Speech Act Theory Foundations

The foundations of speech act theory cover the core ideas and classifications that frame language as a form of rule-governed action.

Definition

Speech act theory foundations comprise the basic concepts, classifications, and assumptions on which analyses of language as action are built.

Scope

This topic covers the founding ideas of speech act theory: Austin's move from the performative-constative distinction to a general theory of illocutionary acts, and Searle's reconstruction of the theory on constitutive rules and his taxonomy of illocutionary acts into assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. It frames the central commitments shared across the area and the criteria used to individuate and classify illocutionary acts.

Core questions

• What is the basic claim that saying is a kind of doing?
• How did Austin move from performatives to a general theory of illocutionary acts?
• On what criteria can illocutionary acts be classified?
• What is Searle's taxonomy of speech acts?

Key concepts

• performative vs. constative
• illocutionary point
• direction of fit
• constitutive rules
• assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, declarations

Key theories

Constitutive rules and the analysis of acts (Searle)

Illocutionary acts are constituted by underlying rules, and performing an act such as promising consists in satisfying its associated propositional, preparatory, sincerity, and essential conditions.

Taxonomy of illocutionary acts (Searle)

Illocutionary acts fall into five basic categories distinguished by illocutionary point and direction of fit: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations.

History

Austin abandoned the performative-constative distinction within How to Do Things with Words once he saw that constatives, too, are acts, replacing it with the locution-illocution-perlocution analysis. Searle subsequently rebuilt the theory on constitutive rules and proposed his fivefold taxonomy, which became the standard reference classification of illocutionary acts.

Debates

Criteria for classifying illocutionary acts

Disagreement over which dimensions (illocutionary point, direction of fit, expressed psychological state) should ground a taxonomy of speech acts and whether any single taxonomy is complete.

Key figures

• J. L. Austin
• John Searle

Seminal works

• austin1962
• searle1969
• searle1979

Frequently asked questions

What are Searle's five types of speech act?

Assertives commit the speaker to the truth of a proposition, directives try to get the hearer to act, commissives commit the speaker to a future action, expressives express a psychological state, and declarations bring about a state of affairs by their very utterance (e.g. 'I now pronounce you married').