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The directed act must be something which is needed by or desirable to the speaker.
The function of the felicity condition can help us to determine whether an illocutionary act classified into direct or indirect act. When an act does not fulfil the
felicity condition, it must has another meaning more than the direct intention of the speaker.
3.3. The Ways of Performing Illocutionary Act
There are three main forms of sentences structures in English namely declarative, imperative, and interrogative form. Each form has their own function
such as declarative is used to give and share information, imperative is used to ask for information. There are two main ways of performing illocutionary acts namely direct
and indirect act. Besides, illocutionary act also distinguished into literal and non literal act.
3.3.1. Direct Act
Direct act is the way of performing illocutionary act directly by using the form of the sentence. For asking information, the form of sentence used in interrogative,
imperative sentence is used to make an order. It means that when the speaker uses such pattern of sentence appropriate to the communicative intention, it is direct
illocutionary act. Examples:
Where is your address?
She comes from Spain
I will make you happy
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about the address of the hearer. The speaker performs an act of asking in the utterance directly by using interrogative pattern and it is appropriate when the speaker uses the
pattern in asking for information and it is the so called direct act. o The declarative sentence in the second example is also appropriate to the
intention of the speaker to give information that he comes from Spain. The pattern used to give information is declarative structure and it is appropriate. In the last
example, the speaker performs the commissive illocutionary act of promising the hearer to make him to be happy. The appropriate form of sentence to express
commissive act is declarative structure. Those are some reasons for determining the examples above as direct illocutionary act.
Another factor of determining an utterance to be or not to be direct act is the felicity condition and it deals with the context, whether the context is felicitous or not
to the intention of the speaker and the state of the hearer.
3.3.2. Indirect Act
Indirect illocutionary act is an act which is being performed by the speaker by using another. If the speaker’s utterance is in interrogative sentence, but the
illocutionary act inside the utterance is intended as an assertion, it is called indirect way of performing illocutionary act as in the following examples:
You’d better do your homework as soon as possible
A mother’s utterance to a child uses declarative form functioning as an order; do your homework
Have a nice weekend
Imperative form functioning as an assertion: I hope you have a nice weekend.
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Tell me why we should go from here Imperative form functioning as an assertion: why should we go from here?
Who cares?
Interrogative form functioning as an assertion: no one cares.
Can you turn on the fan for me? Interrogative form functioning as a request: turn on the fan for me
From those examples above, it can be concluded that not every form sentence functioning as it is, but also can be used for any other purpose. Such examples show
us that indirect act is carried out when the form of the sentence used by the speaker is not appropriate to the intention of the speaker. A speaker may utter in an interrogative
sentence, but the meaning or the intention is to make an act of requesting and so on.
3.3.3. Literal act
