A Study Of The Distribution And Features Of Speech Acts In New Standard English

In China, textbooks are the most direct way for learners to gain pragmatic knowledge and they affect the cultivation of learners’pragmatic consciousness and competence. The research subjects of this paper are New Standard English (NSE) for junior high school. It is a set of textbooks recently published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, together with English Macmillan Company. NSE is complied in light of the requirements of New English Curriculum Standards (2001), by adopting the muti-syllabus design ideas, using topics as its main thread, cross-bonding knowledge and skills, and employing modules to design its activities. NSE is widely used in China.The theoretical basis is Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts—assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations, and his indirect speech act theory. The textbook analysis method is employed to find out the distribution and features of speech acts in NSE. The research purpose is to find out whether learners can gain pragmatic knowledge by using NSE.Results show NSE has five features:1) The49kinds of direct and indirect speech acts appear in NSE cover four categories of Searle’s classification, that is, assertives, directives, commissives and expressives;2) Directives appear the highest and commissives the lowest;3) The repetition of speech acts shows difficulty increase and content extension;4) Diversity of activities are designed to cultivate learners’pragmatic competence;5) Indirect speech acts appear21times. Three demerits are:1) Some daily-used speech acts like "making vows" and "deploring" are not included in NSE;2)19of the49speech acts only include less than one percentage in the six textbooks;3) The amount of speech acts does not increase as the level of textbook increases.Finally, based upon the distribution features of speech acts in NSE, some suggestions are given to compilers, teachers and classroom instruction:compilers should increase some daily-used speech acts in NSE and distribute the speech acts reasonably; teachers need to adjust teaching order, add teaching materials and develop professional skills; classroom teaching should be done in context and increase learners’ culture awareness.