Perlocutionary Effect

The perlocutionary effect is the actual impact an utterance has on the hearer, namely the consequence of speaking, whether intended or not. Introduced by J. L. Austin (1962), it completes the three-level analysis of speech acts alongside the locutionary act (what is said) and the illocutionary act (what is intended).

Distinguishing Perlocution from Illocution

The critical distinction is between intention and result:

	Illocutionary force	Perlocutionary effect
Locus	Speaker's intention	Hearer's response
Conventionality	Governed by conventions (IFIDs)	Not conventionally tied to form
Control	Speaker can choose illocutionary force	Speaker cannot guarantee perlocutionary effect
Verbs	assert, promise, request, warn	convince, frighten, amuse, annoy, inspire

A teacher who says "I'm disappointed in this class's effort" performs an expressive illocutionary act. The perlocutionary effect might be shame, motivation, resentment, or indifference, depending on the students, the context, and the relationship.

Examples

Utterance	Illocutionary force	Possible perlocutionary effects
There's a spider on your shoulder	Warning	Fear, panic, disbelief, gratitude
Your essay was really well structured	Praising	Confidence, motivation, suspicion
I wouldn't do that if I were you	Advising	Caution, defiance, curiosity

Teaching Implications

Perlocutionary effects matter for language teaching in several ways:

• Pragmatic competence: learners need awareness that the same illocutionary act can produce very different effects across cultures. A direct refusal may be functionally appropriate in one context but deeply offensive in another
• Teacher language: teachers' instructions, feedback, and classroom language produce perlocutionary effects (motivation, anxiety, confusion) that shape learning. The effect of corrective feedback depends not just on its illocutionary type but on how learners perceive it
• Persuasive and argumentative language: teaching students to write persuasively or argue effectively is essentially teaching them to produce intended perlocutionary effects through strategic language choices

Limitations of the Concept

Austin himself acknowledged that perlocutionary effects are difficult to delimit. Any utterance can produce an infinite chain of consequences. Linguists typically restrict analysis to effects that are reasonably proximate and connected to the utterance, but the boundary is inherently fuzzy.

References

• Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Clarendon Press.
• Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press.
• Cohen, A. D. (1996). Speech acts. In S. L. McKay & N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching (pp. 383–420). Cambridge University Press.