A SPEECH-ACT LEXICON - AN ALTERNATIVE USE OF SPEECH-ACT THEORY IN INFORMATION-SYSTEMS

Speech act theory focuses on pragmatic language qualities of making as sertions, directions, promises, declarations and expressions. However, assigning speech acts to one of a few categories is not without contr oversy. The process is context dependent and, hence, individuals with divergent contextual views may categorize speech acts differently. Dif ferent categories, in turn, imply different speech act interpretations . The difficulty of disparate speech act interpretations can often be resolved by, for example, a process of negotiation. Nonetheless, it is easy to envisage situations in which agreement by negotiation is not possible. Such would be the case when a researcher studies transcribed speech act performances. We propose that Ballmer and Brennenstuhl's ( 1981) speech at classification method, which relies on an extensive sp eech act verb lexicon with sequencing and contextual information, can reduce disagreement among individuals who singly or together analyse a nd ascribe meaning to speech acts. We base this proposition on the res ults of exploratory research involving alternative knowledge acquisiti on methods. Our exploratory results suggest that Ballmer and Brennenst uhl's lexicon provides several promising future research directions of speech act use in information systems.