Illocutionary Act - Approaches To Defining "illocutionary Act"

Approaches To Defining "illocutionary Act"

Many define the term "illocutionary act" with reference to examples, saying for example that any speech act (like stating, asking, commanding, promising, and so on) is an illocutionary act. This approach has generally failed to give any useful hints about what traits and elements make up an illocutionary act; that is, what defines such an act. It is also often emphasised that Austin introduced the illocutionary act by means of a contrast with other kinds of acts or aspects of acting: the illocutionary act, he says, is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a locutionary act, the act of saying something, and also contrasted with a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something. Austin, however, eventually abandoned the "in saying" / "by saying" test (1975, 123).

According to the conception adopted by Bach and Harnish in 'Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts' (1979), an illocutionary act is an attempt to communicate, which they analyse as the expression of an attitude. Another conception of the illocutionary act goes back to Schiffer's book 'Meaning' (1972, 103), in which the illocutionary act is represented as just the act of meaning something.

According to a widespread opinion, an adequate and useful account of "illocutionary acts" has been provided by John Searle (e.g., 1969, 1975, 1979). In recent years, however, it has been doubted whether Searle's account is well-founded. A wide ranging critique is in FC Doerge 2006. Collections of articles examining Searle's account are: Burkhardt 1990 and Lepore / van Gulick 1991.