Education
Illocutionary Acts
Illocutionary acts are a concept in the philosophy of language and linguistics, introduced by J.L. Austin in his theory of speech acts. An illocutionary act is the action intended by a speaker in uttering a linguistic expression. It’s what the speaker is doing by saying something.
There are five main types of illocutionary acts:
- Assertives: Statements that commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition (e.g., stating, claiming, reporting).
- Directives: Attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something (e.g., ordering, requesting, suggesting).
- Commissives: Acts that commit the speaker to some future action (e.g., promising, threatening, offering).
- Expressives: Expressions of the speaker’s psychological state or attitude (e.g., thanking, apologizing, congratulating).
- Declarations: Utterances that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration (e.g., pronouncing someone guilty, naming a ship).
Understanding illocutionary acts is crucial in pragmatics and discourse analysis, as it helps in interpreting the intended meaning behind utterances, which can often differ from their literal meaning.