Linguistic Analysis of Wordsworth's Poetry

Speech act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin 's discovery of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating. Contents * 1 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts * 2 Illocutionary acts * 2.1 Classifying illocutionary speech acts * 3 Indirect speech acts * 3.1 John Searle 's theory of "indirect speech acts" * 3.2 Analysis using Searle 's theory * 4 History * 5 In language development * 6 In computer science * 6.1 Uses in technology * 6.2 In multiagent universes * 6.3 Other uses in technology * 7 Notes * 8 See also * 9 Bibliography * 10 External links |
Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts
Speech acts can be analysed on three levels: A locutionary act, the performance of an utterance: the actual utterance and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts corresponding to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance; an illocutionary act: the pragmatic 'illocutionary force ' of the utterance, thus its intended significance as a socially valid verbal action (see below); and in certain cases a further perlocutionary act: its actual effect, such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something, whether intended or not (Austin 1962).
Illocutionary acts
The concept of an illocutionary act is central to the concept of a speech act. Although there are numerous opinions regarding how to define 'illocutionary acts ', there are some kinds of acts which are widely accepted as illocutionary, as for example promising, ordering someone, and bequeathing.
Following the usage of, for example, John R. Searle, "speech act" is

Bibliography: Following the usage of, for example, John R. Searle, "speech act" is often meant to refer just to the same thing as the term illocutionary act, which John L. Austin had originally introduced in How to Do Things with Words (published posthumously in 1962). Classifying illocutionary speech acts Searle (1975)[1] has set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts: