14
acts were called locutionary act by Austin, who also use the term illocutionary act and further term we will use shortly, perlocutionary acts.
34
1. Locutionary Act
Saying locutionary act is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain sense and reference, which again is roughly
equivalent to „meaning‟ in the traditional sense.
35
Locutionary Act is called as the act of saying something.
36
This is a basic act of utterance or producing meaningful linguistic expression.
37
It refers to the fact that we must use words or sentences if we are to say anything at all.
38
2. Illocutionary Act
Illocutionary Act is a performed via communicative force of an utterance.
39
Illocutionary acts have to do with the intents of speakers, such as starting, questioning, promising, or commanding.
40
Moreover, Thanking, congratulating, and advising are all act which differ in their
illocutionary force, the speaker does more than describe or assert facts about some situation.
41
For example, the utterance of the statement: 2
“You will your hands blow off”.
42
This utterance above is understood as an act of warning and also has
34
Ronald Wardhaugh, An Introducing to Sociolinguistics, Great Britain: T. J. Press Ltd., 1986., p.277.
35
J. L . Austin, How to Do Things with Words, London: Oxford University Press., 1962., p.108.
36
Nick Riemer, Introducing semantics, UK:Cambridge, 2010., p.109.
37
George Yule, 2000 Op.Cit., p.48.
38
Ronald Wardhaugh, 1986 Op.Cit., p.277.
39
George Yule, 2000 Op.Cit., p.48.
40
Ronald Wardhaugh, 1986 Op.Cit., p.277.
41
Nick Riemer, 2010, Op.Cit., p.109.
42
Ibid.
15
the illocutionary force of a warning. Speech acts theorists refer to these as illocutionary acts
– acts performed through the medium of language – as opposed to locutionary acts which are those perform by the mere of
speaking.
43
3. Perlocutionary Act
Perlocutionary Act is the act of producing an effect in the hearer by means of the utterance.
44
Thus, an utterance can cause the hearer to do something. In addition, perlocutionary act is an act to influence the hearer
such as, embarrassing, intimidating, persuading, and so on.
45
If the speaker says
“I bet you a dollar he’ll win” and the hearer says “On”, the speaker
‟s illocutionary act of offering a bet has led to the hearer‟s perlocutionary act of accepting it.
46
D. Classification of Illocutionary Act
Austin categories the illocutionary acts into five basic categories of veridictive, expositive, exercitive and commissive.
47
But Searle thinks that Austin
‟s taxonomy of illocutionary act contains several weaknesses and needs to be revised. Because of those weaknesses, Searle present a list of what he regards
as the basic categories of illocutionary acts which his classification relates to Austin
‟s. General classification system lists five types of general functions performed by speech acts
48
:
43
Geoffrey Finch, 2003, Op.Cit p.160.
44
Nick Riemer, 2010, Op.Cit., p.109.
45
F. X. Nadar, 2003, Op.Cit., p. 15.
46
Ronald Wardhaugh, 1986, Op.Cit., p.277
47
John R. Searle, 1979, Op.Cit., p.1.
48
George Yule, 2000, Op.Cit., p.53.
