Speech Acts
Speech act theory holds that utterances are not just statements about the world — they are actions performed through language. When a judge says "I sentence you to five years," the words do not describe a sentencing; they are the sentencing. J.L. Austin (1962, How to Do Things with Words) originated the theory; John Searle (1969, Speech Acts) formalized and extended it.
Austin's Three-Level Analysis
Every utterance simultaneously performs three acts:
| Act | What it does | Example: "It's cold in here" |
|---|---|---|
| Locutionary | The act of saying — producing meaningful sounds/words | States a proposition about temperature |
| Illocutionary | The act performed in saying — the speaker's intention | Requests someone to close the window |
| Perlocutionary | The effect achieved by saying — the actual impact on the hearer | The hearer closes the window (or ignores the hint) |
The illocutionary act is the central concern of speech act theory and the most relevant to language teaching.
Searle's Classification
Searle (1976) classified illocutionary acts into five types:
- Representatives — commit the speaker to the truth of a proposition: assert, claim, report, conclude
- Directives — attempt to get the hearer to do something: request, command, advise, invite
- Commissives — commit the speaker to a future action: promise, offer, threaten, guarantee
- Expressives — express a psychological state: apologize, thank, congratulate, complain
- Declarations — change the world by saying: I pronounce you..., You're fired, I resign
Direct vs Indirect Speech Acts
A direct speech act matches form to function: an interrogative asks a question, an imperative gives a command. An indirect speech act uses one form to perform a different function:
- "Can you pass the salt?" — interrogative form, directive function
- "I'd love some coffee" — declarative form, directive function (hint)
Indirect speech acts are the norm in polite communication and a major source of difficulty for L2 learners, who may interpret them literally or transfer L1 indirectness conventions inappropriately.
Connection to ELT
Speech act theory is the theoretical foundation for the Language Functions that organize communicative syllabuses: requesting, apologizing, suggesting, complaining, agreeing/disagreeing. Teaching functions means teaching learners the linguistic realizations of speech acts — including the pragmatic conditions for when to use direct vs indirect forms.
The communicative competence model (Canale & Swain, 1980; Bachman, 1990) includes speech act knowledge as a core component. Learners need not only grammatical accuracy but also the ability to perform and interpret speech acts appropriately in context — which connects to politeness theory, register, and cultural norms.