Many define the term "illocutionary act" with
reference to examples, saying for example that any speech act
(like stating, asking, commanding, promising, and so on) is an illocutionary
act. This approach has generally 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 emphasised that Austin introduced the illocutionary act
by means of a contrast with other kinds of acts or aspects of acting: 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. Austin (1975: p.123) eventually abandoned the "in
saying" / "by saying" test.
According to the conception adopted by Bach and Harnish in
'Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts' (1979), an illocutionary act is an
attempt to communicate, which they analyse as the expression of an attitude.
Another conception of an illocutionary act goes back to Schiffer's book
'Meaning' (1972: p.103), in which the illocutionary act is represented as just
the act of meaning something.
Based on their
essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the
speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle (1975) proposes a taxonomy
of illocutionary acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive
classes:
·
Representative or assertive.
The speaker becomes committed to the truth of the propositional content.
·
Directive. The
speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is
represented by the propositional content.
·
Commissive. The
speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional
content.
·
Expressive. The
speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act.
·
Declarative. The
speaker performs an action just representing herself as performing that action.
See also:
Speech Acts Theory
Locutionary, Illocutionary, Perlocutionary Speech Acts
Speech Acts Classifications
Felicity Condition
Indirect Speech Acts
Locutionary, Illocutionary, Perlocutionary Speech Acts
Speech Acts Classifications
Felicity Condition
Indirect Speech Acts
