Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

A-Z 563
numerous, Austin hoped that it might be possible to arrive at some broad classes of
speech act under which large numbers of more delicately distinguished speech acts might
fall. To arrive at these broad classes, he distinguished among a number of illocutionary
forces that a speech act might have.
The illocutionary force of an utterance is distinguished from its locution and from its
perlocutionary effect as follows.
Every time we direct language at some audience, we perform three simultaneous acts:
a locutionary act, an illocutionary act, and a perlocutionary act.
To perform a locutionary act is to say something in what Austin (1962, p. 94) calls
‘the full normal sense’. It includes:
1 The phonic act: uttering noises, phones.
2 The phatic act: uttering noises as belonging to a certain vocabulary and conforming to
a certain grammar, that is, as being part of a certain language. The noises seen from
this perspective are called phemes.
3 The rhetic act: using these noises with a certain sense and reference (see
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, pp. 332–3). The noises seen from this perspective
are called rhemes.
These three simultaneous acts make up the locutionary act. However, each time one
performs a locutionary act, one is also thereby performing some illocutionary act, such
as stating, promising, warning, betting, etc. If a hearer, through his or her knowledge of
the conventions of the language, grasps what one is doing, there is uptake on his or her
part of the illocutionary force of the utterance. The effect the illocutionary act has on the
hearer is called the perlocutionary act, such as persuading, deterring, surprising,
misleading, or convincing. Perlocutionary acts are performed by saying something rather
than in saying it.
Austin (1962, Lecture 12) suggests that it is possible to distinguish a number of broad
classes or families of speech acts, classified according to their illocutionary force. He
suggests the following classes:
1 Verdictives typified by the giving of a verdict, estimate, reckoning or appraisal; giving
a finding.
2 Excersitives: the exercising of powers, rights or influence, exemplified by voting,
ordering, urging, advising, warning, etc.
3 Commissives, typified by promising or otherwise undertaking (ibid., pp. 151–2): ‘they
commit you to doing something, but include also declarations or announcements of
intention, which are not promises, and also rather vague things which we might call
espousals, as for example, siding with’.
4 Behavitives, which have to do with social behaviour and attitudes, for example
apologizing, congratulating, commending, condoling, cursing, and challenging.
5 Expositives, which make it clear how our utterances fit into the course of an argument
or conversation—how we are using words. In a way, these might be classed as
metalinguistic, as part of the language we are using about language. Examples are I
reply; I argue; I concede; I illustrate; I assume; I postulate.
Austin is quite clear that there are many marginal cases, and many instances of overlap,
and a very large body of research exists as a result of people’s efforts to arrive at more