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2 Indirect speech
An indirect speech acts cannot be identified easily as the direct speech acts because the speaker does not deliver his intention explicitly. Indirect
speech happens whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and its pragmatic function.
c. Perlocutionary act
It is the result or the effect produced by the utterance. A speaker may utter sentence on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect intended.
In short, a locutionary act is the act of saying something. The illocutionary act is the act of doing something, while perlocutionary act is the act
of affecting someone.
2. The Classification of Speech acts
There are many different classifications of speech act which are conveyed by linguists. Here, I would like to provide the discussion of speech acts
classification from John L. Austin, John R. Searle and Amy B. M. Tsui. The first classification of speech acts was introduced by John L. Austin in
1962. Austin in Mey 1993 p.151 classifies the speech acts into five categories. They are ‘verdictive’, ‘expositive’, ‘exercitive’, ‘behabitive’ and ‘commisive’.
Among other things, Searle in Mey 1993 p.151 criticizes Austin’s classification of speech acts for operating with overlapping criteria, for having incompatible
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elements within his categories and for including elements in his categories that do not satisfy the definition of the category.
Then, Searle in Mey 1993 p.163 ends up by establishing the classification of speech acts into five categories. They are Representatives, Directives,
Commissives, Expressives and Declarations. This classification seems undoubtedly right in criticizing Austin’s theory. However Searle in Tsui 1994
p.51 points out that there is not an infinite or indefinite number of language games or uses of language. Rather, he adds that the illusion of limitless uses of
language is engendered by an enormous unclarity about what constitutes the criteria for delimiting one language game or use of language from another. Hence
Tsui 1994 p.51 claims that it is impossible to delimit a set of speech action categories. Considering this, Tsui 1994 p.52 presents a taxonomy of discourse
acts. The primary class acts are divided into three head acts; Initiating acts, responding acts
and follow-up acts. The Initiating acts covers the subclasses of Elicitation, Requestive,
Directive, and Informative. The responding acts consists of positive, negative and
temporization , while follow up acts stand for turn-passing. Due to the purpose of
the discussion is to define the classification of speech acts, I would like to focus on the Initiating acts. Tsui 1994 p.95 classifies the subclasses of initiating acts
into four categories. They are:
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1. Elicitation
