Notes on Pragmatics
GXNU Graduate Program in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics
Edited by Shaozhong Liu
Vol.1
Issue No. 2005(5)
Address: College of Foreign Studies, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, 541004, China
Website: http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/cofs; Email: szliu@mailbox.gxnu.edu.cn

From the Editor…………………………………………………………………………………...2
 Understanding Speech Acts
Chen Huai……………………………………………………………………………………………………2
He Ning………………………………………………………………………………………………………3
Jing An Dian…………………………………………………………………………………………………4
Lai Tao……………………………………………………………………………………………………….5
Li Handong…………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Liao Jinchao………………………………………………………………………………………………….6
Liu Bin………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Liu Taomei……………………………………………………………………………………………………7
Liu Tingting…………………………………………………………………………………………………..8
Meng Jieqin…………………………………………………………………….…………………………….9
Ou Lianfen……………………………………………………………………………………………………9
Song Yuge…………………………………………………………………………………………………….10
Sun Yan……………………………………………………………………………………………………….11
Tang Wensheng……………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Tang Xia……………………………………………………………………………………………………...13
Wang Kaiwen………………………………………………………………………………………………...14
Wang Liyuan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..15
Wang Wenbo………………………………………………………………………………………………….15
Wei Yunhui……………………………………………………………………………………………………16
Xu Hui………………………………………………………………………………………………………..17
Xu Zhaojuan………………………………………………………………………………………………….18
Zhou Yanqiong……………………………………………………………………………………………….19
Zhou Yuping………………………………………………………………………………………………….20
1
From the Editor
The Speech Acts Theory (SAT) was a basic pragmatic theory. Chapter 5 (Mey, 2001,
pp.92-133) provides a systematic account of the theory, and a gateway into the pragmatic
terrain for students of pragmatics. Here are the outline of the chapter:
5.1 History and introduction…………………………………………………………………....92
5.1.1 Why speech acts?…………………………………………………………………………92
5.1.2 Language is use…………………………………………………………………………..93
5.1.3 How speech acts function………………………………………………………………..95
5.2 Promises……………………………………………………………………………………97
5.2.1 A speech act’s physiognomy: promising…………………………………………………98
5.2.1.1 Introduction: the problem………………………………………………………………98
5.2.1.2 Promises: conditions and rules…………………………………………………………99
5.2.1.3 The pragmatics of rules……………………………………………….………………101
5.3 Speech act verbs…………………………………………………………………………..105
5.3.1 The number of speech acts……………………………………………………………...105
5.3.2 Speech acts, speech act verbs and performativity………………………………………106
5.3.3 Speech acts without SAVs………………………………………………………………109
5.4 Indirect Speech Acts………………………………………………………………………111
5.4.1 Recognizing indirect speech acts………………………………………………………..111
5.4.2 The ten steps of Searle…………………………………………………………………..113
5.4.3 The pragmatic view……………………………………………………………………..114
5.5 Classifying Speech Acts…………………………………………………..………………117
5.5.1 The illocutionary verb fallacy………………………………………….……………….117
5.5.2 Searle’s classification of speech acts……………………………………………………119
5.5.2.1 Representatives………………………………………………………………………..120
5.5.2.2 Directives……………………………………………………………………………...120
5.5.2.3 Commissives…………………………………………………………………………..120
5.5.2.4 Expressives……………………………………………………………………………121
5.5.2.5 Declaratives…………………………………………………………………………...122
5.5.3 Austin and Searle………………………………………………………………………..124
Liu, SZ, UNCG
Understanding Speech Acts
Chen Huai
(jesschenh@sohu.com; Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:46:27 +0800 (CST))
Chapter Five —Speech Act —is concerned with one of the basic ingredients of pragmatics. The concept
was introduced by the Oxford philosopher John Austin.
First of all, the author makes a brief introduction of the history of Speech Act. In his own search for ways of
coping with language as a form of action, Austin first made a distinction between ‘constative’ and ‘performative’
utterances. His conclusion was simple: all utterances contain both constative and performative elements; they are
all sayings and doings at the same time (Verschueren 2000:22). And Searle followed his footstep, further
developed Austin’s idea and became the main proponent and defender of the former’s idea. As Searle notes that
“The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word of sentence, … but
rather the production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech act”.
Moreover, speech acts are produced in actual situations of language use, by people having something ‘in
mind’: the language they use, and in particular the speech acts they utter, are entirely dependent on the context of
the situation in which such acts are produced. Mey points out: “All speech is situated speech; a speech act is
never just an ‘act of speech’, … it is always a pragmatic act.” Thus, it reminds us of not only taking the
circumstances of individual utterance into consideration, but also widening our net by incorporating the general
conditions of a particular act of speaking. While how does speech acts function? Austin made a distinction of
2
different aspects of speech acting: locutionary aspect, illocutionary ‘force/point’ and perlocutionary effect, among
which the perlocutionary effect perhaps is the most interesting aspect of speech acting, from a pragmatic point of
view.
Then, examples are given to analyze the word ‘promise’ and the speech act ‘promise’. By listing the nine
conditions that Searle proposed for successful promising, Mey examines his five rules. The following conditions
should hold our attention:
Propositional content condition: specification of a future state of affairs.
Preparatory condition: the speaker/writer has adequate information to form a ‘valid’ opinion about the future
state of affairs.
Sincerity condition: the speaker/writer believes that the future state of affairs will indeed be as described.
Essential condition: the utterance counts as an act committing the speaker/writer to the likelihood of the
future state of affairs to be as described. (Verschueren 2000:23)
From these, the five rules, including the content rule, the preparatory rule, the sincerity rule and the essential
rule, correspond to these conditions. But the five rules does not weight the same: the former four termed
‘regulative’ while the fifth one ‘constitutive’ — the regulative and the constitutive rules are not as easily separable
as what we may perceive: the regulative rules define what the constitutive rules say they do; but the constitutive
rules determine the weight that is given those rules in the daily exercise of them. It still leaves much room for us
to investigate the aspects of pragmatic acts of the speech acts.
Third, speech act verbs are presented. The expressions which contain with SAV and those without SAV, can
lead to the same speech act. As a result, speech acts, as well as speech act verbs, only make sense when used in
their proper contexts.
In section 4 and 5, the author goes in detail on indirect speech acts and the classification of speech acts. As
the surface of a particular expression does not always and necessarily tell the truth about what it is doing, we’d
better look for the implied meaning in order to observe its pragmatic act. What we should bear in mind is that :
“A truly pragmatic approach would, in any case, concentrate on what users do; … Users are part of a world of
usage: they are never alone in their use of language, but use their language as members of a speech community that
reflects the conditions of the community at large.”
At last, though criticisms are offered to Austin’s original theory of speech acts, his discovery, that language is
an instrument of action, not just of speaking, should not be devalued over time. However, both Austin and Searle
carry on the ‘one sentence, one case principle’. This kind of ‘case approach’ does not take the contextual factor
into account. When we describe speech acts and people’s use of language, one thing we should take it seriously
is the contextual conditions. (To the top)
He Ning
(elvahening@eyou.com; 16 May 2005 03:27:45 +0800)
In chapter 5, Mey introduces speech acts to us, which is a very important theory in Pragmatics. Austin and
Searl’s contribution to speech acts are the major concern of this chapter.
Firstly, Mey give a brief account of the history and some characteristics of speech acts. Speech acts theory
was firstly proposed by Oxford philosopher John L. Austin in his famous work How to Do Things with Words. His
student, the American philosopher John R. Searle, further developed his theory. Although speech acts are proposed
by a philosopher, they are produced in actual situation of language use, which is very different from
non-use-oriented examples of most grammarians and philosophers. “All speech is situated speech; a speech act is
never just an ‘act of speech’, but should be considered in the total situation of activity of which it is a part(cf.
Levinson 1979), and therefore, it is always a pragmatic act, rather than a mere speech act.” (P94 Chapter5) Austin
made a distinction between the different aspects of speech acting: locutionary aspect, illocutionary aspect and
perlocutionary act. A valid speech act need to fulfill two conditions. First, we have to be certain that the person
annunciating these words actually has the power to do so. Second, we have right circumstance for the uttering.
Secondly, Mey talks about the conditions and rules of Promises. As for the conditions for a speech act to
count as a promise, nine conditions are mentioned. What the words I promise mean is determined by the pragmatic
conditions governing the use of the language in the particular context of a certain family. Generally speaking, it is
society that determines the validity of a particular speech act. As to rules govern a successful use of the speech act,
five rules are mentioned. These rules and conditions mentioned above are clearly stated from P99 to P101, so I
don’t write them down here.
Thirdly, Mey discusses the speech act verbs. According to the different classificatory criteria, we have
answers as to the number of speech acts. Whatever the number, languages have shown their preferences for certain
exemplars of the species, and expressed this preference by bestowing the honors of specific, linguistic expressions;
3
such expressions go by the name of speech act verbs. In fact, even if one observe an SAV in some linguistic
connection, one can’t believe a speech act to be taking place. The more important factor is the proper context. “The
‘surface’ form of a particular linguistic expression doesn’t always and necessarily tell the truth about what is
doing.”(P111 Chapter5)
Fourthly, Mey mentions the indirect speech acts. The occurrence of the imperative in orders or requests is
dispreferrred in many languages. People tend to use the indirect expressions to express the same meaning. We may
perform things with words in many ways, and the performative verbs aren’t even a major tool. “Indirect speech can
be a much more effective way of ‘getting one’s act together’ than using a regular SA.”(P117 Chapter5) Searle
regards indirect speech as a combination of two acts, a primary illocutionary act and a secondary one., where the
primary act operates through, and in force of, the secondary one.
Fifthly, the author reviews the research of Austin and Searle. Undoubtedly, Austin’s theory of speech act and
Searle’s further development made a great contribution to the pragmatics. However, there are flaws in the theory,
such as Austin’s classification and Austin and Searle’s “case approach”.
What is of my special interest is various criticism about Austin’s original theory of speech acts. I think his
main deficiency lies in that he tried to use the form of the language to explain its function. However, without the
consideration of actual communicative context, we can’t arrive at the satisfactory conclusion. (To the top)
Jing Andian
(robertbai2003@163.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 21:12:23 +0800 (CST))
Chapter 5 is basically about the theory of speech acts in the language understanding pragmatically. From the
functional view, the language has the functions of ‘can say’, ‘can mean’, and ‘can do’. If we take these functions
to measure the theory of speech acts, then we can say that the speech acts are the language function of ‘can do’. Of
course, the difference just lies in whether the context is under the consideration, since in pragmatics the context is
the most important element while understanding the language. Through the reading of chapter 5, we find that the
language can not only make the speaker do, but the hearer, directly or indirectly.
Specifically, there are 4 things addressed in this chapter as the following:
First, the history and introduction of speech acts. In the first part, the author provides us with the history of
speech acts. In the actual language use, the language user not only tells the truth of the physical world, but also
expresses his feelings of his mind. Therefore when we analyze the language just from the perspective of
truth-condition, it is not enough. On the contrary we must apply to pragmatics, especially from the view of the
language user in particular context. In fact when we talk about the theory of speech acts, we can explore it from the
communicative principle, which is proposed in the previous chapter. Once the language user utters he is certain to
intend to do something either for the hearer or for himself.
Second, the relation between speech acts and speech act verbs. Traditionally, the speech acts are expressed by
the means of speech act verbs in language. But the fact is that ‘there is , however, and has always been, a certain
asymmetry in the relationship between speech act verbs and speech acts proper’. As the author argues, not all
speech acts are expresses by a specific speech act verbs, they may be represented by several. Conversely, not every
speech act has a corresponding, custom-made speech act verbs of its own. Extremely, sometimes, particular speech
act may be expressed without using speech act verb. In other words, speech acts and their verbs only make sense in
their proper contexts. If the proper contexts are not considered, the speech act does not take place even if there is
certain speech act verb in the utterance.
Third, the author discusses the indirect speech acts in language. In the actual communication the speaker dose
not always express what he wants to directly, he intends to express it indirectly. This phenomenon give rise to the
question of indirect speech acts. In my opinion, the reason why the speaker expresses what he wants indirectly can
be explained from the cooperative principle, politeness principle and relevance theory, which are introduced in the
previous chapter. From the view of hearer, he should consider the speaker is cooperative while communicating,
whatever the speaker addresses, it is relevant to what he expects. From the view of the speaker, the reason why he
does not express what he wants is he observes the politeness principle while communicating, and considering if the
hearer observes the relevance theory he should understand what he wants to express. As to the interpretation of the
indirect speech act, the author suggests the hearer should infer from the view of logic.
Fourth, the classification of speech acts. In the last part of this chapter the author introduces the classification
of speech acts proposed by Austin and Searle. Even though the classification proposed by Austin is controversial,
Searle follows it with certain modification. In Searle’s opinion, the speech acts could be classified as
representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. In the end of this part the author gives his
comments on the classification made by Austin and Searle and argues that when we describe the speech act we
must pay serious attention to contextual conditions. (To the top)
4
Lai Tao
(byyourside@sina.com; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:58:59 +0800)
This chapter mainly deals with “speech acts” theory in pragmatic view, and introduces systematically the
theory developed by J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle.
First, this chapter analyzes the distinction between performatives and constatives by Austin (1962). Such
“stating” verbs as merely describing situations, which were used to produce true or false “statements” about those
situations, were called by Austin “constatives”. While the verbs denoting “real” speech acts seemed to do
something, rather than merely producing candidates for “truth” or “falsehood”, were called “performatives” by
Austin (1962). (5.3.2: 106)
Second, the author pays special attention to Searle’s indirect speech act (Searle, 1975) and his classification of
speech acts (Searle, 1977). Searle views indirect speech acting as a combination of two acts, a primary
illocutionary act and a secondary one, where the primary act operates through, and in the force of, the secondary
one. (5.4.2: 113).
Then, Searle’s classification of speech acts is introduced with his applying criteria. The five speech acts
categories that Searle end up establishing are: representatives (or assertives), directives, commissives,
expressives and declarations. (Searle, 1977: 34)
Fourth, it is about Mey’s own view on indirect speech act. There are two ways of approaching indirect speech
acts. One way is based on reasoning and certain basic principles of logic (5.4.1: 112). The ten steps of Searle
demonstrate this very well. The other, pragmatic way of looking at the problem takes its point of departure in what
people actually say, and “do with their words”. Users are part of a world of usage: they are never alone in their use
of language, but use their language as members of a speech community that reflects the conditions of the
community at large. (5.4.3: 114) In fact, indirect speech can be a much more effective way of “getting one’s act
together” than using a regular SA (Thomas, 1996: 142-6).
Last comes to the evaluation on the research of Austin and Searle. There are deficiencies in Austin’s
classificatory schema (5.5.3: 124). And both Austin and Searle limited themselves to one single instance in
discussing promises. However, the importance of Austin’s discovery, viz., that language is an instrument of action,
not just of speaking, has not diminished over time. (5.5.3: 124) and in one respect Searle’s taxonomy is superior to
Austin’s. That is my reading report. Thanks for your patience. (To the top)
Li Handong
(winter180@sina.com; Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:46:43 +0800)
This chapter is basically about Speech Acts Theory. Mey illustrates this from pragmatic viewpoint. There are
five things addressed in the reading.
First, it’s an introduction and tells us how Austin and Searle proposed, developed and improved Speech Acts
Theory. Austin had a famous work How to Do Things with Words (1962), and Searle thinks that when people say
something they must do it with intention.
This intentional character of speech acts is among the most distinctive classificatory feature.
Speech acts are verbal actions happening in the world. Uttering a speech ace, people do something with their
words: they perform an activity that (at least intentionally) brings about a change in the existing state of affairs.
Second, Mey takes promises as examples to illustrate speech acts. In this part, Mey focuses on four questions,
which are:
How can we determine a speech act?
How many speech acts are there, and how are they expressed in language?
What is the relationship between a speech act and a pragmatic act?
Are there speech acts (or pragmatic acts) that found across languages, or even in all languages to illustrate
speech acts at large. About the first question, Mey list nine conditions and five rules that Searle (1969:57ff)
enumerated for successful promising. Further, he gives the pragmatics of rules based on the about: regulative and
constitutional rules. To be exact, in promise: the constitutional rule is what is a promise, pragmatically speaking?
and the regulative one is how are promises dealt with in an actual social context?
Third, Mey discusses speech act verbs, which is focused on the question (2). Speech act verbs are verbs that
somehow or other seem to be the natural way of expressing a pragmatic speech act. About its number, there are
‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters’ two different kinds of views.
Austin called the verbs ‘performatives’, since the verbs ‘real’ speech acts seems to do something rather than
merely denoting candidates for ‘truth’ or ‘falsehood’.
Many people may confuse performative and speech act verb, Mey gives a lot of examples, finally conclude
5
that performativity is a property that is not specifically bound up with speech act verb, in Verschueren’s (1979)
words, we are dealing with a performativity ‘continuum’, spanning all the way from ‘institutionalized’ speech act
verbs such as ‘to baptize’, to everyday verbs that occasionally can take on a performative character.
By the example of speech act without speech verbs, Mey tells us that even if one observes a speech act verb
in some linguistic connection, one should not believe a speech act to be taking place, before one has considered, or
possibly created, the appropriate context.
Fourth, it’s about the indirect speech acts. Mey lists two theoretical explanations to indirect speech acts.
The first one is the ‘reasoning’. By which indirect speech acts including two act: secondary illocutionary act which
is a verbal expression; and primary illocutionary act which shows the real force. While the latter can be realized
through reasoning the meaning hidden in the former. The second id the pragmatic view, in which the indirect
speech acts in certain context, is the most direct way of expressing in such context. Because language reflects all
aspects of social life, namely the believes, habits and so on will be codified through language and become
linguistic construction of social facts which will become the most appreciate act in such context. That indirect
speech acts are far more effective than direct speech acts is the deeper reason for the use of indirect speech act.
The fifth is Searle’s classification of speech acts. The five speech act categories that Searle ends up
establishing are: representatives (or assertives), directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. (1977:34)
At last, Mey points out that Austin, in his description of individual speech acts, often ended up describing
particular speech act verbs in English, the importance of his discovery, viz., that language is an instrument of
action, not just of speaking, has not diminished over time.
He also points out that pragmaticists should pay serious attention to contextual conditions when describing
speech acts and, in general, people’s use of language. if the contextual conditions for a particular speech act’s
being realized are not met, then there simply is no speech act, no matter what is said or written. (To the top)
Liao Jinchao
(samliao1@163.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:12:00 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about speech acts. It includes a brief introduction to speech acts, promises as speech
acts, speech act verbs, indirect speech acts and the classification of speech acts.
Section one: A brief introduction to speech acts
In his book How to Do Things with Words, the Oxford philosopher John L. Austin proposed his understanding
in words, which is well known later as speech act theory. And this book had an enormous impact on linguistics,
especially in pragmatics. Later Austin’s speech act thinking was developed and modified by John R. Searle.
Linguistics and philosophers before Austin were used to focus their attention on truth-functional semantics.
Searle(Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language ,1969) thinks that the basic flaw in traditional
thinking is that they do not pay attention to language as an activity which produces speech act. Furthermore Mey
thinks that speech acts are produced in actual situations of language use, by people having something in mind.
What is of special interest to us is that speech acts are never acts of speech but are parts of the whole
communication activity. This implies that words in communications should be considered not only as a correct
sentence but also as pragmatic acts.
Section two: promises as speech acts
As for promises, Searle thinks that there are dozens of ways to make a promise in any particular language,
and it is only the context which can determine whether a particular expression counts as a promise.
Searle lists nine conditions for a speech act to count as a promise and five rules for illocutionary force
indicating device of promises. In Mey’s opinion rules of Searle’s can be divided into regulative and constitutive
ones.
Section three: speech act verbs
“Speech act verbs” is the name designated to those verbs that is the way of expressing a particular speech act.
However, there is an asymmetry in the relationship between speech act verbs and speech act proper. First, not all
speech acts are represented by a specified speech act verb and they may be represented by several speech act verbs.
Second, not every speech act has a corresponding speech act verb of its own.
In conclusion, performativity of speech act is a property that is not specifically bound up with speech act
verbs.
Section four: the classification of speech acts
By criticizing Austin’s classification as operating with overlapping criteria, Searle provides his classification.
Based on three points: illocutionary point, direction of fit and content of the speech act, Searle divides speech acts
into five: representatives, directives, commissives, expressive and declarations.
In the end of this chapter, Mey points out that we should pay serious attention to contextual conditions when
6
describing speech act. If the contextual conditions for a particular speech act’s being realized are not met, then
there simply is no speech act. This point is what is of special interest to us. (To the top)
LIU Bin
(liubin54100101@sohu.com; Tue, 12 Apr 2005 21:23:54 +0800 (CST) )
In this chapter, the writer talks about Speech Acts. The first section of this chapter is a brief introduction to
Speech Acts. Austin’s work How to Do Things with Words had an enormous impact on linguistic philosophy, and
thereby on linguistics, especially in its pragmatic variant. Austin’s thinking ( which in the course of time came to
be known as “speech act theory”) was further developed and codified by the American philosopher Searle. In
Searle’s opinion, “the unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or
sentence, but rather the production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech act”.
Speech acts are verbal actions happening in the world. Uttering a speech act, we do something with our words.
The second section discusses a kind of speech act, namely “promising”. To young children, the only promise
is one that has the word promise in it. However, if an utterance is a promise depends on the circumstances of the
promise: in some cases, we pay attention to the people who promise, rather than to their exact words, while in
other contexts, we focus on the social frame in which the promise is given. Searle enumerates nine conditions and
five rules for successful promising.
The third section is on “speech act words”. “Speech act words” are those words that somehow or other seem
to be the natural way of expressing a particular speech act. Many suggestions have been offered as to the number
of speech acts that any particular language has to offer. The difference in opinion have to do with, among other
things, the demans placed upon one’s classificatory criteria. There has always been a certain asymmetry in the
relationship between speech act verbs and speech acts.
The forth section is about indirect speech acts. Some speech acts are not expressed directly. A person may
make a request when he only asked a question about another person’s ability. There are basically two ways of
approaching this problem. The first one is based on strict reasoning and certain basic principles of logic. The other
way takes its point of departure in what people actually say, and “so with their words”. Searle views in direct
speech acting as a combination of two acts, a primay illocutionary act and a secondary one.
The fifht section is on the classification of speech acts. There many levels at which speech acts can differ.
Searle maintains that “there are several quite different principles of distinctions: that is, there are different kinds of
difference that enable us to say that the force of this utterance is different from the force of that utterance”. He
proposes twelve criteria to classify speech acts.
(To the top)
Liu Taomei
(ltaomei@126.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 21:03:30 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about the speech acts. There are 5 things addressed in the reading. Namely, the
development of Speech Act Theory, how we can determine a speech act; how many speech acts there are, and how
they are expressed in languages; indirect speech acts and the classification of speech acts. Mey also compares
Austin’s classification with the one proposed by Searle.
Firstly, Mey elaborates the development of Speech Act Theory proposed by J. Austin and further developed
and codified by J.R. Searle. Speech acts are verbal actions happening in the world. Uttering a speech act, people do
something with their words: they perform an activity that brings about a change in the existing state of affairs.
According to J. Austin, there are 3 different aspects of speech acting: locutionary; illocutionary; perlocutionary
aspects.
Secondly, Mey try to answer the question: How we can determine a speech act. He deals with the question
exemplarily by choosing a model speech act, the ‘promise’, and exploring the conditions and rules governing its
use. The exposition is based on Searle e with the addition of a critical commentary. Mey first list the nine
conditions that Searle (1967:57ff) enumerates for successful promising; following that, Mey examines his five
rules. Searle divides the rules into two groups: one is called ‘regulative’ rules and the other is called ‘constitutive’
rules. He try to convince that it is the constitutive rules that people should abide by when using languages.
Thirdly, Mey deals with the question how many speech acts there are, and how they are expressed in
languages. Searle (1979) classified speech acts into 5 categories: representatives, directives, commissives,
expressives and declarations. Then Mey illustrates the relationship between speech acts, speech act verbs and
performativity. Then he draw a conclusion that performative is a property that is not specifically bound up with
SAVs. We clearly do not need a particular SAV to perform a speech act, and in many cases, we cannot even
7
properly perform the very speech act that is ‘officially’ expressed by the verb, by making explicit mention of the
appropriate verb. The ‘surface’ form of a particular linguistic expression does not always and necessarilytell the
truth about what it is doing. Often, when trying to determine what kind of speech act we are confronted with, we
may have to disregard that form, and instead look for a ‘deeper’ or ‘implied’ meaning. On some occasions, speech
act locutions(SAVs or SAFs) may substitute for one another.
Fourthly, Mey talks about indirect speech acts. Searele views indirect speech acting as a combination of two
acts, a primary illocutionary act and a secondary one, where the primary act operates through ,and in force of , the
secondary one. How does the listener understand the nonliteral primary illocutionary act from understanding the
literal secondary illocutionary act? In order to answer this question, Searle builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning
at whose summit he places his conclution as a logically necessary keystone. As pragmaticists, we must ask, first of
all, when exercising our power of speech, what effects our speech acting has, or can have, when performed in the
actual social surroundings. This, again, will force us to revise whatever classifications we have adopted of speech
acts and of their ways of being expressed, by placing greater emphasis on the ways the context creates the
‘affordances’ for our societal and linguistic conduct; in short: for our acting pragmatically.
Finally, Mey talks about the classification of speech acts. Searle(1977) finds fault with Austin’s taxonomy of
speech acts for various reasons(inconsistency, incompleteness and so on). He supposed twelve criteria to lay the
foundations for a better classificatory procedure. The five speech act categories that Searle ends up establishing are:
representatives (or assertives); directives; commissives; expressives and declarations(1977:34). In one respect
Searle’s taxonomy is superior to Austin’s : it is more oriented toward the real world. Inasmuch as it takes its point
of departure in what actually is the case, namely that people perform a speech act whenever they use
language,irrespective of the the ‘performative’ criterion.
Both Austin and Searle operate on the ‘one sentence, one case principle’. With the development of pragmatic
linguistics, the shortcomings of the ‘case approach’ have become more and more prominent. Even though Searle
mentions the institutional character of speech acting, he does not include the contextual factor among his criteria
for classifying speech acts.
In the end, Mey points out that, as pragmaticists, we should pay serious attention to contextual condition
when describing speech acts and, in general, people’s use of language. (To the top)
Liu Tingting
(hetao1126@sina.com; Fri, 13 May 2005 19:26:43 +0800)
This chapter is basically about speech acts.
There are 5 things addressed in the reading: history and introduction to the issue of speech act; promises;
speech act verbs indirect speech acts; classifying speech acts.
First, the author introduces the development of speech act theory since the Oxford philosopher John L.
Austian first raised the ‘speech act theory’, which was further developed and codified by the American philosopher
John R. Searle.
Second, the author mentions a speech act’s physiognomy: promising, which is connected with the question
how to determine a speech act. The author gives exactly illusion to the nine conditions that Searle enumerates for
successful promising as well as examines his fives rules. As far as to the five rules, the author analyzes them from
a pragmatic perspective. Searle appeals to a distinction by Rawls (1955)between regulative rules and constitutive
rules.the first are the kind that control antecedently existing activities. The latter have the conceptual form. The
difficulties of sharply distinguishing between constitutive and regulative rules have their roots in the
often-observed fact that speech act theory, even though in name and pretension a theory of action, in reality is a
philosophical theory of, or about, propositions.
Third, this part is basically about speech act verbs. The author lists some linguists’ classifications to the
speech acts. However, in his option, whatever the number of hypothetical speech acts, languages have historically
shown their preferences for certain, well-defined exemplars of the species, and expressed this preference by
bestowing the honors of specific, linguistic expressions on such acts; such expressions go by the name of speech
act verbs. Traditionally, a number of languages associate some kind of activity with the word for ‘verb’ itself.
Austian first made a distinction between ‘constative’ and ‘performatives’ utterance. Constatives are utterances in
which something is said which can be evaluated along a dimension of truth. Performatives , on the other hand, are
utterances in which something is done which cannot be said to be true or false but which can be evaluated along a
dimension of ‘felicity’. The author thinks that since performativity is all over the verbal spectrum, we clearly do
not need a particular SAV to perform a speech act, and in many cases, we cannot even properly perform the very
speech act that is ‘officially ’expressed by the verb, by making explicit mention of the appropriate verb. By using
two cases to illustrate his point above, the author make a conclusion that the ‘surface ’form of a particular
8
linguistic expression does not always and necessarily tell the truth about what it is doing. Often, when trying to
determine what kind of speech act we are confronted with, we may have to disregard that form, and instead look
for a ‘deeper’ or ‘implied ’ meaning.
Forth, basically about indirect speech acts. In this part, the author makes a specific analysis to the Searle’s
views to the indirect speech acts. Searle views indirect speech acting as a combination of two act, a primary
illocutionary act , and a secondary one where the primary act operates through, and in force of , the secondary one.
The author illustrates Searle’s ten-step pyramid of reasoning at whose summit he places his conclusion as a
logically necessary keystone, in order to answer the question ‘how does the listener understanding the nonliteral
primary illocutionary act from understanding the literal secondary illocutionary act?’ Furthermore, the author
discusses that if we observe the indirect speech acts by making concentration on the pragmatic aspect, we will
have the advantage of being closer to what people actually do with words.
Fifth, the author analyzes Searle’s classification of speech acts: representatives; directives; commissives;
expressive and declarations. Subsequently, the author compares the Searle’s to the one suggested by Ausin.
What is of especial interest to us in this chapter is that classify speech acts. In this part the author specifically
illustrates the indirect speech acts by analyzing the five speech act categories that Searle ends up establishing and
by comparing the Searle’s to the Austain’s (To the top)
Meng Jieqin
(mjqwb5172@21cn.com; Sun, 17 Apr 2005 19:30:49 +0800 (CST))
There are 5 things addressed in the reading:
First: (1) it introduces the history of speech acts and language in use (speech acts). Speech acts are produced
in actual situations of language use. The languages we use are dependent on the context of the situation. And the
intentional character of speech acts is one of the most distinctive features. (2), it discusses how speech acts
function.
Second: it is about speech act’s promise. (1), it introduces Searle’s nine conditions and five rules for a
promise. (2), It discusses pragmatics of rules from the ‘regulative’ rules and ‘constitutive’ rule. The regulative rules
define what the constitutive rules say they do; but the constitutive rules determine the weight that is given those
rules in the daily exercise of them. The difficulties of distinguishing between constitutive and regulative rules have
their roots in speech act theory that focuses on the ‘action’ inherent in an utterance.
Third: it is about speech act verbs. (1), it discusses the number and classification of speech acts. (2), it
discusses the relationship of speech acts, speech act verbs and performativity. Speech act verbs (SAVS) and speech
acts (SAS) have a certain asymmetry. Though the verbs are called‘performatives’by Austin, performativity is a
property that is not specifically bound up with SAVS. Speech acts, as well as speech act verbs only make sense
when used in proper context.
Four: it is about indirect speech acts. (1), there are two ways to recognize indirect speech acts. One is the
philosophical—semantic; the other is the pragmatic way of what people say and ‘do with their words’. (2), it is
about searle’s ten steps distinguishing primary illocutionary act and literal act. (3), it discusses indirect speech
from the pragmatic view by ways of language. We can speak not only of the ‘social construction of reality’ but of
the ‘linguistic construction of social facts’ (Berger and Luckman 1966). Language use relies heavily on interaction.
In real—world interaction, successful performance is done through the use of ‘pragmatic acts’ in particular societal
context.
Five: it is about the classification of speech acts. (1), it discusses Austin’s classification fallacy. There are
three scholars who criticize Austin’s original classification; they are Searle, Leech, and Thomas. (2), it discusses
Searle’s classification of speech acts, especially five speech act categories—representative (assertive), directive,
commissive, expressive, declarations (1977:34). (3), it evaluates Austin and Searle’s theory of speech acts and their
classification. Austin and Searle not only leave us their important discoveries to language, but also some
deficiencies. According to Mey, we should pay attention to contextual conditions when describing speech acts.
Ou Lianfen
(willie9830@sina.com; Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:54:32 +0800)
The chapter is basically about speech acts, which Mey discusses from the perspective of pragmatics. In the
chapter Mey provides a systematic and detailed introduction about Austin’s and Searl’s theory of speech acts.
Austin’s posthumous work How to Do Things with Words had an enormous impact on linguistic philosophy, and
thereby on linguistics, especially in its pragmatic variant. His thinking was developed and codified by Searle who
9
became the main proponent and defender of Austin.
Speech acts are the basic or minimal units of linguistics communication. (Searle 1969:16). They are produced
in actual situations of language use. Such a production naturally presupposes a producer and a consumer, human
agents, whose intentions are relevant and indispensable to the correct understanding and description of their
utterances. That means the speech acts are entirely dependent on the context of the situation in which such acts are
produced.
The original distinction between the difference aspects of speech is due to Austin. They are the locutionary
aspect, illocutionary aspect and perlocutionary aspect. The appropriate conditions for a valid speech act of
pronouncing are that the person enunciating these words actually has the power to do so and have the right
circumstances for the uttering.
The speech act of promising is discussed. As to promises there are dozens of ways to make a promise in any
particular language, and it is only the context that can determine whether a particular expression counts as a
promise. (Searle1969:52). Searle summarizes nine conditions for successful promising and fives rules governing
the use of promissory illocutionary force indicating device. Mey makes a critical commentary on the fives rules.
He thinks the five rules are not on the same level. He argues that speech act becomes pragmatic act. A pragmatic
view emphasizes that the nature of speech acting always varies according to various linguistic uses.
The five speech acts Searle end up establishing are representatives, directives, directives, commissives,
expressives and distinctions. Austin discovers the phenomena of speech acts and calls the verbs denoting real
speech acts performatives. Searle views indirect speech acting as a combination of a primary illocutionary act and
a second one. He develops Austin’s system to overcome some of the weakness. Both of their theory have their own
deficiencies. Mey stresses the contextual conditions when describing speech acts and people’s use of language
from the perspective of pragmatics. (To the top)
Song Yuge
(songyg2005@163.com; Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:09:14 +0800 (CST))
In this chapter, Mey deals with speech acts, which is proposed by the Oxford philosopher John L.Austin,
whose posthumous work How to Do Things with Words? had an enormous impact on linguistic philosophy, and
thereby on linguistics, especially in its pragmatic variant.
First of all, Mey tells us the history of speech acts and gives us a brief introduction of what is speech acts. He
agrees with Searle that “speech act is the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication.” However, he
accents the importance of context, he said: The language we use, and in particular the speech acts we utter, are
entirely dependent on the context of the situation in which such acts are produced.” And next, Mey brought up the
following questions: 1.How can we determine a speech act? 2. How many speech acts are there, and how are they
expressed in languages? 3. What is the relationship between a speech act and a pragmatic act? 4. Are there speech
acts that are found across languages or even in all languages? He himself then answers the first question by the
example “promise” and gets the result: “It is society that determines the validity of a particular speech act.” Then,
he extracts 5 rules from the 9 conditions of Searle’s for successful promising, and he thinks that the 5 rules are not
on the same level. By analyses of the 5 rules, he draws a conclusion: “We need to lift the speech act out of the
domain of abstract description into that of concrete action, speech act becomes pragmatic act.”
After solving the problem “How can we determine a speech act?”, Mey goes on to solve the second problem
“How many speech acts are there, and how are they expressed in language?” According to Austin, the individual
speech acts realizations may range from 1,000 to 9,999, while in Verschueren’s opinion, the actual member may be
“ between five hundred and six hundred.” But, how many speech acts are there? To solve this problem, Mey, first
of all, differs speech act verbs from speech acts. In many languages, “verb” is used to do whatever work has to be
performed in the context of the sentences, so that it is natural to look for verbs to denote speech acts, and the verbs,
are called speech act verbs. However, there is an asymmetry relationship between SAs and SAVs, and it is sure that
not all SAs are presented by a specific SAV, and that not every SA has a corresponding, custom—made SAV of its
own. Mey still emphasizes the context, he said, “It seems clear, from what I have said so far, that speech acts, as
well as speech act verbs, only make sense when used in their proper contexts. As isolated lexical items, or
members of a set, they have very little to tell us.”
Mey goes on with “indirect speech acts”, which is viewed by Searle as a combination of the two acts, a
primary illocutionary act, and a secondary one. Mey thinks that indirect speech acts in many cases are the most
common, and, traditional speech act theory has put the cart before the horse. He therefore points out, “In
real—world interaction, successful performance is not exclusively due to the power inherent either in the user or in
his or her words or speech acts: ultimately, this power resides in the society, but is mediated and negotiated,
through the use of pragmatic acts, in the institutional setting of a particular societal context.” Still, Mey emphasizes
10
the importance of context.
In the last section of this chapter, Mey gives a brief introduction of the criticism on Austin’s classificatory
categories(mainly about the fact that he does not pay attention to the difference between SAs and ASVs.) Then,
Mey lists out Searle’s 12 dimensions along which speech acts can be different, and, Searle’s classification of
speech acts, namely, representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. Compared to Austin’s
classification, Searle’s is more reasonable. But, Mey points out, -----the importance of his(Austin) discovery, viz,
that language is an instrument of action, not just of speaking, has not diminished over time. According to Mey,
“The societal context is a kind of ‘preparatory condition’ on vows and, in general, any kind promise-----.Still, Mey
accents context, and he thinks that Searle does not include the contextual factors among his criteria for classifying
speech acts.
From this chapter, we can easily infer that Mey always accents context in the theory of speech act, and he also
has his own proposal, pragmatic acts, which is elaborated in chapter 8. (To the top)
Sun Yan
(yanyansun@126.com; Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:52:26 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is mainly about speech acts. Mey discusses them from the perspective of pragmatic acts. A
historical review is given to give a systematic illustration of how speech act theory was advocated, developed and
perfected. A distinction between performatives and constatives is made. Besides, this chapter gives a detail
account of the five categories of Searle’s Indirect Speech Acts and his five categories of illocutionary acts.
First, this chapter introduces us how speech act theory comes into being. In the sixties, semantics was
under the influence of transformaitonal grammar. Much of the semantic work done by philosophers of language
during that time rested upon the ‘truth-functional’ definitions of semnatics in the Carnapian tradition. This trend
holds that a declarative must contain some testable proposition in order to be true or false. But ‘Ordinary
Language Philosophers’, represented by John L. Austin and his student John R. Searle aruged that some
declaratives such as wishes are not propositions and hence are ‘words with which to do things’. Searle maintains
that ‘The unit of linguistic communication is the production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance
of the speech act’. Furthermore, speech acts are produced in actual situations of language use by people having
an intention ‘in mind’. This intentional characcter of speech acts is among their most distinctive classificatory
features. The last question discussed in this chapter is how do speech acts function. Speech acts are verbal
actions happening in the world. Uttering a speech act, people do something with their words: they perform an
activity that brings about a change in the existing state of affairs. This insight is an essential part of speech act
thinking. There are three aspects of speech acting, namely, locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary aspect.
The second section is devoted in its entirety to a discussion of the appropriate circumstances for the
particular speech act ‘promising’ to be correctly performed. Some conditions are provided as the backdrop that
make a promise count as a promise. The whole section intends to answer the following two questions:
How can we determine a speech act?
How many speech acts are there, and how are they expressed in language?
The first question is dealt with by choosing ‘promise’ as a model speech act and exploring the conditions and rules
governing its use. Nine conditions and firve rules advocated by Searle and making a speech act ‘count as’ a
speech act, are listed. The five rules are then classified into two levels: the first four are called regulative rules
while the fifth one is termed a constitutive rule.
The third section is about speech act verbs. This and the two sections to come answer the questions as
below:
How many speech acts are there, and how are they expressed in language?
Due to different classificatory criteria, classifiers of speech acts can be grouped into what Verschueren has
called the ‘lumpers’, represented by Searle, who lump together their speech acts in a few, large categories, and the
‘splitters’, who split up their speech acts in a great number of classes. Since a number of languages associate
some kind of activity with the word for ‘verb’ itself. It seems natural to call those verbs that are found to denote
speech acts ‘speech act verbs’. There is, however, and has always been, a certain asymmetry in the relationship
btween speech act verbs and speech acts proper. First of all, not all speech acts are represented by a specific
Speech Act Verb. Second, and conversely, not evry Apeech Act has a corresponding, custom-made Speech Act
Verb of its own. The case of the so-called ‘performative verb’ is considered to make this point more clearly.
Performativity is a property that is not specifically bound up with Speech Act Verbs. Sometimes, we may even
not need a speech act verb to perform a speech act.
The fourth section is about Searle’s Indirect Speech Acts. To discuss it, we must frist recognize an indirect
speech act. There are two ways of approaching this problem. The first one is the philosophical-semantic one; it
11
is based on strict reasoning and certain basic principles of logic. The other, pragmatic way of looking at the
problem takes its point of departure in what people actually say, and ‘do with their words’. There are two
theoretical explanations to speech acts. One is advocated by Searle. He builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning
at whose summit he places his conclusion as a logically necessary keystone. The other is the pragmatic view. It
starts out from the observation that indirect speech acts, in many cases, are the most common, ‘direct’ realizations
of what we have come to know as ‘illocutionary force’. The inner reason for applying indirect speech acts is that
it is more effective than otherwise.
The last section deals with the classification of speech acts. Searle categorize speech acts into five types:
representatives(or assertives), directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. Finally, Mey gives a
comment on Austin and Searle’s Speech Act Theory. Both of them operate on the ‘one sentence, one case
principle’. The shortcomings of this ‘case approach’ have become more and more prominent. Mey stresses that
as pragmaticists, we should pay serious attention to contextual conditions when describing speech acts and, in
general, people’s use of language.
(To the top)
Tang Wensheng
(wwsstang@sina.com; Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:50:12 +0800)
This reading is basically about Speech Acts.
There are 5 things addressed in the reading:
Firstly, it talks about the history and introduction of speech acts(SA).
Much of the semantic work done by philosophers of language during the sixties and early seventies rest upon
the ‘truth-functional’ definitions of semantics. The basic flaw in such thinking is that it does not pay attention to
language as an activity which produce speech acts. In 1962, the Oxford philosopher John L. Austin published his
work How to Do Things with Words, which had an enormous impact on liguistics , especially in its pragmatic
variant. Austin’s thinking was further developed and codified by the American philosopher John R. Searle.
A speaker is nearly always doing something by saying something. Speech acts are verbal actions happening in
the world. Uttering a speech act, I do something with words: I perform an activity that brings about a change in the
existing state of affairs. The insight that words can change the world has become an important linguistic discovery.
However, speech acts are produced not in the solitary philosopher’s think-tank, but in actual situations of language
use. All speech is situated speech is always a pragmatic act, rather than a mere speech act.
Secondly, it talks about promises. It’s about the appropriate circumstances for a particular speech act to be
correctly performed. Can one trust people to keep a promise even when they haven’t used the word PROMISE? In
some cases, we pay attention to the people who promise, rather than to their exact words, while in other contexts,
we focus on the social frame in which the promise is given; after all, some of our socially most binding promises
are given without the verb to promise ever being used. We have to learn the rules govern a successful use of this
speech act. Searle enumerates nine conditions for successful promising. A pragmatic view on promising focuses on
the promiser and promisee, rather than on the promise itself.
Thirdly, it talks about speech act verbs (SAV). How many speech acts are there, and how are they expressed
in language? In the famous work, "How to do Things with Words," J. L. Austin outlined his theory of speech acts
and the concept of performative language, in which to say something is to do something. To make the statement “I
promise that p” (in which p is the propositional content of the utterance) is to perform the act of promising as
opposed to making a statement that may be judged true or false. Performatives cannot be true or false, only
felicitous or infelicitous. Austin creates a clear distinction between performatives and constantives, statements that
attempt to describe reality and can be judged true or false, but he eventually comes to the conclusion that most
utterances, at their base, are performative in nature. That is, the speaker is nearly always doing something by
saying something.
Traditionally, a number of languages associate some kind of activity with the word for ‘verb’ itself. It thus
seems natural to look for expressions of linguistic activity among the members of the category ‘verb’. However,
not all SAs are represented by a specific SAV; They may be represented by several. And not every SA has a
corresponding, custom-made SAV of its own.
Fourthly, it talks about indirect speech acts. Indirect speech acts in many cases are the most common,
‘indirect’ realizations of what we have come to know as ‘illocutionary force’. If one say to somebody:
Could you move over a bit?
One does not expect that person to answer the question, because it’s not a question to answer but an indirect speech
act. Searle views indirect speech acting as a combination of two acts, a primary illocutionary act and a secondary
one, where the primary act operates through, and in force of, the second one.
Finally, it talks about the classification of speech acts. Seale criticizes Austin for operating with overlapping
12
criteria, for having incompatible elements within his categories, for including elements in his categories that do not
satisfy the definition of the category, and so on. Leech criticizes Austin for committing the grave error of
supposing that “verbs in the English language correspond one-to-one with categories of speech act”. In order to
classify speech acts, Searle made twelve criteria, which are supposed to lay the foundations for a better
classification procedure. The five speech act categories that Seale ends up establishing are: representatives (or
assertives), directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. (1977:34)
What is of especial interest to us is that speech acts, as well as speech act verbs, only make sense when used
in their proper contexts. As isolated lexical items, or members of a set, they have very little to tell us. That is to say:
even if one observes an SAV in some linguistic connection, one should not believe a speech act to be taking place,
before one has considered, or possibly created, the appropriate context. (To the top)
Tang Xia
(lenatx01981@yahoo.com.cn; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:54:44 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about speech acts, including language in use, promise, speech act verbs, indirect
speech act and the classification of speech act.
There are 5 things in the reading:
First: speech act theory
At first, Mey introduces the history of speech acts. The speech act theory is the first major theory in the study
of language in use, which originated with the Oxford Philosopher John L. Austin. And his student John R. Searl
developed and improved it. Before this, philosophers working in the truth-functional tradition restricted themselves
to the verifiability of declaratives, which to language, as an activity that produces speech acts.
Speech acts are ‘words with which to do things ’. They are produced not in the solitary philosopher’s thought,
but in actual situations of language use, and are entirely dependent on the context of the situation. It ‘s a pragmatic
act. Austin claims that there are two types of sentences: performatives and constatives. In order to distinguish
perfomatives, Austin uses the way of adding ‘hereby’ into the sentence. The functions of speech acts are that
uttering a speech acts means doing something with the words: perform an activity that brings about a change in the
existing state of affairs. In speech acts, words can change the world. It’s an essential part of speech acts thinking.
There are three parts of speech acting: locutionary aspect, illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect.
Second: Promise
In order to deal with the question of how can we determine a speech act, here Mey chooses a model speech
act, the ‘promise’. There are dozens of ways to make a promise in any particular language, and only the context,
which can determine whether a particular expression counts as a promise. The author enumerates Searl’s nine
conditions and five rules of promise. The five rules are not on the same level, the first four ones called ‘regulative’
rules, the last one called constitutive rule. Then he discussed the relationship between them. At end, Mey points out
that a pragmatic view emphasize that the nature of speech act various linguistic use, not only cross-language-wise,
but also, and not lest interestingly, within a single language.
Third: speech act verbs
From 5.3: speech act verbs to the end of this chapter, Mey tries to deal with the question of how many speech
acts are there, and how are they expressed in language? To deal with this, we must discuss “speech act verbs”.
Different classifications have been offered to deal with speech act. According to Verschueren classifiers belong to
two opposite aspects: lumpers and splitters. Whatever the number of hypothetical speech acts (SAVs). Austin
distinguishes verbs into two kinds: constative and performative. However, certain asymmetry in relationship
between SAVs and SAs, is proper. Mey here gives three reasons, from which we can conclude that performativity
is a property that is not specifically bound up with SAVs. So speech act can happen without SAVs, such as the
cases: speech act “Formulae” and “verbless expressions” of the kind “thanks”. From them, we can say that speech
acts, as well as speech act verbs, only make sense when used in their proper context.
Forth: indirect speech acts
Mey explains the direct speech act by giving an example of asking a question to indicate telling the
interlocutor to do something. But how can we know it’s not a question but a proposal, there are two basically ways:
philosophical-semantic one and pragmatic one. Searl views indirect speech acting as a combination of two acts: a
primary illocutionary act and a secondary one, where the primary act operates through, and in force the secondary
one. Then, Searl builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning at recognizing speech acts. Mey introduces us the
pragmatic view of SAs. A truly pragmatic approach would, in any way case, concentrate on what users do, and also
users are part of a world of usage. They use their language as member of a speech community at large, Mey uses
the concrete things to illustrate it: such as the institutions that society and social human have created for
themselves, and the case of doctor-patient “conversation” and so on.
13
Fifth: classifying speech act
Mey quotes Austin’s classification firstly, they include: verdicative, expositive, exercitive, exercitives, and
commissive acts. According to Searl’s commentary, Austin apparently doesn’t pay attention to difference between
SAs and SAVs. According to Searl’s classification of speech acts, there are twelve criteria; Searl only uses four of
them. They are illocutionary point, direct of fit, expressed psychological state, context. Then, he uses them to
analysis the five speech act categories that Searl ends up establishing. They are: representatives, directives,
commissives, expressives and declarations.
At the end of this chapter, Mey discusses the contributions and drawbacks of Austin and Searl, and point out that
as pragmaticists, we should pay attentions to contextual conditions when describing speech acts and people’s use
of language.
(To the top)
Wang Kaiwen
(loadstar97kw@sina.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:15:14 +0800)
Chapter five is talking about the theory of speech act that is proposed by John Austin and developed by John
Searle later. In their theories, language is not only an abstract syntax system, but also a performance. Here are main
ideas of it:
First is that utterances are actions. The previous view of language among philosophers and linguists was that
of language as an abstract system, the central function of which is the description of states of affairs. Austin, by
contrast, proposed that language is a human activity, a human practice, a form of life, and distinguished utterances
that make statements about the world from utterances that make a change in the world. So, all utterances have both
a true/false component and an action component. For example, the statement “Guilin is in north of China” can be
judged as to its truth or falsity. However, it can be rephrased as “I state that Guilin is in north of China”, thereby,
becoming a performative that does the act of stating. In other situations, uttering those same words would
accomplish other actions, such as giving directions, disagreeing, or informing. In a word, Austin used the term
“Speech Act” to emphasize the action component.
According to Austin, when someone makes an utterance, three distinct types of act occur; namely, a
locutionary act, an illocutionary act and a perlocutionary act. The locutionary act consists of the production of
utterances either orally, as with speech, or visually, as with a sign language. The second, the illocutionary act, is the
act we perform by talking to one another, such as greeting, persuading, disagreeing, informing, etc. finally, there is
the perlocutionary act, the intended and unintended effects of the illocutionary act on the addressee.
The second is the theory of indirect speech act. It might appear that speech acts can be “indirect” in the way
conceptualized in Speech Act Theory. The model of indirect speech act is based on the assumption that literal
(direct) meanings are encoded into words and syntactic forms. Accordingly, the first step in understanding an
utterance is the decoding of the literal meaning of the sentence in its total speech situation, utterance meaning is
equivalent to the literal meaning of the sentence, in which case meaning is “direct”. If, on the other hand, the literal
meaning of the sentence is in conflict with the context or total speech situation, interpretations are made in an
attempt to find a fit situation. When such a fit is found, an indirect meaning is recognized. But, there is still another
case that the meaning of sentence can be recognized directly or indirectly. The sentences with the form “Can you
do X?”,“Would you mind doing X?”, and “May I ask you to do X?” can be literal questions but they can also be
used to do indirect requests.
The third is classification of speech acts. As Searle said, “The primary purpose of this paper is to develop a
reasoned classification of illocutionary acts into certain basic categories or types”(1977:27). Following is the
classifications of Searle’s:
representative (or assertive)宣称类
directives 指令类
commissives 承诺类
expressives 表述类
declaration.宣告类
Differences between the positions of Austin and Searle. Although Searle based his model of speech acts on
Austin’s pioneering work, the two approaches are significantly different in certain respects. In particular, Austin
did not present a set of formal felicity conditions unique to each type of speech act, nor did he propose a strict and
formal sit of rules for the production and interpretation of action. Importantly, Austin also stressed the relevance of
the indexical nature of speech act production and interpretation. By contrast, Searle proposed a formal model in
which rule-based procedures are applied similarly across different speech situations to unique sets of felicity
14
conditions. The total speech satiation is, therefore, of little relevance in Searle’s model. And, finally, Searle argues
for a close correspondence between sentence form (i.e., literal or direct meaning) and the action accomplished by
uttering that sentence.
However, I think, Speech Act Theory fails to account for situated action, is based on an inappropriate
conception of the role of mental states in the production and interpretation of talk, and fails to account for the
bi-directional mapping of utterances onto speech acts. Moreover, it treat all utterances as having literal (“direct”)
meaning and that, for some utterances, inferences is applied to literal (“direct”) meaning to produce “indirect”
meaning. But, in fact, all meaning is “indirect” in that meaning is based on inference in context, not on a
contextual encoding/decoding. (To the top)
Wang Liyuan
(catherine200661@sina.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:40:16 +0800)
This chapter is mainly about speech acts.
There are 5 things addressed in this reading.
First, it gives us a brief introduction of speech acts and how speech acts function. Speech acts theory is first
proposed by John L.Austin in his work How to Do Things with Words. In brief, to paraphrase Austin, speech acts
is ‘words with which to do things’. Searle, Austin’s student, had developed this theory further. The author thinks
although this theory also has some drawbacks, it still had an enormous impact on linguistics.
Second, Searle took the speech act ‘promises’ for example to make some concrete linguistic principles. There
are nine conditions for promises that made by Searle. According to the above nine conditions, Searle made four
corresponding rules, i.e., content rule, preparatory rule, sincerity rule and essential rule. The first four rules can be
called ‘regulative’ rule, and the fifth one is usually termed a ‘constitutive’ rule. Regulative rule can regular the
behaviors and rules which are independently exist from the rules, such as interpersonal manners, traffic rules and
so on. Constitutive rules are different from regulative rules. If the constitutive rules are broken, this kind of
behavior or activity will not exist. Generally speaking, behaviors rely on constitutive rules, such as rules of chess,
rules of sports and so on.
Third, in this section it mainly talks about speech act verbs. As Austin has suggested, there may be tens of
thousands of different kinds of speech act verbs. According to Austin, some verbs were seen as merely describing
situations; they were used to produce true or false ‘statements’ about those situations. Such ‘stating’ verbs were
called ‘constatives’. Other verbs denoting ‘real’ speech acts seemed to do something, rather than merely producing
candidates for ‘truth’ or ‘falsehood’, Austin consequently called them ‘performatives’. Performativity is a property
that is not specifically bound up with SAVs. There are also some speech acts without speech acts verbs.
Four, it talks about indirect speech acts. How to recognize indirect speech act? There are two ways of
approaching this problem. The first one is the philosophical-semantic one. The other, pragmatic way of looking at
the problem takes its points of departure in what people actually say, and ‘do with their words’. Mey illustrates two
theories of indirect speech act: reasoning and pragmatic view. Searle builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning.
Five, the author classifies the speech acts. Austin’s original classification is: verdicative, expositive, exercitive,
behabitive and commissive. But Searle criticizes this classification. Searle has divided speech acts into five types:
representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. (To the top)
Wang Wenbo
(bobomaoheboboyu@tom.com; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:33:43 +0800 (CST))
This chapter mainly talks about Speech Acts.
First, it gives us the introduction of Speech Acts. The language we use, and in particular the speech acts we
utter, are entirely dependent on the context of the situation in which such acts are produced. All speech is situated
speech; a speech act is never just an ‘act of speech’,but shoule be considered in the total situation of activity of
which it is a part(cf. Levinson 1979).
How speech acts function? We have to refer to Austin’s ‘Three Act’: the locutionary act---this is simply the
activity we engage in when we say something; the illocutionary act---stating, wishing, promising etc, and the
perlocutionary act---it depends on the particular circumstances of the utterance, and are by no means always
predictable. The perlocutionary act tells us something about people’s motivation for using a particular speech act,
so perhaps it is the most interesting aspect of speech acting. To make it valid, first of all, the person’s enunciating
these words actually has the power to do so, and second, it must be the right circumastances for the uttering.
Second, it introduces promising---a speech act’s physiognomy for us.
15
Let’s see Searle’s conditions for a speech act to ‘count as’ a promise?
Condition 1 Normal conditions must obtain for uttering and receiving a promise.
Condition 2 The promise must have a content.
Condition 3 At the moment of uttering, the content of a promise must have to do with a future ,possible action of
the speaker,
Condition 4 What is being promised must be to the advantage of the ‘promise’.
Condition 5 The content of the promise must not be something which clearly is going to happen anyway.
Condition 6 This condition has to do with the sincerity of the promiser in carrying out the act of promising.
Condition 7 A promiser intends to put himself or herself under the obligation of carrying out the promised act.
Condition 8 and 9 These conditions emphasize that the language used in promising must be the normal one, that
is, it obeys “the semantical rules of the language”
Generally speaking, conditions 1,8 and 9 hold for all apeech acts and their IFIDs.
Besides, five rules governing the use of promissory IFIDs can be extracted:
Third, it talks about speech act verbs.
Speech act verbs(SAVs) and Speech acts (SAs) are not the same. First of all, not all SAs are represented by a
specific SVA; Second, and conversely, not every SA has a corresponding, custom-made SVA of its own.. Finally,
there is the strange category of verbal expressions that have the property of denying what they explicitly are
denying.
Forth, it refers to something about indirect speech act.
Indirect speech acts has to do the way we are “set up” for recognition and action by the context. Searle views
indirect speech acting as a combination of two acts, a primary illocutionary act and the secondary illocutionary act.
Searle builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning at whose summit he places his conclusion as a logically necessary
keystone.
Fifth, it discusses the problem of classifying speech acts. Seale’s (1977) finds fault with Austin’s taxonomy of
speech acts for various reasons( inconsistency, incompleteness and so on). So he established the five speech act
categories as follow: representatives, directive, commissives, expressives, declarations (To the top)
Wei Yunhui
(whitman@163.com; Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:00:26 +0800 (CST))
This chapter is basically about the theory of Speech Act, covering three aspects.
First, Mey looks back into the history of the Speech Act theory and makes an introduction of it. Originating
from the research of truth-function of semantics, the theory began from L. Austin`s posthumous work How to Do
Things with Words,and was further developed and codified by the American philosopher John R. Searle. Mey
points out that the basic flaw in such thinking as ‘the language being a combination of sound and meaning and a
set of correct sentences’ is that it does not pay attention to language as an activity which produces speech acts,
defined as “the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication”(Searle 1969:16). As Searle puts it, “The unit
of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence,…but rather the
production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech act”(1969:16; Mey`s italics).
Furthermore, Mey states that speech acts are produced not in the solitary philosopher`s thinktank, but in
actual situations of language use, by people having something ‘in mind’. Such a production naturally presupposes
a ‘producer’ and a ‘consumer’ human agents, whose intention are relevant and indispensable to the correct
understanding and description of their utterances, quite contrary to the constructed, non-use-oriented examples of
most grammarians and philosophers.
Second, Mey enunciates the pragmatic issue of promises, concerning the appropriate circumstances for a
particular speech act to be correctly performed. He points out that one general problem with speech acts is that the
very wording of the act can lead to misunderstanding. All depends on the circumstances of the promise: in some
cases, we pay attention to the people who promise, rather than to their exact words, while in other contexts, we
focus on the social frame in which the promise is given; after all, some of our socially most binding promises are
given without the verb to promise ever being used. Mey continues the explanation of promises: how we determine
a speech act, viz. the conditions for a speech act to ‘count as’ a promise; the rules govern a successful use of the
speech act. He lists the nine conditions that Searle(1969:57ff) enumerates for successful promising.
Third, Mey deals with the question of how many speech acts there are, and how they are expressed in
language. According to Searle, resting on features of ‘meaning’, the speech acts can be classified into
representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. While according to Searle, Verschueren and
Austin, the speech acts may be classified into a great number. Mey expresses that whatever the number of
hypothetical speech acts, languages have historically shown their preferences for certain, well-defined exemplars
16
of the species, and expressed this preference by bestowing the honors of specific, linguistic expressions on such
acts; such expressions bo by the name of speech act verbs(SAV). Mey points out that there is, and has always been,
a certain asymmetry in the relationship between speech act verbs(SAVs) and speech acts(SAs) proper. Because
first, not all Sas are represented by a specific SAV; they may be represented by several; second, and conversely, not
every SA has a corresponding, custom-made SAV of its own. Not all SAs are on a par with regard to SAV status.
The conclusion that performativity is a property that is not specifically bound up with SAVs, Mey states,
could lead to the assumption that we may not even need SAV as a special category of verbs. Mey says that since
performativity is all over the verbal spectrum, we clearly do not need a SAV to perform a (speech) act, and in many
cases, we cannot even properly perform the very speech act that is ‘officially’ expressed by the verb, by making
explicit mention of the appropriate verb. Mey illustrates the point by the following two cases: the first is that of the
so-called ‘Speech Act Formulae’(SAF; Verschueren). These are verbal expressions that in all respects behave like
SAV, except that they are not ‘regular’ verbs, but rather, stylistic or other variations on a common semantic theme;
the second case is somehow related to the first, it has to do with ‘verbless expressions’ of the kind ‘thanks’. One
can doubt whether we always are dealing with a verb here, let alone an SAV. Mey last concludes that speech acts,
as well as speech act verbs, only make sense when used in their proper contexts. Speech acts may be used in ways
that have nothing, or not much, to do with what they ‘really’ stand for. This is called ‘indirect’ speech acts, which
abound, and in many cases are for more numerous than direct ones.
What interests us here is that despite its status as the ‘genuine’ expression of the speech act ‘order’ or
‘request’, people disprefer the imperative in order or requests in many languages. (To the top)
Xu Hui
(echowaiting@sina.com; Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:52:48 +0800)
This chapter is basically about speech acts. In this reading report, five things will be addressed.
First, the author introduces the history of speech act theory and how speech acts function. Before John L.
Austin’s posthumous work published in 1962, philosophers at that time restricted themselves to the verifiability of
declaratives. Wishes such as “Well done” are not propositions, they are speech acts. Speech acts are not produced
in the solitary philosopher’s think-thank, but in actual situations of language use, by people having something ‘in
mind’. The intentional character of speech acts is among their most distinctive classificatory features. Any
discussion of intentionality should be aware of the relationships that exist among the individuals to which the
intentions are ascribed, and of the ways they perceive the others as ‘intentional’ beings in a greater, societal context.
A speech act is always a pragmatic, rather than a mere speech act.
As to the question of how speech acts function, the author first introduces Austin’s ‘performative utterances’.
Besides, he introduces Austin’s original distinction between the different aspects of speech acting, namely the
locutionary aspect, the illocutionary force and perlocutionary act. In this connection, felicity conditions have been
the object of much discussion.
Second, the author discusses the speech act of “promises” with us. There are dozens of ways to make a
promise in any particular language, and it is only the context which can determine where a particular expression
counts as a promise. Then, the author lists the nine conditions that Searle enumerates for successful promising and
his five rules (context rule, preparatory rule, sincerity rule, and essential rule). Next, the author tries to analyze the
differences between constitutive rules and constitutive rules by analogy taken from the game of chess. However,
it’s difficult to sharply distinguish between them, because speech act theory in reality is a philosophical theory of
propositions. The general problems raised by speech act theory cannot be solved within such a framework, so we
should adopt a pragmatic view and remember that speech acts are pragmatic acts.
Third, speech act verbs are focused on. As to the classificatory criteria of speech act, linguists cannot reach an
agreement. Whatever the number of hypothetical speech acts, languages have historically shown their preference
for speech act verbs (henceforth SAV). According to Austin, there are two kinds of verbs denoting speech acts,
namely performatives and constatives. There is, however, and has always been, a certain asymmetry in the
relationship between SAV and speech acts proper. The author gives two reasons and concludes that performativity
is a property that is not specifically bound up with speech act verbs. Therefore, speech acts can happen without
SAVs. The author gives us two cases to illustrate this point, that is, ‘Speech Act Formulae’ and ‘verbless
expression of the kind ‘Thanks’’. At last, the author concludes that speech acts, as well as speech act verbs, only
make sense when used in their proper context.
The fourth topic is how to recognize indirect speech acts. There are basically two ways of approaching this
problem, that is, philosophical—semantic approach and pragmatic approach. Searle views indirect speech acts as a
combination of two acts, a primary illocutionary act, and a secondary one, where the primary act operates through,
and in force of, the secondary one. In order to answer this question, Searle builds a ten-step pyramid of reasoning
17
at whose summit he places his conclusion as a logically necessary key-stone. Then, the author explains the
pragmatic approach to us. A truly pragmatic approach would in any case, concentrate on what users do; but it
would not stop there. Uses are part of the world usage. Language use relies heavily on interaction in order to be
effective. The case of doctor-patient ‘conversation’ can well illustrate this point. In real-world interaction,
successful performance is due to the power residing in the society, which is mediated and negotiated, through the
use of ‘pragmatic acts’ in the institutional setting of a particular societal context. At the end of this connection, the
author concludes that indirect speech acts are not ‘abnormal’ cases. In fact, indirect speech can be a much more
effective way of ‘getting one’s act together’ than using a regular speech act.
The last part of this chapter focuses on how to classify speech acts. In this connection, the author mainly talks
about Searle’s classification of speech acts. Such a classification is primarily based on the following four criteria
out of his twelve criteria: ‘illocutionary point’, ‘direction of fit’, ‘expressed psychological state’ and ‘content’.
Besides, the author also refers to the fifth and sixth criteria, that is, ‘reference’ and ‘contextual conditions of speech
acting’. Then, the author explains Searle’s five categories one by one: ‘representatives’, ‘directives’,
‘commissives’, ‘expressives’ and ‘declaratives’. At last, the author talks about both Austin’s and Searle’s
contributions and the shortcomings of their classificatory schema. One common deficiency in discussing the
speech act of ‘promises’ is that the context in which a promise is made is not paid attention to. At end of this
chapter, the author concludes that as pragmaticists, we should pay serious attention to contextual conditions when
describing speech acts and, in general, people’s use of language. (To the top)
Xu Zhaojuan
(ajuan2003@163.com; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 09:20:58 +0800 (CST))
Of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably aroused the widest
interest. Mey said “the impressive success of certain theoretical developments in linguistics in the sixties (mainly
within the framework of transformational grammar, following Chomsky’s classic works: the 1957 Syntactic
Structures and its 1965 companion Aspects of the Theory of Syntax) made it difficult for other workers in
linguistics and the related sciences to have their voices heard.”
In this chapter, Mey talked about 5 issues, including history and introduction, promises, a speech act’s
physiognomy: promising, speech act verbs, indirect speech acts and classifying speech acts.
I interested in the indirect speech act. In this passage, the author talked about recognizing indirect speech acts,
the ten steps of Searle and the pragmatic view. If I say to somebody:
Could you move over a bit?
I do not expect that person to ‘answer my question’ with:
Yes
or:
Yes, perhaps I could
and not budge an inch. On the contrary, I would consider such an ‘answer’ highly inappropriate, even though I
did indeed utter a question (formally characterized as such by word order, intonation etc.) of the ‘Yes/No’ type. By
contrast, if the person did move, but never ‘answered’ my question (as might be the case if the scene happened to
be a or concert hall), I would be perfectly happy with his or her reaction (or answer).
The reason for this apparent incongruity is found I the character of my ‘question’. It was never intended as an
inquiry into the physical or moral degrees of freedom of my interlocutor.
A major problem for both thesis and antithesis is constituted by the phenomena known as indirect speech acts. The
notion only makes sense if one subscribes to the notion of a literal force. Let us call this the literal force hypothesis
(LFH). As Gazdar has pointed out, LFH will amount to subscribing to the following:
(i) Explicit performatives have the force named by the performative verb in the matrix clause
(ii) Otherwise, the three major sentence-types in English, namely the imperative, interrogative and declarative,
have the forces traditionally associated with them, namely ordering (or requesting), questioning and stating
respectively (with, of course, the exception of explicit performatives which happen to be in declarative format)
The basic problem that then arises is that most usages are indirect. For example, the imperative is very rarely
used to issue requests in English; in we tend to employ sentences that only indirectly do requesting. For example,
we could construct an indefinitely long list of ways of indirectly requesting an addressee to shut the door
I want you to close the door
I’d be much obliged if you’d close the door
Can you close the door?
Are you able by any chance to close the door?
18
Would you close the door?
Won’t you close the door?
Would you mind closing the door?
Would you be willing to close the door?
You ought to close the door
It might help to close the door
May I ask you to close the door?
Would you mind awfully if I was to ask you to close the door?
I am sorry to have to tell you to please close the door
g. Did you forget the door?
Do us a favor with the door, love
How about a bit less breeze?
Now Johnny, what do big people do when they come in?
Okay, Johnny, what am I going to say next?
Given that the primary function of each of these could, in the right circumstances, amount to a request to
close the door, the LFH theorist has to devise some way of deriving their request force from sentence forms that,
according to rule (ii) in above, are prototypically assertions and questions rather than requests.
As pragmaticists, we must ask, first of all, when exercising our power of speech, what effects our speech
acting has, or can have, when performed in the actual social surroundings.
(To the top)
Zhou Yanqiong
(higherjojo@tom.com; Sun, 17 Apr 2005 18:55:37 +0800 (CST))
In this chapter five points are stated(1). introducing the how the speech act theory come into being;(2).taking
advantage of promise to disscuss some problems;(3).talking about speech act verb and speech act;(4).indirect
speech acts are discussed;5. comparing Austin’s and Searles’s taxnomy.
1.Most philosophers in the sixties and early seventies rested upon the ‘truth-functional’definitions of semantics and
restricted themselves to ‘propositions’ which is true or false, but some sentences are not propositions they are
words with which to do things Austin is the exponent of speech act. Speech acts are produced not in the solitary
philosopher’s thinktank, all speech is situated speech, speech act is never just an ‘ act of speech’ it should be
considered in the total situation of activity Due to Austin three different aspects of speech act are performed:
locutionary aspect, illocutionary act and perlocutionary effect.
2.As to the question what are the appropriate circumstances for a particular speech act to be correctly performed,
Austin discusses it through the example of promises: through the promise example Austin explored the condtions
and rules as an answer to the question how can we determine a speech act, and the difference between
‘constitutive’ rule and ‘regulative’rule is discussed:the regulative rules define what the constitutive rules say they
do; but the constitutive rules determine the weight that is given those rules in the daily exercise of them. But it is
only the content of the speaker’s act that is subject to the constitutive and regulative rules, a pragmatic view
emphasizes that the nature of speech acting always varies according to various linguistic uses, not only
cross-language-wise but also within a single language.
3.what is speech act verb is expained: languages have historically shown their preferences for certain, well-defined
exemplars of the species, and expressed this preference by bestowing the honors of specific, linguistic expressions
on such acts, shuch expressions go by the name of speech act verbs. Then the relationship between speech acts and
speech act verbs is discussed: there is a certain asymmetry between them (1) not all Sas are represented by a
specific SAV; (2) not every SA has a corresponding, custom-made SAVof its own;(3) there is the strange category
of verbal expressions that have the property of denying what they are doing, or doing what they explicitly are
denying. At last a conclution is obtained: performativity is a property that is not specifically bound up with SAVs.
Two cases are given to illustrate that we clearly do not need a SAV to perform a speech act, and speech acts as well
as speech act verbs only make sense when used in their proper contexts.
4. Examples are given to explain what is indirect speech act, with regards to how to recognize indirect expression,
two ways of approaching the problem are offered: (1) the philosophical-semantic one; it is based on strict
reasoning and certain basic principles of logic;(2) pragmatic way of looking at the problem takes its point of
departure in what people actually say. A ten-step pyramid of reasoning of Searle is introduced as a reasoning one.
While from the aspect of the other way- pragmatic one, indirect speech acts are the most common, ‘direct’
realization of illocutionary fore, because languages reflect all aspects of their society, we can speak not only of
the ‘social construction of reality’ but of the ‘linguistic construction of social facts’, thus the indirect speech acts
19
are more effective than direct speech acts.
5.Mey talkes about Searle’s classification speech acts: representatives , directives, commisives, expressive and
declaration and compares the taxonomy to the one suggested by Austin: the categories that Austin established are
not mutually exclusive and there is a rather general confusion between the notion of ‘speech act’ and that of
‘speech act verb’,Searle’s taxonomy is superior to Austin’s is that: it is more oriented toward the real world. But
both Austin and Searl operate on the ‘one sentence, one case principle’, the institutional character of speech acting
such as this kind of questions are never brought to the fore in Austin’s or Searl’s discussion. Even though Searl
mentions it, he does not include this contextual factor among his criteria for classifying speech acts. (To the top)
20