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Perlocutionary Acts
While illocutionary acts relate more to the speaker, perlocutionary acts are centered around the listener. Perlocutionary acts always have a 'perlocutionary effect' which is the effect a speech act has on a listener. This could affect the listener's thoughts, emotions or even their physical actions.[13] An example of this could be if someone uttered the sentence "I'm hungry." The perlocutionary effect on the listener could be the effect of being persuaded by the utterance. For example, after hearing the utterance, the listener could be persuaded to make a sandwich for the speaker.
Austin himself admits that these three components of utterances are not altogether separable. “We must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued- the total speech act – if we are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterance, and how each can go wrong. Perhaps indeed there is no great distinction between statements and performative utterances.” Austin.
Searle suggested that the basic unit of linguistic communication is speech act. It can be a word, a phrase, a sentence or a sound, it should fulfil the task of expressing the intention of the user. Understanding the user’s intention can lead to complete understanding of the speech act.
The peculiarities of Pragmatic analysis of Speech Acts
Pragmatics is a modern term that can be attributed to the philosopher Charles Morris (1938) who is interested in putting the general form of a field of signs or semiotics. Within semiotics, he separates three branches: syntax, semantics and pragmatics (Levinson, 1983:1). Morris (1933: 6, in Saeed: 1997:17) defines pragmatics as a part of his theory of semiotics along with syntax and semantics describing it as the study of "the relationship of signs to interpreters".
So, he takes pragmatics as the use of language by users in real situations. He goes on to increase the range of pragmatics in harmony with his particular behavioristic theory of semiotics which is adequately precise description of pragmatics that it deals with all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena (Levinson, 1983:2). Pragmatics is taken as a new area in linguistics which has its roots in language philosophy. Philosophically, the origin of pragmatics can be attributed to the work of Charles Morris, Rudolf Carnap and Charles Peirce in the 1930s (Hung, 2007: 2).
One of the most powerful theoretical conceptions behind current study in pragmatics is the idea that a theory of linguistic communication is really only a special case of a general theory of human action. According to this view, the various linguistic sub-disciplines such as phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics should be regarded as the studies of different abstract aspects of underlying communicative actions. Explanation of variation within each sub-discipline should preferably be functional, i.e. it should relate the properties of the phenomenon being examined to the function of a communicative action as a whole. The study of speech acts is the heart of pragmatics, and any consideration of language in context is essentially influenced by the pragmatics theory of speech acts. J. L. Austin in his book How to Do Things with Words (1962), first developed semantic theory of utterances as human action. He is the originator of the term „speech acts‟. Austin‟s target is to demolish the perspective of language that would consider „truth condition‟ as central to language understanding. He derives his theory from the basic notion that language is used to perform action. He focuses on the linguistic behavior of humans which are called as „speech acts. ‟ He further defines speech acts as: “The act of uttering a certain sentence in a given context for a determined purpose i.e. an act of communication.” (Searle, 1969, p. 32) Here, the act of communication inserted in the above definition is speech act. It refers to various types of utterances that are usually included in communication such as assertive, imperative, interrogatives and exclamations. By using these different types, people not just make the utterances but actions. For example: A: Bring me a glass of water. B: Can you get me a glass of water? In the above utterances, the purpose of both the utterances is same but is spoken in different ways. The utterance (A) is an assertive by which the speaker is ordering for a glass of water. This is an act of ordering; on the other hand the utterance (B) is a question, which is a request. Hence, these two different utterances are the actions of ordering and requesting. Many scholars defined speech acts as: 1. “Speech act are performed via utterances.” (Yule, 1996, p. 42) 2. “Speaking a language is performing speech accts, acts such as making statement, commands, asking questions, asking promises and so in.” (J.Searle, 1969) From the above definitions, it is clear that the utterances, rather than just meanings, have another appeal that is; performing an action in order to make the things done.
Searle classified speech act into five categories which are as follows:
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