3. 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

Definition

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].