Speech Act Theory

Speech act theory, most commonly associated with the work of John Searle, explains how messages express speakers' intentions. Traditionally, meaning was viewed as the referents of words and grammar, but speech act theory widens the concept to include the expressed intentions behind utterances. This line of work provides the basis for a sufficiently complex, sophisticated, and realistic view of communication, action, and meaning. This entry outlines a brief history of the theory, summarizes its chief concepts and ideas, and provides examples of its application in the field of communication.

Speech act theory hails most directly from ordinary language philosophy, particularly the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein as expressed in his 1953 two-volume work Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein believed that meaning in language derives from the way in which it is actually used in concrete situations. Clearly embedded in the pragmatic tradition, this idea captures the importance of how people use language to accomplish certain objectives within the situations in which they act. Wittgenstein wrote that people follow rules in order to accomplish a particular goal, making communication a set of language games. People know how to give an order, ask a question, or describe an observation based on the rules for accomplishing these things. Thus, utterances do more than reflect a designated meaning; they are forms of action designed to get things done. Following from this idea, J. L. Austin, Searle's mentor, stated in his classic 1962 text How to Do Things With Words, that making an utterance is a speech act, or an action performed through speech.

Austin referred to an utterance as a locutionary act, which is the act of making speech sounds. Speaking as the rule-based production of sounds is a kind of performance. However, such locutions rarely stand by themselves. They also serve to express an intention beyond the mere utterance of speech. Thus, for example, in making a statement, people would be asserting a claim, making a promise, asking for something, or accomplishing any number of other intentions. These Austin called illocutionary acts, or utterances that perform an intention. Such acts come with illocutionary force because they elicit an understanding in others of what one means to accomplish. People recognize a promise because of the illocutionary force of the statement. When the performance is designed to elicit a certain kind of response from others, it is a perlocutionary act, as would be the case, for example, with a statement designed to persuade. A well-performed request will be recognized as such because of the shared rules for making requests. If the listener understands what kind of response is required, the statement has perlocutionary force as well as illocutionary force.

In his 1969 book Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Searle distinguished between the propositional content of an utterance and its illocutionary force. The former is what a statement claims (“I am hungry”), and the latter is the intention expressed (e.g., a request for food). A proposition expresses something one believes to be true or wishes to have others believe is true, but the proposition is delivered with a purpose that, because of the illocutionary force of the utterance, [Page 919]others will recognize (the statement of hunger is a request for food). Although there is no limit to the number of intentions one might express, Searle classified these into certain common types, including assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives. Assertives are statements of advocacy of a truth. The intention is to put forward a proposition pure and simple (it is going to rain today). Assertives include, for example, stating, affirming, concluding, and believing. Directives are statements that aim to get listeners to do something, including commands, requests, invitations, and the like. Commissives such as promises, pledges, and guarantees commit the speaker to some future act. Expressives include acts such as thanking, apologizing, and welcoming intended to express the speaker's internal state. Finally, declaratives make something true just by uttering them. The verbal statement itself constitutes a completed act. Examples include appointing, firing, and resigning. When a minister says, “I pronounce you husband and wife,” the couple becomes married. Austin refers to such acts as performatives.

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