Several speech act theorists, including Austin himself,
make use of the notion of an illocutionary force. In Austin's
original account, the notion remains rather unclear. Some followers of Austin,
such as David Holdcroft, view
illocutionary force as the property of an utterance to be made with the intention
to perform a certain illocutionary act rather than as the successful
performance of the act (which is supposed to further require the
appropriateness of certain circumstances). According to this conception, the utterance
of "I bet you five pounds that it will rain" may well have an
illocutionary force even if the addressee doesn't hear it. However, Bach and
Harnish assume illocutionary force just in case this or that illocutionary act
is actually (successfully) performed. According to this conception, the
addressee must have heard and understood that the speaker intends to make a bet
with them in order for the utterance to have 'illocutionary force'.
If we adopt the notion of illocutionary force as an
aspect of meaning, then it appears that the (intended) 'force' of certain
sentences, or utterances, is not quite obvious. If someone says, "It sure
is cold in here", there are several different illocutionary acts that
might be aimed at by the utterance. The utterer might intend to describe the
room, in which case the illocutionary force would be that of 'describing'. But
she might also intend to criticise someone who should have kept the room warm.
Or it might be meant as a request to someone to close the window. These forces
may be interrelated: it may be by way of stating that the temperature is too
cold that one criticises someone else. Such a performance of an illocutionary
act by means of the performance of another is referred to as an indirect speech
act.
