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http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Speech-act-Theory.htm

Definition:

A subfield of pragmatics concerned with the ways in which words can be used not only to
present information but also to carry out actions. See speech act.

Speech-act theory, as introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (How to Do Things With
Words, 1962) and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle, considers the types of
acts that utterances can be said to perform:

Locutionary Acts
Illocutionary Acts
Perlocutionary Acts

See Examples and Observations (below).

See also:

Conversation Analysis
Conversational Implicature
Cooperative Principle
Direct Speech
Discourse Analysis
Felicity Conditions
Functionalism
Indirectness
Pragmatic Competence
Signifying
Text Linguistics

Examples and Observations:

"Part of the joy of doing speech act theory, from my strictly first person point of view, is
becoming more and more remindful of how many surprisingly different things we do
when we talk to each other."
(Andreas Kemmerling, "Expressing an Intentional State." Speech Acts, Mind, and Social
Reality: Discussions with John R. Searle, ed. by Gnther Grewendorf and Georg Meggle.
Kluwer, 2002)

"In the past three decades, speech act theory has become an important branch of the
contemporary theory of language thanks mainly to the influence of [J.R.] Searle (1969,
1979) and [H.P.] Grice (1975) whose ideas on meaning and communication have
stimulated research in philosophy and in human and cognitive sciences. . . . From Searle's
view, there are only five illocutionary points that speakers can achieve on propositions in
an utterance, namely: the assertive, commissive, directive, declaratory and expressive
illocutionary points. Speakers achieve the assertive point when they represent how things
 are in the world, the commissive point when they commit themselves to doing something,
the directive point when they make an attempt to get hearers to do something, the
declaratory point when they do things in the world at the moment of the utterance solely
by virtue of saying that they do and the expressive point when they express their attitudes
about objects and facts of the world.

"This typology of possible illocutionary points enabled Searle to improve Austin's

classification of performative verbs and to proceed to a reasoned classification of
illocutionary forces of utterances which is not as language-dependent as that of Austin."
(Daniel Vanderkeven and Susumu Kubo, "Introduction." Essays in Speech Act Theory.
John Benjamins, 2002)

Speech-Act Theory and Literary Criticism

"Since 1970 speech-act theory has influenced in conspicuous and varied ways the
practice of literary criticism. When applied to the analysis of direct discourse by a
character within a literary work, it provides a systematic but sometimes cumbersome
framework for identifying the unspoken presuppositions, implications, and effects of
speech acts which competent readers and critics have always taken into account, subtly
though unsystematically. (See discourse analysis.) Speech-act theory has also been used
in a more radical way, however, as a model on which to recast the theory of literature in
general, and especially the theory of prose narratives. What the author of a fictional
work--or else what the author's invented narrator--narrates is held to constitute a
'pretended' set of assertions, which are intended by the author, and understood by the
competent reader, to be free from a speaker's ordinary commitment to the truth of what
he or she asserts. Within the frame of the fictional world that the narrative thus sets up,
however, the utterances of the fictional characters--whether these are assertions or
promises or marital vows--are held to be responsible to ordinary illocutionary
commitments."
(M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 8th ed.
Wadsworth, 2005)

Criticisms of Speech-Act Theory

"Although Searle's theory of speech acts has had a tremendous influence on functional
aspects of pragmatic theory, it has also received very strong criticism. According to
[M.I.] Geis (1995), not only Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) but also many other
scholars based their work principally on their intuitions, focusing exclusively on
sentences isolated from the context where they might be used. In this sense, one of the
most important issues that some researchers have argued against Searle's (1976)
suggested typology refers to the fact that the illocutionary force of a concrete speech act
cannot take the form of a sentence as Searle considered it. Thus, Trosborg (1995) claims
that the sentence is a grammatical unit within the formal system of language, whereas the
speech act involves a communicative function."
(Alicia Martnez Flor and Esther Us-Juan, "Pragmatics and Speech Act Performance."
Speech Act Performance: Theoretical, Empirical and Methodological Issues. John
Benjamins, 2010)

"In speech act theory, the hearer is seen as playing a passive role. The illocutionary
force of a particular utterance is determined with regard to the linguistic form of the
utterance and also introspection as to whether the necessary felicity conditions--not least
 in relation to the speaker's beliefs and feelings--are fulfilled. Interactional aspects are,
thus, neglected. However, conversation is not just a mere chain of independent
illocutionary forces--rather, speech acts are related to other speech acts with a wider
discourse context. Speech act theory, in that it does not consider the function played by
utterances in driving conversation is, therefore, insufficient in accounting for what
actually happens in conversation."
(Anne Barron, Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things
With Words in a Study Abroad Context. John Benjamins, 2003)

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Speech-act theory
Definition:

In linguistics, an utterance defined in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect it has on a
listener.

Speech-act theory, as introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (How to Do Things With
Words, 1962) and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle, considers the types of
acts that utterances can be said to perform:

Locutionary Acts
Illocutionary Acts
Perlocutionary Acts

See Examples and Observations, below. Also see:

Appropriateness (Communication)
Conversation Analysis
 Conversational Implicature
Cooperative Principle
Direct Speech
Discourse Analysis
Echo Utterance
Felicity Conditions
Indirectness
Pragmatic Competence
Present-Day English (PDE)
Signifying
Speech-Act Adverb
Speech-Act Theory

Examples and Observations:

"[I]n order to explain what can go wrong with statements we cannot just concentrate on
the proposition involved (whatever that is) as has been done traditionally. We must
consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued--the total speech-act--if we
are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterances, and how each can
go wrong. So the total speech act in the total speech situation is emerging from logic
piecemeal as important in special cases: and thus we are assimilating the supposed
constative utterance to the perfomative."
(J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words, 2nd ed., ed. by J. O. Urmson and Marina
Sbis. Harvard University Press, 1975)

Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

"We use the term speech act to describe actions such as 'requesting,' 'commanding,'
'questioning,' or 'informing.' We can define a speech act as the action performed by a
speaker with an utterance. If you say, I'll be there at six, you are not just speaking, you
seem to be performing the speech act of 'promising.'

"When an interrogative structure such as Did you . . .? Are they . . .? or Can we . . .? is

used with the function of a question, it is described as a direct speech act. For example,
when we don't know something and we ask someone to provide the information, we
usually produce a direct speech act such as Can you ride a bicycle?

"Compare that utterance with Can you pass the salt? [Here] we are not really asking a
question about someone's ability. In fact, we don't normally use this structure as a
question at all. . . . This is an example of an indirect speech act."
(George Yule, The Study of Language. Cambridge University Press, 2006)
Categories and Families of Speech Acts
"Several categories of speech acts have been proposed, viz. directives (speakers try to get
their listeners to do something, e.g. begging, commanding, requesting), commissives
(speakers commit themselves to a future course of action, e.g. promising, guaranteeing),
expressives (speakers express their feelings, e.g. apologizing, welcoming, sympathizing),
declarations (the speaker's utterance brings about a new external situation, e.g.
christening, marrying, resigning) . . .."
(David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics. Blackwell, 1997)

"Austin (1962: Lecture l2) suggests that it is possible to distinguish a number of broad
 classes or families of speech acts, classified according to their illocutionary force. He
suggests the following classes:

- Verdictives, typified by the giving of a verdict, estimate, reckoning, or appraisal; giving

a finding.
- Excersitives, the exercising of powers, rights or influence, exemplified by voting,
ordering, urging, advising, warning, etc.
- Commissives, typified by promising or otherwise undertaking (Austin 1962: 151-2):
'they commit you to do something, but include also declarations or announcements of
intention, which are not promises, and also rather vague things which we might call
espousals, as for example, 'siding with.'
- Behavitives, which have to do with social behaviour and attitudes, for example,
apologising, congratulating, commending, condoling, cursing and challenging.
- Expositives, which make it clear how our utterances fit into the course of an argument
or conversation--how we are using words. In a way these might be classed as
metalinguistic, as part of the language we are using about language. Examples are I reply;
I argue; I concede; I illustrate; I assume; I postulate.

Austin is quite clear that there are many marginal cases, and many instances of overlap,
and a very large body of research exists as a result of people's efforts to arrive at more
precise classifications . . .."
(Kirsten Malmkjaer, "Speech-Act Theory." The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia, 3rd
ed., edited by K. Malmkjaer. Routledge, 2010)

Rhetoric and Speech Acts

"Rhetoricians, adhering to a speech act theory approach, need to study more than the
words uttered during a communication transaction. Indeed, the assumptions, norms, roles,
and stances taken by the speaker and listener need to be thoroughly described and
categorized. Such an undertaking is a viable and necessary direction for the rhetorician
wishing to have a firm understanding and appreciation of discourse."
(James L. Golden, The Rhetoric of Western Thought, 8th ed. Kendall Hunt, 2003)

Also Known As: illocutionary act

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