phân tích diễn ngôn sử dụng trong các khẩu lệnh hàng hải về mặt hành động lời nói = discourse analysis of langague used in marine orders in terms of speech act

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

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
Supervisor: Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn




Hanoi – 2014
i

DECLARATION
I declare that this minor thesis entitled “Discourse Analysis of language used in
marine orders in terms of speech act” submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts is the results of my own work and
that this thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of
any degree or diploma in any university, nor does it contain material previously
published or written by any other person, except where due reference is made in the
text of the thesis.

Hanoi, 2014

Le Thi Minh Phuong







ii

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.

iii

ABSTRACT

Effectiveness in communications is an ingredient to safe and efficient ship
operations. To maintain this effectiveness, marine orders, one of the most important
factors of communication at sea, must be precise, simple and unambiguous to avoid
confusions and error. With an aim to investigate more about the effectiveness of
these marine orders, 190 marine orders used on board and in external
communications were collected and analyzed quantitatively in terms of speech acts
categories, directness, type of sentence, length and density of nautical terms. Based
on the data analysis of these linguistic features, the similarities and differences
between the orders used on board and in external communications are unveiled.
Finally, all of these analyses and findings are summed up to make the most general
and concise conclusions about the effectiveness of marine orders used in

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

2.2.1. Data descriptions. 20
2.2.2. Source of data 21
v

2.3. Data analysis 22
2.3.1. Data analysis method 22
2.3.2. Data analysis framework 22
Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS 23
3.1. Types of speech acts realized in marine orders 23
3.1.1. Types of speech acts realized in orders used in external
communications 23
3.1.2. Types of speech acts realized in orders used in on-board
communications. 24
3.2. Linguistic features of marine orders used in external communications and on-
board communications 26
3.2.1. Linguistic features of marine orders in external communications 26
3.2.2. Linguistic features of marine orders in on-board communications 30
3.3. Comparison between orders used in external and on-board communications 32
3.3.1. Categories of speech acts 33
3.3.2. Linguistic features 34
Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 36
4.1. Findings 36
4.1.1. Speech act categories realized in marine orders 36
4.1.2. Linguistic features of marine orders 36
4.1.3. Orders used in external communications and on-board
communications 37
4.2. Discussions 37
4.2.1. Speech act categories realized in marine orders 37
4.2.2. Linguistic features of marine orders 38
4.2.3. Orders used in external communications and on-board

Communications 38
PART C: CONCLUSION 39
1. Conclusions 39
vi

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:

MAYDAY
THIS IS TWO-ONE-ONE-TWO-THREE-NINE-SIX-EIGHT-ZERO
MOTOR VESSEL “BIRTE” CALL SIGN DELTA ALPHA MIKE KILO
POSITION SIX TWO DEGREES ONE ONE DECIMAL EIGHT MINUTES NORTH
ZERO ZERO SEVEN DEGREES FOUR FOUR MINUTES EAST
I AM ON FIRE AFTER EXPOSITION
I REQUIRE FIRE FIGHTING ASSISTANCE
SMOKE NOT TOXIC
OVER
Judging from the example above, it can be seen that English used in those
situations is fairly typical and very catchy to linguists. Having taught students of
Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) to practise these acts of ordering for over
the past few years, I find that marine orders are still confusing to most of them. In
addition, a majority of learners learn the orders mechanically without fully
recognizing the speech act realized by these orders and fail to understand the
reasons underlying their structure and what linguistic features can ensure the
effectiveness of these orders in communications. For these reasons, I would like to
carry out a study under the title “Speech act and linguistic features of Marine
2

orders” to provide students with the fundamental notion of speech act and some
linguistic features of marine orders so that they can use them and understand them
appropriately for more effective maritime communication.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
By analyzing marine orders used in radiotelephony (external
communications) and on board communications, this research aims at investigating
what speech act is realized in marine orders and what linguistic features lead to the
effectiveness of these orders in maritime communication. This aim of the research is
specified by the following objectives:
- Clarifying the effectiveness of marine orders in communication at sea and

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
3

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

linguistic features of maritime orders, they will have a better selection and treatment
of message markers when delivering and receiving orders especially in
emergencies.
5. Research methodology
5.1. Research questions
With such aims, this study is to answer the following questions:
1. What speech act is realized in marine orders?
2. How are directness, types of sentence, length of sentence and the density of
technicality realized in maritime orders?
3. What are the differences between orders used on – board and in external
communications in terms of speech act and some linguistic features such as
categories, directness, types of sentences, length of sentence and the density
of technicality?
The answers to these questions will expose what categories of speech acts and
what linguistic features have greater effect on making marine orders clearer and
hence more effective in marine communications. In addition, the study is hoped to
clarify how marine orders adapt themselves when used in different contexts, for
example, in different weather conditions to ensure the effectiveness in
communications.

4

5.2. Research methods
To find the answers to the questions above, the combination of quantitative
and contrastive analysis methods will be applied respectively. For the first two
questions, quantitative method is used to find out what speech act is realized in
maritime orders and how the act of ordering is realized in marine orders in terms of
their directness, types of sentences, length of sentences, and the density of
technicality. When comparing on-board orders and radiotelephony (external) orders,
the contrastive analysis method is used to find out the similarities and differences

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.

Part B: DEVELOPMENT. This part falls into four chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical Background and Literature Review. This chapter presents
theoretical background of the study in which categories of speech acts and the act of
ordering are discussed. Meanwhile, it gives an overview of previous researches
related to the study.
Chapter 2: Methodology. This chapter introduces the research questions, research
methods, data, and data analysis methods.
Chapter 3: Data analysis. The chapter analyses the data collected.
Chapter 4: Findings and discussions. This chapter discusses the findings of the
data analyzed in chapter 3.
Part C: CONCLUSION. This part draws important conclusions about the study
and makes some suggestions for further researches.







6

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Speech act and discourse analysis
From different points of view, discourse is understood and defined in
different ways. Richard et al. (1985:83) define discourse as “a general term for
examples of language use, i.e., language which has been produced as the results of
an act of communication. It refers to larger units of language such as paragraphs,
conversation and interview”. Meanwhile, Crystal (1992:25) defines discourse as “a
continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than sentence, often

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,

ordering and bequeathing.
In the example above, the utterance “The grass is growing fast in the garden”
can be considered an indirect speech act because it carries the function of the
request. Similarly, the reply “I have a group study” is also an indirect speech act to
reject proposal. This is indirect because the literal meaning of “I have a group
study” does not entail any sort of rejection.
1.2. Speech act and the act of ordering
1.2.1. Classifications of speech act
Speech acts have been studied and defined by different linguists such as
Austin (1962), Grice (1957, 1975), Hymes (1964), Searle (1969), Levinson (1983),
Brown and Yule (1983) and others. The common in their theory is “a speech act is
an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance”. Then it is best described
as “in saying something, we do something”. According to Austin, speech acts are
divided into five types and three dimensions. Below is his theory about the three
dimensions of speech acts.
Locutionary Act
- A locutionary act is the saying of something which is
meaningful and can be understood.
- To perform a locutionary act is to produce an utterance with a
particular form and a more or less determinate meaning
8

according to the rules of a given language.
Illocutionary Act
- An illocutionary act is any speech act that amounts to stating,
questioning, commanding, and promising and so on.
- It is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a
locutionary act, the act of saying something, the locution. In
short, an illocutionary act is using a sentence to perform a
function.

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”,
9

“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.

Why don’t you turn off the light?
There isn’t any sugar left.
According to Kreidler (1998), three types of directive utterances can be
recognized: commands, requests, and suggestions. They are distinguished by the
force imposed on hearer. For example, a command is effective only if the speaker
has some degree of control over the actions of the addressee.
E.g.: You must appear in court next Monday at 10 a.m.
Commands are produced with various degrees of explicitness which can
have the form of You must, imperative sentences or use predicates as command,
order, tell
A request is an expression of what speaker wants the addressee to do or
refrain from doing something. The common request predicates are ask, beg,
request…
Suggestions are utterances which cause the hearer to give opinions as to what
they should do or should not do. Suggestee can have a choice of performances
which are advise, recommend, caution, warn…
(2) Commisives: The acts that commit a speaker to do something in the future. They
express what the speaker intends such as “promising”, “offering”, “threatening”,
“refusing”, “vowing” and “volunteering”.
E.g.: If you don’t stop fighting, I’ll call the police.
I’ll take you to the movies tomorrow.
(3) Assertives/ Representatives: the acts that commit a speaker to the truth of
expressed proposition such as “describing”, “claiming”, “insisting”, predicting”.
E.g.: I went home yesterday.
Britain has no written constitution.
10

(4) Declaratives: the acts that change the reality via the utterance. The speaker has
to have a special institutional role, in a specific context in order to perform a
declaration appropriately.

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).
11

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

differs from one person to another even within the same speech community,
depending on various factors such as the speaker - hearer role relationship, distance,
relative hierarchy or the context of interaction. If an utterance is brought into a
cross-cultural interactional situation where the interlocutors do not share social and
cultural background, cultural conflicts and consequent misinterpretation and
misunderstanding are likely to occur.
1.2.2. The act of ordering
1.2.2.1. Definition
According to International Maritime Organization (IMO), the act of ordering
can be defined as any word, phrase, sentence or other expression of speech act
marked means of asking for information, making a request, giving intention,
expressing advice etc. represents what the speaker intends to say or ask.
In any conversation, the primary acts can be: accept, acknowledge, agree, answer,
apology, call-off, check, confirm, disagree, greeting, evaluate, inform, invite, object,
offer, oppose, question, react, reject, reply, request, thank.
However, the principle acts in maritime VHF or other spoken
communications just focus on the act of question, answer, information, instruction,
advice, request, intention, and warning.
So, based on classification of Austin and Searle mentioned above, the act of
ordering is a type of “directives” or “exercitives” which are the exercising of
powers, rights or influence on the hearer. It is also called command or ordering
sentence.
1.2.2.2. Ways of performing the act of ordering
The act of ordering has its own linguistic features to carry the function of an
order or a command. The most typical features are directness, types of sentence,
length and density of technicality which will be discussed in more details below.
12

Directness
The act of ordering can be performed in either a direct or indirect way. In

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.
13

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

person or a thing. Every single imperative sentence has the same implied subject:
you.
(You) shut the door.
(You) smile.
Because this you is implied, it is called understood you. When a command or
an order that begins with a noun of a direct address like “Bob, walk the dog”,
implied you is still the subject of the sentence. It is a coincide that in these cases the
noun of direct address and the subject (you) are referring to the same person “Bob,
(you) walk the dog”.
While imperative is a type of direct speech act, one of the most common
types of indirect speech acts in English has the form of interrogative, but not
typically used to ask a question. Indeed, asking a question about the hearer’s
assumed ability (“Can you/ Could you”) or future likelihood with regard to do
something (“Will you?”, “Would you?”) normally counts as a request to actually
do something. In small cases, indirect speech act can also be realized in a
declarative sentence whose illocutionary force is declarative as in the example “Oh,
the sugar’s all gone” (Nguyen Hoa 2004: 232)
The length of the sentence
Another distinguishing feature of a command or an order is the length of the
sentence. It is known that the average length of a sentence generally serves as a
measure of sentence difficulty or complexity. In general, the average sentence
length increases, the complexity of sentence also increase. As most of commands
and orders are simple sentence, the average length of sentence just range about three
to six words which is quite easy to understand and follow.
Density of technicality
Density of technicality is a typical feature of marine orders which appear
frequently in almost orders used on-board as well as in external communications.
14

Nautical terms are all terminology relating to specialized ships, for instance, gas and

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:
15

The second stage of exchanging messages is most important in spoken
maritime interactive communications. However, with a complete marine
communication, there are nine steps which are diagramed as below:
CALLING STATION RESPONDING STATION

















Steps 1 - 5 represent the making contact stage of conversation
Steps 6 - 7 are the central part of a VHF conversation
Steps 8 – 9 are the final stage.
Here is an example of a complete standard marine VHF communication:
Setting: Approaching pilot station – three miles from Elbe Light vessel
1. Making contact

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
16

Speakers: MV MARLIN, Elbe Pilot (EP)
Topics: Further notice of arrival – exchange with the pilot station

In the example above, the order “Rig the pilot ladder on the port side, one foot
above the water” is preceded by the message marker INSTRUCTION. Based on
Searle’s classification, the act of ordering in this example is a type of directives
which command or suggest the hearer to follow his instruction. Unlike orders used
in daily life which the illocutionary act underlined in the sentence itself, marine
order in VHF conversations have message markers such as QUESTION, ANSWER,
INFORMATION, INSTRUCTION, ADVICE, REQUEST, INTENTION,
WARNING…before each sentence to state the speaker’s intentions. The use of
CONTACT
T
MARLIN: Elbe Pilot, Elbe Pilot, Elbe Pilot. This is Marlin, Marlin. Good
evening. Over.
Elbe Pilot: Marlin, This is Elbe Pilot. Switch to VHF Channel 2-2. Over.
Marlin: Elbe Pilot. This is Marlin, Agree. Switching to VHF Channel 2-2.
Over.
Elbe Pilot: Marlin, This is Elbe Pilot. Question: What is your position?
Over.
Marlin: Elbe Pilot, This is Marlin. Answer: Position: Three miles from
Elbe Light vessel.
Elbe Pilot: Marlin, This is Elbe Pilot. Understood. Your position: Three
miles from Elbe Light vessel. INSTRUCTION: Rig pilot ladder on the
port side, one foot above the water. Information: my position is close to
Buoy No.1. Over.
Marlin: Elbe Pilot. This is Marlin. Understood. I shall rig pilot ladder on

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
17

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,

Pan-Pan
Position: Bearing 134 degrees from Newport sound, distance 3.6 nm.
Engine breakdown, I am adrift in heavy seas
REQUEST: Require a tow
Over
- Safety message:
Securite, Securite, Securite
All stations, All stations, All stations,
This is Cherbourg Traffic for traffic information.