The Illocutionary Force essay

This paper takes a deep look at the approach of British Linguist J. L. Austin who asserted that there are too many things people may do with words and speech itself is a sort of action and may serve different aims. Austin thought that words and language may, if suitably utilized, take on a totally new level of implication. Austin analyzed the parts of common language, dividing between what human beings tell, what they mean when the say it, and what people achieve by saying it. Austin created a three fold difference between sorts of speech acts – locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

A locutionary one is the act of telling something. It is the usual meaning of what is told. For instance, sink is full. So, don’t go into the water. The illocutionary act is authentic, planned meaning which is what the individual actually means. For instance, John says to Monika, “Watch out for football fans”. What John was actually asserting is sending a caution to Monika that the fans are hazardous. This is the illocutionary act.

Meanwhile, a perlocutionary act is an act carried out by telling something to other people. It is a speech act that presupposes someone to do or realize something coming out from the illocutionary act. For instance, a guy rings a young girl telling that his parents are out for 2 days. The illocutionary act is saying the girlfriend to come to his home to stay. If the girlfriend arrives, this results to the young lady creating a perlocutionary act. Such distinctions considerably increase and deepen the understanding of the method in which language operates. Needless to mention that the work of Austin forced other scholars to pay attention to the way they depict their own theories. Austin’s findings proved that the language holds far deeper implication than people initially thought.

For much of the history of linguistics, language was treated mainly as a method of creating truthful assertions, and the other ways of using verbal communication were practically ignored. The work of J. L. Austin led scholars to pay additional attention to the non-declarative usages of language. The terms he presented, particularly the terms “locutionary act”, “illocutionary act”, and “perlocutionary act”, obtained a significant role in something that later became the “study of speech acts”. All of these 3 acts, but in particular the “illocutionary act”, are lately usually treated as “speech acts”(Austin, 1962). Austin was definitely the first scholar to deal with speech acts in a broader meaning. Previous treatments can be observed in the works of Thomas Reid and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Moreover, human beings frequently define the illocutionary force of the sentence as the person’s plan in creating that sentence. The illocutionary act is a case of a culturally-defined speech act type, demonstrated with an exact illocutionary force; for instance, promising, warning and advising. So, that means that if a person asks, for instance, “How’s that salad doing? Is it ready yet?” as a type of “politely” asking about his food, his intention may be actually to make the waiter bring the salad as soon as possible. Hence, the illocutionary force of the sentence is not a question about the progress of salad creation, but an order the food to be fetched.

Besides, there exist a number of other explanations. One of such explanations is the illocutionary force, the mixture of the illocutionary point of a statement, and the certain presuppositions and attitudes that should accompany that point. In addition, it should be said that the illocutionary force describes the following kinds of acts: asserting, promising, exclaiming in pain, inquiring, ordering.

This very term “illocutionary force” was initially introduced by John L. Austin in “How To Do Things With Words.” In a well-known work Austin represented his own approach to speech acts and the idea of performative language, where to tell something is to do something (Austin, 1962). To make the statement “I promise that p” (p is the content of the sentence) is to make a promising as opposed to creating a sentence that may be treated as true or false. Performatives can not be actually true or false, just infelicitous or felicitous. Austin shows the dissimilarity between performatives and constantives, statements that try to depict the reality and may be treated as true or false, but he finally comes to the finale that most utterances, at their foundation, are performative in nature. So, the person is practically constantly doing something by telling some phrase.

For Austin, what the person is doing is making social realities within certain social contexts. For instance, utilizing an open performative, to tell “I now pronounce you man and wife” during a wedding is to make a social reality, and in this case a married couple. Austin depicts three main features (acts) of utterances that start with the creating of words and finish with the effects. Those terms have on human beings who listen to them.

Locutionary acts are equal to uttering a specific sentence with a certain meaning in the traditional meaning.
Illocutionary acts: such as informing, warning, demanding, undertaking sentences that conclude a certain power.
Perlocutionary acts: what we bring about or achieve by telling some words.

Austin concentrated on illocutionary acts, saying that here people might find the “power” of a sentence and show its performative nature. Such as, to say “Don’t jump with scissors” has the power of a warning in a specific context. This statement may be stated in a clearly performative way, for instance, “I warn you, donґt jump with scissors.” This sentence is neither false nor true. It is a warning. By listening to the statement, and realizing it as a warning, the person is warned. Though, it is obvious that he or she must not act according to the warning.

The scientist declared that once we understand that what we have to learn is not the utterance but the issuing of a sentence in a language circumstances, there may barely be any longer an occasion of not noticing that stating is creating an act. This result stated his conviction that learning sentences (locutionary acts) outside of context tells us practically nothing about communication (illocutionary acts) or its effect on a hearer (perlocutionary acts).

In addition, speech-act approach is often articulated utilizing imagined cases, where the context of the sentence is removed to create a linguistic point and then added to make the actual complication of even the most ordinary sentence. To demonstrate how statements work, scientists in linguistics have shortened the illocutionary act to the expression F(p), where p is the content and F is the illocutionary force.

Researchers say that the illocutionary act is the smallest entirety unit of communication. Whenever people have conversations, they are creating illocutionary acts. Illocutionary acts are made with intentionality. A specific reason constantly exists, and the reason is called the communicative assumption: the mutual faith that whenever one individual tells something to another, the narrator wishes to have an illocutionary act. And an illocutionary act is successful if the narrator’s aim is understood by the hearer. This is what speech is about.

It is important to say that a speech act may have many effects on the hearer other than intended by speaker. For instance, the speaker says “Shut the window,” and the hearer responds, “Shut it yourself.” So, the detail that illocutionary acts are essentially purposeful, while perlocutionary acts may be purposeful, is a consequence of the detail the illocutionary act is the component of the meaning in message. This position erases planned effects from the communication, which, from a rhetorical point if view, is strange. So, what is the appropriate unit of information in communication? What is the component of sense? For some researchers, the illocutionary force of sentence is connected with its propositional content.

Along with the idea of Bach and Harnish described in their famous work “Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts”, the illocutionary act is an effort to speak, which they treat as the expression of a position (Bach, Harnish, 1982). Another idea belongs to Schiffer. In the book “Meaning” the illocutionary act is described as the certain meaning (Schiffer, 1973). However, according to the most widespread point of view, a sufficient and practical idea of illocutionary acts has been given by John Searle. Searle believes that there are a restricted number of things people may do with language. The probable propositional content is boundless. However, John Searle asks: “How many F are there?” (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985)

And this makes people think of the quantity of verbs that recognize illocutionary acts or depict its effect on the listener. So, how many Fs are limited to the quantity of verbs and open to the vagaries of language use? To cope with this issue, Searle hypothesizes the idea of illocutionary point, which is the point in advantageous quality of its being an act of that sort. Thus, the illocutionary point is the aim hidden behind the illocutionary act that is declared in a verb that depicts the work of sentence. Austin created a plan, but Searle made modification of Austin’s work is his five-part scheme of illocutionary force.

Searle created five illocutionary points:
1) Assertives: sentences, which may be treated as true or false as they claim to explain a state of affairs in the world;
2) Directives: utterances, which try to make the listener’s actions fit the content;
3) Commissives: sentences, which commit the speaker to the line of action as depicted by the content;
4) Expressives: utterances, which express the genuineness condition of the speech act;
5) Declaratives: utterances, which try to alter the world by representing it as having been already modified (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985).

The illocutionary force is continually interpreted as having been planned. This sentence recognizes the pragmatic argument of Bach and Harnish that human beings do not talk simply to practice vocal cords (Bach, Harnish, 1982). The speakers have key intentions that are perlocutionary. The act of speaking rhetorically assumes a purpose, and intentions of a specific sort may be observed in the illocutionary force of a sentence as it influences the content. If the audience realizes the inner illocutionary force in the relation to the content, people have a conversation.

A locutionary act is the act of utilizing referring and predicating expression to express a thought. For example, in the sentence, “You should quit smoking” the referring word here is “you” and the predicating phrase – is “quit smoking”. The propositional content may be either expressed in a straight line or not. For example, a caution to quit smoking has a locutionary act since its propositional content predicates a possible act (to quit smoking) of the listener (you). But consider the phrase “I warn you that smoking is hazardous”. This sentence constitutes an indirect locutionary act because its propositional content does not predicate a potential act of the listener; instead, it predicates a quality of cigarettes.

A figure of speech is a usage of a word that deviates from its ordinary meaning with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it like a metaphor or personification. Figures of speech usually offer emphasis, clarity or freshness of expression. Nevertheless, clarity can also suffer from their usage, as any figure of speech creates vagueness between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is from time to time called rhetoric or a locution. Illocutionary act is a word in linguistics. To sum up, the theory of speech acts people may use the following case. Saying the locution “Is there salt?” at the table, an individual may create the illocutionary act of asking for salt, the separate locutionary act of uttering the interrogatory phrase about the existence of salt, and the perlocutionary act of causing some person to fetch the salt.

Many scholars describe the illocutionary act, saying that any speech act may be called the illocutionary act. This theory has failed to give helpful hints about what features create an illocutionary act. It is also often stressed that Austin depicted this act with the help of dissimilarity with other sorts of acts. The illocutionary act is an act made in telling a phrase, as contrasted with a locutionary act of telling some phrase, and contrasted with a perlocutionary act, an act made by saying something.

Some speech act scholars, including Austin, make use of the thought of an illocutionary force. Followers of Austin treated this power as the property of a sentence to be made with the aim of evolving a certain illocutionary act – rather than performance of the act. According to this idea, the statement of “I bet you ten dollars that it will rain today” can encompass an illocutionary force even if the hearer doesn’t listen to it. Nevertheless, Bach and Harnish thought illocutionary force simply in case illocutionary act was performed successfully (Bach, Harnish, 1982). Consistent with this notion, the hearer must have heard and realized the speaker wanting to make a bet for the statement to gain illocutionary force.

If people accept the idea of illocutionary force as an aspect of sense, then it seems that the force of some sentences is not really obvious. If an individual says, “It is cold here”, there are illocutionary acts that might be aimed at by the sentence. The person might want to describe the room. Then the illocutionary force would be describing. But he might also try to criticize someone who should have kept the space warm. Or it may be a request to shut the window. Forces may be combined. This presentation of the illocutionary act with the help of the presentation of another is referred to as not direct speech act.

Searle and Vanderveken also discuss “illocutionary force indicating devices” (IFIDs). These are the elements of linguistic devices that specify either that the statement is made with an exact illocutionary force, or else that it presupposes the presentation of a definite illocutionary act (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985). Such as, the interrogative phrase is supposed to specify that the expression is a question; the directive phrase specifies that the statement is a directive illocutionary act; the phrase “I promise” indicate that the statement is a promise.

Possible illocutionary force indicating devices comprise: the mood of the verb, word order, stress, punctuation, intonation contour and performative verbs. A perlocutionary act is a speech act, as viewed at the degree of its mental results, like persuading, convincing, enlightening, inspiring, scaring, or getting someone to make or understand something. This differs from locutionary and illocutionary acts. Unlike the idea of locutionary act that depicts the linguistic purpose of a sentence, a perlocutionary effect is beyond the performance. It may be thought of as the consequence of the illocutionary act through the locutionary act. So, when testing perlocutionary acts, the consequence on the hearer is accentuated. As an example, think about the sentence: “Incidentally I have a CD of your favorite singer; would you like to borrow it?” Its illocutionary function is an offer, while its intended perlocutionary effect may be to make an impression on the hearer, or to demonstrate a friendly position, or to encourage an interest in certain kind of music.

Speech act is a phrase used in linguistics. The modern usage of the term also goes back to John L. Austin’s approach of locutionary, perlocutionary and illocutionary acts. Thus, speech acts may be discussed on 3 levels: a locutionary act; an illocutionary act; and sometimes a further perlocutionary act. The notion of an illocutionary act is the key idea to the approach of a speech act. Though there are many points of view concerning how to describe “illocutionary acts”, there are sorts of acts that are treated as illocutionary, as promising, ordering someone, and bequeathing.

The perlocutionary acts assert that telling something will normally create specific consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of the listeners. So, the effect of a sentence may be to convince a person, surprise him, bore him, irritate him, intimidate him, please him and cause him to do something. And the effect of an exact statement may or may not have been planned by the speaker. In uttering, “Sit right down here, dammit,” people may intend the utterance to scare. On the other hand, the sentence “How nice of you to invite me” may surprise and confuse a person if he believes he will never be invited to the party.

In contrast to illocutionary acts, there is no conservative method for the narrator to promise that it really will be brought about. Perlocutionary effects occur not as a fraction of linguistic message, but because of linguistic message and how it relates to more general area of interaction. Perlocutionary effects are not part of pragmatics.

Spontaneously, a perlocutionary act is an act carried out by telling something to other people, and not in saying something. Persuading, inciting, comforting, angering are usually perlocutionary acts. Perlocutionary acts, in contrast with locutionary and illocutionary acts, controlled by conventions, are not conservative but usual acts. Persuading, angering and so on lead to physiological alterations in the audience, either in words or actions; conventional acts don’t.
For instance, if a person screams “fire” and causes all human beings to leave a building, he has carried out the perlocutionary act of persuading other human beings to leave the building. In the other case, if a jury foreperson asserts “guilty” in a court where an accused individual stands, the illocutionary act of calling an individual guilty of a felony has been undertaken. The perlocutionary act is that, in realistic situation, the accused individual would be convinced that he was to be led to a jail. Perlocutionary acts are essentially related to the illocutionary act that precedes them, but separate and capable to be distinguished from the illocutionary act.

In the course of having speech acts people normally communicate with each other. The content of the dialogue may be identical with the content planned to be communicated. Nevertheless, the meaning of the linguistic means utilized can differ from the content planned to be communicated. A person may request John to do the dishes by merely saying, “Peter…!”, or a person may promise to do the dishes by telling, “Me!” One traditional method of having speech acts is to utilize a phrase which shows one speech act, and performs the act and indirect additional speech act. An individual may ask, “Peter, can you open the window?” asking a boy whether he will be capable to open it, but also requesting to do so. Since the appeal is performed not directly, it counts as an indirect speech act. Indirect speech acts are usually utilized to refuse proposals and to request. For instance, a person says, “Would you wish to meet me at dinner?” and another asserts, “I have class.” The second human being utilized the indirect speech act to decline the offer to dinner together. This is indirect since the direct meaning of “I have class” does not comprise any rejection.

Such examples comprise a problem for scholars because it is difficult to understand how the individual who made the offer may realize that his offer was declined. Following an approach of H. P. Grice, Searle offers that people are capable to understand the internal meaning of indirect speech acts with the help of a process out of which people can obtain multiple illocutions. Nevertheless, the process he proposes does not actually solve the issue.

John Searle has presented the concept of an indirect speech act, which is supposed to be an indirect act. Using a concept of illocutionary acts according to which they are acts of telling something with the plan to communicate with some audience, he depicts indirect speech acts as: in indirect acts the person communicates to the listener more than he really tells by method of relying on equally shared background data, linguistic and nonlinguistic, with the common powers of wisdom and deduction on the part of the listener.

An explanation of such act will require an examination of equally shared background data about the matter of discussion and rationality and linguistic conventions. Concerning indirect speech acts, John Searle introduces the ideas of primary and secondary illocutionary acts (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985). The main act is the indirect act that is not accurately performed. The secondary act is the direct act, performed in the literal statement of the sentence.

In the example:
Person X: “We should leave for the movie or else we will be too late.”
Person Y: “I am not prepared yet.”
In this case the main illocutionary act is the refusal to an offer, and the secondary act is the utterance that another person is not prepared to leave yet. By dividing the illocutionary act into 2 parts, Searle is capable to describe that we may realize 2 meanings from the same sentence.

With his approach of indirect speech acts Searle tries to describe how it is probable that a speaker may tell something and mean it, but mean something else as well. This would be impractical if the listener had no opportunity of realizing out what the speaker means. Searle’s answer is that the hearer may recognize what the indirect speech act is supposed to be, and he provides certain clues as to how this might take place.

For the previous case a condensed process might look like this:
Step 1: An offer is said by X, and person Y answered with the help of an illocutionary act.
Step 2: X thinks that Y is cooperating in the discussion, being honest, and that he has made a sentence that is appropriate.
Step 3: The accurate meaning is not applicable to the discussion.
Step 4: As X assumes that Y is cooperating; there must be another meaning.
Step 5: Based on equally shared background data, person X realizes that they can’t leave until Y is prepared. So, Y has declined X’s offer.
Step 6: Person X realizes that Y has told something in something other than the factual meaning, and the chief illocutionary act must have been the negative response for X’s offer.

Searle asserts that a parallel process may be used to any indirect speech act as a copy to find the main illocutionary act. Analysis may utilize Searle’s theory. To generalize this model of an indirect demand, Searle suggests a plan for the examination of indirect speech act performances:
Step 1: Realize the facts of the discussion.
Step 2: Presume cooperation and significance on behalf of the members.
Step 3: Establish truthful background data pertinent to the discussion.
Step 4: Create assumptions about the discussion.
Step 5: If steps 1–4 do not provide significant meaning, then deduce that there are 2 illocutionary forces.
Step 6: Presume the listener has the capability to perform the act the narrator offers. The act should be something that would have meaning for the person who makes request. For instance, the listener might have the capability to give the salt to the person next to him, but not have the capability to pass the salt to a person who is requesting the listener to pass the salt during a telephone conversation.
Step 7: Make inferences from 1–6 regarding probable chief illocutions.
Step 8: Utilize background data to set up the primary illocution.
So, John Searle asserts that he has found an approach that will adequately recreate what takes place when an indirect speech act is performed (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985).

Consider some examples:
Mark: I’m sorry. I’m too tired. With my duties and being Mr. Donaghy’s assistant, there are not many hours in the day.
Tracy: I am sorry. Tell me if there’s any way I can assist.
Kenneth: Well, there is a thing…
Tracy: No! I was merely saying that! Why can not you read human facial cues?
Or as in case of, when people say “How are you” to a colleague, they actually mean “Hi!” Though people understand what they mean “How are you,” it is probable that the hearer does not realize that speaker means “Hi!” and really gives a long discourse on his troubles.”

Getting pragmatic competence includes the capability to realize the illocutionary force of a sentence, that is, what a speaker plans by saying it. This is mainly important during cross-cultural meetings as one sentence “When are you leaving?” may change in illocutionary force depending on the circumstances. The phrase can mean: “May I go with you?” or “Don’t you think it is time to leave?” (McKay, 2002)

In fact, getting a cup of tea is an action. Asking someone to get you tea is an act as well. When people talk the words do not have sense in and of themselves. They are actually affected by the circumstances, the speaker and the hearer. So, words by themselves do not have a predetermined meaning. The black cat – is a propositional act (something is referenced, but no talk may be planned). The black cat is dull – is forceful illocutionary act (it plans to communicate). Please, find the black cat – is a directive perlocutionary act (it tries to alter behavior). Only by understanding the elements of what is being told, human beings may understand and communicate better with others.

To sum up, people are capable to determine the real meaning of the said statement only if they understand all the meanings of what has been said and if no elements of this statement have been omitted. Besides, it is obvious that that there are too many things people may do with words and speech itself is a sort of action and may serve different aims. What’s more, the same words may be completely different in two situations. It’s impossible to determine the emotional color of the statement by only examining the words. That’s why, the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts should be also taken into account.