VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***  *** LÊ THỊ MINH PHƯƠNG

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE USED IN MARINE
ORDERS IN TERMS OF SPEECH ACT

(Phân tích diễn ngôn sử dụng trong khẩu lệnh hàng hải
về mặt hành động lời nói) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.02.01
Hanoi – 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***  *** LÊ THỊ MINH PHƯƠNG



Hanoi, 2014

Le Thi Minh Phuong

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan. Without his enthusiastic help and his precious
advice and comments, the paper would not have been completed.
Secondly, I would like to send my warmest thanks to Assoc.Prof. Le Hung
Tien and Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Tam whose lectures provided me with a great deal
of experience in discourse analysis and speech acts theory.
Thirdly, my thanks are also come to the co-teachers of Vimaru whose gave
me precious advice during the implementation of my study was absolutely vital.
Finally, this is a good opportunity for me to give my special thanks to my
beloved parents and friends who are always beside me whenever I encounter
difficulties.



iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale for the study 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Significance of the study 2
5. Research methodology 3
6. Design of the study 5
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6
Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6
1.1 Speech act and discourse analysis 6
1.2. Speech act and the act of ordering 7
1.2.1. Classifications of speech act 7
1.2.1.1. Types of speech acts (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) 8
1.2.1.2. Direct and indirect speech acts 10
1.2.2. The act of ordering 11
1.2.2.1. Definitio 11
1.2.2.2. Ways of performing the act of ordering 11
1.2.3. The act of ordering in marine communication 14
1.3. Literature review 19
Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 20
2.1. Research questions 20
2.2. Data 20

Communications 38
PART C: CONCLUSION 39
1. Conclusions 39
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2. Implications 40
2.1. The act of ordering realized in marine orders 40
2.2. Orders used in external communications and on-board communications . 41
3. Limitations of the study 41
4. Suggestions for further study 41
REFERENCES 43
APPENDIX I 1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In the world of international shipping, English is used as a medium of
communication between ships, between ships and shore stations, or between ships
and helicopters in different situations. Among the conversations exchanged, marine
orders take a large proportion and play an important part in ensuring safe voyages at
sea. However, the structure of a standard marine order is quite different from a
social order, which causes barrier issue to non-majors of English, and it is a
challenge to ship officers to remember and follow the orders correctly. Below is an
example of a standard distress message, which informs the position, emergent
situation and request assistance:

comparing orders used in on-board communications and in radiotelephony
(external) communications. The features to be investigated encompass the type of
speech act realized by these orders and some of their linguistic features including
directness, types of sentence, length of sentence and the density of technicality.
- Helping students in the Navigation Department of VIMARU better understand
the effectiveness of maritime orders in terms of the above features.
3. Scope of the study
Language used in navigation is so different and typical which contains many
issues for further in-depth studies. However, due to the limitation of a minor thesis,
this research only focuses on marine orders in terms of speech acts and such
linguistic features as directness, types of sentence, length of sentence and the
density of technicality. Besides, there is also a comparison between orders used on
board and in external communications. These command sentences are selected from
the most popular conversations on radio broadcast, marine websites, articles, books
and recordings of language use in real life.
4. Significance of the study
Investigating marine orders in terms of speech acts and some of their
linguistic features, the study is expected to make certain contributions to the related
populations including navigational teachers and students teaching and learning
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marine orders, the seafarers who use marine orders in their communications and
researchers of the same subjects.
First of all, theoretically, by pointing out the speech acts realized in marine
orders and their linguistic features, maritime teachers and students (who are
seafarers themselves) will better understand the effectiveness of these orders in
communications and consequently use them more appropriately and effectively.
Similar to navigational teachers and students, practically, the seafarers can
achieve a more efficient communications by mastering orders used in certain
situations. In addition, through understanding the notion of speech acts and the

between them in terms of those linguistic features.
5.3. Data
To answer the research questions, 190 English marine orders were selected
from various sources such as maritime textbooks, websites and videos recorded in
real communications. The orders selected were of two main types: external (radio
telephony) communications and on board communications for descriptive and
contrastive analysis. External communications mainly deal with radio conversations
exchanged between ships (ship’s officer) and shore stations (shore personnel) while
on board communications are orders among captains, officers, and sailors
(helmsmen). The orders were analyzed in terms of the following categories: speech
act categories, directness, types of sentence, length of sentence and the density of
technicality to study their linguistic features and uses.
5.4. Data analysis method
190 English marine orders were quantitatively and contrastively analyzed in
term of their speech act categories, linguistic features and the differences between
them. Four tables were generated to assist in the analyzing process. Two tables
listed the categories of speech acts realized in marine orders used in external as well
as on-board communications. The other two tables investigated more about the
linguistic features of the orders used on-board and in external communications
namely directness, types of sentence, length and density of technicality. Based on
these analyses, a contrast between on board orders and external orders were made.
5

All these data analyses were summed up to find out the most general ideas about
how language is used in marine orders.
6. Design of the study
The study consists three parts as follow:
Part A: INTRODUCTION. This part outlines the background of the research. In
this part, discussions are made about the rationale, aims and objectives,
significance, methodology and design of the research.

constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative”.
There is a number of other definitions of discourse, for the purpose of this
study, I would like to follow Widdowson’s definition (1984:4 as cited in Nguyen
Hoa, 2000) “Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction.” By
this way, discourse is not simply a representation or a verbal record of the
communicative but it includes many situational factors that is context of the
situation, the meanings or intention that the speaker/ writer assigns to a linguistic
means or expressions. Therefore, discourse analysis will be the analysis of language
in use. In order to interpret discourse successfully, there must be an establishment
of coherence because in many cases, the speaker’s intention is not literally
conveyed. For example:
Mother: The grass is growing fast in the garden.
Son: I’m going to have a group study this morning, mother.
Mother: OK.
In this example, the mother does not directly ask her son to do the gardening
but the sentence “The grass is growing fast in the garden” can be functioned as a
request. Although there is no formal link in this conversation, the listener can still
infer that the son refuses his mother’s request. Therefore, when trying to
7

comprehend spoken or written discourse, we must simultaneously perceive both the
propositional meaning and functional meaning of the speaker or writer.
However, when using language, we not only make propositional statements
about objects, entities, states of affairs and so on but we also fulfill functions such
as requesting, denying, introducing, apologizing etc. Such entities are called
“speech act” or the things people do through language (Nunan:1993). The use of
this term was coined by the linguistic philosopher Austin (1962) and developed by
Searle (1969), another philosopher. Their theory was mainly about the locutionary,
illocutionary and perlocutionary acts whereas illocutionary act is central to the
concept of a speech act. These acts are widely accepted as the act of promising,

Perlocutionary
Act
- The perlocutionary carried out by a speaker making an
utterance is the act of causing a certain effect on the hearer and
others. In others words, a perlocutionary act is the results or
effects that are produced by means of saying something.

1.2.1.1. Types of speech acts (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969)
According to Austin (1962), there are five types of speech acts as follows:
(1) Verdictives: such as acquit, grade, estimate, diagnose, predict, interpret
(2) Exercitives: such as appoint, order, advise, warn, instruct, promote
(3) Commisives: such as promise, guarantee, bet, oppose, ensure, pledge
(4) Behabitives: apologizes, criticize, bless, challenge, congratulate, thank
(5) Expositives: argue, postulate, affirm, concede, oppose, admit
With the classification mentioned above, there are still mistakes and
repetitions. For example, the two last types namely “behavitives” and “explositives”
are not clear and they are overlapped. Therefore, there is a need to suitably divide it
again.
Austin’s views on language have been enormously influential in many other
philosophy and linguists. Among them, Searle, one of Austin’s followers, further
developed and solved the unclear point in Austin’s classification by dividing it into
five types as follows:
(1) Directives: the acts that are to get people to do something. They express what
the speaker wants such as “commanding”, “requesting”, “inviting”, “forbidding”,
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“suggesting” and they can be positive or negative. The form to perform this
directive functions can be vary from imperative sentences, questions or statement
whose illocutionary force is a directive.
E.g.: Please sit down.

E.g.: Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Chairman: I declare the meeting open
(5) Expressive: the acts that express speaker’s attitudes and emotions towards the
propositions such as “apologizing”, “praising”, “congratulating”, “regretting”.
E.g.: What a great day!
You are so beautiful!
It can be seen that Searle refined Austin’s theory but there are still some
differences between these two conceptions. Whereas Austin emphasized the
conventional interpretation of speech acts, Searle focused on a psychological
interpretation (based on belief, intention…). For the aim of my study, I would like
to follow Searle’s classification because I realized that most of marine orders are
direct speech acts and the acts that cause the hearer to take a particular action. This
coincides with the category “directives” in Searle’s classification that has been
mentioned above.
1.2.1.2. Direct and Indirect speech acts
Indirect speech acts is an act which is perform via another act, we say that
act is performed indirectly. For example in uttering: “Open the window please”, for
instance, the speaker has directly requested the hearer to open the window. The
syntactic structure of this utterance indicates a straight-forward request in English.
But the same request can be made in a more tacit, indirect manner to achieve the
same result. The speaker may say something like “it’s hot in here”, instead of
“Open the window please”.
Indirect speech acts can be performed by different types of structures. One of
the most common types of indirect speech act in English is interrogative which is
not used to ask a question (as we do not expect only answer, we expect an action).
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For example, the question “Could you pass the salt?” is normally understood as a
request.
However, according to Searle, the way in which an utterance is interpreted

social conversations, people tend to use indirect speech acts mainly in connection
with politeness (Leech, 183: 108) since they diminish the unpleasant message
contained in requests and orders. For instance, instead of ordering directly “Pass me
the salt!” people use the form of an interrogative “Could you pass me the salt?”
which appears more polite. However, politeness is not the only motivation for
indirectness. People also use indirect strategies “when they want to make their
speech more interesting, when they want to reach different goals from their partners
or when they want to increase the force of message communicated” (Thomas,
1995).
Sentence types
A different approach to distinguish types of speech acts can be made on the
basis of structure. A fairly simple structural distinction between three general types
of speech acts is provided by three basic sentence types. It is easy to recognize the
relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative,
imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question,
command/request). Different structures can be used to accomplish the same basic
function, as in the example below, where the speaker wants the addressee not to
stand in front of the TV.
- Move out of the way!
- Do you have to stay in front of the TV?
- You are standing in front of the TV.
The basic function of all the utterances in these examples is a
command/request. However, only the imperative structure in the first example
present a direct speech act. The interrogative structure in the second example is not
being used as a question, so it is an indirect speech act. The declarative structure in
the last sentence is also an indirect request.
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As a result, it can be seen that direct orders and commands are performed by
imperative sentences which begin with a verb and end with/without an object, a

oil tankers, container and reefer ships, car carriers, roll-on/roll-off ferries, and heavy
lift ships, each vessel type having its routine operations and interaction within its
sphere of the international shipping industry, and also designated terminology
determining communication in English at sea or alongside when loading or
discharging cargo. All crew need to know the exact meaning of this technical
terminology and frequently practice so that when emergencies occur they can recall
exactly. Therefore, even in general conversation, seafarers commonly use familiar
“maritime” idiom whether on board ship or ashore. In this study, the technicality is
defined and realized by Seatalk Nautical Dictionary, a standard reference for
English nautical language all around the world.
Also, in this study, the term “sentence” and “phrase” are used
interchangeably as in many cases, a sentence can be reduced its elements to become
a phrase or vice verse, a phrase sometimes expresses complete meaning of a
sentence. For instance, the phrase “Port 5” can be interpreted as a sentence “Hold
the rudder 5 degrees to port”.
1.2.3. The act of ordering in marine communication
Communication at sea (written or spoken) mainly deals with on board
communications and external communications. External communication (ship – to –
ship, ship – to shore or shore – to – ship) encompasses radio broadcast including
communications in emergencies and routine communications whereas on board
communications cover orders relating to ship handling of all kinds (helm orders,
engine telegraph orders, command for mooring, anchoring, towing). Among the
conversations exchanged, radio communication or as we can call it maritime VHF
conversation is the most typical which fully manifests the act of ordering. When
making conversations, both the sender and the receiver must strictly adhere to the
rules of radio regulations and International Maritime Organization (IMO) (Standard
Marine Communication Phrase , 2001).
Any conversation of maritime VHF consists of three basic stages:
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2. Exchange of messages
3. End procedure
1. INITIAL CALL
2. RESPOND TO CALL
3. INDICATE
WORKING CHANNEL
4. AGREE WORKING
CHANNEL
5. SWITCH OVER PROCEDURE
7. RESPONSE(S) TO MESSAGE
6. MESSAGE
8. END TRANSMISSION
9. END PROCEDURE
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Speakers: MV MARLIN, Elbe Pilot (EP)
Topics: Further notice of arrival – exchange with the pilot station


the port side one foot above the water. Your position is close to Buoy
No.1. Thank you. Over.
Elbe Pilot: Thank you very much indeed. Captain. Stand by on channel 1-
6. Over.
Marlin: Elbe Pilot. Thank you. Standing by on VHF channel one-six. Out.

MESSEAGES
END
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these message markers is optional which depend on the shore personnel or the ship
officer assesses the situation. However, it is recommended that any message
directed to a vessel should be clear by using one of these markers. The most priority
situations that require message markers are emergency situations like distress,
urgency and safety. Below are the examples of order used in each case:
- Distress message:
Mayday Mayday Mayday
This is Seagull Seagull Seagull
Mayday
Seagull HR1225, Seagull HR1225, Seagull HR1225
Position: latitude 5-2 degrees 1-1 minutes north, longitude 1-2-8 degrees 4-0
minutes west
Ship on fire
REQUEST: Immediate assistance
19 persons on board. Abandoning ship to life rafts
Over
- Urgent message:
Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan
All stations, All stations, All stations
This is EI NORTE 5421, EI NORTE 5421, EI NORTE 5421,