Speech Acts

Direct and indirect speech acts

 Speech Acts
• Speech Events may also include Speech Acts.
J.L Austin observed that ‘many utterances do
not communicate information, but are
equivalent to actions, e.g.
• I apologise…’
• I promise….’
• ‘I will….’ (at a wedding’
• ‘I name this ship….’
 Performatives

• Austin called such utterances performatives, which he

saw as distinct from statements that convey
information (constatives).

I christen/name this ship The Queen Elisabeth

(performative).
Maurice Garin won the Tour de France in 1903
(constative)

• Performatives cannot be true or false.

 Explict vs implicit performatives
• Explicit performatives are performative utterances
that contain a performative verb that makes explicit
what kind of act is being performed.

I promise to come to your talk tomorrow afternoon.

• implicit performatives are performative utterances in

which there is no such verb.

I’ll come to your talk tomorrow afternoon.

 Common explicit performatives
Other common Speech Acts are:

• apology,
• promise,
• agreement
• acceptance
• advice
• suggestion
• warning
• requests
• betting
• to second
• to vote
• to abstain
Searle’s Five Categories of Speech Acts
Representatives: the speaker is committed in varying degrees
to the truth of a proposition:
e.g. ‘affirm’, ‘believe,’ ‘conclude’, ‘report’;

I think the Berlin Wall came down in 1989

Directives: the speaker tries to do something

e.g. ‘ask’, ‘challenge’, ‘command’, ‘request’.

Pass me the towel, will you?

Commissives: the speaker is committed in varying
degrees, to a certain course of action,
e.g. ‘bet’, ‘guarantee,’ ‘pledge’, ‘promise’ ‘swear’.
That’s the last time I’ll waste my money on so-
called bargains
Expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude
about a state of affairs,
e.g., ‘apologise’, ‘deplore’, ‘thank’, ‘welcome’-
Well done, Elisabeth!
• Declarations: the speaker alters the status
quo by making the utterance,

• e.g., I resign, you’re offside’, ‘I name this child’,

‘you’re nicked’, ‘you’re busted, punk.’
 The three stages of a (successful) speech act

• the locutionary act or the locution: the act of

communication by the production of an
utterance;
• the illocutionary act or illocution: in other words,
that is the message that is transmitted, which
may not always correspond to the literal meaning
of the words;
• the perlocutionary act: that is the particular
effect of the utterance, which does not
necessarily correspond to the locutionary act.
 ‘And that is enough for today…’
• Locutionary act  (and that is enough for
today)
•
• Illocutionary act  ( students make
preparations to quit the room)
•
• Perloctionary act (you realise that a
change has occurred)
 Felicity conditions
• the person performing the speech act has to have authority to do so –
only certain people are authorised to perform certain speech acts;
the speech act has to be performed in the appropriate manner
(sometimes this involves respecting precise wording), this can also include
the demeanour
• sincerity conditions have to be present: the speech act must be
performed in a sincere manner: verbs such as promise, vow, or guarantee
are only valid if they are uttered sincerely.

So a speech act like ‘and that is enough for today’ can only be taken as a
declaration that the lesson has ended if:
• I have the authority to perform the speech act;
• If the hearers are in a position to perform the required action;
• And if there is sincerity.
• If any of these conditions is lacking, then the hearers will deduce that they
have to make a different interpretation of the speech act.
 Indirect Speech Acts
• For many reasons, perhaps because we are
abiding by the politeness principle, for
example, and we don’t wish to impose – we
may ask for something to be done indirectly.
‘Can you pass the salt?’ is not really a
question, but a directive; and answer of ‘yes’,
without an attempt to pass it would be totally
inappropriate and would violate the maximum
of relevance.
 Sentence type and illocutionary force
• The three basic sentence types (declarative,
interrogative, imperative) are typically
associated with the three basic illocutionary
forces:
• Declarative: asserting/ stating;
• Interrogative: asking/questioning;
• imperative: ordering/requesting.
 Difference between direct and indirect
speech acts
• A direct match between a sentence type and an illocutionary force,
equals a direct speech act.
• In addition, explicit performatives, which happen to be in the
declarative form, are also taken to be direct speech acts, because
they have their illocutionary force explicitly named by the
performative verb in the main part of the sentence.

• If there is no direct relationship between a sentence type and an

illocutionary force, it indicates an indirect speech act.

• When an explicit performative is used to make a request it

functions as a direct speech act; the same is the case when an
imperative is employed. By comparison, when an interrogative is
used to make a request, we have an indirect speech act.
 From Speech Act to Gradation of Indirect
Speech Act

• Shut the door!

• I’d be grateful, if you’d shut the door.
• Could you shut the door?
• It’d help to have the door shut.
• It’s getting cold in here. Shall we keep out the
draught?
• Now, Jane, what have you forgotten to do? Brrr!