An Analysis of Speech Acts in Service Situations at Japanese Restaurants
Keywords:
illocutionary act, restaurant services, speech actAbstract
Language use in communication across various speech situations is inseparable from the function of speech acts within it. This study aims to analyze illocutionary speech acts in service- related language used by restaurant staff in Japan. A qualitative descriptive method was used, with data sourced from 10 videos on the YouTube channel “???????” (Restaurant Support Lab), under the category ????? (Theoretic Version), with a total duration of 5 minutes and 45 seconds. The focus of the analysis is on the expressions used by restaurant staff when interacting with customers in various service situations. The data consisted of service- related utterances that were transcribed and classified based on Searle’s (1976) theory of illocutionary speech acts. Data analysis was carried out using the pragmatic equivalent method and presented informally. The results show that among the 19 utterances identified and analyzed, the most frequent type of illocutionary act was directives (11 data), followed by commissives (2 data), expressives (2 data), declarations (2 data), and representatives (2 data). The predominance of directive speech acts indicates that the primary role of restaurant staff in service interactions is to guide, instruct, request, invite, or recommend actions to customers.