Speech Acts and Courtesy in The Dialogues Of Hektorovi？’s Fishing And Fishermen’s Conversation

Sa？etak The paper discusses the ways in which the communication of the characters in Hektorovi？’s Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversation (Venice, 1568) is conveyed, with the various kinds of speech acts and the strategies of courtesy. The narrator mediates the fishermen’s talk in indirect speech, giving the name of the conver？sation partner at the beginning of direct speech or as part of his own narration. Other texts are interpolated into the utterances of the speakers (poems from oral literature), while simple forms such as riddles are assimilated in the dialogues. The examples put forward show that Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversation is a rich compendium of linguistic conventions, put together out of various speech acts and modifiers in numerous variations. Represented in Hektorovi？’s work are all the speech acts (assertive, declarative, commissive, directive, expressive). In view of the speech situation and the intentions of the speakers, the communication is convincing and strategies of courtesy are manifested (not the writer’s democratic spirit), for all the conversation partners, irrespective of age and class, endeavour to alleviate any discomfort and avoid verbal conflicts. Hektorovi？’s literary text is an important early testimony to the well-developed expressive capacities of Chakavian Croatian