In linguistics, a speech act is an utterance defined in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect it

has on a listener. Essentially, it is the action that the speaker hopes to provoke in his or her
audience. Speech acts might be requests, warnings, promises, apologies, greetings, or any number
of declarations. As you might imagine, speech acts are an important part of communication.

Speech-Act Theory

Speech-act theory is a subfield of pragmatics. This area of study is concerned with the ways in
which words can be used not only to present information but also to carry out actions. It is used in
linguistics, philosophy, psychology, legal and literary theories, and even the development of
artificial intelligence.

Speech-act theory was introduced in 1975 by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin in "How to Do
Things with Words" and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle. It considers three
levels or components of utterances:

• locutionary acts (the making of a meaningful statement, saying something that a hearer
understands),
• illocutionary acts (saying something with a purpose, such as to inform), and perlocutionary
acts (saying something that causes someone to act).
• Illocutionary speech acts can also be broken down into different families, grouped together by
their intent of usage.

One of the most revolutionary ideas in the development of linguistics as a discipline has been the
departure from a purely linguistic approach towards a pragmatic and functional study of language.

The emphasis of the Speech Act Theory is on the “act” or the function of a linguistic expression
and not the grapheme, phoneme, morpheme or lexeme. It suggests a departure from linguistic
analysis based on words and sentences and their semantic meaning to the meaning of “utterances”
that originates from the function they fulfil, the purpose they serve or the intention with which they
are used.

The theory is based on and brings to the forefront important facts about language:

• that language and its components do not have an intrinsic meaning or validity, but that they
are conventions that are agreed upon by a linguistic community that:
• the meanings are assigned to words or linguistic expressions;
• The conventions for assigning meaning to sounds and graphemes are arbitrary and are not
based on any scientific reason or divine source.
• Further, this theory makes certain important assertions about the nature of language, and which
form the fundamental premises of this and other theories that build on it:
• Surely, we admit that the same linguistic expression can have varied uses and hence different
meaning in different situations and contexts, depending on how they are used;
• Over and above the semantic meaning of an expression, there is a certain pragmatic meaning
that an expression or utterance assumes by virtue of the intention with which it is used. In other
words, the pragmatic meaning is that meaning that an expression derives by the way it is used
or what it is used to convey.

To elucidate this point, let us take the example of a simple utterance – “Wow!” or “Great job!” At
the face of it, these expressions have a certain semantic meaning which we are familiar with; they
are used to fulfil the function of praising or congratulating someone. However, the very same
words, when used with sarcasm and in a situation that calls for contempt and disapproval, are used
to criticize, castigate and demean the hearer. In another situation, the same linguistic instruments
may be used to mock and ridicule the listener. We see, therefore, that apart from the hitherto agreed
upon semantic meaning of the words have only a partial role to play in the overall meaning (which
we now call pragmatic) in terms of the function these expressions fulfil.

The words highlighted in the above explanation are what are known as Speech Acts! They are acts
we perform when we say something. They are acts that we perform while and in using language!
Praising, congratulating, criticizing, castigating, demeaning, mocking and ridiculing are few of the
innumerable “acts” we can perform with the help of language. There is so much we can do with
language – the list is endless and limitless.

In the field of linguistics and communication, it forms the basis of discourse analysis from the
point of understanding what writers and speakers do or try to achieve with their writings and
speeches. In the field of psychology, various theories of interpersonal communication have
become possible with the help of the understanding of speech acts. Finally, from a philosophical
perspective, the theory has formed the basis for language philosophy and borders with esoteric
studies of mysticism.
An important finding of the speech act theory is that the meaning of the word is not intrinsic to
it, but merely a loose connection between form and content. Even the arbitrary meanings assigned
to linguistic forms are not always the same, and the meaning depends on and is assumed only when
it is used for and towards a certain communicative function. Further, the theory lends itself to the
philosophical questions as to how language can be understood universally even by members of the
same linguistic group, when it can be interpreted differently, especially for expressions that mean
and refer to more abstract ideas. How can the intended function and intention be correctly received
by the hearer or reader? Doesn’t language accord the same level of reality to all nouns, be they
tangible, intangible or abstract? And in that sense, isn’t language misleading us to believe in the
validity and the reality of concepts and ideas to be the same as tangible objects?

These ideas have led many thinkers in the past to be sceptical about language, and they have
wondered whether language is a reliable instrument of communication at all?

The Speech Act theory is an analysis of language at the meta-level, which means, we are studying
language, i.e., language is the object of our analysis and observation. Ironically, in order to
examine or evaluate language, one must make use of language itself as the medium of analysis!
Language becomes both the object as well as the instrument of observation! The observer is the
observed!

Continuing with the theory of speech acts, we speak of certain aspects of speech. Karl Bühler, a
famous German philosopher, in his explication of the Organnon Model of language has explained
that “language is an instrument with which objectives can be achieved and that the instrument is
not separate from the speakers and listeners, or writers and readers, in performing communicative
acts.”

An analysis of language as an instrument for communicative functions reveals that every speech
comprises the following elements:

1. the utterance per se – the sounds, words, phrases or sentences that are uttered – [we do not
necessarily talk of sentences in this theory, in contrast to traditional grammars – here every
utterance even those without a proper sentence structure – counts as an utterance as long as it
serves a communicative purpose and is, in that sense, a communicative instrument].
2. the communicative acts or functions that are performed with the help of the utterance; these
are of three kinds:

a. locutionary acts: the act of uttering words, or saying something

b. illocutionary acts: the intention, or intended purpose in uttering the words

c. perlocutionary acts: the impact the uttered words have on the recipient, listener or reader.

(1) “You’ll see what I can do.”

Let us now analyze the utterance by enlisting the various acts performed by the speaker. These
are represented by verbs highlighted below:

We can imagine that in uttering the words, the speaker screamed or yelled at the listener in order
to warn and threaten her or him. In doing so, the speaker indirectly and perhaps unintentionally
scares the listener or even coerces her / him into falling in line.

In a different context, say given the background of a Hollywood movie when the heroine finds
herself in a dire situation and the hero has given up and asserts that that there is nothing more to
be done, the same utterance (1) above can have completely different communicative functions:

The heroine evidently mutters to herself, perhaps refusing to give up, and challenging destiny,
and thereby reassures herself and perhaps the hero too.
Having understood the different kinds of acts that we perform by way of uttering something, we
can now move on to analyze the central aspect of the theory. It must be noted that the central act
or the main acts performed during the utterance are the illocutionary acts. These are more potent
and relevant than the perlocutionary ones. All other acts are related to the illocutionary. The
illocutionary force is therefore the focal point of the speech act theory and discourse analysis.

Illocutionary acts are categorised in several ways by different grammarians and linguists. The most
common classification is as below:

1. Declarations: Expressions that change the word by the very utterance – baptize, christen,
marry someone, declare war etc.

2. Representations or constative acts: Stating facts or what one believes to be true: e.g.
describing, claiming, hypothesizing, insisting, predicting.

3. Commissives: Committing oneself to future action; e.g. promising, offering, threatening,

4. Directives: Telling the listener to do something; e.g. commanding, requesting, inviting,

5. Expressives: Stating what one feels; e.g. apologizing, praising, congratulating, deploring,
regretting.

Another traditional classification of illocutionary acts as taught in many schools is also the
classification of sentence types as given below:

1. Interrogative sentences – ones that ask questions.

2. Declarative or assertive sentences (to be distinguished from the declarations of the previous
categorization) – ones that state facts or describe or assert reality or fantasy (akin to the constative
or representative acts in the aforementioned section)

3. Exclamatory sentences – those that are an expression of surprise, delight, pain or other
extreme emotion.
4. Imperative sentences – ones that ask, direct or instruct some to do something (akin to
directives above). (Pal and Katyal 2013, 2-6)

The focus of these classifications is varied. Whereas the first classification is from the pragmatic
perspective, the second is really from the structural and grammarian’s perspective. These two
classifications have certain differences and at the same time certain overlaps. Clearly, whereas the
declarations are not to be confused with the “declarative or assertive” sentences, the
representations and constatives are largely akin to them. Similarly, the “imperatives” are clearly
analogous with the “directives” of the first classification. The “expressives” of the first
classification align well with the “exclamatory” sentence types of the second classification. The
first classification lacks the “interrogative” but has an additional “commissive” category.

Irrespective of the difference in approach and categorization, what is important is to understand