SPEECH ACT

By nicolle, mhon and patrick

SPEECH ACT
• is an utterance that has performative function in
language and communication.

• refer to the moments in which statements occur in the

communicative act within a given context.

• Concept proposed by John Langshaw Austin on 1962 one

of the founders of pragmatic and later developed by John
R. Searle in 1969, both philosophers of language.
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ASPECTS OF
SPEECH ACT
Locutionary act
Locutionary act
• is the act of making a
meaningful utterance.

• Also known as a locution or

an utterance act.
EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS:
"In performing a locutionary act we shall also be
performing such an act as:

• asking or answering a question;

• giving some information or an assurance or a warning;
• announcing a verdict or an intention;
• pronouncing sentence;
• making an appointment or an appeal or a criticism;
• making an identification or giving a description;
THREE SUB-ACTS
• Phonetic act
-is concerned with the physical act of producing a certain
sequence of vocal sounds (in the case of a spoken
language),or a set of written symbols (in the case of a
written language).
• Phatic act or Utterance act
-refers to the act of constructing a well-formed string of
sounds and/or symbols, be it a word, phrase, sentence, or
discourse, in a particular language.
• Rhetic act or propositional act

-responsible for tasks such as assigning reference,

resolving deixis, and disambiguating the utterance-
inscription.
EXAMPLE:
For instance, in the utterance You should stop smoking, the
referring expression is you and the predicating expression
is stop smoking. . .

For example, a warning such as I warn you to stop

smoking constitutes an expressed locutionary act because
its propositional content predicates a future act (to stop
smoking) of the hearer (you).
Illocutionary act
Illocutionary Act
• refers to the use of a sentence to express an
attitude with a certain function or "force," called
an illocutionary force, which differs from
locutionary acts in that they carry a certain
urgency and appeal to the meaning and direction
of the speaker.

• carries a directive for the audience, such as

promising, ordering, apologizing and thanking.
Classes of illocutionary acts
• assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of
the expressed proposition
• directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a
particular action, e.g. requests, commands and advice
• commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some
future action, e.g. promises and oaths
• expressives = speech acts that express on the speaker's
attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g.
congratulations, excuses and thanks
• declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with
the proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing
someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife
Perlocutionary Act
Perlocutionary act
• is an action or state of mind brought about by, or as a
consequence of, saying something. A
• Also known as perlocutionary effect

• According to Ruth M. Kempson: "the perlocutionary act

is the consequent effect on the hearer which the
speaker intends should follow from his utterance.”

• are governed by conventions, are not conventional but

natural acts
An Example of a Perlocutionary Effect

"Consider a negotiation with a hostage-taker under siege.

The police negotiator says: 'If you release the children, we'll
allow the press to publish your demands.' In making that
utterance she has offered a deal (illocutionary
act). Suppose the hostage-taker accepts the deal and as a
consequence releases the children. In that case, we can say
that by making the utterance, the negotiator brought about
the release of the children, or in more technical terms, that
this was a perlocutionary effect of the utterance."
Perlocutionary acts, on the other hand, bring
about consequences to the audiences

Such as saying "I will not be your friend." In this

instance, the impending loss of friendship is an
illocutionary act while the effect of frightening
the friend into compliance is a perlocutionary
act.
 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPEAKER
AND LISTENER
Because perlocutionary and illocutionary acts
depend on the audience's reaction to a given
speech, the relationship between speaker and
listener is important to understand in the
context of such acts of speech.