Bahir Dar University

Faculty of Humanities

Department of English Language and Literature

Course name: Issues in Language Teaching, Language Testing, Curriculum and

Materials preparation (TEFL 703)

Pair Assignment on Austin’s Speech Act Theory

By:

1. Dagninet Gebey
2. Teshome Abel

Submitted to: Prof. Abiy Yigzaw

Kassie Shifere (PhD, Associate Prof.)

February, 2023

Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Table of Content

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s
1. What is speech acts?....................................................................................................................3
1.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................3
1.2 Definitions of Speech Act......................................................................................................3
1.3 Critical review of Austin’s speech act theory........................................................................4
1.4 Classifications of Speech Acts...............................................................................................9
1.5 Speech act theory in language teaching...............................................................................10
1.6 Limitations of Austin’s speech act theory............................................................................11
1.7 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................11
References..................................................................................................................................12

1. What is speech acts?

1.1 Introduction

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 Language is a tool of social interaction or a tool of human communication (Alston, 1964). In
every communication, humans convey information that can be thoughts, ideas, intentions,
feelings, and emotions directly. According to real experience, the language always appears in the
form of individual actions or speech acts. Therefore every study of language structure must start
from the assessment of speech acts. Speech acts are concrete manifestations of language
functions.

In everyday life, humans use language as a communication tool. The language used varies,
depending on the situation, speakers, and a speech partner. The situation in speech can be relaxed
and can also be an official situation.

Speakers and speech partners can be seen from the status, age, and gender. Speeches produced
by humans in communication can be observed and researched. Language is a symbol system that
consists of sounds that use arbitrary (arbitrators) used by members of the community to mutually
related and involved (Bussmann, 2006).

Language includes two fields, namely sound vowel and meaning. Language as vowel, meaning
something that is produced by human speech utensils which are sounds like is a device-activated
vibration listener. While the language is the meaning means the contents contained in the sound
current that causes a reaction or other people's responses (Cook, 2003).

Speech act theory accounts for an act that a speaker performs when pronouncing an utterance,
which thus serves a function in communication. Since speech acts are the tools that allow us to
interact in real-life situations, uttering a speech act requires knowledge not only of the language
but also of its appropriate use within a given culture.

1.2 Definitions of Speech Act

Speech act theory can be defined as the idea that language contains meaning beyond just the
definition of the words that are used. Language is a tool to perform various functions, also
called speech acts. Speech act theory suggests that the meaning of what we say is influenced by
the type of speech it is, the structure of the utterance, and the context in which it is used. It also
explains how speech can create an action or outcome. This theory is part of the field
of pragmatics, which is the study of how language is used in a social context.

A speech act is any utterance that serves a function in communication. For example, speech can
be used to make statements, ask questions, apologize, describe, or persuade, among many other
uses. In a speech act, words are used to do something, not just to say something.

John L. Austin, a British philosopher, first introduced speech act theory in his 1959 book How to
Do Things with Words. This published series of lectures defined his theory about performatives.

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This is a type of speech in which a person's words are causing something to happen and not just
making a statement. Rather than simply describing or stating facts, some words perform an
action or create something new. For example, when both people in a marriage ceremony say "I
do," they are causing the marriage to happen. Other examples of performatives include naming a
ship and making a bet.

1.3 Critical review of Austin’s speech act theory

Half a century ago, John Austin gave a series of lectures, the William James Lectures at Harvard,
which were published posthumously as a book entitled How to Do Things with Words. Austin
presented a new picture of analyzing meaning; meaning is described in a relation among
linguistic conventions correlated with words/sentences, the situation where the speaker actually
says something to the hearer, and associated intentions of the speaker. The idea that meaning
exists among these relations is depicted successfully by the concept of acts: in uttering a
sentence, that is, in utilizing linguistic conventions, the speaker with an associated intention
performs a linguistic act to the hearer.

Austin’s analysis of meaning is unique in the sense that meaning is not explained through some
forms of reduction. In reductive theories of meaning, complexities of meaning expressed by a
sentence are reduced by a single criterion to something else, and this is claimed to be the process
of explaining the meaning of the sentence.

In how to do things- with Words Austin worked his way from the distinction between constative
and performative utterances towards a general theory of what we do when we say something, a
general theory of “speech-acts ", as he called it. The upshot of Words is that the deceptively
simple constative-performative distinction should be abandoned in favor of a more general
distinction between locutionary and illocutionary speech-acts.

According to Austin, when we say something, we perform three acts simultaneously:

 a locutionary act,
 an illocutionary act, and
 a perlocutionary act.

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At the locutionary level, a speaker produces sounds (phonetic act) which are well ordered with
respect to the phonological system and grammar of a particular language (phatic act), and carry
some sense with respect to the semantic and pragmatic rules of that language (rhetic act). At the
illocutionary level, he is expressing his intention by virtue of conventions shared in his speech
community. At the perlocutionary level, he performs a third act which includes the consequences
of his speaking, and he has only limited control over them. In order for the speech act to be
successful, it must fulfill some appropriateness conditions, or ‘felicity’ conditions: locution is
successful if words and sounds are correctly produced; illocution is appropriate if it meets the
conditions for its realization; perlocution may be effective when it produces consequences
desired by the producer. The notion of illocutionary force embodies the philosophical notion of
intentionality, which can be expressed by performing a speech act through three modalities:

(1) Directly or indirectly through the performance of another speech act (‘Pass me the salt’
versus ‘Can you pass me the salt?’);
(2) literally or non-literally depending on the way words are used (‘Stick it in your head’);
(3) Explicitly or inexplicitly when meaning is spelled out fully or incompletely (‘I’ll be back
later, Mary’s ready’). Indirectness and nonliterally are disambiguated by way of a
conversational implicature, whereas explicitation is achieved through expansion or
completion of what one says.

This theory started with Austin’s preliminary distinction between two kinds of utterances, what
he called “constative utterances” (“constatives,” for short) and “performative utterances”
(“performatives,” for short), and his inquiry on whether this distinction could be consistently
maintained. Constatives refer to linguistic expressions that are either true or false, and are often
used to describe facts or states of affairs in the world. They correspond to what are normally
referred to as “statements” or “propositions.” Austin’s deviation from the standard name for this
kind of linguistic expressions was a way of avoiding the philosophical controversies surrounding
the nature of this kind of linguistic expressions. These controversies include the distinction
between genuine and pseudo propositions (attributed to the logical positivists), and between
referring expressions in form only and referring expressions in both form and content (made by
Russell in his theory of definite descriptions).

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On the other hand, performatives refer to linguistic expressions that are used to perform certain
actions. They are the kind of expressions wherein we perform certain actions while saying them.
In this regard, to utter a performative means to perform an action. For instance, in saying “I
advise you to seek permission from your parents,” I am, in effect, performing the act of advising.
Or in saying “I order you to read your book,” I am, in effect, performing the act of ordering or 5
making an order. The point shall be further clarified if we compare the foregoing examples of
performatives with the following statement: “I am washing the dishes.” By simply uttering this
statement, I have not performed the act of washing the dishes. I may have done the act of
reporting an event, but I have not performed the act indicated in the statement, that I am washing
the dishes, simply by uttering the said statement.

The conditions of success for constatives are indicated by the values of truth and falsity. If a
constative successfully represents what it intends to represent (that is, the state of affairs that it
asserts to be in the world is really in the world), we say that the constative is true; if otherwise,
we say that it is false. If, for example, we say that “It is raining” and it is actually raining, then
our statement or constative is true. If, on the other hand, it is not raining, then our statement is
false. But what about performatives, what are the values indicating their conditions of success?
Austin, upon examining the English language during his time, found no expressions serving this
purpose. For this reason, he proposed the expressions “happy” and “unhappy” to indicate,
respectively, success and failure of performatives. Accordingly, if a performative is successful,
that is, the action it intends to perform is successfully done, the performative is happy; if
otherwise, it is unhappy. For instance, suppose I say “I promise to attend the graduation
ceremony” and I am not really sincere in saying it, that is, I do not really put myself under the
obligation to attend the ceremony. In this case, I have not really performed the act of making a
promise, as indicated in my utterance. As such, my performative, being a failure, is unhappy. If,
on the other hand, I say to someone “Please keep quiet” for I sincerely want the person to keep
quiet and this person does stop talking loudly, then I am successful in performing the act I intend
to perform (to request the person to keep quiet). In this case, my performative, being a success, is
happy.

In the philosophy of language, so much has been done to analyze the conditions for the truth and
falsity of constatives or statements. The three standard theories of truth (coherence,

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correspondence, and pragmatic theories of truth) are part of such efforts. The case of the
performatives seems to have been neglected. And thus, Austin did his analyses of performatives
to fill in the gap. One important finding or discovery of Austin was the conditions under which
performatives could be said to be happy or unhappy, successful or unsuccessful. Austin
identified three of such conditions, which he explained in the mode of making a performative
unhappy.

The second is the insincerity of the person uttering a performative. In this case, the failure of the
performative takes the form of abuse of the performative. For instance, in saying “I promise to
attend your birthday party” to someone when I do not really intend to do so, my use of the
performative of making promises is an abuse of that performative. Needless to say, my
performative here is unhappy.

And the third is the failure to perform future actions entailed by performatives. In this case, the
failure of a performative takes the form of a breach of commitment. This happens when the
speaker, after issuing the performative, acts contrary to what is entailed by the performative.
When, for instance, the host of a party tells a guest “You are welcome,” the host commits
himself/herself to treating the guest kindly throughout the party. And so, if this host later on in
the party treats the guest unkindly, the host’s performative is a failure. And it is because there is
a breach of commitment—he/she fails to perform the action he/she commits himself/herself to
doing when he/she utters the performative.

After identifying and explicating the conditions of success or failure of performatives, Austin
realized that the conditions of success of constatives could actually be explained in terms of the
conditions of success of performatives. Austin realized that the conditions for the unhappiness of
performatives could explain the various ways constatives could be said to be false, 7 or when
these utterances, as Austin put it, “fail to get by.” In short, Austin wanted to show that the falsity
of constatives is just a feature of the unhappiness of performatives. To do this, Austin considered
the following statements:

1. All John’s children are bald.

2. The cat is on the mat.
3. All the guests are French.

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First, the statement “All John’s children are bald” presupposes that John has children. This
means that it is only appropriate to say that John’s children are bald if John has children. Thus, if
John happens not to have any children, the utterance of the statement “All John’s children are
bald” fails to get by. According to Austin, this is the same as the case when performatives are
issued under inappropriate conditions, which make them null and void.

Second, the statement “The cat is on the mat” implies that the person who utters it believes in
what is being asserted in the statement—that the cat is on the mat. Thus, if someone utters it but
does not believe what the statement asserts, then it is like uttering the performative “I promise”
without the intention of keeping it. In this sense, the statement “The cat is on the mat,” just like
the performative “I promise,” is abused.

Third, in believing a statement one is committed to believing in what this statement entails. Now
the statement “All the guests are French” entails that it is not true that some guests are not
French. Thus, when someone utters, “All guests are French,” but later on says, “Some guests are
not French,” then this person has committed a breach of commitment. And this is no different
from the case when the host tells the guest “You are welcome” but later on treats this guest
rudely.

Austin eventually arrived at the conclusion that a clear distinction could not be made between
constatives and performatives as constatives proved to be just a kind of performatives. For the
describing, stating, or asserting, which what constatives do are themselves acts performed in
saying something. Given this, Austin then embarked on the task of analyzing the logical structure
of performatives. Two of the significant realizations of Austin in doing so were the following.
First, performatives can be explicit or implicit. An explicit performative is one where it is clear
from the utterance of the performatives, like in the case of the performatives “I promise…,” and
“I advise you…” what actions are being performed. On the other hand, an implicit performative
is one where it is not clear from the utterance what kind of action is being performed. 8 In this
case, it is the context that determines what kind of action is being performed. For instance, my
utterance of “I will be there” may mean that I am making a promise, expressing an intention of
being there, or simply making a prediction of some future event. It is the context of my utterance
that indicates what action I am performing.

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Second, the actions performed in uttering performatives can be broken down into three kinds.
The general act of uttering a performative, in other words, consists of three component acts. The
first is called the locutionary act, which refers to the mere utterance of the performatives. The
locutionary act is further broken down into three acts: the phatic act, referring to the act of
producing mere noises or sounds; the phonetic act, referring to the act of producing sounds that
are recognizable as words from a certain vocabulary and grammar; and the rhetic act, referring to
the act of using words to convey meanings (using words with sense and reference). The second
component act of the performative act is called the illocutionary act, which refers to the act that
is being done in uttering a performative. For instance, in uttering a performative, a speaker may
perform the illocutionary acts of making a promise, requesting, etc. And the third is called the
perlocutionary act, which refers to the act of the speaker in eliciting a certain response from the
hearer, or in making an effect on the hearer. For instance, the speaker, through his/her
performative, may want the hearer to be convinced, persuaded, delighted, etc.

Consequently, these three component acts of the performative act are related in the following
ways. A perlocutionary act presupposes an illocutionary act (a performative act cannot be
performed without performing an illocutionary act), which in turn, presupposes a locutionary act
(the illocutionary act cannot be performed without performing a locutionary act). However, a
locutionary act need not entail an illocutionary act, for one can just utter words without intending
to perform actions through these words. In turn, an illocutionary act need not entail a
perlocutionary, for one can perform an action through a performative without intending this
performative to have an effect on the hearer.

1.4 Classifications of Speech Acts

In the latter part of his seminal work how to Do Things with Words (1989), Austin came up with
the following five basic types of performatives:

1) Commissives. Their whole point “is to commit the speaker to a certain action” (Austin
1989: 157). E.g.: promise, undertake, covenant, bind myself, contract, propose to, and
give my word.
2) Expositives. They “are used in acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the
conducting of arguments and the clarifying of usages and of references” (Austin 1989:

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 161). E.g.: “I turn next to,” “I quote,” “I cite,” “I recapitulate,” “I repeat that,” and “I
mention that.”
3) Exercitives. They have to do with “the giving of a decision in favour of or against a
certain course of action, or advocacy of it” (Austin 1989: 155). E.g.: appoint, dismiss,
degrade, excommunicate, demote, and name.
4) Behavabitives. They “include the notion of reaction to other people’s behavior and
fortunes and of attitudes and expressions of attitudes to someone else’s past conduct or
imminent conduct” (Austin 1989: 160). E.g.: apologize, thank, deplore, criticize,
commiserate, compliment, condole, congratulate, and sympathize.
5) Verdictives. They “consist in the delivering of a finding, official or unofficial, upon
evidence or reasons as to value or fact, so far as these are distinguishable. A verdictive is
a judicial act as distinct from legislative or executive acts…” (Austin 1989: 153). E.g.:
acquit, convict, read it as, reckon, place, grade, assess, characterize, rule, and estimate.

Austin (1989: 163) summarized his classification as follows: “To sum up, we may say that the
verdictive is an exercise of judgment, the exercitive is an assertion of influence or exercising 12
of power, the commissive is an assuming of an obligation or declaring of an intention, the
behabitive is the adopting of an attitude, and the expositive is the clarifying of reasons,
arguments, and communications.”

1.5 Speech act theory in language teaching

In the field of applied linguistics and language teaching, speech act theory (Hymes, 1972; Canale
& Swain, 1980)-as a vital component of the notion of communicative competence underlies
much recent research. Speech acts and language teaching are very closely related. We know that
the speech or utterance has some underlying force or power to act but for doing this act the
hearer must need to understand the meaning of the speech transmitted by the speaker. And for
this thing the hearer must need to learn the second language carefully and need to have
experience of the four basic skills- listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Without learning the
target language by the hearer the speech will fail to act. So speech acts very directly influence the
hearer to learn the target language or teaching the target language.

As teachers we merely wish to facilitate in our learners the ability to be understood in English
and to use it to achieve their desired aims. We want them to be aware that there are levels of

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meaning and to encourage and facilitate them to get a deeper knowledge of the language. In
teaching speech acts we are preparing our students for situations which commonly occur and
providing them with the functional language and sociolinguistic skills to do so effectively and
without a loss of face.

1.6 Limitations of Austin’s speech act theory

Although Speech act theory helps language user the language for communicative purposes
through their linguistic competence, it has some limitations or weaknesses. Firstly, it is not
distinguishable to realize what the actual meaning of speaker’s utterances is because one
locutionary act may cause different illocutionary meanings. For example, when we hear someone
ask: “Will you join us?” before a party is held, we do not know whether he actually wants us to
participate in the party or he just wants to know if we want to go or not. This also accounts for
the fact that people from different cultures will encounter difficulty in interpreting the speaker’s
meaning. Thomas as cited in (Paltridge 2000:30-31) describe this failure of conveying or
understanding an intended illocutionary force in a second language and culture as two types of
cross-cultural pragmatic failure: pragma linguistic and sociopragmatic failure. Pragma linguistic
failure is none other than failure in linguistic competence where a speaker transfers linguistic
meanings of a speech act from their L1 to L2. Sociopragmatic failure arises from the difficulty of
understanding the different culture of the target language.

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1.7 Conclusion

Speech act theory is a thought-provoking issue which has attracted the interest of philosophers
of language and linguists from diverse theoretical persuasions. Manifold aspects of the theory are
being debated such as the classification of speech acts, the relationship between speech acts and
culture, and the acquisition of speech acts by children, which prove how this area of language
research still provides room for developments and new insights.

This paper, has reviewed Austin’s speech act theory or the use of meanings to criticism failure of
the referential theory of meaning. Austin’s claim that constatives are ultimately just a kind of
performatives or speech acts makes speech acts the fundamental units of language.
Consequently, Austin dislodged the primacy of truth-bearing expressions, the propositions, over
other linguistic functions, a view shared by ideal-language philosophers. As demonstrated by
Austin, the truth conditions of propositions are actually just a species of the more general
conditions of success of speech acts.

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References
1. Alston, P. W. (1964). Philosophy of Language. Prentice Hall Inc.
2. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Word (2nd ed.). Oxfod University Press.
3. Austin, J. L. 1989. How to do things with words. Edited by J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa.
Oxford University Press.
4. Bussmann, H. (2006). Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. Routledge.
5. Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to
second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1, 147.
6. Cook, V. (2003). Effects of the Second Language on the First. Multilingual Matters Ltd.
7. Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.),
Sociolinguistics (pp. 269-293). London, United Kingdom: Penguin
8. Paltridge, B. (2000). Making sense of Discourse analysis. Gold Coast.
9. Retrieved December 14, 2023, from https://literariness.org/2020/10/11/speech-act-theory.

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