Name : Citra Dewi

Nim. : 403170858

Class. :English Literature 6A

Project : Sociolinguistics

Talk and Action

Speech Acts

In linguistics, a speech act is an utterance defined in terms of a speaker's intention and the effect
it has on a listener. Essentially, it is the action that the speaker hopes to provoke in his or her
audience. Speech acts might be requests, warnings, promises, apologies, greetings, or any
number of declarations. As you might imagine, speech acts are an important part of
communication.

One thing that many utterances do is make propositions: they do this mainly in the form of either
statements or questions but other grammatical forms are also possible. Each of the following
is a proposition: ‘I had a busy day today,’ ‘Have you called your mother?,’ and ‘Your
dinner’s ready!’ Such utterances are connected in some way with events or happenings in a
possible world, i.e., one that can be experienced or imagined, a world in which such
propositions can be said to be either true or false. They have been called constative
utterances.
A different kind of proposition is the ethical proposition, e.g., ‘Big boys don’t cry,’ ‘God is love,’
‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ‘You must tell the truth,’ and even ‘Beethoven is better than Brahms.’
Just like an ordinary proposition, an ethical proposition may be true or false, although not in
the same sense. But truth and falsity are not the real purpose of ethical propositions; their real
purpose is to serve as guides to behavior in some world or other. ‘Big boys don’t cry’ is
obviously value-laden in a way in which ‘Your dinner’s ready!’ definitely is not. Another
kind of utterance is the ‘phatic’ type, e.g., ‘Nice day!,’ ‘How do you do?,’ and ‘You’re
looking smart today!’ We employ such utterances not for their propositional content but
rather for their affective value as indicators that one person is willing to talk to another and
that a channel of communication is either being opened or being kept open. Phatic utterances
 do not really communicate anything; rather, their use allows communication to occur should
there be anything of consequence to say. I will have a little more to say on this matter shortly.
Austin divides performatives into five categories: (1) verdictives, typified by the giving of a
verdict, estimate, grade, or appraisal (‘We find the accused guilty’); (2) exercitives, the
exercising of powers, rights, or influences as in appointing, ordering, warning, or advising (‘I
pronounce you husband and wife’); (3) commissives, typified by promising or undertaking,
and committing one to do something by, for example, announcing an intention or espousing a
cause (‘I hereby bequeath’); (4) behabitives, having to do with such matters as apologizing,
congratulating, blessing, cursing, or challenging (‘I apologize’); and (5) expositives, a term
used to refer to how one makes utterances fit into an argument or exposition (‘I argue,’ ‘I
reply,’ or ‘I assume’). Once we begin to look at utterances from the point of view of what
they do, it is possible to see every utterance as a speech act of one kind or other, that is, as
having some functional value which might be quite independent of the actual words used and
their grammatical arrangement. These acts may not be as explicit or direct as ‘Out!,’ ‘I do,’ or
‘We hereby seek leave to appeal’ but there can be little dispute that even to say something
like ‘I saw John this morning’ is an act; at the simplest level it is an act of telling the truth (or
what you believe to be the truth) or not. There is also no reason to assume that every
language has the same performatives. Although it is unlikely that a language will be without
performatives for ordering, promising, and challenging, it is quite easy to see it doing without
those for baptizing, naming ships, passing jail sentences, and making bets. Performativity
almost certainly varies by culture. According to Searle (1969, pp. 23– 4), we perform
different kinds of acts when we speak. The utterances we use are locutions. Most locutions
express some intent that a speaker has. They are illocutionary acts and have an illocutionary
force. A speaker can also use different locutions to achieve the same illocutionary force or
use one locution for many different purposes. Schiffrin (1994, ch. 3) has a very good example
of the latter. She shows how one form, ‘Y’want a piece of candy?’ can perform many
functions as a speech act, including question, request, and offer. In contrast, we can see how
different forms can perform a single function since it is quite possible to ask someone to close
the door with different words: ‘It’s cold in here,’ ‘The door’s open,’ and ‘Could someone see
to the door?’ Illocutions also often cause listeners to do things. To that extent they are
perlocutions. If you say ‘I bet you a dollar he’ll win’ and I say ‘On,’ your illocutionary act of
offering a bet has led to my perlocutionary uptake of accepting it. The perlocutionary force of
your words is to get me to bet, and you have succeeded.