The speech act of threatening in German and Polish: Semantic and pragmatic aspects

The major objectives of this study are to attempt to situate the speech act of threatening in the classification of speech acts and – on the basis of the linguistic and social factors conditioning the use of this speech act – to define the speech act of threatening for the purpose of analyzing the linguistic material. Additionally, the paper seeks to propose the main structure of the aforementioned speech act and a variety of factors conditioning its use in modern German and Polish. The primary object of research in this work is the speech act of threatening analysed within the methodology of pragmalinguistics. The research material is composed of examples of the speech act of threatening in modern spoken Polish and German. The analysis of the speech act of threatening presented in this study is an introduction and it will be further elaborated on in a monograph study of this topic.


Introduction
The primary object of research in this work is the speech act of threatening analysed within the methodological framework of pragmalinguistics. The research material consists of examples of the speech act of threatening in modern Polish and German. The spoken Polish and German language samples containing the threat in various linguistic contexts are subject to scrutiny.
The major objective of this study is twofold. First of all, it attempts to situate the speech act of threatening in the classification of speech acts and -on the basis of the linguistic and social factors conditioning the use of this speech act -to

The speech act of threatening in the classification of speech acts
The speech act of threatening is an act which is usually related to commissive speech acts (according to the division introduced by both Austin (1962) and Searle (1999)). Commissive speech acts (also known as commissives) -as seen for example, by Searle (1999) -are a kind of addresser's obligation to take specific action in the future. Austin expands this definition and claims that the obligations towards the addressee are linked to promising something or to disclosing some intentions, which means that they are related to plans of future action (Prokop 2010). Such speech acts as pledges, promises, oaths and obligations belong to the commissive category. The meaning which is derived from the definition of this speech act implies that it is one of the commissive speech acts. A threat is thus seen as some kind of obligation on the part of the addresser to perform specific actions. However, this obligation may not bring any benefits to the addressee, as in the case of the speech act of promising. Instead, the threat can bring sanctions which may be anticipated by the addressee if some predefined conditions are not met. Wunderlich (1978) is one of the linguists who classify the speech act of threatening as an example of commissive speech acts.

12
Beyond Philology 16/1 Some linguists, among them Prokop (2010) and Awdiejew (2004), question the placement of the speech act of threatening among the commissive speech acts, claiming that in the speech act of threatening, there are some factors which are typical of a different speech act group, namely directive speech acts. It is worthwhile to stress that the specific character of threats, which makes this speech act different from other commissive speech acts, was already noticed by Searle (1999), who emphasized the difference in referring a given speech act to benefits or to the lack of benefits in the performance of this speech act. Thus, in such speech acts as promise, oath or obligation, what can be seen is the activity for the benefit of the addressee. However, in the case of the speech act of threatening, it is not the benefit of the addressee but rather potential acts against the addressee, to his or her detriment. Therefore, this speech act is not fully compatible with the definition of the other speech acts which form the group of commissives.
Interestingly enough, the directive speech act seems to be semantically closer to the speech act of threatening. Directive speech acts (directives) 1 are acts urging the addressee to perform specific actions or conversely to stop performing them. To put it differently, "the essence of directive speech acts is the addresser's will to control the addressee in terms of stimulating him/her to perform certain physical or psychological actions" (Kantorczyk and Komorowska 2008: 26, trans. Walczyński). Thus, the speech act of threatening can be understood in this way since it aims to urge the addressee to perform some activity. In their study entitled Pragmatyka dyrektywnych aktów mowy w języku niemieckim, polskim i rosyjskim, Komorowska and Kantorczyk (2008: 28) offer the division of directive speech acts into two major groups: 13 obliging speech acts and non-obliging speech acts with the division criterion being the fulfilment of the basic condition "pointing to the sanctions which can be imposed on the addressee in case the activity is not performed" (trans. Walczyński). Non-obliging speech acts are speech acts in which "the non-performance of the activity is related to no sanction" (trans. Walczyński), e.g. request, offer, advice. In the case of obliging speech acts, "the non-performance of the activity entails some sanctions" (trans. Walczyński), e.g. demand, order, ban. Although among the specified linguistic behaviours the authors did not analyse the speech act of threatening, this speech act is a member of the group of obliging directive speech acts. The scholars also used another criterion in their classification. They defined three semantic properties of the directive speech acts which involved specifying the benefits which are derived from performing some activity (Kantorczyk and Komorowska 2008: 28). Three possible variations of the benefits derived from performing the activity were distinguished: in the interests of the speaker (request, demand, order), in the interests of the addressee (advice, recommendation, explanation), in the interests of both interlocutors (offer) (Kantorczyk and Komorowska 2008: 29).
The division presented above shows that the speech act of threatening in terms of its semantic meaning belongs to the group of the activities performed in the interests of the speaker (Hindelang 1983). Awdiejew (2004: 138) sees the speech act of threatening (in Polish "akt mowy pogróżka" 2 ) as the speech act which is close to the directive function of demanding. By this, Awdiejew confirms that the speech act of threatening belongs to the directives and -at the same time -he shows its semantic relation with demanding. Awdiejew claims that "it may be observed that the function of the threat is related to the overlapping function of demanding. The major difference lies in the fact that in the threat the focus is moved onto the addresser's promise, connected with performing a sanction which is placed in the background in the speech act of demanding. In this way, the performance of the demand included in the offer becomes the condition for avoiding the sanction. The performance of the threat involves, most of all, the exposition of this condition even if the sanctions are not specified: Spróbuj tylko nie przyjść na zebranie, to zobaczysz! (Just you try not to come to the meeting and you'll see!) (Awdiejew 2004: 138, trans. Walczyński).
Discussing speech acts, Prokop distinguishes between symmetric and asymmetric communication. "Symmetric communication is communication (a communicative event) when the addresser and the addressee have the same rights and obligations" (Prokop 2010: 15, trans. Walczyński). Asymmetric communication is communication "in which one of the partners has more rights than obligations" (Prokop 2010: 16, trans. Walczyński). In the speech act of threatening, the communication is asymmetric because the addresser is superior to the addressee and has made a decision about potential sanctions and their enforcement. 3 The advantage of the addresser over the addressee can result from, for instance, the social roles they play, their professional hierarchy, emotional factors known by the addresser and the addressee, or emotional dependence.
The occurrence of the speech act of threatening is also related to a presupposed condition or conditions known to the addresser and the addressee which let the addresser threaten and the addressee accept the speech act of threatening as an act resulting from a situation which previously took place. For example, the addressee knows that he or she borrowed money from the addresser and that is why he or she is aware of the fact that the addresser has a reason for demanding the repayment. Sometimes the occurrence of the speech act of threatening is situationally conditioned, for instance, an unknown person who unexpectedly threatens us: (1)(a) Dawaj kasę, bo ci wpierdolę! (1)(b) Raus mit der Kohle, sonst haue ich dir eine auf die Fresse! 'Give me the dough or I'll beat the shit out of you!'

Defining the speech act of threatening
After analysing the semantic and pragmatic conditions of the speech act of threatening for the purpose of studying the research material, it is possible to use to the following definition of the speech act of threatening: Threatening is a directive speech act which has the character of an obligation, which means that it is a speech act, in which the non-performance of the activities demanded by the addresser is linked to sanctions on the addressee and which is an activity for the benefit of the addresser who is in asymmetric communication with the addressee.
The speech act of threatening is characterised by the fact that there is typically no use of the verb "threaten" in the performative function, e.g. ja ci grożę (Ich drohe dir / I'm threatening you) or My wam grozimy (Wir drohen euch / We are threatening you). This suggests that this verb is not used in the first person singular or plural in the performative function. It may be accounted for by the meaning of threat which, because of the semantics of aggression included in it, is usually a covert speech act, from which -by implication and contextualisation -the actual threatening intention of the addresser, i.e. the illocution of the speech act threat, is derived. An expression such as Ja ci grożę (Ich drohe dir / I'm threatening you) is so incongruous as a real speech act of threatening that its contextual use can perform the function of a joke or be the exponent of the interlocutors' wordplay. For example, in the joking conversations of spouses: (2)(a) Jak mnie teraz nie pocałujesz, to nie będzie obiadu! To jest groźba! Apparently in such a communicative situation a significant role is played by the appropriate intonation of the joke and by extralinguistic means such as facial expressions, squinting eyes, smiling etc. However, as mentioned earlier, in the speech act of threatening, usually the verb "threaten" is not implemented in the performative function and the intention of the threat is derived by inference from the addresser's utterance. In the dialogic form, we can bring the meaning of threatening to the surface of language, for instance:  (Misiukajtis 2008: 109) In the speech act of threatening, there is usually no use of the "threaten" verb in the performative function. In verbal communication, it is the character of the speech act of threatening involving the pragmatic complexity that assumes the function of the performative. This act can be expressed by employing the exponents of other directive speech acts such as request, advice and offer, for example: (8)(a) Ja cię grzecznie proszę, zostaw mnie w spokoju, bo ci zajebię. The complex character of the speech act of threatening results not only from the use of the exponents of other directive speech acts but is also strengthened by proper intonation, tone of voice and extralinguistic means such as threatening gestures, facial expressions, the addresser's posture etc.

The structure of the speech act of threatening
The linguistic material presented above shows that the speech act of threatening is composed of three major components: The first major component of the speech act of threatening (C1) is the situational context which can be an existing or repeating situation, or other factors influencing the addresser. This situational context can have criminal, psychological or emotional roots. The second major component of the speech act of threatening (C2) is the imposition of the condition of the demand on the addressee by the addresser. The third major component of the speech act of threatening (C3) is the sanctions or consequences which will take place in the event that the addressee does not fulfil the condition/s imposed by the addresser.
The proposed structure of the speech act of threatening can be visualised as follows:

component 1 (C1) + component 2 (C2) + component 3 (C3)
The first component of the speech act of threatening is the situational context (SC) which is made up of the situational and contextual knowledge (world knowledge, knowledge of conditions and experience as well as knowledge of a given situation). Moreover, this component is also constituted by pragmatic factors such as the relations between the addresser and the addressee, their social roles, the emotional relationship between them, the presupposed knowledge related to a given conflict situation, the essence of the conflict etc. The situational context is non-verbal in character. It allows the condition of the speech act of threatening to be understood. The second and third components are the major components of the speech act of threatening which are constituted by the addresser's demand from the addressee and the specification of the sanctions which will take place if the addresser's demand is unfulfilled.
In the linguistic material of the speech act of threatening under analysis, we can distinguish the basic structure of this act which can be represented schematically in the following way: The speech act of threatening can contextually include various additional pieces of information which -on the one handsituates this act within the group of directive acts and -on the within the classification of speech acts. Typically, the speech act of threatening is classified with commissive speech actsacts of obligation. However, what could be observed in the above analysis is that these are a different type of obligation which do not bring any benefits to the addressee, as is the case with the speech act of promising. The speech act of threatening involves some sanctions which can be expected if the addressee does not fulfil the predefined requirements.
Arguably this act is, most of all, a directive speech act persuading the addressee to perform particular activities or to stop performing them. Thus, a threat is a speech act of obligation, in which the non-performance of an activity ordered by the addresser -the threatening person -is linked to some sanctions imposed on the addressee -the threatened person.
It is an act of asymmetric communication, in which one of the partners has more rights than obligations which -he or she may think -allows him or her to impose some requirements on the addressee. The functioning of the speech act of threatening shows its semantic complexity which is related to the fact that this act may be expressed by means of the exponents of other directive speech acts such as request, advice, proposal etc. Furthermore, a proposed structure of the speech act of threatening has been offered which not only presents the verbalisation of the threat but also takes into account the broad situational context of a given activity and the linguistic and social conditioning of its functioning in modern German and Polish.