Speech acts expressing surprise in the English language.
As in the Russian language, surprise is expressed in the English language by performatives. As it has been pointed out by Fraser, a sentence like: “I am surprised that he went too” is ambiguous between reporting on the speaker’s internal state (analogous to “i am told that”) and a performative reading signalling the speaker’s expressing surprise at the following state of the world [Niemeier and Dirven 1997:162-163]. The interesting aspect of this is example is its performative nature, where the speaker reports his/her emotional (positive or negative) reaction to a new state of affairs:
- 'All I know is that I was instructed to pass the file on to our UN office in Geneva, as we don't have an embassy in Oslo.
- I'm surprised you didn't know that, Hamid. More your department than mine, I would have thought.' [Jeffrey Archer “Honor Among Thieves”]
The analyzed examples showed that there are several performative verbs which have the same intentional meaning: to wonder, to amaze, to astonish, to astound. As in the Russian language, dictionary definitions [Oxford Dictionary 2005] showed that these verbs differ in the degree of intensity: to amaze, to astonish and to astound express the emotional reaction of high intensity, while to wonder and to surprise are less intense. The frequency of their occurrence is presented in the table.
Table 2. Frequency of occurrence of performative verbs in the Russian language.
| Verb | Number of usages | Frequency of occurrence % |
| To amaze | 22% | |
| To astonish | 4% | |
| To astound | 11% | |
| To wonder | 26% | |
| To surprise | 35% | |
| Total number of usages |
Thus, the table shows that performative verbs “to wonder” and “to surprise”, which indicate surprise of less emotive intensity, are used more frequently than verbs indicating higher emotive intensity. It can be explained by the fact that English people tend to be restrained in expressing their emotions.
Among the analyzed speech acts there were 40 examples of institutional speech acts. As this kind of speech act is stereotypical expressions imposed by etiquette, certain recurring structural model should be singled out: what + adj + noun (What a lovely surprise):
She was strolling through the park, when suddenly bumped into Fenston.
- What a lovely surprise! What brings you here?
- I’m going for a drink, you know. [Jeffrey Archer “False Impression”]
She wanted to hide. Not be seen. Or pretend not to see him, slip past, eyes down. But he had seen her, He put out both hands.
- Ursula! What a lovely surprise!
- Oh, hello, darling! [Ruth Rendell «The Chimney Sweeper's Boy»]
Most of the times, this kind of institutional speech act is expressed by someone who is surprised to meet familiar people in unexpected places:
- Hello, Kate!
- Wow! It’s a small world! I’ve never expected to meet a schoolmate on the rock-festival like this one! [Reginald Hill “Good Morning Midnight”]
The fact that stereotypical expression of surprise imposed by etiquette rules is more frequent in the English language can be explained by a high degree of formality of English speech culture as a consequence of higher psychological barriers between representatives of individualistic culture. Thus, it is highly likely for English people to demonstrate respect to their interlocutors, even when it is not a sincere expression of emotions.
Speech act of requestives in the English language is characterized by the use of negative syntactic structure personal pronoun + cannot (or second person singular of the verb do + negation) + verb(“I can’t believe it”, “You don’t say it!”, “You don’t mean it”, “You don’t say”, “She couldn’t have survived that”):
Ursula said she didn’t know why Sally stayed with him.
“Bread and butter,” Gerald said.
“You mean she really stays on account of money? I can’t believe it!” [Ruth Rendell «The Chimney Sweeper's Boy»]
“Petrescu still worries me” said Leapman.
“Why should a dead woman worry you?” asked Fenston.
“Because I’m not convinced she’s dead.”
“She couldn’t have survived that!” [Jeffrey Archer “False Impression”]
These examples are characterized by the intention of the surprised addressee to express his distrust, so as to criticize and disagree with the interlocutor and get further explanation. In the process of analysis, there were found 27 examples of this speech act in the English language. This can be explained by the fact that English people tend to be persistent and see the situation of surprise as the force, which impels the person to act in an unexpected situation with the intention of changing it in their favor.
As for non-directive speech acts, surprise is represented by expressives. This kind of speech act indicates addressee’s emotional and psychological state, without impelling the addresser to act. It should be noted that expressives are characterized by the use of emotive lexis of informal character. For instance, such adjectives like fascinating, marvelous, amazing, queer, fantastic, impossible, surprising express surprise of high emotive intensity:
- You put a pinch or two of the powder in your first glass of wine, and anything you drink afterwards will have no effect on you.
- Fascinating! I must make a note to buy some beaks. [Peter Mayle “A good year”]
– That was my first open. My dad took me. I was only two.
- Wow!That’s really surprising! [John Niven „Amateurs“]
In the English language, expressives are also represented by general questions with informal intensifying adverb “really”:
After Scott had shaken hands with each of them he took a walk round the truck. 'Do you really believe this old heap is capable of carrying Madame Bertha to Baghdad?' he asked Kratz in disbelief. [Jeffrey Archer “Honor Among Thieves”]
- And do you really need six hours to get ready for three minutes of filming?' Cavalli asked incredulously.
- 'Two hours' preparation for a minute's work is the standard rule. [Jeffrey Archer “Honor Among Thieves”]
An informal intensifying adverb “really” indicates a person’s surprise and at the same time requests confirmation of the new information.
The English expressives are also characterized by the use of interjections which are subdivided into two groups: firstly, by interjections of euphemistic character and secondly, by informal interjections. The first group is represented by the following interjections: “My Goodness”, “Oh My God”, “Christ!”, “Bless my soul”, “Holy Moses”. Interjections of euphemistic character are used to substitute distasteful, offensive and curse words. However, using this kind of interjections does not mean that the speaker intends to express negative surprise:
I’m just worried about your brother.
- Christ! What’s he done now?
- He’s in prison again. They say robbery… [John Niven „Amateurs“]
- Yeah, from about 170, rolled about three inches.
- My goodness!
- Yeah, it was… [John Niven „Amateurs“]
The second group is represented by informal interjections used in exclamations, for instance: “Blimey!”, “Bloody Hell”, “Wow”, “Oh”, “Uh”, “Oho”. Although it is very difficult to isolate interjections from other categories with which they share some properties on functional grounds, they are the most frequent means of expressing surprise. Interjections are short expressions isolated from the propositional content of the utterance, but expressing the attitude of the speaker towards this utterance:
“Gerald left the town yesterday. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Blimey! No! Are you serious?” [Jeffrey Archer “A twist in the tale”]
– How long have you been married?
– Ah, eleven years next month.
– Wow! You must have been quite young. [John Niven „Amateurs“]
In the analyzed examples such interjections like “oh”, “oho”, “wow” were used frequently as markers of surprise. The definitions retrieved from dictionaries helped to determine which ones are associated with positive surprise and which with negative one:
oh – an exclamation, expressing surprise, fear, wonder, pain [Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English];
oho – an exclamation expressing surprise, taunting, etc. [Webster’s New World Dictionary]
wow – an expression of surprise, wonder, pleasure, pain [Webster’s New World Dictionary]
Definitions show that “oh” and “wow” may be associated with pain, which means that in certain cases they can be associated with negative surprise. As for “oho”, it can be assumed that the sound “o” is favorable to expressing the emotion experienced by the speaker faced by a sudden, unexpected turn of events. “Wow” can denote different kinds of surprise, as to its quality:
– That was my first Open. My dad took me. I was only two.
- Wow! That’s really surprising! [John Niven „Amateurs“]
– They’ve got a major TV advert as good as confirmed.
- Wow! You can’t be serious! I’m going to lose my job. [John Niven “Kill Your Friends”]
In the first example, the interjection is associated with positive surprise. The addressee expresses his/her wonder at an early age of the person, going to the championship for the first time. While in the second example, wow is associated with negative surprise. The addressee is shocked by unexpected turn of events.
Schematically, the analysis of speech acts expressing surprise in the English language is presented in the diagram.
Diargam 2.
Thus, it can be concluded that the most frequently used speech acts of surprise in the English language are institutional speech acts and requestives. The tendency to use institutional speech acts may be explained by the fact that English have a long history of societal rules which are handed on from generation to generation. Moreover, being representatives of individualistic culture, English people try not to express what they really think by being polite.
As English culture is defined as individualistic one, it can explain why the English frequently use requestives. Representatives of this type of culture are persistent, goal-seeking, but caring only about achieving their personal goals. This is why when they are confronted with unexpected situation, which was not planned, they try to change it into their favor, by expressing criticism or distrust.