Definition. 2. Approaches to defining “illocutionary act”

Illocutionary Act

Issues Discussed:

1. Definition

2. Approaches to defining “illocutionary act”

3. J. R. Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary speech acts

4. Illocutionary force

5. Illocutionary force indicating devices

6. Illocutionary negations

Illocutionary act is a term in linguistics introduced by John L. Austin in investigations concerning what he calls 'performative' and 'constative utterances'. According to Austin's original exposition in “ How to Do Things with Words ”, an illocutionary act is an act

· for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that the act is performed (Austin speaks of the 'securing of uptake');

· the performance of which involves the production of what Austin calls 'conventional consequences' as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations.

The idea of an "illocutionary act" can be captured by emphasizing that " by saying something, we do something ", as when someone orders someone else to go by saying "Go!", or when a minister joins two people in marriage saying: " I now pronounce you husband and wife. " In order to successfully perform a promise I must make clear to my audience that the promise occurs, and undertake an obligation to do the promised thing: hence promising is an illocutionary act in the present sense.

Further examples:

^ Greeting (in saying, "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing ("Sorry for that!"), describing something ("It is snowing"), asking a question ("Is it snowing?"), making a request and giving an order ("Could you pass the salt?" and "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a promise ("I promise I'll give it back") are typical examples of "speech acts" or "illocutionary acts".

^ In saying "Watch out, the ground is slippery", Mary performs the speech act of warning Peter to be careful.

^ In saying "I will try my best to be at home for dinner", Peter performs the speech act of promising to be at home in time.

^ In saying "Ladies and gentlemen, please give me your attention", Mary requests the audience to be quiet.

^ In saying "Race with me to that building over there!", Peter challenges Mary.

Approaches to Defining "Illocutionary Act"

Many define the term "illocutionary act" with reference to examples, saying for instance that any speech act like stating, asking, commanding, promising, and so on is an illocutionary act. However, this example-based approach at definition generally has failed to give any useful hints about what traits and elements make up an illocutionary act - that is, what defines such an act.

It is also often emphasized that Austin introduced the illocutionary act by means of a contrast with other kinds of acts: the illocutionary act, he says, is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a locutionary act, the act of saying something, and also contrasted with a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something. But it may be misleading to distinguish between 'kinds' of acts, for these are not separate categories of speech, but instead describe different levels on which speech might work. Any one particular speech event may have any combination of locutionary, illocutionary or perlocutionary effects.

Still another conception of an illocutionary act goes back to Stephen Schiffer's famous book “Meaning” (1972), in which the illocutionary act is represented as just the act of meaning something [7, p. 103].

According to the conception Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish adopt in “ Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts” (1979), an illocutionary act is an attempt to communicate, which they again analyze as the expressing of an attitude [3].

According to a widespread opinion, an adequate and useful account of "illocutionary acts" has been provided by John R. Searle [9, 11]. In recent years, however, it has repeatedly been doubted whether Searle's account is well-founded [4, 5, 12].

J. R. Searle’s Taxonomy of Illocutionary Speech Acts

Austin's taxonomy of speech acts was inherited by John R. Searle, Austin's pupil at Oxford and subsequently an influential exponent of speech act theory which he developed as a theory of the constitutive rules for performing illocutionary acts, i.e., the rules that tell what performing (successfully) an illocutionary act (with certain illocutionary force and certain propositional content) consists in [11]. The rules are classified as:

X propositional content rules, which put conditions on the propositional content of some illocutionary acts;

X preparatory rules, which tell what the speaker will imply in the performance of the illocutionary acts;

X sincerity rules, that tell what psychological state the speaker expresses to be in;

X essential rules, which tell us what the action consists in essentially.

Let's return to our case of promising. According to Searle's analysis, for an utterance by S to H to count as a promise must meet the following conditions:

· the propositional content represents some future action A by S;

· H prefers S 's doing A to her not doing it, and S believes that to be so; and it is not obvious both to S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events;

· S intends to do A;

· promising counts as the undertaking of an obligation of S to do A.

If someone, then, wants to make a (felicitous) promise he must meet these conventional conditions. The study of the these conventional conditions for illocutionary acts, together with the study of the their correct taxonomy constitutes the core of speech act theory.

Based on their essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle proposes a taxonomy of illocutionary speech acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes [8]:

^ Representatives or assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed propositional content. Here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report, etc. For example, asserting: "It's raining."

^ Directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, to make him do something (e.g. request, command, advice), using such verbs as: ask, beg, challenge, dare, invite, insist, etc. Here the speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is represented by the propositional content; for example, commanding: "Close the door!", “Go!”

^ Commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action (e.g. promises, oaths) with the help of such verbs as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake, etc. Here the speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content; for example, promising: "I'll finish the paper by tomorrow."

^ Expressives = speech acts that expresses on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition or state of affairs (e.g. congratulations, excuses, thanks), using such verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome, etc. Here the speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act: "I'm glad it's raining!"

^ Declarative s = 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. Here the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by making the utterance: “I now pronounce you man and wife”, “I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you be dead”, "I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth."

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