Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

The production and perception of

implicit performatives
Thomas Holtgraves
Department of Psychological Science, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, USA
Received 3 February 2004; received in revised form 2 February 2005; accepted 2 March 2005

Abstract
The present research examined how people perform and perceive implicit performatives, i.e.,
speech acts that do not contain the performative verb. In Experiment 1 participants were asked how
they would perform various speech acts (e.g., beg, brag, blame) when they could not use the
performative verb. Consistent with speech act theory, utterances were frequently performed by
referencing the relevant felicity conditions for the appropriate illocutionary points. Experiments 2
(using a sorting task) and 3 (using a rating task) examined the psychological reality of Searles
[Searle, John, 1979. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge] speech act
classification scheme. Both experiments suggest that people tend to group implicit performatives in
terms of their underlying emotional valence (a perlocutionary effect) rather than their illocutionary
points.
# 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Speech act theory; Performative verbs; Implicit performatives; Indirectness; Illocutionary force;
Perlocutionary effect

A central tenet of speech act theory is that language use includes an action dimension as
well as a propositional content dimension (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969, 1979). The action
dimension refers roughly to the action a speaker intends to have recognized with a
particular utterance. For example, when Fred tells Marvin to Shut the door, his intention
is to get Marvin to recognize that he is performing a request. In speech act terms, this is the

E-mail address: 00t0holtgrav@bsu.edu.

0378-2166/$ see front matter # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.03.005

T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

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illocutionary force (e.g., promise, apologize, encourage, etc.) of the utterance.1 According
to speech act theory, this dimension of language is crucial for understanding language use.
Surprisingly, however, empirical examination of this dimension of language has been
relatively rare. The present report is part of a larger research project designed to provide
some initial empirical investigations of the role played by speech acts in conversational
interaction.
An important feature of speech acts is that there is no one-to-one mapping between
illocutionary force and a specific utterance. That is, there are many ways in which the
same speech act can be performed. One important distinction in this regard can be made
between speech acts that are explicit and those that are implicit. Explicit speech acts are
relatively clear and direct and include the relevant performative verb, the verb that names
(in the appropriate contexts) the speech act that it performs. I can promise to shut the door,
for example, by simply saying I promise to shut the door.
Speech act recognition is relatively unproblematic with these speech acts. However,
the use of performative verbs may be relatively rare. Instead, people frequently perform
implicit speech acts, or speech acts that do not contain the performative verb naming the
illocutionary force of the utterance. For example, explicit speech acts such as I promise
to do it and I forbid you to do it could also be performed implicitly with I guarantee
that Ill have it finished tomorrow, and You are not allowed to do that again, neither of
which contain the perform verbs promise and forbid. Note that rather than being unusual,
implicit performatives such as these may be far more common than utterances that contain
performative verbs (although this no doubt varies over speech acts, with some
performative verbs e.g., promise being frequently used and others e.g., request
being rarely used).
The purpose of the present research was to examine how people naturally produce and
perceive implicit speech acts. The first issue involved speech act production. Specifically,
how do people perform implicit performatives? That is, what linguistic mechanisms are
involved in the performance of different implicit speech acts? Prior empirical research on
speech act performance has focused almost exclusively on requests (e.g., Blum-Kulka,
1987; Clark and Schunk, 1980; Gibbs, 1986). As a result, much is known about the
linguistic mechanisms for performing requests, particularly indirect requests, and how
those mechanisms affect recognition of the speakers request intent (Gibbs, 1983;
Holtgraves, 1994). Indirect requests, of course, are implicit performatives and people
routinely recognize the speakers request intent. But how do people perform implicit
speech acts other than requests? What exactly are the linguistic mechanisms used to
perform the acts of begging, bragging, encouraging, and so on? Although speech act
theorists (e.g., Searle and Vanderveken, 1985) have provided many examples of how these
acts might be performed, there is a dearth of data regarding how people do perform these
acts. This issue was examined in Experiment 1.
The second issue investigated in this research involved the psychological reality of
speech act taxonomies. Searle (1979) proposed a mutually exclusive and exhaustive
1
Note that the terms speech act and illocutionary force are used here interchangeably, as are the terms implicit
(explicit) speech acts and implicit (explicit) performatives. Both are to be distinguished from the illocutionary
point (e.g., directive, commissive, etc.) of an utterance.

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

Table 1
Taxonomy of illocutionary points
Illocutionary point

Direction of fit

Examples

Directive
Assertive
Commissive
Expressive
Declarative

World-to-word (hearer)
Words-to-world
World-to-words (speaker)
Null
World-to-words and words-to-world

Request, order
Conclude, predict
Promise, warn
Thank, apologize
Declare war

typology of primitive illocutionary points derived from a consideration of the possible

relationships between ones words and the world (see Table 1). Thus, all directives
(e.g., beg, demand, ask, etc.) are attempts to alter the world in some way: expressives
(e.g., thanks, compliment, etc.) are attempts to communicate a psychological state;
and so on. It is assumed that all speech acts implicit and explicit can be categorized
with this scheme. Although this taxonomy is simple and parsimonious and relatively
popular, it is not clear whether it has any psychological reality for language users. That
is, do language users categorize utterances in the way suggested by this taxonomy?
Other speech act taxonomies exist (Bach and Harnish, 1979; Yabuuchi, 1996) and the
same question can be raised regarding these systems. This issue was investigated in
Experiments 2 and 3.

1. Experiment 1
The goal of this experiment was to provide a summary of the linguistic mechanisms
used for performing various implicit speech acts. This was accomplished by developing a
set of scenarios describing situations in which one person wanted to perform a particular
speech act (e.g., remind). One set of participants performed a production task. These
respondents were asked to imagine that they were the potential speaker in each of these
situations, and to indicate exactly what they would say in this situation. These participants
were told that they could not use the speech act verb in their utterance and thus they were
constrained to produce implicit performatives.
A different group of participants then performed a comprehension task in order to
identify those speech acts that were recognizable by others. A prototype was chosen for
each of the speech acts examined in the production task. Then, participants who
performed the comprehension task read each prototypical speech act and corresponding
context and provided a word that they believed captured what the speaker was doing with
the utterance. Only those utterances for which at least 38% of these participants provided
the correct speech act verb were analyzed further. Although this cutoff might seem
low, it is important to keep in mind that participants were asked to produce the exact
speech act verb, and close associates (e.g., accuse for blame and vice versa) were counted
as incorrect.
The utterances collected in the production task were then examined in terms of the
specific mechanisms used to perform each speech act. It should be noted at the outset that
how a speech act will be performed obviously depends on the particulars of the context.

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Hence, this study was not an attempt to determine how specific speech acts will
always be performed, but rather to get a sense of how they tend to be performed in
relatively neutral (unmarked) contexts. Although this was a bottom-up process, it
was also guided by the emphasis in speech act theory on the various preconditions
(sincerity, preparatory, etc.) that underlie successful speech act performance. As the
research on indirect requests has shown, a relatively common way to perform a request
indirectly is to reference (e.g., by questioning or asserting) one or more of these
conditions. For example, a common mechanism for performing a request is to assert the
sincerity condition (e.g., Id really like it if you . . .) or question one of the preparatory
conditions (e.g., Can you . . .?). Accordingly, it was expected that the implicit speech acts
examined in this research would frequently be performed via reference to the felicity
conditions for that speech act. For example, it was expected that complaints would
frequently be performed by asserting the existence of a negative state (preparatory
condition), criticisms by asserting the existence of a negative state for which the recipient
has some responsibility (preparatory condition), requests by asserting the sincerity
condition (I want you to x), and so on.

2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants (N = 137) were students enrolled in introductory psychology classes at Ball
State University who participated for partial course credit. All participants were native
speakers of English. There were 86 participants in the production task and 51 participants
in the comprehension task.
2.2. Materials and procedure
Forty-nine speech act scenarios were constructed, each containing a brief (three to five
sentences) description of a situation. At the end of each scenario, participants were asked to
produce an utterance that they believed would convey a particular intention or speech act
(e.g., brag, beg, apologize, etc.). They were asked to write down exactly what they would
say to perform this speech act. However, they were told not to use in their utterance the
word indicating the speech act they were to perform (e.g., if they were to apologize they
could not use the word apologize in their utterance). The following is a sample scenario for
the speech act of reminding:
You and a close friend are roommates. Your friend is very forgetful. You know that
your roommate has a dentist appointment today which you are sure has been
forgotten. Youre eating breakfast together and you want to remind your roommate of
the dentist appointment. What exactly would you say (please do not include remind
in your remark)?
The speech acts represented four of the five Searlean speech act categories: 15
assertives, 13 expressives, 10 directives, and 11 commissives. Declaratives were not

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

included because they are institutionalized and highly formulaic and not used outside of
institutional settings (hence they are not typically performed in conversations).
Experimental booklets were constructed each containing 20 scenarios. The booklets
were constructed so that each contained a roughly equal number of the four major speech
act types. The scenarios were printed five to a page, and the four pages were randomized for
each participant. Participants worked through the booklets at their own pace with an
approximate mean completion time of 20 min. Originally there were two booklets.
However, after an initial examination of the data it became clear that some situations were
not interpreted as intended. So, a third booklet was created that included some new speech
act situations as well as slightly different versions of 11 of the speech situations that had
been used in booklets one and two.
The 49 speech act scenarios used in the production task were modified for use in the
comprehension task. The scenarios were identical except that they included a prototypical
speech act. Participants were told:
On the following pages are a set of scenarios consisting of a description of a
situation followed by a brief conversational exchange. Your task is to read
the description and subsequent exchange. Then, please indicate, with a single
word, the specific action that you believe the speaker is performing with the last
remark.
It was emphasized to participants that they should only provide single words (not sentences
or phrases).

3. Results
For each speech act scenario, the percentage of participants in the comprehension task
who identified the intended speech act was tabulated. Then, those scenario/speech acts for
which 38% or more provided the correct speech act term were included for subsequent
analysis (24 made the cut).
Analyses of the utterances provided by participants proceeded largely in a bottom-up
fashion in an attempt to uncover commonalities in the manner in which these speech acts
were performed. However, these analyses were informed by a priori theoretical
considerations that focus on the various preconditions for felicitous speech act
performance (Searle and Vanderveken, 1985; Vanderveken, 1990). In general, it was
expected that the majority of speech acts would be performed by referencing certain
preconditions (e.g., sincerity, preparatory) underlying the act. The most common linguistic
mechanisms used for performing each speech act (and a prototypical example) are
summarized in Table 2.
3.1. Directives
Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to perform some future action,
with the propositional content condition specifying a future act on the part of the recipient.

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Table 2
Mechanisms for performing explicit and implicit speech acts
Speech act
Directives
Warn
Encourage
Beg
Demand
Ask
Invite
Commissives
Threaten
Promise
Offer
Reassure
Assertives
Agree
Blame
Remind
Guess
Deny
Correct
Introduce

Excuse
Expressives
Thanks
Apology
Complain
Brag
Congratulate
Compliment

Primary means

Prototype

Imperative plus assert negative state

Imperative plus optimism
Assert strong desire plus humble mode
of achievement
Aggravated request (high strength)
Indirectly request information
Request Hs presence with low
degree of strength

Be careful. There is a cop near

Keep at it. Youll do fine
Please, please, please, Ive got to
see this movie
You must do it
Do you know the time?
Would you like to come over for dinner
tomorrow night?

Conditionally (IfThen) predicate speakers

future negative action
Strongly obligate speaker to perform
positive future action
Conditional promise
Strong commitment to eliminate
hearers doubt

If you dont stop Ill tell mom and dad and

then youll be grounded
I swear I will be neater after this weekend

Assert previous proposition and/or

correctness/mutuality of proposition
Assert external cause for negative state
Assert proposition believed to have
been forgotten by hearer
Hedged (low strength) assertion
Assert negation of prior proposition
Assert proposition replacing (or noting)
previous incorrect assertion (action)
Question recipients knowledge about each
other (preparatory condition) or assert
proposition correcting lack of knowledge
Assert reason for negative situation
Express gratitude
(for event benefiting speaker)
Express regret for negative act for
which S is responsible
Express discontent with outcome
Express (strongly) approval of ones
accomplishment
Express pleasure at Hs outcome
(high degree of strength)
Express approval of Hs object/event
(low degree of strength)

If you need some help then give me a call

I just want to make sure you know that
Im definitely not planning on moving out
Youre right. It is wrong to do that
Its all Marys fault
You have a dentist appointment today
I dont really know but would estimate
around US$ 100.00
No, I did not take your CDs
The proper was is to say Why arent we
going to the library today?
Brad, this is my friend Charles

I havent been feeling well

I appreciate your help. I couldnt have
done it without you
Im sorry that I ruined your shirt
I cant believe they raised tuition again
I did really good last semester; in fact
I got a higher GPA than anyone on my floor
Thats awesome. Im so happy for you
I like your new coat

Notes: The following speech acts were not recognized at a rate exceeding 33%: Assertives (accuse, argue, predict,
admit, criticize). Expressives (praise, condole, disapprove, approve, greet, welcome, sympathy). Directives
(request, recommend, suggest, forbid, advise, claim). Commissives (refuse, consent, accept (an offer), accept (an
apology), and reject (an offer)).

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

The sincerity condition references the speakers desire that the act be performed, and
preparatory conditions vary over speech act type.
(1) Warn (a friend about a speed trap)2: Warnings have the preparatory condition that the
proposition that one is being warned about is negative, and all of the provided warnings
included some mention of a negative proposition (that there was a cop up ahead).
Warnings also have a high degree of strength, as evidenced by the relatively large
number (71%) that included a bald imperative.
(2) Encourage (sibling to learn a video game): To encourage is to attempt to get the hearer
to perform some action by inspiring courage; there is thus the preparatory
condition that the action in question will require an effort above and beyond the norm.
The most frequent (96%) means for inspiring the hearer was the expression of
optimism (e.g., You can do it). Encouragement involves a high degree of strength as
indicated by the high number (75%) of utterances that included an imperative (e.g.,
Keep trying).
(3) Beg (parents to take you to a movie): To beg is to request something of the hearer with
the expression of very strong speaker desire (sincerity condition) and with a relatively
humble mode of achievement. Consistent with the latter, a high number (81%) of turns
included please markers. Strong speaker desire was conveyed by bargaining (41%)
(e.g., I will love you forever if you just let me see it), giving a reason (30%)(e.g., Other
kids have seen it), or simply asserting strong desire (15%) (e.g., I really really really
want to see this movie).
(4) Demand (bank to pay a cancelled check fee): To demand is to direct the hearer, with a
relatively high degree of strength, to perform some action. The majority (58%) of the
demands marked strength by using aggravated forms (e.g., The bank must pay for the
fee..) rather than pure imperatives. Many demands (77%) included an assertion that the
hearer was responsible for the situation, thereby supporting the preparatory condition
that the speaker has a right to make the demand.
(5) Ask (for the time): All of the provided utterances were variations on polite requests for
information (e.g., do you have/know the time?) performed by questioning the relevant
hearer-based preparatory conditions (e.g., ability).
(6) Invite (new neighbor to dinner): To invite is to request the hearer to partake in
something, which is believed to be good for the hearer. Invitations have a relatively low
degree of strength, because the hearer must be given the option of declining the
invitation. Accordingly, invitations frequently (74%) questioned preparatory conditions regarding the hearers willingness or desire (Would you like to come for dinner
tomorrow?).
3.2. Commissives
Commissives are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to believe the speaker is
committed to a particular course of action. Hence, all commissives hinge on convincing the
2
A warning can function as either an assertive or a directive (although if the former, it typically will have an
implicit directive function). In the present materials, the directive function was primary.

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hearer that the speaker will perform some action in the future. As with directives, the
propositional content of commissives specifies a future course of action, but in this case it is
an action of the speaker rather than the hearer. The sincerity condition references the
speakers intention to perform the action specified by the propositional content, and the
preparatory conditions vary over speech act type.
(1) Threaten (younger siblings who are constantly fighting): Threats specify a
contingency; if the hearer does x (or continues to do x), then the speaker is
committed to doing Y, with the preparatory condition that Y is bad for the hearer.
Almost all threats (86%) involved some type of IfThen construction, and almost all
(93%) asserted negative consequences for failing to comply.3
(2) Promise (roommate that youll be neater): To promise is to obligate oneself to perform
some positive action for the hearer in the future. A primary preparatory condition is
that there is some doubt about whether the action would normally be performed; hence,
the speaker must try to convince the hearer that the action will be performed. Promises
thus carry a relatively strong obligation and this was conveyed in various ways,
primarily by including other commissive verbs such as guarantee, swear, or various
modifiersdefinitely, trust me, etc.
(3) Offer (to help a relative move): An offer is a promise that is conditional upon the
hearers acceptance. Hence, offers were often in the form of a question (36%) or If
Then construction (54%) (e.g., If you need help Ill be happy to do what I can). Offers
that were not conditional referenced the preparatory conditions regarding the speakers
desire (e.g., I would be more than happy to help you move), or willingness (e.g., Ill
help you move if you want) or ability (e.g., Can I help you guys move?).
(4) Reassure (roommate that youre not moving out): To reassure is to attempt to convince
the hearer that ones future actions will not harm him or her. A crucial preparatory
condition is that there is some doubt on the part of the hearer regarding the speakers
future actions. Reassurances almost always (82%) involved bald, non-hedged
assertions such as Im not moving, and many (43%) addressed the hearers doubt
(e.g., I dont know why someone would tell you that).
3.3. Assertives
Assertives are attempts to represent, with ones words, an actual state of affairs.
The sincerity condition is that the speaker believes the proposition being asserted
and the preparatory condition and propositional content conditions vary over speech act
type.
(1) Agree (with others opinion regarding animal experimentation): To agree is to assert a
proposition with the preparatory condition that the proposition had been previously
asserted by someone else. Agreement was expressed either by asserting the proposition
that had been asserted previously (37%), asserting that the hearers proposition was
3
Note that although a threat is a commissive (the speaker commits him or herself to a future course of action), it
also has a secondary directive function (the speaker is trying to alter the behavior of the hearer).

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(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

correct (22%) (e.g.,You are right), or by asserting (63%) that the speaker and hearer
have the same beliefs (e.g. I believe the same thing).
Blame (a student for a poor grade on a group project): Blames were accomplished
by directly assigning responsibility for an outcome to another student (32%)
(e.g., It was all her fault) and/or by explaining how the other student was responsible
for the outcome (79%) (e.g., She did not do her part). The preparatory condition
that the outcome was negative was addressed approximately one-half (46%) of the
time.
Remind (roommate about an upcoming dentist appointment): To remind is to assert a
proposition with the preparatory condition that the hearer once knew but may have
forgotten the propositional content. Over half (56%) of the reminders directly
addressed the preparatory condition by questioning the hearers knowledge (e.g., Do
you recall that you have a dentist appointment today?). The remainder either directed
the recipient to not forget about the appointment (e.g., Dont forget about your dentist
appointment today.), a mechanism bordering on being a directive, or by asserting the
propositional content (e.g., You have a dentist appointment today).
Guess (cost of new coat that was a gift): To guess is to assert a proposition with the
preparatory condition that the speaker be not entirely sure of the proposition. Most
guesses (73%) qualified the asserted proposition with a phrase such as Im not sure or I
dont know, and/or they mitigated the assertion (85%) in some manner (I think,
probably, about, etc.).
Deny (that one took ones roommates CDs): To deny something is to negate an
assertion that had previously been affirmed or claimed (preparatory condition). Most
(71%) of the denials were straightforward negations of the previous assertion (e.g., I
didnt take your CDs).
Correct (teacher correcting a students use of aint): A preparatory condition for a
correction is that a mistake has been made; a correction is an assertion of a proposition
that replaces it. Most corrections (78%) asserted the correct construction. In addition, a
relatively large number (41%) of corrections addressed the preparatory condition and
asserted that the prior turn was an incorrect construction (Aint is not correct language
. . .).
Introduce (one friend to another friend): To introduce is to inform recipients of each
others identity, and almost all introductions were performed in a straightforward
manner by directly asserting a proposition that would eliminate a gap in the recipients
knowledge (preparatory condition) such as This is Brad or Meet Brad (85%). The
remainder asserted the speakers desire (e.g., Id like you to meet Brad).
Excuse (for not helping out): Almost all excuses (93%) took the form of identifying a
cause (e.g., I have been so busy lately . . .) for a negative state of affairs (preparatory
condition).

3.4. Expressives
Expressives are attempts to express (or make external) the speakers inner psychological
state. In speech act terms, they are attempts to express a particular attitude represented by
the propositional content of the utterance. Hence, the sincerity condition for all expressives

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is the intended expression of some internal psychological state. The propositional content
and preparatory conditions vary over speech act types.
(1) Thanks (for helping speaker move): To thank is to express the psychological state of
gratitude to the hearer for some action; the preparatory condition is that the action
benefited the speaker in some manner. The most common form was the direct
expression of appreciation (62%) or gratitude (17%); sometimes coupled with an
assertion about the preparatory condition commenting on how the speaker benefited
(e.g., Couldnt have done it without you).
(2) Apology (for ruining a siblings shirt): To apologize is to express regret for performing
some action, with the preparatory conditions being that the action had negative
consequences for the hearer and that the speaker was at least partially responsible for the
action. Most (89%) apologies directly expressed regret (e.g., I am sorry) for the action
and were frequently combined with offers of restitution (61%). The preparatory
conditions (speaker responsible for an action with negative consequences for the hearer)
were usually implicitly acknowledged (e.g., I ruined your shirt).
(3) Complain (about tuition being raised): To complain is to express discontent regarding a
state of affairs, with the preparatory condition being that the state of affairs is bad for
the speaker. Speakers frequently (70%) asserted the act about which they were
complaining. There were also direct expressions of discontent (33%) (e.g., Its not fair)
and disbelief (41%) (e.g., I cant believe they raised tuition again).
(4) Brag (about ones GPA for last semester)4: To brag is to express pride in and approval
of oneself, with the preparatory condition that what is being bragged about is good for
the speaker and possibly envied by the hearer. Brags either explicitly expressed pride
with (e.g., Im so proud) or approval for (e.g., Im so happy) with ones
accomplishment (39%), or directly addressed the preparatory condition by describing
(54%) the accomplishment with a high degree of strength (i.e., I did great, awesome,
fantastic, etc.).
(5) Congratulate (on law school acceptance): To congratulate is to express pleasure with
an outcome with the preparatory conditions being that the outcome was good for the
hearer and that the hearer was as least partially responsible for the outcome. Almost
half of the congratulations (44%) included the explicit expression of a positive emotion
(either proud or happy). An alternative was to use a formulaic expression such as
good job and way to go (59%). Hearer responsibility for the outcome
(preparatory condition) was also noted (19%).
(6) Compliment (anothers new coat): To compliment is to express approval of some
object or event associated with the hearer, with a preparatory condition being that the
object/event is good. Compliments were frequently (78%) performed by directly
expressing approval (e.g., I like your coat), or by asserting (37%) that the object was
positive (e.g., That coat is really cool).
4
Editors Note: The Grade Point Average (GPA) in US universities is obtained by averaging the numerical
equivalents of the grades assigned a student each term. The closer one gets to the possible maximum, straight As
(numerically rendered as 4.0) on average, the more reason one has to brag about this indicator of ones academic
excellence.

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

4. Discussion
Participants in this study were asked to indicate how they would perform particular
speech acts, with the constraint that they could not use the performative verb. The 24
speech acts that were most frequently recognized by a different set of participants were
then examined for the linguistic mechanisms used in their performance. In general, the
speech acts provided by participants were consistent with the mechanisms suggested by
speech act theory. Specifically, each of the 24 speech acts examined were performed a
substantial number of times by referencing the relevant felicity (usually preparatory)
conditions for that speech act. There was much variability in this regard, however. Some
speech acts, particularly directives such as ask, were always performed by referencing a
relevant preparatory condition. For other speech acts, particularly assertives, the relevant
preparatory conditions were referenced less frequently.
The speech acts that were generated varied on a number of dimensions, in addition to the
extent to which the felicity conditions were referenced. Although all directives referenced a
future action (propositional content) that the speaker wanted performed, they varied in terms
of their strength, mode of achievement, and preparatory conditions. For example, encourage
and warn have a high degree of strength and frequently included a bald imperative. Ask and
invite, on the other hand, have a low degree of strength and never included the imperative.
Directives also varied in terms of mode of achievement, with begging involving a humble
mode of achievement, and demanding involving an aggravated mode of achievement. Similar
to directives, commissives also reference a future event (propositional content) that the
speaker intends to perform. However, the commissives examined in this research varied in
terms of whether they were conditional (threats, offers) or not (promises, reassurances) and
whether there was a preparatory condition to the effect that there was some doubt about
whether the future action will be performed (e.g., promises, reassurances).
The assertives examined in this study varied in terms of their strength from low
strength guesses to high strength denials and their preparatory conditions. Although all
assertives presuppose that the asserted proposition is not known to the hearer, they vary in
the relevance of this condition. For some (e.g., remind) it is central, for others (e.g., guess),
it is not. Also, some assertions presuppose the existence of a prior assertion (correct, deny),
others (introduce, guess) do not. Finally, expressives varied in terms of the particular
psychological state being expressed, although these different states can be organized into
two groups (positive emotions and negative emotions) at a higher level of abstraction. In
addition, expressives varied in terms of their degree of strength (e.g., congratulations (high
strength) versus compliments (low strength)).
The manner in which speech acts are performed will often reflect politeness pressures
(Brown and Levinson, 1987) and this showed up in the current results. Directives that
benefited the speaker (ask), for example, were frequently performed by referencing the
recipients ability to perform the act, thereby giving the recipient an out. This was not
necessary for directives that benefited the recipient (e.g., warn and encourage), hence there
was no need to soften them with the use of polite forms and the imperative was used
frequently. Some directives (e.g., invitations) combined positive and negative politeness,
possibly due to the hybrid nature of this speech act (it is a directive and hence imposing and
a threat to negative face, as well as being affiliative and hence oriented to positive face).

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Note that although only a subset (24) of the original set of speech acts had recognition
rates over 38%, this does not necessarily mean that the remaining speech acts are
problematic and not recognized or used. The relatively low recognition rates may be
unique to the materials used in the present experimental context. If the context had been
described differently, or in more detail, then these other speech acts may have been
recognized more frequently. Obviously, this is a direction for future research, it also
reflects a limitation of the present research. Specifically, in this study the background
context was not manipulated in any way and speech act performance is nothing if not
sensitive to the social context. For example, in the present corpus corrections frequently
included an assertion that the hearers prior assertion was defective in some manner,
clearly a threat to the recipients face. Although this is justified in the present context (a
teacher correcting a student) it would not be justified if the interactants were equal in
status.

5. Experiment 2
Experiment 1 examined how people perform implicit speech acts. Consistent with
Searles (1979) taxonomy there was a fair amount of similarity in terms of how speech acts
accomplishing the same illocutionary point were performed. All directives attempted to
alter the recipients future behavior, all expressives attempted to communicate the
speakers emotional state, and so on. This provides some support for Searles speech act
classification scheme. At the same time, speech acts performing the same illocutionary
point varied on a number of dimensions. This raises the issue of whether people perceive
and categorize speech acts in the same way as speech act theorists do. That is, do language
users differentiate between directives and assertives and expressives and so on? To date,
there have not been any empirical tests of the representational validity, or psychological
reality, of Searles scheme.
To examine this issue, participants in Experiment 2 were given the set of 24 speech act
scenarios and corresponding prototypic speech acts used in Experiment 1. They were asked
to read the scenarios and final remarks and then sort them into groups, using their own
criteria. Importantly, this procedure does not require participants to use dimensions or
categories supplied by the researcher. The major question of interest was whether the
categories resulting from this procedure would correspond to Searles (1979) speech act
taxonomy. And if they did not, would there then be any underlying principles regarding
how participants did categorize these speech acts?

6. Method
6.1. Participants
Participants (N = 52) were students enrolled in Introductory Psychology classes at Ball
State University who participated for partial course credit. All participants spoke English
as their first language.

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

6.2. Materials and procedure

Each of the 24 scenarios and speech acts from Experiment 1 was typed on a separate
3 in.  5 in. file card. Participants were given a set of the speech act scenarios
(randomized for each participant) along with instructions for performing the sorting task.
Participants were instructed to first read through all of the scenarios and corresponding
utterances, and to then go back and place the scenarios into separate groups based on what
they saw as their similarities and differences. Participants were instructed to make their
distinctions based on the final utterance, and they were told that the scenario that preceded
the final utterance was simply a context to make the situation more realistic. Participants
were further told they could make as few, or as many, groups as necessary in order to
capture their perceptions. All participants completed the task within 30 min.

7. Results and discussion

The sorts were used to construct a similarity matrix representing the frequency with
which each pair of speech acts was put in the same group by participants. This matrix was
then submitted to a hierarchical cluster analysis using a nearest neighbor linking algorithm
(SPSS v. 11). The results of this analysis are presented in Table 3. At the start of the cluster
analysis, there are 24 clusters representing the 24 speech acts examined in this study.
Clusters are then successively formed based on the amalgamated distances between cases,
between a case and a cluster, and eventually between clusters. In Table 3, the clusters are
plotted against the amalgamated distance at which they emerge. Amalgamated distance
reflects the relative frequency (and hence consensus) with which cases (speech acts) were
put in the same group by participants. Speech acts that merged relatively early (e.g., agree,
guess) were put into the same group by most participants; speech acts that merged later
(e.g., deny and promise) were rarely put in the same group. As one scans the figure from left
to right, the manner in which cases combined to form clusters, and the distance at which
they did so, can be seen.
As can be seen in Table 3, the clusters that emerged did not correspond perfectly to
Searles classification scheme, although some of the clustering is clearly related to the basic
illocutionary points. Three broad clusters emerged, each comprised of several smaller
clusters. The bottom cluster in Table 3 is comprised of eight speech acts. Although this
cluster included all four different illocutionary points, it clearly represents a set of speech
acts that have negative interpersonal implications, either for the speaker or the hearer.
Within this group, there is a sub-cluster of speech acts that have a directive function (beg,
demand, threaten, complain). Beg and demand merged very early and both are directives
with a high degree of strength. Threat and complain, on the other hand, are not traditionally
considered to be directives. However, they both have clear directive implications. In speech
act theory, a threat is considered a commissive because the speaker commits him- or herself
to a particular course of action, should the recipient of the threat not comply. But obviously
the intent of a threat is to alter the recipients behavior in some manner. It may be more
appropriate to consider threats as directives, with their conditional IfThen format being
the means by which this is achieved. To complain also is not traditionally considered a

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Table 3
Dendrogram of hierarchical cluster analysis: Experiment 2

Note: The letter in parentheses indicates the illocutionary point of the speech act (A: assertive; D: directive; E:
expressive; C: commissive).

directive and instead is classified as an expressive. Note, however, that frequently the intent
of a complaint is to get the recipient to perform some action, or to alter his/her behavior in
some manner (Holtgraves, 1994; Wilson et al., 1998). The other four speech acts in this
cluster (deny, excuse, promise, blame) are all traditionally considered to be remedial moves
that are designed to correct a particular interpersonal situation. This first cluster, then,
includes a set of speech acts designed either to remedy an interpersonal situation or to alter
the behavior of some other persons who do not want their behavior altered.
The second cluster can be seen in the middle of Table 3. This cluster includes seven
speech acts (compliment, thank, congratulate, brag, encourage, invite, offer) that appear to
be similar in terms of their overall positivity and expressions of goodwill and positive

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

feelings toward the recipient. Four of these speech acts are expressives all positive with
the intent being to get the recipient to recognize these positive emotions (compliment, thank,
congratulate, brag). Two of the remaining three are directives (invite and encourage), but
directives that are clearly affiliative (as opposed to non-affiliative directives such as demand
and beg). The final speech act in this group (offer) is a commissive, again a speech act that is
affiliative and containing a high degree of positive politeness.
The final cluster (top third of Table 3) is more neutral than the other two clusters and
includes five assertives (agree, guess, correct, remind, introduce) as well as an expressive
(apologize), a commissive (warn), and two directives (ask, reassure). The five assertives
break down into two groups. In the one group (remind, correct, introduce) are speech acts
that presuppose a lack of knowledge on the part of the recipient(s) and they attempt to fill
that gap. The other group (agree, guess) are assertions of relatively low strength. The nonassertives (with the exceptions of ask) in this cluster are similar to the extent that they
attempt to benefit the recipient in some manner.
Overall, then, the results of the sorting task suggest that people clearly group or cluster
speech acts into groups, though not necessarily in a manner consistent with any existing
speech act scheme. Three relatively clear, high-level clusters emerged: a positive expressive
group (brag, compliment, invite, thank, encourage, offer, congratulate) a negative
interpersonal group (deny, excuse, beg, demand, complain, threat, blame, promise), and a
neutral group (agree, guess, ask, apologize, warn, remind, reassure, correct).

8. Experiment 3
The results of Experiment 2 suggest that speech acts cluster into groups based not so
much on the dimensions suggested by speech act theory, but instead based on the
interpersonal implications of the speech act. The purpose of Experiment 3 was to
investigate the extent to which the clusters that emerged in Experiment 2 were based on
perceptions of the interactants emotional states. To do this, participants in this study read
the same scenarios and utterances as used in Experiment 2. However, instead of sorting
these stimuli, participants rated the valence of each interactants emotional state when
producing or hearing the utterance. The basic hypothesis was that these ratings would
parallel the cluster analysis. Hence, speech acts in the positive group should result in
perceptions of more positive emotions than did those in the neutral group, and those in the
neutral group should result in perceptions of more positive emotion than did those in the
negative group.

9. Method
9.1. Participants
Participants (N = 45) were students enrolled in Introductory Psychology classes at Ball
State University who participated for partial course credit. All participants spoke English
as their first language.

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2039

9.2. Materials and procedure

An experimental booklet was created consisting of the 24 scenarios and speech acts
from Experiments 1 and 2. Following each scenario/speech act were four 7-point scales.
The first two scales assessed participants perceptions of how the speaker felt
(1 = extremely negative to 7 = extremely positive) and how the hearer felt (1 = extremely
negative to 7 = extremely positive). The other two scales (perceived politeness and
directness) were not relevant for this study. Participants were instructed to first read each
scenario and corresponding utterance and then indicate their impressions on the scales. The
speech act scenarios and scales were typed four to a page, and page order was randomized
for each participant. All participants completed the task within 30 min.

10. Results and discussion

The results are summarized in Table 4. The presentation of the speech act groups is
based on the clustering results from Experiment 2. Clearly, the manner in which
participants perceived the feelings of the speaker and hearer corresponds quite closely to
the clustering results from Experiment 2. Participants perceived the speaker to feel most
negatively about performing the speech acts in the negative group (M = 2.5), followed in
ascending order by the neutral group (M = 4.09) and the positive group (M = 6.06).
Similarly, participants perceived the hearer to feel most negatively about being the
recipient of the speech acts in the negative group (M = 2.95), followed in ascending order
by the neutral group (M = 4.37) and the positive group (M = 5.97). Paired-sample t-tests
(d.f. = 44) indicated that means for the positive, neutral, and negative groups were
significantly different from each other (all ps < .00001). Moreover, an inspection of
individual speech acts within each group showed relatively little overlap between the three
groups in terms of perceptions.
In addition, two cluster analyses were conducted, using as input ratings of how the speaker
felt and how the hearer felt. In general, cluster membership in these analyses was similar to
that obtained in Experiment 2, although there were some interesting exceptions. For example,
introduce was placed in the positive (rather than neutral) group in both the speaker and hearer
analyses, while correct and apologize were placed in the negative (rather than neutral) group
in the hearers analysis. In addition, brag was placed in the neutral (rather than positive) group
in the hearer analysis, and beg and promise clustered with the neutral (rather than negative)
speech acts in the speaker analysis and (for promise only) the hearer analysis.
Table 4
Perceptions of speech acts: Experiment 3
Speech act group

Speaker felt

Hearer felt

Neutral speech acts

Positive speech acts
Negative speech acts

4.09
6.06
2.50

4.37
5.97
2.95

Note: Ratings reflect perceived emotional reactions on a 7-point scale (1 = extremely negative to 7 = extremely
positive).

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

Overall, then, these results both support and extend the clustering results obtained in
Experiment 2. Participants perceptions of the interactants emotional valence corresponded
quite highly with the clusters produced in Experiment 2. These results suggest that there is a
strong interpersonal dimension to the manner in which speech acts are perceived, in a sense
reflecting perlocutionary effects (in terms of emotional reactions) rather than illocutionary
acts.

11. General discussion

The purpose of this research was to examine how people produce and perceive implicit
performatives. Speech act theory fared relatively well in terms of the first issue. Consistent
with speech act theory, each of the 24 speech acts examined in Experiment 1 referenced
one or more of the relevant felicity conditions a substantial number of times. Importantly,
there were consistent differences between speech acts with different illocutionary points.
For example, directives and commissives referenced a future action, assertives and
expressives did not. Conversely, assertives and expressives attempted to represent a
particular state of affairs (in Searles terminology, fitting words to world), directives and
commissives did not. At the same time, there were important differences between speech
acts that performed the same illocutionary point. This is expected, of course, as it is the
differences in these conditions (in addition to differences in strength and mode of
achievement) that define differences between speech acts. As a theory of action, speech act
theory does a good job of articulating the various conditions underlying the actions that can
be performed with language.
In contrast to speech act production, speech act theory fared less well as a model for how
people group or cluster speech acts. Clearly, the speech act taxonomy developed by Searle
(1979) does play some role in the manner in which people categorize speech acts. However,
speech acts have a strong interpersonal flavor and it is clear that participants judgments
focused more on this interpersonal dimension. In a sense, their judgments were based more
on the perlocutionary effects rather than on the illocutionary act.
The sorting task used in Experiment 2 allowed participants to use whatever criteria
they wished in sorting speech acts. The intent of these instructions was to examine the
possibility that participants would naturally categorize utterances basing themselves
on the utterances illocutionary points. Numerous classification schemes are possible, of
course, and it may be that the non-directive nature of the instructions prevented
participants from sorting utterances into groups based on illocutionary points (i.e., they
chose to categorize based on other categories). To examine this possibility, a second
sorting study (N = 36) was conducted. The materials and procedure were identical to
those used in Experiment 2, except that the instructions emphasized several times that
participants were to base their sorts on their perceptions of what the speaker was doing
with an utterance. Despite this change in the instructions, the results of the cluster
analysis were very similar to the results obtained in Experiment 2.5 Again, there was a
clear negative group (excuse, demand, blame, deny, threaten) and a clear positive group
5

The full results of this analysis are available from the author.

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(thank, compliment, congratulate, encourage, offer), with the remaining speech acts
clustering into a more neutral group. The primary difference between these results and
those presented in Experiment 2 was the relatively larger neutral group in the former
experiment, as compared to the latter. It appears, then, that there is a relatively strong
tendency for people to categorize these types of utterances based on their interpersonal
implications.
The speech acts examined in this research were implicit performatives; they did not
contain the performative verb. This, then, is a type of indirectness, and the present
research thus contributes to the literature on indirect speech (research here has in the past
tended to focus on figures of speech, like metaphors, and on requests). Similar to other
types of indirect or non-literal speech (e.g., Gibbs, 1994), it is likely that these types of
utterances are very common, most likely far more common than their performative
counterparts.
The existence of implicit performatives raises a number of questions. First, why do they
occur? Why do speakers fail to use the performative and make their intention clear? There
are many possible answers. Perhaps the speakers intention is not well-formed and the
failure to use the performative reflects this lack of clarity. In many instances, however, the
use of implicit speech acts is probably tied to issues of face management and politeness
(Brown and Levinson, 1987; Holtgraves, 1992). Clearly, this is the case for directives, but
other speech acts whose performance has implications for the identity of the interactants
may be similarly affected. In fact, some speech acts will never be performed explicitly (i.e.,
with the performative) because the speaker would not want the intent to be clear. One never
brags by saying I hereby brag that xxxx. In fact, many brags (and instances of this
occurred in Experiment 1) are prefaced with claims that one is not bragging (e.g., Im not
bragging, but . . . . .).
If implicit speech acts are so common, then when are performative verbs used? Clearly,
they will be used when a speaker wants to avoid ambiguity. And in this regard they may be
utilized in order to clarify ones meaning. For example, if a speakers utterance is
misinterpreted, then he or she has the option of using the explicit performative as a means
of clarifying his or her intent (e.g., Im agreeing with you, I promise you, Im asking you,
Im thanking you, Im apologizing, Im offering, etc.). Second, the use of explicit
performative verbs conveys a more formal tone: I sincerely apologize for what I did versus
Im sorry dude.
A second question involves the nature of the comprehension of implicit performatives.
Although the present research demonstrates that the illocutionary force of implicit
performatives can be recognized, these data do not indicate whether this is something that
routinely happens during the course of conversational interactions. That is, do interlocutors
automatically recognize each others speech acts as they engage in a conversation? One
way to test this possibility is by examining whether the illocutionary force of an utterance is
activated on-line (i.e., less than one second after indicating comprehension of the
utterance). There is some preliminary evidence that this is the case (Holtgraves and Ashley,
2001), a possibility that we are examining further.
A third issue concerns the extent to which illocutionary force plays a role in memory
for conversational utterances. Specifically, to what extent is illocutionary force encoded
and represented in long-term memory? Some preliminary data suggests that it is encoded

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T. Holtgraves / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 20242043

(Holtgraves, in preparation). For example, in a recognition memory test, participants

frequently incorrectly recognized utterances that contained the relevant speech act
verb (e.g., I agree, its wrong to experiment on animals) when what they had actually
seen was the implicit speech act (e.g., Youre right, its wrong to experiment on
animals).
Speech act theory is clearly in need of empirical examination if it is to be a viable
account of how people use language. In this regard, speech act theory has been criticized
for being too idealized, for not being relevant for actual verbal interactions (e.g., Levinson,
1983). However, little empirical research has been conducted on speech act theory, and so
its relevance remains an open issue. Note that this is in stark contrast to Grices (1975)
theory of conversational implicature, a theory that underlies much empirical
psycholinguistic research (e.g., Gibbs, 1994). The present research represents an initial
attempt to empirically examine certain features of speech act theory.

Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation
(0131877).

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