Speech act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin's discovery of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.
Read more about Speech Act: Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts, Illocutionary Acts, Indirect Speech Acts, History, In Language Development, In Computer Science
Famous quotes containing the words speech and/or act:
“True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, ‘Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great. If this is so, I may be acting very wrongly, like the Harmless Torturers.”
—Derek Parfit (b. 1943)