Speech Act Theory explores how people do not only produce utterances with grammatical structures but also perform actions through those utterances. These actions, known as speech acts, are simply things people accomplish via language, such as “apologizing,” “complaining,” or “warning.” Understanding speech acts is crucial for grasping how communication functions beyond mere words.
What is Speech Act Theory? Definition and Examples
A speech act is an action performed by producing an utterance. When a speaker says something, they typically expect their communicative intention to be recognized by the hearer. For instance, saying “I’m sorry” is performing the act of apologizing.
People perform various actions through language every day. These can include:
- Apologizing
- Complaining
- Instructing
- Agreeing
- Warning
The Three Related Acts of Speech
The action performed by producing an utterance typically consists of three related acts, working together to convey meaning and achieve an effect. These are the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts.
Locutionary Act
The first is the locutionary act, which is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression. It's the literal meaning of the words spoken.
Example: If a speaker says, “I am hungry,” the locutionary act is simply the statement describing the speaker's physical state.
Illocutionary Act
The second is the illocutionary act, which refers to the intended meaning or communicative force behind the utterance. This is what the speaker intends to do by saying something.
Example: If the speaker says, “Please give me some food,” the illocutionary act is a request. The utterance carries the intended meaning of asking for sustenance.
Perlocutionary Act
The third is the perlocutionary act, which is the effect the act has on the addressee. It's the actual result or consequence of the utterance on the hearer's actions, thoughts, or feelings.
Example: Following “Please give me some food,” the perlocutionary act would be the hearer preparing or taking something that can be eaten by the speaker.
Austin's Influential Classifications of Speech Acts
Philosopher J.L. Austin grouped speech acts into five influential types, providing a framework for understanding their various functions. These classifications help us categorize the different actions we perform with language.
1. Representatives
Representatives are speech acts that commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. They carry truth value, meaning they can be judged as true or false.
Examples: Stating facts, asserting, concluding, describing.
2. Directives
Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something. They aim to influence the hearer's actions.
Examples: Requesting, commanding, advising, inviting, ordering.
3. Commissives
Commissives are speech acts that commit the speaker to some future course of action. They express the speaker's intention to do something.
Examples: Promising, vowing, offering, threatening, refusing.
Example: A jury foreman announces, “We find the defendant not guilty!” This commits the jury to that verdict.
4. Expressives
Expressives are speech acts that express a psychological attitude or feeling. They convey the speaker's emotional state or reaction.
Examples: Apologizing, thanking, congratulating, condoling, welcoming.
5. Declarations
Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that effect immediate changes in some current state of affairs. They literally change the world through their utterance, but they require a speaker with authority or a special institutional role in a specific context.
Examples: Marrying, declaring war, firing, resigning, baptizing.
Example: Officiating ministers declare, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” which immediately changes the legal status of the individuals.
Sentence Type Conventions and Speech Acts
The type of sentence used often aligns with specific speech act conventions, providing broad statements about what we can do with them.
Declarative Convention
If a speaker S utters a declarative sentence with propositional content 'p', then S thereby commits to acting as though she believes 'p'. Declarative acts are speeches that “change the world” as a result of having been performed, but only certain people with authority can appropriately perform them.
Examples: “Today is Thursday.” or “The sky is blue.”
Imperative Convention
If a speaker S utters an imperative with content 'p', then S thereby commits to having an effective preference for 'p'. An imperative utterance is a type of sentence that gives a command, request, advice, or suggestion.
Examples:
- “Move your bicycle!”
- “Have a cookie.”
- “Please rain!”
- “Get well soon!”
Interrogative Convention
If a speaker S utters an interrogative with content 'Q', then S thereby commits to a preference for the hearer to commit himself to acting as though he believes an answer to 'Q'. An interrogative sentence asks a question, typically beginning with a question word or an auxiliary verb and ending with a question mark.
Examples:
- “Is today Thursday?”
- “Which car would make you happier?”
- “Do you want to have ice-cream?”
Speech Acts and Social Context
The meaning of an utterance isn't just its lexical meaning; it also heavily depends on the context. Context is the unity of discourse, considering the word at large, and it is influenced by the situation, cultural, and social relationships among participants.
Contextual and social information allows interactants to interpret each other's intentions even when they are not explicitly stated. For example, if a person says “it’s really cold in here” in a room with an open window, this utterance can easily be interpreted as a request for someone near the window to close it, rather than just a statement about the temperature.
All cultures use speech acts to perform social functions. Most languages even have