The Meta-functions of Speech

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Mingyou Xiang

School of International Studies

University of International Economics and Business Beijing

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Abstract

The human speech communication is mainly realized through speech though both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors are involved. While talking about functions of language or speech, the previous scholars mainly talk about the functions of language ( Halliday,1970,2014  ) or language communication (Bühler,1990; Jakobson,1960), unfortunately neglecting the functions of speech itself in language communication, which are call meta-functions of speech in this paper. What meta-functions speech may actually play in human speech communication is still a question left insufficiently explored in linguistics. By conducting an investigation into three major types of information carried by speech: intentional, indexical and coordinational information  and a re-examination of the variables in speech communication, including speech itself, paralinguistic factors, social-and-psychological factors, and experiential factors, a clear picture of what meta-functions the speech plays is well demonstrated in the framework of the organizational mechanism of  speech communication. The study shows that at the highest level of generality, speech has two fundamental meta-functions, namely, the presentational function which serves to present the communicative information and the coordinational function which serves to dynamically coordinate the relationship between linguistic and nonlinguistic factors involved in speech communication. The findings of this research make it possible to conduct a synthesized and dynamic pragmatic analysis on speech and its contextual factors, in which both addressers and addressees are given attention. Last but not the least, this research may help find a new perspective for pragmatic studies: econopragmatics, which intends to launch an economic approach to the optimal distribution of utterances in human pragmatic behaviors.