….. 13
1.7. Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 14
2. Speech Ac ts ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 16
2.1. Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 16
2.2. Historic Background of Speech Acts ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 16
2.2.1. John Langshaw Austin ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 17
2.2.3. John Searle ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 21
2.2.4. Teu n A. Van Dijk ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 23
2.3. Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 25
3. Discourse ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 27
3.1. Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 27
3.2. Histo ric Background ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 27
3.3. Defining Discourse ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 28
3.4. Political Discourse ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 29
3.5. Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 30
Part II: Cas e Study ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 31

2
3.5.1. Speech Acts in the Discourse: Tear Down This Wall – Ronald Reagan ……………….. 31
4.1. Introduction to the Case Study ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 31
4.2. Grid of Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 31
4.3. T he Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………… 34
4.3.1. The Context ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 35
4.3.2. The Speaker ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 34
4.3.3. The Audience ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 35
4.3.4. Micro Speech Acts ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 35
4.3.5. The Macro Speech Acts ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 61
4.3.6. The Major Speech Act ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 64
4.4. Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 65
Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 67
5. Rezumat ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………. 69
5.1. Introducere ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 69
5.2. Pragmatica ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 69
5.3. Actele de vorbire ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 70
5.4. Discurs ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 71
5.5. Studiu de caz ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 71
5.6. Concluzie ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 72
Annex: “Tear Down This Wall” Ronald Reagan ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 74
Bibliography ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………. 81

3

Preface

The present diploma thesis focuses on a different perspective in analyzing discourse,
namely it is a pragmatic analysis. The usual discourse analysis deals with other aspects that
can be related to grammar or cohesion, but this analysis is based on speech acts, which are an
important focus in the pragmatic branch of linguistics. During these three years of studying
public relations at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, the disciplines that generated the
biggest interest were in fact those that dealt with linguistic s. So, I decided to focus on what I
mostly love about linguistics using the knowledge I managed to gather from disciplines such
as Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics. I chose this field of applied linguistics because for me
it is a philosophical approach th at focuses on more interesting aspects of communication.
Related to philosophy we also have discourse, more exactly speeches. This interest in public
speaking was first discovered in high school, where I had the chance to learn about ancient
philosophy and public speaking in the first versions of democracy. All in all, I shall say that I
came up with this topic combining my passion for linguistics and history.
Now, I would like to thank the board which is engaged in grading our thesis for
permitting me to choose such a topic. I would like also to thank my supervisor Lect.univ.dr.
Șimon Simona Cristina for giving me the opportunity to write about what I love, for
suggesting speech acts, for helping me with a part of my bibliography and more importantly
for giving advice and teaching me to write and analyze academically. This was the greatest
help I could be offered and I should also thank my supervisor for being supportive and for insi
sting to check and monitor our work often, even though I must admit that I was a bit lazy. I
should also thank my parents and friends for the given support and both West University of
Timișoara and Politehnica University of Timișoara for providing such modern libraries for
students, where I spent long hours accomplishing this t hesis.

4
I honestly hope that future students at our faculty will get the chance to see my work and
perhaps try to analyze public relations materials as I did and bring something new to what I
managed to write. Besides this, I hope that future students will realize the importance of
pragmatics in discourses in general, not only political speeches.

Timișoara 2017 Friškan Daniel

5

Introduction

The thesis will be composed of a theoretical part which will deal with three main
topics: pragmatics in general, speech acts and political discourse. In order to begin and then
accomplish the case study, which is the second part of the thesis, I shall present aspects that
are important for gathering theoretical knowledge in fulfilling the case study. In order to get
a clearer perspective on what the thesis deals with I shall present the field of pragmatics and
afterwards focus on what is relevant for political discourses.
The first chapter will focus on pragmatics in general which is a field of linguistics that
deals with meaning in certain contexts. While lexicology states that words always have the
same meaning and while grammar indic ates specific situations and their meaning to be
always the same, pragmatics puts language differently. In pragmatics every phrase has a
different meaning according to its context. If for example, in a cold room you say that it is
hot, people will understa nd that you said it ironically. This happens when the context is taken
into consideration. That same irony does not happen in linguistics because the context is not
important, and it means exactly what it says – that it is hot in the room. Pragmatics belon gs to
applied linguistics that focuses on language in different situations, it focuses on the usage.
Pragmatics deals with the meaning of the real situation that is unique i.e. different every time.
After we are done dealing with explaining pragmatics more deeply, we shall focus on
speech acts. They can be identified in an utterance when the intention of a speaker is looked
for. This means that anything uttered is a speech act. The example given above is a situation
where the context gives a different meani ng than the occasional one. The speech act from
that situation: e.g. It is hot in here, represents the action the speaker took to notify or to
require the other participants to perform some other action. In other words, by uttering those
words it was proba bly meant ironically and the speaker wanted to say that it is cold, in this
case it was probably requested indirectly that the window should be closed or the heat should

6 be turned on. If the context is familiar so is the meaning in this kind of analysis. T he second
chapter, besides defining speech acts, it will focus on their authors also. There are three
authors that are relevant for analyzing a discourse: Austin, Searle and van Dijk.
The third and final theoretical chapter will focus on defining a genre, in our case
political discourse. Defining discourse is important because one must understand the genre
before analyzing it pragmatically or in any other way. At first we shall focus on their historic
background then try to make the difference between the t erm in English and the one in the
other romance languages. To be more clear I shall narrow it down to political discourses and
give a classification of them.
The main part of the thesis is in fact the case study that will use a grid of analysis as an
instrument of research. The grid will analyze the content I have mentioned just now. At first
we shall describe the communicational process using the message i.e. the discourse as a
whole and then focus on speech acts. First, I shall take into consideration ind ividual speech
acts and afterwards paragraphs from the written discourse and in the end once more analyze
it as a whole in order to establish the purpose of the discourse. The final goal is to understand
the nature of speech acts and how they function in t he political discourse by Ronald Reagan
“Tear Down this Wall”.
In the end I shall summarize the conclusion drawn from the entire diploma thesis, both
from the theoretical and the case study. I shall also point to the way in which I have
perceived this enti re experience of writing this study.

7

Part I: Theoretical Part

1. Pragmatics

1.1. Introduction

Being practical or pragmatic might not be tha t simple, sometimes people are not
understood correctly. Then they might have to provide additional explanation to others to
avoid the inevitable, this being misundersta nding each other. This chapter will deal with
pragmatics in general. We shall provide some of the main and most useful approaches to
pragmatics.
The process of communicating wi th others is very complex, but still, we manage to
understand each other. It is pragmatics we use to understand what speakers are trying to say.
When a speaker says “it’s too loud in here’’ what he really wants to say is: “turn the volume
down a bit’’. “People can mean something quite different from what their words say, or even
just the opposite ” (Thomas 2013 ,1). Another author concluded that t o understand the nature of
language itself, we need to understand pragmatics: how language is used in communicatio n
(Leech 1983), i.e. how words are used in particular situations.
Everybody heard about syntax, phonology or phonetics, but rarely about pragmatics and
pragmatic meaning. This is a relatively new domain for us, fifteen years ago it was mentioned
rarely if at all. To understand it easier one must know what linguistics is about, in order to be
familiarized with pragmatics. It is a level of linguistic description like syntax, semantics and
discourse analysis (Thomas 2013 , 21). Further I shall explain the most important issues
pragmatics deals with.

1.2. Context and Meaning

Because p ragmatics is defined as meaning in use or meaning in context, it is essential to
explain what is the context. The producer or the sender formulate s a message addressed to a

8 recei ver. T his is the most common presentation of the communicational process. The context
is the situation in which this complex process takes place. Yule (1985, 99) pointed out two
types of context. The first, linguistic (verbal) context is called co -text and it re presents only
the words or phrases that are used in the same sentence. It has a strong influence on the
interpretation of the meaning of words that we speak. The second type is physical context,
which I believe has a strong influence as well, but in a more profound meaning – contextual
meaning.
Besides the notion of context, I shall explain another two terms that are important for the
domain of pragmatics. These are the so called speaker meaning and the contextual
interpretation (Thomas 2013). Each of them represents different ap proaches to pragmatics.
The second term can be also called utterance meaning, by utterance it is understood a spoken
word, statement, or vocal sound (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/utterance ).
According to Thomas (2013) the process of interpreting what we hear (utterance)
involves moving between several levels of meaning. The first level is abstract meaning, the
second one as mentioned before is contextual meaning, the third level speech acts. In the
second, we assign sense and reference to a word, phras e or sentence (all of them can be called
utterances). The third level of meaning is reached when we are trying to figure out the
intention of the message producer. In pragmatics, the force of utterances can and is usually
called speech act. This topic will be dealt with more profoundly further in this study. Speaker
meaning involves just the last two levels explained previously: contextual meaning and
speech acts.
I should go back to what has been mentioned previously, that being abstract and
contextual meaning. Abstract meaning is created when a nonnative speaker
consults a dictionary. This type of meaning, when assigned to a context becomes
utterance (contextual) meaning. An example should be given to explain the terms better.
e.g. ca b (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cab )
When we say the word ‘cab’ we can refer to a taxi vehicle. This is because we have the
background knowledge of indentifying taxi cabs, for example New York City. In this example
we are priviledged to know about these city cabs and associate them with New Y ork taxi cars.
From a cultural perspective New York is the social context. With the help of our knowledge
we have done a great job in assigning contextual meaning to this same word. The abstract

9 meaning is formed when someone does not know the context of t he communicative situation.
Irrespective of this case we can list many meanings without assigning them to anything
specific. A cab can be a compartment of a lorry, any type of horse -drawn vehicle or even a
cabriolet. It is easier for a native speaker of a language to understand without needing to
search to much for contextual meaning.
e.g. chips (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/british -and-american -terms )
Contextual meaning is created when we assign the word “chips” to a particular context.
If a British citizen travels to New York and by occasion asks for a plate of chips, the same
person will probably be angry when the waiter arrives with a plate of crisps. In Britain, the
American potato chips are called crisps and French fries are called ch ips. This problem occurs
with contextual meaning when not assigned correctly. The abstract meaning is here present for
the British citizen who is does not assign the American word fries to the particular context in
which he is – in an American restaurant. In order o avoid the problem, a tourist should always
have a well informed perspective on the social and physical context in which he is at that time.
To revise, abstract meaning in this example is any kind of food originated from potatoes and
the contextu al meaning from the waiter’s perspective is French fries – assigned to the culture
he was born in.

1.3. Linguistic features and problems that occur

The previous examples show some of the problems that pragmatics faces with context.
People come across problem s in communication as mentioned at the very beginning of this
chapter. Besides problems of cultural background, common problems occur as well with some
lingui stic features such as homonyms. These are words which are pronounced the same,
sometime written the same, but have different meanings
(https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/homonym -homophone -homograph ).
e.g. fairy – ferry
weather –whether
which – witch
ball – bawl
You can speak of somebody’s head and by that you can also refer to the head of a text
for instance. Polysemous lexical items can be as confusing as homonyms for someone who is

10 not gifted with background cultural knowledge as nativ e speakers are.
e.g. for polysemy: “if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred
meters, he is a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.” G.K. Chesterton
(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/17960 -the-word -good -has-many -meanings -for-example –
if-a)
The same is with homographs, that are words with same spell ing but different
pronunciation and meaning
(https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/homonym -homophone -homograph ).
e.g. fine – mood/ material/ to pay the fine.
lead – material/ to lead a group.
accent – speaking/ to accent an id ea.
Problems can as well occur when one has to assign reference to an utterance. Here you
need to see correctly what is referred to what, in one particular situation.
e.g. Mark has two cars. He simply loves them and wants more.
The personal pronoun ‘he’ refers to Mark and the demonstrative ‘them’ refers to the
cars. This utterance is coherent – therefore if reference is assigned correctly we do not have a
problem in communication, from this point of view.
e.g. Marry is a good actress. She is simply gifted with talent. London is fascinating and
dream is to work there.
Careful with your pizza ! It is still hot.

1.4. General Definitions of Pragmatics

The term pragmatics has its origin in the 1930s, which may be related with the
philosopher C.W. M orris. Pragmatics was developed as a subfield of linguistics in the 1970s.
As I stated previously in this chapter, pragmatics is a young branch of linguistics. This field of
study is this fresh that many people might not even have any knowledge of it as th ey do have
of general linguistics. Pragmatics is a level of linguistic description, but it is mainly a
philosophical point of view. Now I shall give some accurate definitions of pragmatics in order
to have a precise image of what it actually means. I chose some of the most influential
philosophers that dedicated their time to study and develop pragmatics.
As said before Morris is the first philosopher that gave importance to this domain. In his

11 words: “Pragmatics is the portion of semiotics which deals with the origin, uses and effects of
signs within the behavior in which they occur” (Morris 1971, 202). Morris also stated that
pragmatics deals with the relation of signs and their users. I chose this definition just because
it is very simple and comprehensiv e. The signs being language and the users are the
communicative participants that use language. All in all it is about language usage – as
mentioned before in this chapter.
Levinson (1983) in his work called “Pragmatics” emphasized: “Pragmatics is the stud y
of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized or encoded in the
structure of language” (1983:9). When reading this definition we can conclude that pragmatics
is not only grammar but also its use. This aspect will be dealt with further in this chapter when
we shall compare pragmatics to linguistics. The author also emphasized that: “Pragmatics is
the study of the relation between language and context that are basic to an account of language
understanding” (Levinson 1983, 21). “Pr agmatics is the study of the ability of language users
to pair sentences with the contexts in which they would be appropri ate.” (Levinson 1983, 24).
This last two definitions are about assigning context to a utterance. I shall relate these
definitions to c ontextual meaning explained above: the example with the taxi cars.
Griffiths (2006) emphasized that “Pragmatics is the study of utterance meaning, while
semantics is the study of sentence meaning and word meaning”. This is the starting point of
view for th e comparison between semantics and pragmatics, I chose to give in the next section
of the chapter.
Getting back to Levinson I shall mention that he concluded that “Pragmatics is the study
of all those aspects of meaning not captured in a semantic theory” ( Levinson, 1983, 9). The
semantic theory deals with meaning of signs while, as emphasized by Morris (1971),
pragmatics deals with the relation of signs and their users, i.e. language in use. Getting back to
Levinson it is important to mention that, the auth or makes a connection with a definition given
by Gazdar which says that: “semantics is limited to the statement of truth conditions:
pragmatics has as its topic those aspects of the meaning of utterances which cannot be
accounted for by straightforward ref erence to the truth conditions of the sentence uttered”
(Gazdar 1979, 2, apud Levinson 1983, 12). Truth conditions match with the doctrine of logical
positivism which I shall explain in the following chapter. For now, I have noticed that
Levinson tried to simplify what Gazdar said, this being, in my opinion, that pragmatics is more

12 applicative and semantics more theoretic. In other words for the concerns of pragmatics study
it is less important whether a sentence is true or false as it is for grammar. When the sentences
become utterances the same sentences become meaningful – to revise, the main concern of
pragmatics is meaning of words in a particular context.

1.5. Postulates by Leech

It is said that grammar and pragmatics are domains within linguistics. Lan guage cannot
be understood without the study of this two domains. Leech (1983) gives eight major
postulates of the formal -functional paradigm:
“P1. The semantic representation (or logical form) of a sentence is distinct from its
pragmatic interpretation.
P2. Semantics is rule -governed (= grammatical), general pragmatics is principle
controlled (= rhetorical).
P3. The rules of grammar are fundamentally conventional; the principles of general
pragmatics are fundamentally non -conventional, i.e. motivated in t erms of conversational
goals.
P4. General pragmatics relates the sense (or grammatical meaning) of an utterance to its
pragmatic force. This relationship may be direct and indirect.
P5. Grammatical correspondences are defined by mappings, pragmatic corresp ondences
are defined by problems and their solutions.
P6. Grammatical explanations are primarily formal, pragmatic explanations are
primarily functional.
P7. Grammar is ideational, pragmatics is interpersonal and textual.
P8, In general, grammar is describable in terms of discrete and determinate categories;
pragmatics is described in terms of continuous and indeterminate values.” (Leech 1983, 5)
These postulates were created in order to use two separate domains (grammar and
pragmatics) to produce a single paradigm for linguistics. This paradigm is simple and useful in
the use of explaining linguistics. Leech (1983) admits that this paradigm is a little more
abstract than scientific. It is constructed with the help of a background of assumptions.
It should be clear by now that language studies (linguistics) rely on pragmatics to
explain language usage. As said before, there is no doubt that grammar is important for

13 language understanding. The set of postulates cited above is useful in making and idea a bout
understanding pragmatics as well. It is essential to say that syntax deals with the study of
sentences, semantics with that of propositions and pragmatics with utterances. Further we shall
compare pragmatics to other similar fields to understand it much better.

1.6. Pragmatics in Comparison to Other Similar Fields

Pragmatics is not just meaning, this field is all about making meaning. It is not about just
language, it is about language in use. Before all, it is important to start with general
informati on and after to split it into smaller pieces of information in order to give more
narrowed perspectives about our domain. Pragmatics fits into the domain of linguistics, as
mentioned before, it is a level of linguistic description. Besides speech acts, it deals with
implicature, indirectness, negotiations of meaning between the speaker and the hearer, etc.
We shall now see how, according to Thomas (2013), other fields or subfields have
similarities or major differences with pragmatics in order to understand it much better. For
instance intonation can be explained by linguistics using not only pragmatics, but
sociolinguistics as well. The social factors refer to age, setting, social status, gender, etc. These
factors can explain why so mething was said in a sp ecific way and how. Socioliguistics tries to
tell us what somebody from a particular community has (language related), which proves that
it is static, and not what he/she can do with it, which is a concern of pragmatics – a dynamic
process.
I should try to point out some basic differences between semantics and our domain. Both
fields of semantics and pragmatics deal with meaning, although two different types of
meaning. Pragmatics is related with meaning in context, particular situations, while semantics
refer to the property of expressions in the given language, no matter who the speaker is or
what the context is about. Leech (1983, 6) considers that semantics is the part of grammar and
(general) pragmatics is the use of grammar, i.e. it interacts with prag matics via semantics. In
other words, general pragmatics is restricted to the study of linguistic communication in terms
of conversational pri nciples.
Last but not least I would like to discuss about the subfields of pragmatics given by
Leech (1983). The s ocial aspect is important for pragmatic studies. Understanding the context
implies the cultural aspect, as well as the language communities or the social classes. As

14 societies differ, so do the pragmatic rules. Politeness is differently interpreted in diff erent
social conditions. These conditions count for social -pragmatics. Pragma -linguistics, deals with
language -specific, not culture -specific aspects of context as social -pragmatics does.
Both Thomas and Leech have given a few conceptual delimitations to f ields and
subfields, as I choose to name them. Each author had his own way of naming these fields as
social pragmatics or sociolinguistics. The term linguistics as well may be confused with
semantics and pragmatics with linguistics. It is important to unde rstand differences and not
make mistakes in defining these concepts. Linguistics can be split into semantics, pragmatics
(general and social), grammar, syntax and other subfields.

1.7. Conclusion

People use pragmatics to analyze what they have said, and real ize that their message
might get other meanings. This means that we almost always use pragmatics in an
unconscious manner. In our everyday lives we communicate and misunderstand each other.
Sometimes huge conflicts and problems rise due to lack or surplus of meaning when we
interact with each other. This meaning is as important as the context and the communication
roles are. If a receiver has to try and comprehend the message correctly and the producer
of message should be careful in formulating th e message he wants to transmit. To ensure
meaning neither the speaker nor the receiver can contribute alone to the message use. Both of
them work together in making meaning. The utterance needs a context to have pragmatic
meaning, as well as the other mai n components of the communicative process. I believe this is
a basic explanation of the communicative theory, but when we insert the pragmatic aspect to it
we become more aware of the complexity of the process.
Besides the sometimes unconscious every -day u se of pragmatics, it is needed the most in
academic environment. When students write essays, give discourses, present studies or take
exams, they should be aware of pragmatics. The domain is useful because it demonstrates how
to use language efficiently in the academic, professional and daily settings. It is desirable for
the future academic citizens to be coherent and be aware of all the linguistic features in order
to conduct a decent communication.
We have carefully studied definitions, postulates and co mparisons to similar fields in
order to learn pragmatics. In order to accomplish this study of analyzing political discourses it

15 is important to be familiar and have a good perspective on the speech acts. This will be the
topic of the next chapter.

16

2. Speech Acts

2.1. Introduction

I believe that the basic communication pattern along with its components has been
understood correctly by now. Besides this aspect, we have dealt with some basic and
introductive approaches to pragmatics in order to create a comprehensive starting point for this
work. This being true, it is time to study the actions that people take when they communicate –
speech acts. In this chapter I shal l focus on what is needed for an utterance to be suc cessful,
how speech acts are classified and how they are used in every -day contexts. After dealing with
the basics for speech act understanding, I shall dedicate an entire chapter to discourse and
political discourse.
To understand the nature of speech act s we shall study what philosophers of this domain
emphasized in order to conclude by ourselves and form our own opinion on speech acts.
Speech acts can also be referred to as pragmatic force. There are many ty pes and
classifications of this phenomena and w e shall concentrate on those that provide the most
comprehensive ones for speech acts understanding. We shall present not only theories and
types of speech acts, but also some main elements of grammar that are useful in understanding
the chapter’s topic.

2.2. Historic Background of Speech Acts

Levinson (1983) considers that, from the very beginning speech acts arose the biggest
interest in pragmatics. This issue pragmatics deals with became useful for a few domains, such
as psychology, anthropology, gramm ar (mostly syntax) and semantics. Levinson also believes
that speech acts can solve problems in second language learning and in analyzing statements
from a philosophical point of view. Related to the philosophical background it is imp ortant to
mention the notion of logical positivism because it is the starting point for speech acts
theories . From this point of view a sentence can be ether true or false, otherwise it is
meaningless. Not only discourses but even everyday utterances resulted to be meaningless.
This doctrine remained useful at the time of its creation (Levinson 1983). Austin disagreed

17 with this theory and proved otherwise with the creation of his speech act theory. He realized
that those sentences that logical positivists said to be verified, w ere mostly declarative. The
same sentences rather showed some kind of action that would change the circumstances in
which they were set. More precisely, Austin chose to call them performative utterances . Van
Dijk emphasized that speech acts are at the basi s of all human interaction:
“Speech acts, or illocutionary acts, however, are characterized in terms of social
interaction and therefore require the presence of a hearer, of certain relationships between
speaker and hearer, and some elementary form of inte ractional purpose: to somehow change
the state of the hearer” (van Dijk, 1980: 178).
In his writings he uses Austin’s term of illocutionary acts, which will be dealt with
further in more detail. Van Dijk’s theory alone shall be dealt with as well, but, in the final part
of this chapter.
Apart from philosophy and pragmatics, discourse analysis is useful as well to clarify
speech acts. Șimon (2014) emphasized that discourse analysis studies speech acts as
“sequences occurring in natural discourses”. Supercean u (apud, Șimon 2014 , 142 ) considers
that speech acts are “actions by nature”. To sum up, speech acts are not studied in an isolated
manner but in a free and natural manner – as they are in practice i.e. in real discourses and
real actions.
Further we shal l see what some of the most important philosophers brought to the
pragmatic study of speech acts and explain their theories. For the purposes of this study the
most important theories on speech acts are in my opinion the ones proposed by Austin, Searle
and van Dijk.

2.2.1 . John Langshaw Austin

Austin (1962) in his work “How to do Thing with Words” brought a significant
approach to speech acts and is the philosopher that introduced them. In order to understand
what are speech acts we shall present a classification of them. Austin defined them as speech
acts which express psychological states and speech acts that represent involvements in social
interaction . The first speech acts involve states such as: gratitude, embarrassment, amusement,
etc. Apologizing, demanding or offering are speech acts of social interaction.
This author made another important contribution to pragmatics. This one is related to

18 utterances, namely two types of utterances: constative and performative. An utterance is
constative when it has the property of being true or false.
e.g. I study in Melbourne.
Mark is a successful PR consultant.
I have a younger sister.
Arnold was born in Britain.
These examples show that they can most certainly be verified as true or false utterances.
Constatives serve as descriptions. The theory bri ngs up the next totally different type of
utterance. Performative utterances, as their name implies, perform actions.
e.g. I promise.
I beg you.
I name this town Pleasantview. I doubt his honesty.
Performatives show that they cannot be evaluated with truth conditions from the logical
positivism. These types of utterances are evaluated with felicity conditions. These conditions
refer to the fact whether the utterance is successful or unsuccessful (Simon 2014). Felicity
conditions can be applied on public dis courses, ceremonies, rituals, etc. Thomas (1995) names
them ritual performatives. An utterance is unsuccessful or infelicitous if for example we want
to do things that are impossible at the time we want to perform the particular action. One
cannot utter:
e.g. I now change my name into Steven Simpson.
There is a certain procedure in changing names which must be accomplished in order to
achieve your goal and an authority can issue you new ID card. Both performative and
constative utterances are totally differ ent one from the other. Austin points out that, in terms of
grammar, performatives use first person subject, declarative sentences, present simple tense in
indicative mood and active voice as seen in the examples.
Therefore, according to Austin’s first app roach, the following examples would not be
categorized as performative utterances, because they do not observe the above mentioned
pattern, as it is highlighted in the brackets.
e.g. I promised. (past simple, passive voice)
He is begging me. (present cont inuous, passive voice, third person pronoun)
Name this town Pleasantview! (imperative mod)

19 I have doubted his honesty. (present perfect)
Austin splits up performative utterances into implicit and explicit. The first ones are
called implicit for the simple reason that they do not specify what kind of speech act is uttered.
e.g. I shall be there.
Explicit performative utterances are more precise, because they point out to the exact
action that is taken. Here we can see a specific speech act, usually with the help of
performative verbs.
e.g. I promise that I will be there.
Furthermore, Austin considers that a list of performative utterances would be useful:
“Besides the question that has been very much studied in the past as to what a certain
utterance means, there is a further question distinct from this as to what “Shut the door”
means, but not yet at all clear on the further point as to whether as uttered at a certain
time it was an order, an entreaty or whatnot. What we need besides the old doctrin e
about all the possible forces of utterances, towards the discovery of which our proposed
list of explicit performative verbs would be a very great help. (Austin 1970, 251, apud,
Levinson 1983,236)
In almost all literature on speech acts,it is mentioned that Austin found a way to clearly
make the difference between performative and constative utterances. The reason for this being
that some utterances sound such as there is no difference between them.
e.g. I now cut the wood according to plan. (constative )
I hereby cut the wood according to plan. (performative)
If the previous examples are analyzed and if this topic about utterance types is thought
about profoundly, one will conclude that both constative and performative utterances are
performing some kinds of actions. Austin (1962) believes that the dichotomy is no longer
available. In other words, the collapse of this hypothesis happened due to the fact that the
grammatical basis on which Austin founded performative utterances could no longer be
susta ined. In order to perform action utterances do not have to be in the present, in the first
person and active voice.
I shall move to the classification of speech acts given by the author to whom this
subchapter is dedicated. Austin divided speech acts into three categories. The first ones are
locutionary acts the second are illocutionary acts and the third ones are perlocutionary.

20 Locutionary acts represent the action that we take while expressing something. Illocutionary
acts represent the second level, the y are those acts that are probably more facile to remember –
asking a question, offering advice, providing information. These are all about speaker’s
intention in the communicative process. The third part – perlocutionary act, deals with the
effects on the audience at the time of uttering a sentence (Levinson 1983), i.e. hearer’s
perspective. To utter something means to say something, to pronounce it.
Austin’s classification of speech acts emphasizes the manner in which people take
action. As I have emphasi zed before speech acts refer to that action, which is present in our
every -day life, thus in political discourses as well.
e.g. Stop complaining!
You are incapable of solving this issue between us. Pass me the salt.
She really needs this job. Let’s drink s ome coffee.
When are we going to the theater?
The examples above shall be used mainly in explaining the illocutionary force as a
second step in the communicational process and the third step – perlocutionary force, the first
step being the locutionary forc e. When you say “Stop complaining!” as being a illocutionary
act, you might not only ask a person to shut up, or order to shut up, but instead you might
advise the person to make some change and progress. Meanwhile the second example might
sound offensive which can result in a fight between the two. “Pass me the salt” is an example
of asking manner that can sound as a result of some angry behavior, or just a neutral way to
ask anything. The perlocutionary act here is the effect of listening and acting in the way it was
demanded, or ignoring thedemand, even throwing the salt in the speaker’s face. All these
conditions and effects depend on the context, only in which they have meaning. The
illocutionary act in the third example is advising and the perlocution ary act might be
persuading the boss. The forth example should work as a suggestion and having a result of
persuading. The last example is a direct question which might mean that someone is trying to
remind a person to finally buy two tickets for a special occasion To sum up, the circumstances
are very important to determine the specific perlocutionary act in uttering an utterance.
Austin’s theory changed the way people looked at language at that time. This influence
led directly to the development of pragm atics as a subfield of linguistics. He was not a
linguist, but a philosopher that generated inte rest in what is now pragmatics (Thomas 2013).

21 Austin also developed the theory of Indirect speech acts. In his words an indirect speech
act “is one performed by means of another”. Yule (1996) puts it differently and explains direct
and indirect speech acts in a simple grammatical manner. English has three types of sentences:
declarative, interrogative and imperative. The three types have their own purpose: statem ent,
question, request/demand.
e.g. You are closing the door. (declarative, statement)
Can/could you (please) close the door?
(interrogative, question) Close the door! (imperative, demand)
If a declarative sentence is uttered to perform a statement i.e. used in the original
conventional manner, that utterance represents a direct speech act. On the other hand, if we
utter a question but have the goal to demand something we deal with indirect speech acts.
e.g. Close the window. (direct demanding via declar ative sentence)
Why don’t you close that window? (indirect demanding via interrogative sentence)

2.2.3 . John Searle

Searle followed up Austin in putting forward his own theory of speech acts. Searle was
also Austin’s student at University of Oxford. Levinson (1983) considers that Searle’s theory
on speech act phenomena had the biggest impact on linguistics. Thomas (1995, 94) believes
that Searle’s study represents a systematization and formalization of Austin’s work. Searle
focuses on Rawls’ (1955) division of rules, namely: regulative and constitutive rules. The first
ones are for example norms of traffic and the second ones could be for instance rules within a
game (Levinson, 1983: 238).
From Searle’s perspective, constitutive rules are important in decoding meaning
originated from the speaker for Austin’s illocutionary acts (Searle, 1994 apud Simon, 2014).
In other words, when the speaker warns the hearer, it is done according to a set of rules,
communication in general brings a set of rules, like any kind of game does, as pointed out by
Searle himself and by authors that interpreted Searle’s work as well.
This author completed Austin’s felicity conditions for performative utterances in order
to compare different speech acts and obtain the constitu tive rules. Searle’s conditions are:
propositional content conditions , preparatory conditions , sincerity conditions and the essential
condition (Searle 1969, 66 -67, apud Levinson 1983, 239). The first one – propositional

22 content condition implies that the content of an utterance must be set in the appropriate. In
other words, if we want to promise something to someone the event must take place in the
future. The second – preparatory conditions, are different for every type of speech act. Yule
gives the exam ple for promising: the speaker needs to realize that the event would not happen
by itself and has to keep his promise and the act’s result is one of good impact (1996, 51). In
other words, this rule is about the hearer and his preferences. The third – sincerity rule is about
the speaker, more specifically, the intention or the real intention in performing specific acts.
The last rule, essential rule is about all the participants of the same speech act. Searle explains
that in the case of psychol ogical states, the sincerity condition and the essential one
are the same in the case of thanking and welcoming, for example (Searle 1994, 63, apud
Șimon 2014, 141).
Searle (1976) gives a classification of five types of illocutionary speech acts:
Representatives: refers to the expressed truth by the speaker. This is the case of
asserting, concluding, confirming, observing etc.
e.g. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.
Nail Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon. Titanic is the only ship that sank
due to iceberg collision.
Directives: refer to the action the speaker has in order to make the hearer proceed in
some specific way. This is the case of requesting, asking, ordering, demanding, begging, etc.
e.g. Open the window!
Could you please repea t that? Do not touch that!
Commissives: actions that represent the hearer only in doing something and do not have
a consequence on the hearer as directives do. This is the case of promising, offering, swearing,
regretting, etc.
e.g. I intend to leave this place soon.
I will through the best party. Have some chips.
Expressives: actions that express a psychological state. The case here is with welcoming,
congratulating, condoling, admiring, etc.
I feel bad about this. I am terribly sorry!
Thanks!
Declarative s: actions of immediate changes that happen in the speaker’s reality. The case

23 here is christening, naming, declaring, etc
e.g. I declare war! (Ruler)
I pronounce you husband and wife. (Priest) You shall be named Judith.
The classification is a detailed on e, and provides a clearer perspective on types of
actions that people take in the communicational situation i.e. speech acts.

2.2.4. Teun A. Van Dijk

After a while of thinking about how should this author be approached I decided that the
best way at first is to start with his theory of action. In his book called “Text and Context”
there is a section dedicated to Pragmatics and one to Semantics. As for pragmatics and speech
acts the theory of action given by van Dijk is very important for this study be cause, as I have
mentioned before, political discourses are all about action.
Van Dijk (1992) considers that there is no fully elaborated theory of action even though
there are lots of books on this topic. His definition of action is that “an action is an event
brought about by a human being” (Van dijk 1992, 168). He also states that change is involved
in events and that change involves a temporal ordering of situations or worlds. Further in his
book he uses the term of events for speech acts,
e.g. compou nd events, sequences of events, etc. This author focuses on the relation
between speech acts in the process of interaction. This author considers that “the intention has
the action itself as its scope” (van Dijk, 1992, 174, apud Șimon 2014, 142). In other words, by
intending something we already perform some sort of action.
Van Dijk is related with the theory of action as mentioned in the previous paragraph,
therefore it is important to make the difference between actions and acts. According to van
Dijk act s are phenomena that have the property of being intended and successful, while
actions are acts that have consequences in the future in order to be successful. Van Dijk (1992)
also considers that the sequence of speech acts exists if
there are acts in the communicational process that are linked together with conditions
i.e. the second act is the result of a previous act. This being said, I shall point out that
according to this author an act can be fully successful if the result of the action is the same as
the intention (Austin 1992, 175):

24 e.g. Turn the volume down a bit!
The intention in this example is obvious, but the result depends on a set of conditions.
This speech act is not successful if the person to whom the action is demanded, refuses to do
so. In the case he does not refuse but comes across an obstacle such as breaking the volume
button, the act is again not successful. The purpose or the intention of some specific actions
may be acomplished with some happenings that do not depend on that same person from the
example above. Someone else in the room went to lower down the volume before him and
thus the speech act of demanding the volume to be lowered is acomplished i.e. it is successful.
Austin and Searle had given classifications of speech acts before van Dijk, but this
author gave a more detailed and complex one. Before all complications occur with the
classification we shall present them in a simple manner. Van Dijk introduces the term
compound act which consists of sequences of acts (1992, 177). The compound act can be the
activity of, for example delivering a speech, an activity which consists of other acts such as
addressing the auditorium, thanking, asserting, warning, which are simp le acts . All these
sequences have a global intention as the compound act does – delivering a speech in front of
an auditorium. These are called component acts, acts that represent conditions for the
realization of the entire compound act. As mentioned befo re the successfulness of an act
depends whether the intention is equal or the similar with the result. Van Dijk terms this
intention differently – a plan. The plan can be changed as the sequence of acts pass. Now
within this sequences of acts Van Dijk nam es another kind of acts – complex acts. A complex
act consists of one or more than one auxilliary acts or helpers as he calls them. The difference
between the helpers and the components of the main (compound) act is that the first ones are
not necessary to fulfill the global plan, while component acts are. In order to understand this
classification better we shall get back to the example with the speech delivery. First we should
identify which acts are necessary and which are auxiliary in the sequence of a cts that consist
the compound act of delivering a speech. Standing before theaudience is necessary to
acomplish the goal, while the act of telling a story is a helper that makes the speech more
interesting.
In his book, van Dijk uses the examples with the act of building a house as a compound
act. There he presents that building walls are essential in house construction and that those acts
are needed i.e. necessary to finish the act of building. Mixing concrete in the other hand is not

25 a component act beca use it is not needed. Walls can be built with bricks, wood, etc. So, an
auxiliary act in that example was mixing concreete (1992,177).
Another important aspect among the ones already mentioned is van Dijk’s divsion of
speech acts into micro speech acts and macro speech acts. The first ones are individual speech
acts or the sequence of acts which I have previously described. A macro speech act represents
the discourse as a whole i.e. unity of speech acts within a global (macro) speech act. I shall
consider v an Dijk’s example with the telephone conversation. In such situation even though
there is a sequence of speech acts from the beginning of the conversation e.g. ”Hello”! the
entire utterance can be resumed to one speech act i.e. the macro speech act. This i n fact
represent the purpose of the phone call, which can be for example an invitation to some event
(1992, 238).

2.3. Conclusion

In this his chapter I tried to classify some useful approaches to speech acts for the
purpose of this study. I shall make a selection for the evaluation criteria for the following
section where I will be analyzing political discourses. For now it is important to be aware of
the usefulness of pragmatics and its conditions for goal accomplishment in everyday
utterances and situat ions.
In my opinion Austin is the most significant author and the simple reason is because he was
the first to approach speech acts. Logical positivism was the starting point for Austin and his
theory was the beginning for many other speech acts researcher s. He introduced the term
illocut ionary acts as well as performative utterances. In many opinions he was the
philosopher that introduced speech acts which generated the biggest interest in pragmatics.
Searle’s theory is important because following Austin’s work, he brought something
new in the study of pragmatics as well, namely a new classification, which was needed the
study of speech acts. The classification was given in detail and it highlighted the function of
speech acts, namely: directives, commisives, declarations, representatives and expressive
speech acts.
Van Dijk was the first to study the relations between acts. The theory of action
distinguished between acts and actions and identified the conditions under which sequences of
acts are s uccessful. He introduced the term auxiliary acts. complex acts, compound acts, single

26 acts, etc. Van Dijk’s main concern I believe was interaction, that is the, interaction between
speech acts, and how they combine in order to perform a macro speech act.

27

3. Discourse

3.1. Introduction

After dedicating an entire chapter to speech acts, I came to the conclusion that another
theoretical chapter is needed. This shorter chapter will focus on discourse in general and then
on political speeches. The chapter is needed for the simple reason that one must understand
the genre first in order to accomplish analyzing it afterwards. At first we shall look into the
historic background and where does public speaking has its roots, then I shall make the
difference between discourse in English and in other European languages, and finally explain
political speeches and provide some basic classifications to understand them better.

3.2. Historic Background

In order to understand about discours e it is important to get back to what has been
mentioned, just now about the ancient Greece. In order to define discourse I shall start with
Aristotle, more precisely, the rhetoric field of philosophy. When it comes to rhetoric, the most
important aspect f or Aristotle was uttering (Pop, Laza: 124). Besides Aristotle and Greece,
Cicero from Ancient Rome was also concerned by this topic. Pop and Laza (year) emphasize
that both Aristotle and Cicero were preoccupied with uttering. One more thing they both had
in common was elaborating the preparatory phase of every discourse. However, one thing was
omitted by both of them: the evaluation of the uttered discourse. The same authors (Pop, Laza,
year) believe that it was James Burgh, a British politician who first gave attention to the
needed process that ancient philosophers omitted – the evaluation. The classicalrhetoric
theory provides rules for the so called discourse successfulness, that we have discussed about
in the previous chapter, but the aim of t he present chapter is to familiarize readers about
political discourse and not deal with rhetoric rules, but pragmatic aspects. It is enough to
remember that the basis for our knowledge now – days about the basis of uttering a discourse
comes from that peri od of ancient philosophers. Certainly, besides Greek and Roman
philosophy the beginnings for public speaking studying was as well in Egyptian and Hebrew

28 philosophy.

3.3. Defining Discourse

I believe that the term discourse in English covers more than it does in other European
languages. In English a discourse refers to all written and spoken communication. In romance
languages a discourse refers to something less than the English speaking world does. To be
more exact and avo id confusions, I shall clarify the term discourse according to our culture
and then give standard definition of the English word discourse. The following definition is
related to the message and the audience. A discourse, in this case a speech, is any kind of
expression of thoughts or positions in front of an audience (Pop, Laza 2004, 6). Now, a more
detailed definition shall be provided. This one concerns the message as well as the intention of
uttering a discourse in front of an audience. Discourse is the communication where a message
is transmitted to the audience with the help of a specific and prepared text that drives that
message and has the goal to influence or determine an audience to do or not to do something
(Pop, Laza 2004, 7). In other words a d iscourse is a communicational process where someone
expresses thoughts in front of an audience. The message can have a persuasive function that is
well prepared and planned. Certainly, there are rules for public speaking elaborated by the
rhetoric domain, but as I have said, this present chapter shall focus only on defining discourse.
Now as it has mentioned I shall present some definitions that are useful for
understanding discourse in English. According to Dictionary.com a discourse is
“communication of t hought by words” and from the linguistic point of view a discourse is
“any unit of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence”
(http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discourses ).
It is undeniable that in comparison to Romanian the English term for discourse is a vast
one i.e. covers various means of communication, not just the speech. The following definitions
are related to thought and how it is manifested through discourse. “ Discourse refers to how we
think and communicate about people, things, the social organization of society, and the
relationships among and between all three” ( https://www.thoughtco.c om/discourse -definition –
3026070 ). In other words, our thoughts and feelings are manifested through discourse. That
discourse is our personal and subjective perspective encoded in a m essage about people, things
or society as stated in the previous definition.

29 Pop and Laza (2004) concluded that any type of speech can be analyzed from three
perspectives: communicational, textual and pragmatic. In the first case the parts accentuated
are the following: speaker, the message and the hearer. From the textual perspective the focus
is on the message and from the third – pragmatic view, as we can understand by now is the
message interpretation i.e. meaning in context. The approach is useful fo r the study because in
the grid of analysis I shall use the first and last perspective: communicational situation and
speech acts.

3.4. Political Discourse

Due to the fact that the content that shall be used and presented further is in fact, the
content of a specific type of political discourse, I shall present theoretical aspects and
classifications of them. Political discourses are the oldest kinds of discourse. As we can
probably imagine, in the Ancient times where people gathered around in Athens, what w as a
city-sate (polis) and discussed about their issues concerning their country.
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/democracy ) .For sure, the people who had the right to
express themselves were over 18 years old free men.
Now, for more concrete aspects, I shall recall on van Dijk due to the fact that besides the
theory of speech acts that was presented in the previous chapter, he focused on political
discourses as well. The author concerned state s in an article called “Political Discourse and
Ideology” that governm ent deliberations, debates, party programs and speeches by politicians
belong to political discourses. He also specifies in a clear manner that other than these types of
discourse re lated to political topics, are not necessarily types of political discourse. In other
words, protests or anti -racism campaigns do not belong to the genre of political discourse, but
the domain they are about. Van Dijk also emphasized with these exact words : “Polit ical
discourse is the discourse of politicians”, as simple as that
(http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Political%20Discourse%20and%20Ideology.p df)
More exactly, any discourse uttered or written by a politician is such a type of discourse.
Now that it is about clear what political discourses are, it i s time to present some types
of political discourse, which shall be narrowed down to speeches. Political discourses can be
split into impersonal and personalized (Pop, Laza 2004, 43). Impersonal political discourses
are not uttered in front of an audience and they refer to: manifestos, proclamations, reports.

30 The other type – personalized political discourses are uttered by a speaker and represent the
following: political testimonials, ceremonials, parliamentary and electoral speeches. A more
concrete defi nition was given as well by Pop and Laza (2004). The following types of political
discourses are related to the context where they take place and are not related to the speaker:
judiciary discourses, gatherings, speeches and ceremonials. Lastly, we may ide ntify in this
classification the type that matters for the following and most important part of this study, the
applicative part – political speeches.

3.5. Conclusion

Understanding a genre facilitates the analysis afterwards and the fact that the political
genre of discourse is the oldest one it has its origins in ancient philosophy. As it can be
noticed, the terms of speaker, audience and hearer are historic terms and were not first noticed
by modern communicational theories.
Getting back to the need of genre understanding, I shall point out that the situation is not
the most important aspect, but how a specific genre functions in that same situation or context
as well. In other words besides knowing about the communicational situation, un derstanding a
transmitted message involves more knowledge. First of all, understanding the genre, than
understanding the communicational setting and finally the intention of the message. This final
part is related to speech acts, where as stated before, it is analyzed what was meant in an
utterance.

31

Part II: Case Study

4. Speech Acts in the Discourse: Tear Down This Wall – Ronald
Reagan

4.1. Introduction to the Case Study

My interest in history, particularly the Worl d War II and the Cold War, was the driving
force behind my interest in political discourse. From the political discourses that I listened to
or watched I decided to choose for my analysis Ronald Reagan’s speech, “Tear Down This
Wall.
I chose this particular discourse because it is a very po werful one. The importance of
this discourse is attested by Simon Sebag Montefiore in his book “Speeches that Changed the
World”. The book is composed of several significant speeches that had great impact on the
audience and significance in some historical or social periods.

4.2. Grid of Analysis

The research shall be based on the theoretical aspects dealt with in the previous part of
the present diploma thesis. This part will concentrate on some important aspects that help
analyze political discourses p ragmatically. In order to fulfill my goal, I shall elaborate my own
grid of analysis and highlight the most important aspects that characterize one specific speech
act for the specific type of discourse – political discourse.
Before all, I shall give detai ls concerning the communicational situation. Three aspects
are important in getting to know the situation i.e. communicational process. It is essential to
“get to know” the politician who is delivering a kind of discourse as well as the audience for
which the discourse is delivered and probably the most needed aspect for pragmatics study –
the context. The three aspects are not new for us, they have been carefully presented in the
first chapter of this study.

32 In the first part of this study the entire dis course of Ronald Reagan “Tear Down this
Wall” shall be treated as one speech act i.e. according to van Dijk a major act. From this entire
act, in the second part of the analysis, separate acts shall be taken into consideration for the
analysis. The global act shall be used at first to describe the speaker, audience and the context:
Characterizations of the Speaker
Characterizations of the Audience
Context Description
As for the speaker, it is important to know some psychological characterizations of
Presid ent Ronald Reagan, as well as present those facts about his past and present that are
relevant for the purpose analyzing this particular communicational situation. The audience
reveals about the discourse successfulness. In other words, by describing the audience, we
manage to comprehend the result, due to the fact that we now understand the reasons the
audience had for that specific result. Finally, the context is important because we need to have
some kind of background knowledge about the time and place of the situation in which this
particular discourse took place.
Secondly, I shall give special attention to micro and macro speech acts as they are the
main focus of this study. For now, I shall present individual features in order to create a
confusion -free environment. For each micro speech act from the discourse I shall do a
profound analysis that has at its basis theories from all three authors mentioned in the second
chapter. The micro acts shall be identified according to their communicative intentio n. The
intention refers to the purpose of uttering an act in a specific way and for a specific reason.
After this part, every paragraph shall be identified as one macro speech act and then the major
act of the entire discourse shall be established, with th e help of which the analysis will be
complete.
The utterance or in this case the sentence: “I stand before you today!” is an example that
will be used to facilitate the presentation of the grid for micro acts. In order to understand and
imagine the further analysis the example given should clarify the types of speech acts chosen
for the purpose of this study.
One of Austin’s categorization shall be used for this analysis, at first the one with direct
and indirect speech acts. I chose do use this one as well because it reveals if, for example the
purpose of asking was acomplished using interrogative sentences or using declarative

33 sentences. The directness of a speech act depends on the type of sentence used in uttering.
Besides this case, there are situation s when orderings are accomplished using questions. The
schema below shall be used to identify direct and indirect speechacts:

Speech Act Direct/Indirect Speech Act
I stand before you today! Direct

Now, Austin’s illocutionary acts shall be identified (ordering, asserting, promising ,etc)
and we shall also identify if an act is implicit or explicit, which is one of his categorizations as
well. I shall not use the theory of performative utterances because the theory was no longer
sustained as Austin hims elf realized that all utterances perform actions and they do not need to
be in the active voice or in the present tense in order to do so. Therefore, only illocutionary
acts shall be used from Austin’s theory as well as implicit or explicit acts, which are in fact
types of performative utterances. Besides Austin’s theory I shall use one more of Searle’s
classification, more precisely his main classification of illocutionary acts: commisive,
assertive, directives, expressives and declaratives acts.

Speech A ct Illocutionary act Implicit/explicit
I stand before you today! Commisive: Assertion Explicit

All features presented above shall be placed in one grid of analysis in order to present
the discourse as a whole. This way we imagine the discourse as one unity of micro speech
acts. The grid of analysis for individual speech acts shall be as the following:

I stand before you today!
Direct/Indirect Act Explicit/Implicit Illocutionary Act
Direct Implicit Commissive: assertion

After micro acts are dealt with, I shall move to macro acts of every paragraph and with
the help of them the major act shall be established, using van Dijk’s theory of action. The table

34 shall look as the following:

Paragraph Number Macro Speech Act Global Speech Act
Paragraph 1. e.g. offering

e.g. promising Paragraph 2. e.g. asserting
Paragraph 3. e.g. concluding

As presented in the example above, all macro acts from a di scourse contribute to the
final conclusion, which is in fact the major act i.e. the purpose of the entire discourse.

4.3. The Analysis

In this part of my diploma thesis I shall be focusing on applying the theory that has been
presented in the first three chapters. As mentioned in the presentation of the grid that shall be
used, the first step is to analyze the communicational situation. Secondly, we shall give special
attention to the micro speech acts, which is the most laborious part .

4.3.1. The Speaker

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States of America. He was born in
on February the 6th 1991 in Illinois, USA. About his early life it is interesting to say that he
was an athlete, he performed in school plays, which he loved, and wasthe student body
president. Reagan was the student council president in Eurek a College and majored in
Economics and Sociology. Afterwards, Reagan started an acting career and in 1937 signed his
first contract and appeared in more than 50 films. Reagan met his wife in Hollywood while
being an actor, he remarried a couple of times. H e was the Governor of California in 1964 as a
Democratic Party member. In 1980 he was elected President of the United States, this time in
the Republican Party and served two mandates, and was the oldest person ever elected for this
function in America. A very interesting fact is the one that after being diagnosed with
Alzheimer’s he wrote a letter to the people of USA informing them about his disease. R onald

35 Reagan passed away on the 5th of June 2004 (http://www.biography.com/people/ronald –
reagan -9453198 ).The fact that Ronald Reagan had an acting career is relevant for his
successfulness in uttering the discourse. Acting skills are very useful in speech uttering.

4.3.2 . The Audien ce

The audience was set in front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin. The speech was
addressed to the leaders and the people in West Berlin. Besides this audience, the speech was
addressed to some people that could watch it in the Est. The audience was very accepting
towards the speaker and gave rounds of applauses, especially when the speaker used German
to point out about or compliment Germans.

4.3.3. The Context

The speech was delivered on the 12th of June 1987 by the president of the United States
of America, Ronald Reagan and it was addressed to the people of West Berlin and not only.
The era in which the discourse was delivered was a dark one because of the Cold War between
the East and the West. Berlin was divided by a concrete wall which had electric fences and
guard posts and its purpose was to prevent Germans to escape the east side. The wall
represents the Cold War between the States and the Soviet Union and, also the barrier between
communism and democracy. The wall was demolished two years after this discourse was
delivered, and with that wall went down the communism era in Europe, and people could
cross freely into West Berlin ( http://www.historyplace.com/speech es/reagan -tear-down.htm ).

4.3.4. Micro Speech Acts

The entire text is a speech act, called the major one and it shall be split into paragraphs
which are the macro acts, and then in micro acts. S peech acts represent the communicative
intention or the purp ose i.e. why it was uttered. It is important to mention that the following
micro acts shall not be selected accord ing to their sentence structure .

36 Paragraph 1
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and
gentlemen:
Confessing

Direct Implicit Representative:
adressing
Twenty -four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited
Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the
City Hall.
Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his
turn, to Berlin.
Direct Implicit Representative
asserting
And today I, myself, make my second visit to your city.
Direct Implicit Expressive
confessing
We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it's our
duty to speak, in this place, of freedom.
Direct Implicit Representative
confessing
But I must confess, we're drawn here by other things as well: by
the feeling of history in this city, more than 500 years older than
our own nation; by the beauty of the Grunewald and the
Tiergarten; most of all, by your courage and determination.
Direct Explicit Representative confe
ssing

37 Paragraph 1
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
You see, like so many presidents before me, I come here today
because wherever I go, whatever I do: Ich hab no cheinen Koffer
in Berlin. [I still have a suitcase in Berlin.] Confessing

Direct Implicit Representative
confessing
Table 1 Identifying Micro Speech Acts

Paragraph 2
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Our gathering today is being broadcasted throughout Western
Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and
heard as well in the East. Reporting

Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special word:
Direct Implicit Representative:
announcing
Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to
you just as surely as to those standing here before me.
Direct Explicit Representative:
addressing
For I join you, as I join your fellow countrymen in the West, in
this firm, this unalterable belief:
Direct Implicit Expressive:
claiming

38 Paragraph 2
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Esgibtnurein Berlin. [There is only one Berlin.] Reporting
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
Table2.

Paragraph 3
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city,
part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of
Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany
in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers.
Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. Claiming

Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same – still
a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose
upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state.
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here,
cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television
screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the
mind of the world.
Direct Implicit Representative:
concluding

39 Paragraph 3
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German,
separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to
look upon a scar. Claiming

Direct Implicit Representative: asserting
Table 3

Paragraph 4
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
President von Weizsacker has said, "The German question is open
as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." Confessing

Direct Explicit Representative:
reporiting
Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a
wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that
remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.
Direct Explicit Directive: confessing
Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of
hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.
Direct Explicit Commissive:
promising
Table 4

Paragraph 5
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged
from their air -raid shelters to find devastation. Macro Speech Act

40 Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting Reminding

Thousands of miles away, the people of the United States reached
out to help.
Direct Implicit Representative:
reminding
And in 1947 Secretary of State – as you've been told – George
Marshall announced the creation of what would become known as
the Marshall Plan.
Direct Implicit Representative:
reminding
Speaking precisely 40 years ago this month, he said:
Direct Implicit Representative:
announcing
"Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but
against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos ”.
Direct Implicit Representative:
Quoting
Table 5

Paragraph 6
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display
commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. Reporting

Direct Explicit Assertive:
reporting
I was struck by the sign on a burnt -out, gutted structure that was
being rebuilt.

41 Paragraph 6
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Expressive: confessing Reporting

I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember
seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the
city.
Direct Implicit Expressive:
confessing
The sign read simply: "The Marshall Plan is helping here to
strengthen the free world."
Direct Explicit Representative :
reporting
A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real.
Direct Implicit Representative :
concluding
Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France,
Belgium – virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political
and economic rebirth; the European Community was founded.
Direct Implicit Representative:
exemplifying
Table 6

42 Paragraph 7
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic
miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder.

Complimenting

Complimenting
Direct Implicit Representative:
Asserting
Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the
practical importance of liberty -that just as truth can flourish only
when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can
come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy
economic freedom.
Direct Implicit Representative:
Reporting
The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered
taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of
living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.
Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
Table 7

43 Paragraph 8
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act

Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin
there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany -busy
office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the
spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city's culture seemed to
have been destroyed, today there are two great univers ities,
orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where
there was want, today there's abundance – food, clothing,
automobiles – the wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. Admiring
Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom,
rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth.
Direct Implicit Expressive:
complimenting
The Soviets may have had other plans. But my friends, there were
a few things the Soviets didn't count on -Berliner Herz,
Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart,
Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.] Admiring
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
Table 8

44 Paragraph 9
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." Asserting

Asserting Direct Explicit Representative:
reporting
But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a
level of prosperity and well -being unprecedented in all human
history.
Direct Implicit Representative:
complimenting
In the Communist world, we see failure, technological
backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the
most basic kind – too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still
cannot feed itself.
Direct Implicit Expressive:
Blaming

After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world
one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to
prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the
nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
Direct Implicit Representative:
Claiming
Table 9

45 Paragraph 10
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming
to understand the importance of freedom. Reporting
Indirect Implicit Represtative:
concluding
We hear much fro m Moscow about a new policy of reform
andopenness.
Direct Explicit Representative:
reporting
Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news
broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic
enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom
from state control.
Direct Implicit Representative:
asserting
Table 10

Paragraph 11
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Questioning

Soviet state?
Indirect Implicit Directive: questioning
Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the
West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it?
Indirect Implicit Represenatative:
concluding

46 Paragraph 11
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
We welcome change and openness Questioning
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the
advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of
worldpeace.
Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be
unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of
freedom and peace.
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
Table 11

Paragraph 12
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek
prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek
liberalization: Come here to thisgate! Requesting

Direct Implicit Directive:
recommending
Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!
Direct Implicit Directive:
challenging
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

47 Direct Implicit Directive:
requesting Requesting
Table 12

Paragraph 13
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this
continent Promising
Direct Explicit Expressive: asserting
and I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these
burdens.
Direct Explicit Commissive:
promising
To be sure, we in the West must resist Soviet expansion. So we
must maintain defenses of unassailable strength.
Direct Implicit Directive:
recommending
Yet we seek peace; Promising
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
…so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides.
Direct Implicit Directive: advising
Table 13

48 Paragraph 14
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the Western
alliance with a grave new threat, hundreds of new and more
deadly SS -20 nuclear missiles, capable of striking every capital
inEurope. Reporting

Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
The Western alliance responded by committing itself to a counter –
deployment unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better
solution; namely, the elimination of such weapons on both sides.
Direct Implicit Representtive:
reminding
For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in earnestness.
Direct Implici Representative:
asserting
As the alliance, in turn, prepared to go forward with its
counter -deployment,
Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
there were difficult days – days of protests like those during my
1982 visit to this city – and the Soviets later walked away from the
table.
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
Table 14

49 Paragraph 15
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
But through it all, the alliance held firm. Claiming
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
Because we remained strong, the Soviets came back to the table.
And because we remained strong, today we have within reach the
possibility, not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of
eliminating, for the first time, an entire class of nuclear weapons
from the face of the earth .
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
Table 15

Paragraph 16
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting in Iceland to review the
progress of our proposals for eliminating these weapons. Reporting
Direct Explicit Representative:
reporting
And the Western allies have likewise made far -reaching proposals
to reduce the danger of conventional war and to place a total ban
on chemical weapons.
Direct Implicit Representative :
confessing
Table 16

50 Paragraph 17
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
While we pursue these arms reductions, I pledge to you that we
will maintain the capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at
which it might occur. Asserting
Direct Explicit Commissive:
promising
And in cooperation with many of our allies, the United States is
pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative – research to base
deterrence not on the threat of offensive retaliation, but on
defenses that truly defend; on systems, in short, that will not target
popu lations, but shield them.
Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
By these means we seek to increase the safety of Europe and all
the world.
Direct Implicit Representative: asserting Asserting
But we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not
mistrust each other because we are armed;
Direct Explicit Representative:
reminding
…we are armed because we mistrust each other.
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty.

51 Paragraph 17
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years
ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege
Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands
secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.
Direct Implicit Representative:
asserting
Table 17

Paragraph 18
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has
been given a rebirth. Exemplifying
Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working
miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the
industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking
place –a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in
computers and telecommunications.
Direct Implicit Representativ
Exemplifying
Table 18

52
Paragraph 19
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
In Europe, only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the
community of freedom. Advising
Direct Implicit Commissive:
questioning
Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and
innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice:
Direct Implicit Representative: asserting
It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.
Direct Implicit Directive: advising
Table 19

Paragraph 20
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Today thus represents a moment of hope. Offering
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East to promote
true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to
create a safe, freer world.
Direct Implicit Commissive: offering
And surely there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting place
of East and West, to make astart.

53 Paragraph 20
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Representative:
asserting
Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States
stands for the strict observance and full implementation of all parts
of the Four Power Agreement of 1971.
Explicit Implicit Representative:
stating
Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of this city, to
usher in a new era, to seek a still fuller, richer life for the Berlin of
the future. Together, let us maintain and develop the ties between
the Federal Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin, which is
permitted by the 1971 agreement.
Direct Implicit Commissive:
reccomending Offering
Table 20

Paragraph 21
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Advising
Direct Explicit Directive: inviting
Let us work to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the city
closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all Berlin can enjoy
the benefits that come with life in one of the great cities of the
world.
Directive: advising
Table 21

54 Paragraph 22
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
To open Berlin still further to all Europe, East and West, let us
expand the vital air access to this city, finding ways of making
commercial air service to Berlin more convenient, more
comfortable, and more economical. Suggesting
Direct Implicit Directive: advising
We look to the day when West Berlin can become one of the chief
aviation hubs in all central Europe.
Direct Implicit Expressive: hoping
Table 22

Paragraph 23
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
With our French and British partners, the United States is prepared
to help bring international meetings to Berlin. Offering
Direct Implicit Commissive: offering
It would be only fitting for Berlin to serve as the site of United
Nations meetings, or world conferences on human rights and arms
control or other issues that call for international cooperation.
Direct Implicit Representative : concluding
Table 23

55 Paragraph 24
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
There is no better way to establish hope for the future than to
enlighten young minds, Offering
Direct Implicit Representative: claiming
….and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth exchanges,
cultural events, and other programs for young Berliners from the
East.
Direct Implicit Directive: offering
Our French and British friends, I'm certain, will do the same.
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming
And it's my hope that an authority can be found in East Berlin to
sponsor visits from young people of the Western
sectors. Offering
Direct Implicit Directive : advising
Table 24

Paragraph 25
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
One final proposal, one close to my heart: Sport represents a
source of enjoyment and ennoblement Proposing

Direct Explicit Representative:
proposing

56 Paragraph 25
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
and you may have noted that the Republic of Korea – South Korea
– has offered to permit certain events of the 1988 Olympics to take
place in the North. Proposing
Direct Implicit Represenative:
reporting
International sports competitions of all kinds could take place in
both parts of this city.
Direct Implicit Directive: advising
And what better way to demonstrate to the world the openness of
this city than to offer in some future year to hold the Olympic
games here in Berlin, East and West?
Indirect Implicit Representative:
claiming
In these four decades, as I have said, you Berliners have built a
great city. You've done so in spite of threats – the Soviet attempts
to impose the East -mark, the blockade.
Direct Implicit Expressive:
complimenting
Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges implicit in the very
presence of this wall.
Direct Implicit Representative:
stating
What keeps you here?

57 Paragraph 25
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Representative:
asking
Certainly there's a great deal to be said for your fortitude, for your
defiant courage.
Direct Expressive:
complimenting
But I believe there's something deeper, something that involves
Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life –not mere sentiment.
Direct Direct Representative:
confessing
No one could live long in Berlin without being completely
disabused of illusions.
Direct Implicit Representative:
claiming Proposing
Something instead, that has seen the difficulties of life in Berlin
but chose to accept them, that continues to build this good and
proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence that
refuses to release human energies or aspirations. Something that
speaks with a powerful voice of affirmatio n, that says yes to this
city, yes to the future, yes to freedom.
Direct Implicit Representative:
announcing
In a word, I would submit that what keeps you in Berlin is love –
love both profound and abiding.

58 Paragraph 25
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Explicit Representative:
concluding
Table 25

Paragraph 26
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental
distinction of all between East and West. Warning

Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does
such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to
create, to enjoy, to worship
Direct Implicit Directives: warning
The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship
an affront.
Direct Implicit Representative:
concluding
Table 26

Paragraph 27
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their
churches, Reporting

Direct Implicit Representative:
announcing

59 Paragraph 27
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
,they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander
Platz. Reporting

Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct
what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass
sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind.
Direct Implicit Representative:
reminding
Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere – that sphere that
towers over all Berlin –the light makes the sign of the cross.
Direct Implicit Representative:
reporting
There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of
worship, cannot be suppressed.
Direct Implicit Representative:
complimenting
Table 27

Paragraph 28
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that
embodiment of German unity,I noticed words crudely spray –
painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: Claiming

60 Paragraph 28
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing

Claiming
"This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality."
Direct Implicit Representative:
quoting
Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall.
Direct Explicit Representative:
confirming
For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall
cannot withstand freedom.
Direct Implicit Representative:
Stating
Table 28

Paragraph 29
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
And I would like, before I close, to say one word . I have read, and
I have been questioned since I've been here about certain
demonstrations against my coming. Questioning

Questioning Direct Implicit Representative:
confessing
And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who
demonstrate so.
Direct Explicit Representative:
addressing

61 Paragraph 29
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should
have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would
ever be able to do what they're doing again.
Paragraph 29
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Direct Implicit Directive: challenging Questioning
Table 29

Paragraph 30
Micro Speech Act Macro speech act
Thank you Thanking
Direct Explicit Expressive: Thanking
and God bless you all.
Direct Explicit Expressive: Blessing
Table 30

As in can be notices in the table above, asserting, confessing and stating help introduce
some sub topic, while concluding and confirming help sustain the previous speech acts. This
political speech had directive and commissive speech acts in a very similar amount.
Declarative sp eech acts such as: christening and appointing were not the case in this particular
speech. Most speech acts were direct while the other type was mostly implicit. Identifying
whether and micro act was implicit or explicit and identifying their directness re veals how and
act was uttered.

4.3.5. The Macro Speech Act s

Concerning speech acts it is important to mention again, that they were established

62 according to the intended and resulted action taken by the speaker, first at a micro and then at
the macro level. The macro speech acts were established with the help of identifying the micro
ones. Now in order to clarify how the macro acts were formed it is important to compare
every type of macro act as in the table below:

Paragraph
Number Micro Speech Act s Macro Speech
Act Major Speech Act
P1 Addressing, asserting , confessing ,
confessing , confessing,
confessing Confessing Requesting

P2 Reporting , announcing,
addressing, identifying, claiming Reporting
P3 Reporting , stating, concluding,
asserting Claiming
P4 Reporting, confessing , promising Confessing
P5 Reporting, reminding , reminding ,
announcing, quoting Reminding
P6 Reporting , confessing, confessing,
reporting , concluding,
exemplifying

Reporting
P7 Asserting , reporting , reporting Complimenting
P8 Reporting, complimenting,
claiming Admiring
P9 Reporting , complimenting,
blaming, claiming Asserting
P10 Concluding, reporting , asserting Reporting
P11 Questioning , concluding, claiming,
confessing, stating Questioning
P12 Recommending, challenging,
requesting Requesting
P13 Asserting, promising ,
recommending, claiming,
advising Promising
P14 Reporting , reminding, asserting,
confessing, stating Reporting
P15 Stating, claiming Claiming

63 Paragraph
Number Micro Speech Act s Macro Speech
Act Major Speech Act
P16 Reporting , confessing Reporting Requesting

P17 Promising, confessing, asserting ,
reminding, claiming, confessing,
reporting, asserting Asserting
P18 Reporting, exemplifying Exemplifying
P19 Questioning, asserting Advising
P20 Stating, offering , asserting,
stating, recommending Offering
P21 Inviting, advising Advising
P22 Advising, hoping Suggesting

P23 Offering , concluding Offering
P24 Claiming, offering , claiming,
advising Offering
P25 Proposing , reporting , advising ,
claiming, complimenting, stating,
asking, complimenting,
confessing, claiming, announcing,
concluding Proposing
P26 Confessing, warning , concluding Warning
P27 Announcing, reporting ,
reminding, reporting ,
complementing Reporting
P28 Confessing, quoting, confirming,
stating Claiming
P29 Confessing, addressing,
challenging, Questioning
P30 Thanking , blessing Thanking
Table 31 Identifying the Macro Speech Acts

In the table above we can identify two situations. The first one is when the macro act
can be noticed in the micro speech acts list as underlined below in the table. The second
situation is where the macro speech act is other than the ones in the list. In that case, like in the

64 paragraph 3 where we have reporting, stating, concluding and asserting as micro acts, the
macro act is claiming because it means to assert or to state firmly something. The case was
with admiring as well where with the help of st ating, and complimenting the speaker achieved
the macro act of admiring in paragraph 8. The situation is present in paragraph 7 where the act
of complimenting is accomplished.

4.3.6. The Major Speech Act

Now that the macro acts have been identified what follows is identifying the major
speech act. As seen in the table below , it is not important that the major act is formed by
choosing the predominant macro act.

Representative Macro Speech Acts
Reporting 6
Asserting 3
Claiming 2
Confessing 2
Reminding 1
Exemplifying 1
Directive Macro Speech Act
Requesting 1
Questioning 2
Suggesting 1
Warning 1
Advising 2
Commissive Macro Speech Acts
Promising 1
Proposing 1
Offering 2
Expressive Macro Speech Acts
Complimenting 1

65 Admiring 1
Thanking 1
Major Directive Speech Act
Requesting
Table 32 Identifying the Major Speech Act

Even though the act of reporting is identified 6 times and requesting only once, the
major act is in fact requesting. This was established with the help of perceiving the discourse
as one unit of speech acts that contribute to the final major one intended and resulted by the
speaker’s uttering. In oth er words, this particular discourse might have had representative
speech acts in a predominant manner, but as mentioned, that is not the main factor in applied
linguistics. It is about quality not quantity, after all, the strongest macro speech act determi ned
the major one, which was the only purpose of this particular discourse.

4.4. Conclusion

We have come to the final part of this case study. The major speech act in this discourse
is requesting. In other words , the American President requests that the Berlin Wall should be
demolished. The request is addressed to Mr. Gorbache v. The major act was identified, where
the speaker requested directly, but implicitly Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall and
open th e Brandenburg gate. At the time the discourse took place it could be predicted that the
communist era would eventually end in Europe. President Reagan besides requesting that to
happen, wanted to assure the people of Berlin and not only, that democracy and capitalism is
the best solution for all the problems the communist world of that time was facing. Reagan
complimented and admired West Berlin many times as well Japan and all the other societies
that succeeded, improved and developed in this respective po litical system. In the discourse
we had stating and asserting which with the help of reporting sustained and represented a
convincing and confident presided who wanted the best for societies. Reagan presented all the
benefits democracy offers and all the d isadvantages of communism, even questioned and
criticized it firmly and confidently.
Now from the pragmatic perspective, I shall conclude that those confident and firm
statements were identified in explicit directive, commssive and expressive speech acts as well

66 as in indirect ones. I specifically mention indirect speech acts because in the example “what
keeps you here”, after a round of reports and asserts he concludes that love keeps Berliners
there. This proves the complexity and unity of speech acts in Ronald Reagan’s discourse. One
more example of indirect speech act proves the previous mentioned: “Are they token gestures,
intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing
it?” The pronoun “they” is a referen ce to the “profound changes the Soviet Union was
making ”. This was in fact a questioning because it was said ironically . The previous example
is one of the many others that prove , besides complexity, the necessity of knowing the context
in which the commun icative process takes place.

67

Conclusion

The present diploma thesis focused on aspects concerning the domain of pragmatics and
its major focus – speech acts. Due to the fact that the content used for analysis was a political
discourse, we focused on discourse as well. Finishing this diploma thesis was not a n easy task
for me. Doing exercises in pragmatics class might be easy, but searching into the work of
major pragmatic philosophers was not that simple. I expected this to be even harder, but I
believe I have done a good job and that my analysis is different than the ones we are used to.
The thesis was accomplished with the help of great books on pragmatics, speech acts and
discourses and with the help of electronic sources such as articles and dictionaries.
The first chapter was a theoretical one as the following two and it dealt with pragmatics
in general. As mentioned by now pragmatics is a field of applied linguistics. We defined and
compared pragmatics with lingu istics, grammar, sociolinguistics and other similar fields in
order to understand it.
In the second chapter I tried to define speech acts and then focus on the main authors. I
gave special attention to speech acts classifications because with the help of e xamples
everything is understood more correct and classifications are the place where the biggest
numbers of examples are provided. Speech act are the action that people take which represents
the intention of the utterance.
In the final theoretical chapte r I defined and explained discourse. I achieved this using
its historica l background form ancient times and with the help of political discourse
classifications.
At last we had the case study which was composed of the communication process
description and the most laborious part was the one with the analysis of speech acts. Here we
had three tables, each for one type of speech acts. We used three types according to van Dijk:
micro, macro and the major speech act. With the help of the micro acts the macro on es were
established, that led to the major act. The discourse was uttered as a request from the president
Ronal Reagan to Mr. Gorbachev to demolish the Berlin wall which did not permit people to

68 travel from the East to West and backwards. The demolishing m eant more than just opening
the gate, it meant the ending of the Cold War and establishing democracy in Eastern Europe.
Fortunately, that happened 2 years after the discourse took place and communism itself
collapsed in Europe.
Some might say that the present approach has strict relations with the basic theory of
communication. I would not disagree with such opinions because a discourse delivery is, in
fact a communicational situation. For understanding communication one must understand all
its componen ts. Besides the three main components mentioned, the message and the feedback
is very important as well. In a political discourse we shall notice more sentences uttered in one
speech act. It does not mean that in a political discourse a sentence is automat ically one
utterance, while in a telephone conversation it is very common for a single sentence to be
interpreted as a speech act. All in all, the analysis concerning pragmatics seems to be different
depending what kind of communicational situation is invo lved. As the form and grammar is
different in separate types of texts or genres so is the meaning in different usages.
I believe pragmatics is used in an unconscious manner in our everyday lives, this means
that we analyze what has been said or what we ha ve said depending on how much of it has
been understood. In other words, people do have trouble in understanding each other
sometimes, and the key to avoid such situations is to be pragmatic in a linguistic way. This is
the reason why applying pragmatics in political discourses is important. The difference
between what a politician wanted to say and the reality or the interpreted message or what
resulted from an intention might sometimes be a big difference. We, the future academic
citizens specialized in communication, should be aware of this. We should be aware of the
help pragmatics has to offer in analyzing political discourses and not only. Speech acts are
relevant in our case because they are about the intention of the speaker and the result of the
communicational situation. Being pragmatic is still not easy, but still, very important in our
profession.

69

5. Rezumat

5.1. Introducere

Acest studiu pentru lucrarea de licență este rezultatul interesului meu pentru lingvistică
și istorie. Dintre materiile predate în limba engleză, care erau pentru mine cele mai
atrăgătoare, p ragmatica a generat cel mai mare interes. Ca mater ial de analiză am ales un
discurs politic cu o tematică foarte semnificativă în istoria recentă a omenirii și anume
Războiul Rece. Studiul urmărește identificarea și explicarea actelor de vorbire din punct de
vedere al pragmatcii în discursul politic al președintelui Americii Ronald Reagan „Dărâmați
acest zid” . Lucrare este compusă din două părți: partea teoretică și cea practică. În partea
teoretică am dorit în primul rând să fac o introducere în pragmatică , mai apoi să prezint
teoriile actelor de vorbire iar într -un final să definesc și explic conceptul de di scurs în genral și
politic. Pentru a finaliza acest studiu am recurs la bibliografie în format tipărit și electronic .
Studiul de caz din partea a doua a lucrării s -a concretizat urmărind o grilă de analiză special
concepută pentru a releva tipurile de acte de vorbire folosite de Ronald Reagan într -unul din
discursurile sale memorabile . La final a m tras concluzii în ceea ce privește analiza pragmatică
a discursului politic, precum și experiența de studiu și analiză dobândită pe parcursul scrierii
acestei lu crări.

5.2. Pragmatica

Primul capitol al acestei lucrări a fost dedicat pragmaticii în mod general. Pragmatica
este o ramură a lingvisticii care are ca scop găsirea întelesului limbii în diferite contexte. Cu
alte cuvinte, din punct de vedere gramatical sau lexical cuvintele au un singur înțeles care este
valabil, iar din punct de vedere pragmatic aceleași cuvinte au o semnificație diferită care
depinde de situația în care ele se rostesc. Pentru a fi mai clar aș simplifica cu un exemplu.
Daca folosim fraza „e frig aici” din punct de vederelingvistic ea ar însemna doar o constatare .
Însă, atunci când o analizăm pragmatic, ne dăm seama ca această rostire este un act de vorbire

70 care de fapt înseamnă: “închide geamul” sau “pornește calorifelul”, ceea cedepinde de context.
Deci pragmatica se concentrează pe aspecte ale lingvisticii aplicate, se referă la folosirea
limbii în diferite contexte . Pentru a fi și mai clar am comparat pragmatica cu domeniile
similare cum ar fi lingvisti ca, sociolingvistica, gramatica etc. Toate aceste comparații
dovedesc faptul că pragmatic este dinamică și nu statică. Gramatica, de exemplu este statică
deoarece are niște reguli care trebuie respectate însă pragmatica este o ramură care studiază
dinamica acestor reguli, mai exact cum se folosește limba. Desigur, pentrua a înțege
pragmatica trebuie să întelegem și aceste domenii mai statice. De asemenea, am vorbit și
despre procesul de comunicare, formularea mesajului și interpretarea acestuia. Procesul de
comunicare este format din trei partincipanți majori: emițător, receptor și context. Ne -am oprit
asupra contextului pentru a înțelege cat de important este le pentru decodarea mesajului.
Aceasta se numește înțelesul contextual, care apare atunci cand atribuim contextului rostirile
auzite din partea receptorului. Din acest motiv este important să conștientizăm importanța
acestui contesxt. Limba engleză variază foarte mult, pentru a ne da seama de asta am folosit
exemplul “chips” care în Regatul Unit înseamnă cartofi prajitți iar în America acest cuvânt are
semnificația noua cunoscută de “chips”. Trebuie să fim atenți la aceste semnificații culturale
atunci când comunicăm.

5.3. Actele de vorbire

Dat fiind faptul că actele de vorbire sunt principalele aspecte care au fost folosite la
analiza discursului, am explicat actele de vorbire împreună cu clasificările lor. Au fost
menționați trei mari autori care au studiat actele de vorbire: Austin, Searle și van Dijk. Austin
a fost primul filozof care s -a concentrat pe actele de vorbire: ros tirile pot fi implicite și
explicite. În cele explicite avem definit clar actul de vorbire, e.g. “Îți promit că te voi asculta”.
Cuvintele “îți promit” definesc clar că este vorba de o promisiune până când la actul de
vorbire implicit am fi avut doar: e.g. “O să te ascult”. Contribuiția majoră a lui Austin a fost
clasificare în trei tipuri: locuționare, ilocuționare și prelocuționare. Noi ne -am concentrat pe
cele ilocuționare care ar fi de exemplu actul de vorbire al, avertizării, mulțumirii, felicitării,
etc. Urmărind această clasificare și ceilalți autori importanți au contribuit cu ceva nou actelor
de vorbire. Tot Austin a mai explicat două tipuri de acte de vorbire: directe și indirecte. Ele se
referă la tipul de propoziție. În cazul actului direct: e.g . dacă aveam o intrebare formulată prin

71 propoziție interogativă. “Ai spălat vasele?” Actul indirect ar fi de exemplu a ordona prin
întrebare: e.g. “Când ai de gând să speli vasele?” Al doilea autor, Searle a formulat o
clasificare a actelor ilocuționare ca re a fost folosită la grila de evaluare. Searale a identificat
cinci tipuri de acte d e vorbire: aserive, directive, pr omisive, expressive și declarative. Cele
asertive se referă la o situație povestită sau la niște exemple, concluzii, confesiuni ale
emițăt orului. Actele de vorbire directive reprezintă o rugăminte, sugestie sau ordonare care are
impact asupra receptorului. Comisivele se referă la intenția emițătorului care nu are nici un
impact asuprea receptorului, ci asupra aceluia care rostește mesajul ad resat: promis iune,
jurământ, etc. Cele expresive ex primă o stare a emițătorului iar ultimele, declarativele, sunt
situații în care emițătorul declară ceva, de exemplu la ceremonii de casatorie, botezare ș.a.m.d.
În ceea ce privește ultimul autor este impor tant de menționat faptul că el tratează actele de
vorbire în contexte mai ample și nu în mod izolat. Van Dijk consideră că un discurs este
conceput din mai multe micro -acte de vorbire care contribuie la realizarea unui macro -act care
poate fi identificat, de exemplu, la nivelul pragrafului . Toate acestea constituie un act de
vorbire major cel executat de întregul discurs sau orice alt proces de comunicare.

5.4. Discurs

Referitor la discurs, este important de amintit că în limba engleză cuprinde mai multe
forme de comunicare decât în limba română. În engleză un “discourse” este orice formă de
comunicare orală sau scrisă, până când în română acest termen este mairestrâns. Conform
autorilor Pop și Laza un discurs este “comunicarea în care se transmite publicu lui un mesaj”
(Pop și Laza, 2004:7). Așadar, putem observa faptul că acești termeni nu se suprapun în
engleză și română. În ceea ce privește discursul politic, van Dijk explică că el se referă la acel
discurs rostit de un politician. Toate celălalte forme de activitate politică nu sunt discursuri
politice. Dat fiind faptul că aspectele teoretice ale prezentei lucrări au fost explicate, este
momentul să trecem la partea aplicativă și anume la studiul de caz.

5.5. Studiu de caz

În ceea ce privește partea aplicativă am conceput o grilă de analiză care a fost relevantă

72 la identificarea și analizarea actelor de vorbire în discursul preșendintelui Statelor Unite ale
Americii, Ronald Reagan “Dărâmați acest zid”. În acest studiude caz prima oară am descrs
situa ția de comunicare la care a participat președintele în fațapublicului situat la Poarta
Brandenburg din Berlinul de Vest. Tot la fel am descris și contextul care este probabil cel mai
important aspect într -o analiza pragmatică. Discursul a avut loc în anul 1984 iar în 1989 a
căzut comunismul în Europa. Discursul se referă la zidul din Berlin care a fost bariera între
lumea capitalistă și comunism. Grila era compusă din 4 parametri: descrierea situației
comunicaționale, identificarea actelor de vorbire micro, după care s -au luat în considerare
paragrafele pentru identificarea actului macro, iar într -un final s -a stabilit actul de vorbire
major, al întreg discursului. Pentru micro -actele de vorbire am identificat dacă ele sunt
directe/indirect și daca au propri etatea implicit sau explicită. Așadar, cum am pomenit, întreg
actul major al acestui discurs era o rugăminte direct dar implicită din partea lui Reagan la
Domnul Gorbaciov care era la vremea respectivă conducătorul Uniunii Sovietice. Acest studiu
de caz av ând la baza analiza de conținut iar cu ajutorul grilei de analiza a îndeplinit prezenta
lucrare de licență.

5.6. Concluzie

Finalizarea acestei lucrări de licență nu a fost usoară, dar totuși cred că m -am descurcat
bine și că viitori studenți la pragmatic ă vor avea ocazia să înțeleagă acest mod diferit de
abordare a discursului politic. Consider că este diferit deoarece, identificarea actelor de vorbire
a fost la nivel de intenție a receptorului și nu una conform formei sintaxice a frazei. Am
considerat că este mai importantă intenția la un nivel micro și apoi la nivelul paragrafului
pentru ca apoi să fie determinată inenția globală a întregului discurs ceea ce este și scopul
rostirii mesajului (discursuli) în acestă situație de comunicare.
Rezultatul studi ului precum și concluziile majore sunt că acest discurs este unul cu
scopul de a cere dărâmarea zidului din Berlin. La această concluzie am ajuns cu ajutorul
analizării actelor macro dintre care a fost identificat actul major respectiv. Punctul culminant
înacest discurseste la mijlocul lui, mai exact paragraful 12 unde Reagan spune: “Domule
Secretar general Gorbaciov, dacă căutați pace, dacă căutați prosperitate pentru Uniunea
Sovietică și Europa de Est, dacă că utați liberalizare: veniți aici la această po artă! D -le
Gorbaciov, deschideți această poartă! D -le Gorbaciov, dărâmați acest zid! ”. Această ultimă

73 frază a devenit și titlul discursului, după care a devenit cunoscut discursul. Pentru identificarea
actului major am obervat că nu este necesar ca acesta sa fie identificat de mai multe ori printer
macro -actele paragrafelor. Cu alte cuvinte, în acest discurs am observant mai multe macro –
acte de vorbire asertive dar totuși unul directiv a fost identificat ca fiind cel major. Deci,
cantitatea macro -actelor d e același gen sau chiar numărul actelor identice nu este important la
stabilirea intenției globale ale acestui discurs – actul de vorbire major.

74

Annex: “Tear Down This Wall” Ronald Reagan

“Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty -four years
ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the
world at the City Hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to
Berlin. And today I, m yself, make my second visit to your city.
We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it's our duty to speak, in this place,
of freedom. But I must confess, we're drawn here by other things as well: by the feeling of
history in this city, more than 500 years older than our own nation; by the beauty of the
Grunewald and the Tiergarten; most of all, by your courage and determination. Perhaps the
composer Paul Lincke understood something about American presidents. You see, like so
many presidents before me, I come here today because wherever I go, whatever I do: Ich hab
noch einen Koffer in Berlin. [I still have a suitcase in Berlin.]
Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America.
I understand that it is being seen an d heard as well in the East. To those listening throughout
Eastern Europe, a special word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to you
just as surely as to those standing here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow
countrymen in th e West, in this firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. [There is
only one Berlin.]
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system
of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers
cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther
south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and
checkpoints all the same –still a restriction on th e right to travel, still an instrument to impose
upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the
wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the
television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world.
Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow

75 men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.
President von Weizsacker has said, " The German question is open as long as the
Brandenburg Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of
a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the
question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a
message of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.
In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged from their air -raid shelters
to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the people of the United States reached out to
help. And in 1947 Secretary of State –as you've been told –George Marshall announced the
creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40 years ago
this month, he said: "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against
hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."
In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this 40th
anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt -out, gutted structure that
was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing
signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign read simply: "The
Marshall Plan is helping her e to strengthen the free world." A strong, free world in the West,
that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France,
Belgium –virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the
European C ommunity was founded.
In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the
Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical
importance of liberty –that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom
of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy
economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes.
From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in Wes t Germany and Berlin doubled.
Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest
industrial output of any city in Germany –busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments,
proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. W here a city's culture seemed to have
been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless
theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there's abundance –food, clothing,

76 automobiles –the wonderful goods of the Ku 'damm. From devastation, from utter ruin, you
Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth.
The Soviets may have had other plans. But my friends, there were a few things the Soviets
didn't count on –Berli ner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart,
Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.]
In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see
a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well -being unprecedented in all human
history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining
standards of health, even want of the most basic kind –too little food. Even today, the Soviet
Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire
world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces
the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the
importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and
openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no
longer being jamme d. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater
freedom from state control.
Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token
gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen t he Soviet system without
changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go
together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.
There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance
dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev ,
open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent – and I
pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these burdens. To be sure, we in the West
must resist Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses of unassailable strength. Yet we
seek peace; so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides.
Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the Western alliance with a grave new

77 threat, hundreds of new and more dead ly SS -20 nuclear missiles, capable of striking every
capital in Europe. The Western alliance responded by committing itself to a counter –
deployment unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution; namely, the elimination of
such weapons on both si des. For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in earnestness.
As the alliance, in turn, prepared to go forward with its counter -deployment, there were
difficult days –days of protests like those during my 1982 visit to this city –and the Soviets
later walked away from the table.
But through it all, the alliance held firm. And I invite those who protested then – I invite
those who protest today –to mark this fact: Because we remained strong, the Soviets came
back to the table. And because we remained strong, today we have within reach the possibility,
not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time, an entire class
of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.
As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting in Iceland to revie w the progress of our
proposals for eliminating these weapons. At the talks in Geneva, we have also proposed deep
cuts in strategic offensive weapons. And the Western allies have likewise made far -reaching
proposals to reduce the danger of conventional war and to place a total ban on chemical
weapons.
While we pursue these arms reductions, I pledge to you that we will maintain the
capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur. And in cooperation
with many of our allies, the United States is pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative –research
to base deterrence not on the threat of offensive retaliation, but on defenses that truly defend;
on systems, in short, that will not target populations, but shield them. By these means we seek
to increase the safety of Europe and all the world. But we must remember a crucial fact: East
and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust
each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about libert y. When President
Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under
siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty.
And freedom itself is transforming the globe.
In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth.
Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In
the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place –a revolu tion marked by

78 rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications.
In Europe, only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of
freedom. Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and innovation, the
Soviet U nion faces a choice: It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.
Today thus represents a moment of hope. We in the West stand ready to cooperate with
the East to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to creat e a safe,
freer world. And surely there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting place of East and
West, to make a start. Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States stands for
the strict observance and full implementation of all par ts of the Four Power Agreement of
1971. Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of this city, to usher in a new era, to seek
a still fuller, richer life for the Berlin of the future. Together, let us maintain and develop the
ties between the Federa l Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin, which is permitted by the
1971 agreement.
And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the
city closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all Berlin can enjoy the bene fits that come
with life in one of the great cities of the world.
To open Berlin still further to all Europe, East and West, let us expand the vital air
access to this city, finding ways of making commercial air service to Berlin more convenient,
more comf ortable, and more economical. We look to the day when West Berlin can become
one of the chief aviation hubs in all central Europe.
With our French and British partners, the United States is prepared to help bring
international meetings to Berlin. It would be only fitting for Berlin to serve as the site of
United Nations meetings, or world conferences on human rights and arms control or other
issues that call for international cooperation.
There is no better way to establish hope for the future than to enlig hten young minds,
and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth exchanges, cultural events, and other
programs for young Berliners from the East. Our French and British friends, I'm certain, will
do the same. And it's my hope that an authority can be fou nd in East Berlin to sponsor visits
from young people of the Western sectors.
One final proposal, one close to my heart: Sport represents a source of enjoyment and
ennoblement, and you may have noted that the Republic of Korea –South Korea –has offered

79 to permit certain events of the 1988 Olympics to take place in the North. International sports
competitions of all kinds could take place in both parts of this city. And what better way to
demonstrate to the world the openness of this city than to offer in so me future year to hold the
Olympic games here in Berlin, East and West? In these four decades, as I have said, you
Berliners have built a great city. You've done so in spite of threats –the Soviet attempts to
impose the East -mark, the blockade. Today the c ity thrives in spite of the challenges implicit
in the very presence of this wall. What keeps you here? Certainly there's a great deal to be said
for your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But I believe there's something deeper, something
that involves Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life –not mere sentiment. No one could
live long in Berlin without being completely disabused of illusions. Something instead, that
has seen the difficulties of life in Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to build this
good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence that refuses to release
human energies or aspirations. Something that speaks with a powerful voice of affirmation,
that says yes to this city, yes to the future, yes to f reedom. In a word, I would submit that what
keeps you in Berlin is love –love both profound and abiding.
Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all
between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backward ness because it does such
violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The
totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the
East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television
tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct
what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints
and chemicals of ev ery kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere –that sphere that
towers over all Berlin –the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city
itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.
As I looked out a m oment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I
noticed words crudely spray -painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall
will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot
withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
And I would like, before I close, to say one word. I have read, and I have been
questioned since I've been here about certain demonstrations against my coming. And I would

80 like to say ju st one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked
themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one
would ever be able to do what they're doing again.
Thank you and God bless you all. ”
President Ronald Reagan – June 12, 1987

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