Searles typology of performatives

representatives: asserting, concluding (commit the speaker to truth) directives: request, order (attempt to get hearer to do something) commissives: promises, offers, threats (commit the speaker to future acts)

Searles Speech Act Theory

Searles typology of performatives, cont.

Searles (Felicity) Rules for Performatives

Preparatory Condition ( what the point is) Propositional Content Condition Sincerity Condition Essential Condition

expressives: thanking, apologising, welcoming, congratulating (express the speakers psychological state) declarations: (a mixed bag) christening, declaring war, excommunicating. Declarations about changes in extralinguistic institutional arrangements

Searles Promising Rule

Searles Questioning Rule

Preparatory. The speaker does not know the answer. It is not obvious to speaker & hearer that the hearer would provide the answer without being asked. Propositional. Any proposition. Sincerity. The speaker wants the information. Essential. This counts as an attempt on the part of the speaker to elicit the information from the hearer.

Preparatory. The addressee is positively oriented towards the act, the speaker believes this, and it is not obvious to the addressee prior to the utterance that the speaker would do this. Propositional Content Rule. The proposition is to be conveyed in the context of a sentence predicting some future act of the speaker. Sincerity. The speaker intends to perform the act. Essential. This counts as the speaker undertaking an obligation to perform the act.

Searles Requesting Rule

Preparatory. The hearer is able to perform the act. Propositional. The speaker predicates a future act of the hearer. Sincerity. The speaker wants the hearer to perform the act. Essential. This counts as an attempt on the part of the speaker to get the hearer to perform the act.