Revisiting speech acts from the perspective of ritual: A discussion note

The aim of the present academic discussion note is to generate feedback on a recent project that revisits the nature of speech acts as analytic constructs for politeness theory. While speech act has been largely discredited in the field, we believe that they need to be kept in the core of politeness inquiries, in particular if we approach them in combination with other units of analysis. In addition, there are instances in which speech act unavoidably becomes the focal point of research. To discuss this latter notion, we introduce the concept of ritual frame and argue that speech act must be put in the core of an analysis if there is a tension between a ritual frame - an interactional scene in which rights and obligation prevail and the interactants are highly aware of who and where they are - and a particular speech act. As a case study, we examine reflections on an alleged apology in a recent Mixed Martial Arts match.