Concept
of Speech Act
Dylgjeri (2017: 21-22)
people perform various
actions through the
use of words
and when utterances
are made, a particular act is performed; this is called Speech act. The
Speech Acts theory is also described as “How to Do Things with Words Theory”
since it has its roots in the work of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969). They are
able to provide a shift from constative notion
to performative notion
in the empirical
verifiability of signs;
that is, the truthfulness of signs to what an
expression does when it is uttered.
Speech acts
according to Austin
(1962) fall into
three classes, which
are: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. A locutionary
act is an act of saying something;
that is, the
act of producing
an utterance. Illocutionary
acts are the
core of any theory
of speech acts.
The perculotionary act
is the effect
or influence on the
feelings, thoughts or actions of
the listener/hearer unlike
locutionary acts.
Perlocutionary acts could
be inspiring, persuading,
consoling, promising, encouraging etc. It brings about an effect
upon the beliefs, attitudes or behaviours of the addressee.
Searle (1969) improves on
Austin’s (1962) Speech Act theory by distinguishing between two
types of speech
acts: Direct and
Indirect Speech Acts.
Searle (1969) categorizes the
illocutionary act into five classes:
- Assertives: These are statements that describe a state of affairs in the world which could be true or false. They commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition.
- Directives: These are statements that compel or make another person’s action fit the propositional element. It is usually used to give order thereby causing the hearer to take a particular action, request, command or advice.
- Commisives: These statements commit the speaker to certain future action. It could be in the form of a promise.
- Expressives: The purpose of expressive statements is to express sincerity of the speech act like excuses and sympathy.
- Declaratives: These statements are used to say something and make it so, such as pronouncing someone guilty and declaring a war.
The application
of the Speech
Act theory in
the analysis will
allow in depth research into the
linguistic features that have been explored by the speaker to inculcate meaning
into the formal linguistic properties of the selected speech.
