Speech act theory.

 A speech act is a minimal functional unit in human communication. Just as a word  is the smallest free form found in language and a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning, the basic unit of communication is a speech act (the speech act of apology, refusal).

Speech act theory attempts to explain how speakers use language to accomplish intended actions and how hearers infer intended meaning form what is said.  Although speech act studies are now considered a sub-discipline of cross-cultural pragmatics, they actually take their origin in the philosophy of language. Philosophers like John Austin (1962), Paul Grice (1957), and John Searle (1965, 1969, 1975) offered basic insight into this new theory of linguistic communication based on the assumption that “the minimal units of human communication are not linguistic expressions, but rather the performance of certain kinds of acts, such as making statements, asking questions, giving directions, apologizing, thanking, and so on” (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989, p.2).

According to John Austin's theory (1962), what we say has three kinds of meaning:

1.      propositional meaning (locutionary meaning) - the literal meaning of what is said     e.g.  It's hot in here.

2.      illocutionary meaning - the social function of what is said                           

'It's hot in here'   could be:  

- an indirect request for someone to open the window                                                            

- an indirect refusal to close the window because someone is cold                                          

- a complaint  (expressed emphatically) 

3.      perlocutionary meaning - the effect of what is said 

 'It's hot in here' could result in someone opening the windows.

Locutionary Act: Is the basic act of speaking, made up of three sub acts.

Phonic – utterance inscription, noises. Phoneme /s/

Phatic – act of comprising linguistic expression. Intentionally produced words in a syntactic order. /sta:p/

Rhetic – act of contextualizing the utterance inscription. Syntactic arrangement of words with certain intentions in certain contexts in certain messages.

Illocutionary Act: Is the speaker’s intention. What is said has a purpose in mind. An utterance either verbal or written with the purpose in mind to fulfill an intention or accomplish an action. Performing an illocutionary act means issuing an utterance that carries an illocutionary force/point. Examples of illocutionary forces would be accusing, promising, naming, ordering. The meaning of a locutionary utterance has a potential of different illocutionary forces.

The gun is loaded.

This statement could have the intention of creating threat, or be a warning or simply be an explanation.

This is called the Illocutionary Act Potential.

Perlocutionary Act: act by which the illocution produces a certain effect in or exerts a certain influence on the addressee. The perloctionary act represents a consequence of the speaker’s utterance. The speaker does not have full control over the perlocutionary effect though (!). The actual influence that is realized is not always predictable. A speaker may have control over illocutionary force in the utterance “open the safe now or else!” but the speaker can not control what the perlocutionary effect will be. The addressee could open the safe or the addressee could have a heart attack.