The Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English - Annotated Speech Act Corpus

The Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English (HKCSE) is comprised of four sub-corpora (academic, business, conversation and public). Please click here for more details.

The annotated Speech Act Corpus of the HKCSE was extracted from the business sub-corpus. Analysis shows that it contains 69 speech acts, click here for more information.

Here is a list of the meanings of the 69 speech acts:

SA No.Speech ActMeaning
SA001AlertTo call the address’s attention
SA002Answer to question: complyTo give adequate information explicitly
SA003Answer to question: disclaim To declare that the answer is unknown
SA004Answer to question: evade To avoid answering (consciously)
SA005Answer to question: imply To give adequate answer implicitly
SA006Answer to question: supply To give inadequate information
SA007Answer to request: accept To agree to a request, a suggestion, etc.
SA008Answer to request: evade To avoid answering (consciously)
SA009Answer to request: reject To disagree to a request, a suggestion, etc.
SA010Apology To express regret
SA011Appealer To invite feedback
SA012Appreciation To express appreciation
SA013Booster To assess what the speaker himself / herself says
SA014Call-off To prompt a conversational closing
SA015Check To ask for repetition and clarification
SA016Closer To end a conversational ending
SA017Clue To follow a primary act and give a hint or provide additional information after a question
SA018- undefined -- undefined -
SA019Confirm To respond to a request for information
SA020Correct To correct what the other speaker has said
SA021Correct-self To correct one’s own utterance after having been corrected by another speaker
SA022Disagree To express disagreement
SA023Elicit-repeat To prospect a repetition
SA024Empathizer To involve the listener
SA025Empathy To show concern for and to emphasize with the addressee
SA026Emphasizer To underline what was said in the primary act
SA027Engage To show willingness to interact by responding to salutation
SA028Evaluate To judge the value of what the previous speaker said
SA029Expand To give complementary information
SA030Express possibility To express a possibility that cannot be interpreted as a suggestion, a direction or an offer
SA031Express wishTo express a wish or a desire that cannot be interpreted as a direction
SA032Filler To fill a gap in the discourse
SA033Frame To mark a boundary in the discourse in a separate tone unit
SA034Greeting To greet somebody or bid farewell
SA035Hedge To help avoiding commitment
SA036Instruction To get the addressee to comply
SA037Invite To ask if somebody would like to do something
SA038Justify To defend what was said in the primary act
SA039Metacomment To comment on current talk
SA040Monitor To help put something right
SA041Offer To present something for acceptance or rejection
SA042Precursor To precede a primary act and give information, to link up what was said before, or to comment on something in the preceding dialogue
SA043PrefaceTo introduce a primary act, to have a face-saving effect in that it prepares another speaker for what is going to happen next, or to make sure that certain pre-conditions hold before making the following act
SA044Probe To volunteer further details or implications for confirmation
SA045Query To express doubt or strong surprise
SA046Question: confirmation To ask for a confirming answer
SA047Question: identification To ask for an answer identifying a Wh-word
SA048Question: polarity To ask for a yes / no answer
SA049Raise issue To raise an issue (non-informative)
SA050React To express attitude and strong feelings
SA051Rebound To question relevance, legitimacy, or veracity of the prior move
SA052Register To display attention to the speaker
SA053Reply to statement: acknowledgeTo signal receipt of information or to signal that the second speaker accepts what the first speaker said as a valid contribution to the conversation
SA054Reply to statement: agree To signal agreement with what was just said or to signal that the second speaker approves of what the first speaker means
SA055Reply to statement: object To signal a different opinion or to signal that the second speaker does not agree with the first speaker
SA056Request: actionTo ask somebody to do something
SA057Request: permission To ask for a go-ahead
SA058Self-commendation To evaluate the speaker himself / herself positively
SA059Self-denigration To evaluate the speaker himself / herself negatively
SA060Smoother To respond to an apology
SA061Staller To play for time
SA062Starter To help getting started
SA063Statement: inform To provide information
SA064Statement: opine To express opinion or give one’s personal opinion
SA065Suggest To put forward an idea or a plan
SA066Thanks To express gratitude
SA067Threat To explicitly state that the speaker will cause undesirable consequences to the addressees if he/she refuse to comply
SA068Unclassifiable To refer to an unclassified move such as a joke, a cough or an inaudible utterance
SA069Uptake To accept what was said and lead on
SA070Warning To specify the undesirable consequence of non-compliance

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