J. R. Searle’s Taxonomy of Illocutionary Speech Acts

Austin's taxonomy of speech acts was inherited by John R. Searle, Austin's pupil at Oxford and subsequently an influential exponent of speech act theory which he developed as a theory of the constitutive rules for performing illocutionary acts, i.e., the rules that tell what performing (successfully) an illocutionary act (with certain illocutionary force and certain propositional content) consists in [11]. The rules are classified as:

• propositional content rules, which put conditions on the propositional content of some illocutionary acts;

• preparatory rules, which tell what the speaker will imply in the performance of the illocutionary acts;

• sincerity rules, that tell what psychological state the speaker expresses to be in;

• essential rules, which tell us what the action consists in essentially.

Let's return to our case of promising. According to Searle's analysis, for an utterance by S to H to count as a promise must meet the following conditions:

• the propositional content represents some future action A by S;

• H prefers S's doing A to her not doing it, and S believes that to be so; and it is not obvious both to S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events;

• S intends to do A;

• promising counts as the undertaking of an obligation of S to do A.

If someone, then, wants to make a (felicitous) promise he must meet these conventional conditions. The study of the these conventional conditions for illocutionary acts, together with the study of the their correct taxonomy constitutes the core of speech act theory.

Based on their essential conditions, and attending to the minimal purpose or intention of the speaker in performing an illocutionary act, Searle proposes a taxonomy of illocutionary speech acts into five mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes [8]:

• Representatives or assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed propositional content. Here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report, etc. For example, asserting: "It's raining."

• Directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, to make him do something (e.g. request, command, advice), using such verbs as: ask, beg, challenge, dare, invite, insist, etc. Here the speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfill what is represented by the propositional content; for example, commanding: "Close the door!", “Go!”

• Commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action (e.g. promises, oaths) with the help of such verbs as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake, etc. Here the speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content; for example, promising: "I'll finish the paper by tomorrow."

• Expressives = speech acts that expresses on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition or state of affairs (e.g. congratulations, excuses, thanks), using such verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome, etc. Here the speaker simply expresses the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act: "I'm glad it's raining!"

• Declaratives = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife. Here the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by making the utterance: “I now pronounce you man and wife”, “I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you be dead”, "I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth."