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Speech Act, they are not mere artificial linguistic constructs as it may

seem, their understanding together with the acquaintance of context in which

they are performed are whole utterance and its proper meaning. A speech act

in linguistics and philosophy of language is an utterance that has performative

function in language and communication. About speech act John Langshaw

Austin was said “There are more ways of killing a cat than drawing it in butter;

but it is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are

more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely.”

Speech act theory is a subfield of pragmatics.

Firstly, speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as

promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating. Speaker

performs speech acts for making an utterance.

For example, a speech act might contain just one word, as in “sorry” to

perform an apology. In sentence “I am sorry, I forgot your birthday.”

Secondly, the contemporary use of the term and development of

performative utterances and the theory of Locutionary, illocutionary and

perlocutionary etc.

 Locutionary act is the act of saying something with a certain meaning.

For example: Don’t go to the jungle! (The speaker is trying

to persuade someone not go to the jingle which is

considered dangerous in that particular context).

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[ The intention behind an utterance]

 Illocutionary Force Indicating Device or IFID is the speaker’s intent. A

true speech act-

For example: Leave the room. (The speaker has ordered

the listener to leave the room).

[Basic Utterance]

 The third dimension, the precautionary act, where we do not, of

course, simply create an utterance with a function without intending it

to have an effect.

[The effect produced, interpretation of Listener]

Furthermore, Felicity conditions refers to the conditions must be in

place and criteria that must be satisfied for a speech act to achieve its

purpose. “A sentence must not only be grammatical to be correctly

performed, it must also be felicitous”, says Mark Liberman.

There are several types of felicitous conditions.

Propositional content, preparatory, sincerity, essential.

Besides, one general classification system lists five types of general

functions by speech acts.

Expressive: Speech acts that express on the speaker’s attitudes

and emotions towards the proposition. For

example: congratulations, thanks etc.

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Declarations: Speech acts that change the reality in accord with

proposition of the declaration. For example:

Baptisms (using water for ritual purification).

Representatives: It represent a situation/ circumstances like

assertions, statements, claims, hypotheses.

Commissives: Commit a speaker to a course of action promises,

Pledges, threats, vows.

Directives: Directives are intended to get the addressee to

carry out an action; commands; requests:

challenges, dares.

A preposition is a statement in either a natural or a formal language,

For which it makes sense to ask whether it is either true or false.

Additionally, speech act theory is an act of oral communication from a

grunt to a very long conversation. Speech act indicate that an utterance

can have the same impact as an action.

What’s more, In pragmatics there are direct and indirect speech. Direct

speech acts will happen if there is direct relationship between the

structure and the function of the utterance. While indirect speech acts
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will happen if there is no relationship between the structure and the

function of the utterance.

Example of Speech act:

“Suppose I am in a play and deliver the line I promise to kill the evil Don

Fernando. I have not in fact, promised to kill anyone….”

The speech act fails in this conversation because, among other things,

I must have a certain industrial authority for my words to have the

appropriate illocutionary force. The speech act also fails because the words

are uttered in a context where they are not used by the speaker.

In a nutshell, speech act is the utterance that occurs and act refers to

an action. There are certain aims beyond the words or phrases when a

speaker says something. Austin explains that speech acts are acts that refer

to the action performed by produced utterances.