19
ii A Perlocutionary act
, which is the production of a consequence by the utterance. Contrary to what occurs at the illocutionary level,
perlocutions are not directly achieved by the conventional force of an utterance. Also, perlocutions occur at a further level, as the
interlocu tor‟s actual reaction to the speech act. 101
3.1. Classification of Illocutionary Acts
Speech acts may be appropriately categorized by their illocutionary type, such as asserting, requesting, promising, and apologizing, for which we have
familiar verbs Bach 200 Yule who following Searle said in his book that there are five general functions of speech acts:
Table 2.1. The five general function of speech act 55
Speech act type Direction of fit
S= speaker X= situation
Declaration Words change the world
S cause X Representatives
Make words fit the world S believes X
Expressive Make words fit the world
S feels X Directives
Make the world fit words S wants X
Commissives Make the world fit words
S intends X
According to Leech, Searle‟s illocutionary acts‟ classification is based on diverse criteria, wich are defined as follow:
1. Assertives
Assertives commit speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition, such as stating, suggesting, boasting, complaining, claiming, and
reporting.. 105
20
2. Directives
Directives intended to produce some effect through action by the hearer, for examples are ordering, commanding, requesting, advising,
and recommending. They frequently belong to the competitive category, and therefore comprise a category of illocutions in which
negative politeness is important. 3.
Commissive Commissives commit the speaker to some future action to a greater or
lesser degree, promising, vowing, and offering are the examples. These tend to be convivial, being performed in the interests of someone other
than the speaker. 4.
Expressives Expressives have an expressing function or making known, the
speaker ‟s psychological attitude towards a state of affairs which the
illocution presupposes, such as thanking, congratulating, pardoning, blaming, praising, condoling, etc. They tend to be convivial, and
therefore intrinsically polite. The reverse is true, however, of such expressives as blaming and accusing. 106
5. Declaration
Declarations are illocutions whose successful performance bring about the correspondence between the propositional content and reality, for
examples are
resigning, dismissing,
christening, naming,
excommunicating, appointing, sentencing, etc. Leech 107
21
4. Politeness Theory
