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Searle's Speech Act Theory (1969)

Searle discusses the following example sentences:

  1. Sam smokes habitually.
  2. Does Sam smoke habitually?
  3. Sam, smoke habitually!
  4. Would that Sam smoked habitually.

Searle introduces speech act theory as follows:

Let us assign names to these under the heading of speech acts:
(a)Uttering words (morphemes, sentences) = performing utterance acts.
[Syntax -- DG]
(b)Referring and predicating = performing propositional acts
[Semantics -- DG]
(c) Stating, questioning, commanding, promising, etc. = performing illocutionary acts.
[Pragmatics -- DG]
...
To these three notions I now wish to add Austin's notion of the perlocutionary act.
[Subjective effect -- DG]



Dafydd Gibbon
Wed Oct 21 15:49:14 MET DST 1998