Jurnal Kajian Bahasa Dan Budaya: Cordova Journal

Cordova Journal / Jurnal kajian Bahasa dan Budaya
terbit 2 kali setahun

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
https://journal.uinmataram.ac.id/index.php/cordova/index
SPEECH ACTS ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION

WITHIN THE INTERLOCUTORS’ COMMUNICATION
Kamarudin1
English Language Education
Faculty of Culture, Management, and Business
Mandalika University of Education
kamarudin.ntbe@gmail.com1
Abstract
This research deals with Speech Acts Analysis and Its
Application Within the Interlocutors’ Communication which
focused on its kinds, functions, and how each kind of
illocutionary acts is performed by the students in FBMB
Undikma under A Pragmatic Analysis. The kinds of speech acts;
locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. The
functions of illocutionary acts; representative, directive,
commissive, expressive, and declarative. A descriptive qualitative
method was employed since the data being analysed was in the
form of descriptive data. Content analysis method was also
employed due to get description of the research phenomena
which in the forms of words, clauses, phrases, and sentences.
There were twenty-four fragments being analysed. As the result,
based on its classification, it showed that the most dominantly
performed was locutionary acts 224 times, then followed by
illocutionary acts 223 times, and the last one was perlocutionary
acts 215 times. The declarative sentence had the highest
frequency performed 131 times and in terms of the functions;
representative had the highest frequency performed 163 times. It
is found that representative was the highest frequency performed
by the speakers as asserting, explaining, agreeing, suggesting,
asking, reporting, informing, demanding, telling, claiming,
affirming, denying, disbelieving, concluding, calling, answering,
introducing, greeting, and clarifying.
Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal
67 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
Key Words: Speech Acts, Locutionary acts, Illocutionary acts,

perlocutionary acts.
INTRODUCTION
Fromkin, et al. (2011 : 03) revealed that whatever else people
do when they come together—whether they play, fight, make
love, or make automobiles—they talk. People live in a world of
language, talk to their friends, associates, wives and husbands,
lovers, teachers, parents, rivals, and even enemies. Talk to bus
drivers and total strangers. Talk face-to-face and over the
telephone, and everyone responds with more talk. Television and
radio further swell this torrent of words. Hardly a moment of the
waking lives is free from words, and even in dreams people talk
and are talked to. People also talk when there is no one to answer.
Sometimes talk aloud in sleep. And also talk to the pets and
sometimes to the people themselves.
Language is used for many purposes. It can be for expressing
feelings, asking questions, protesting, criticizing, making
requests, promising, thanking, insulting, apologizing, and say
hello and goodbye. In other word, by using language human can
transmit a message, information or any ideas to hearer. Every
utterance produced by people causes what we call ‘speech acts.
Austin (1962) proposed that communicating a speech acts
consists of three elements, those are the speaker says something
(locutionary act), the speaker signal an associated speech act
68 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
(illocutionary acts), and the speech act causes an effect on the

listeners or the participants (perlocutionary acts).
Based on the statements above, it is noted that speech act;
illocutionary acts, is an interesting topic to be searched since it is
not only found in common language, but also in the context of
teaching and learning. Yet, not many of scholars take into
account to further search on this topic. Thus, this study raised the
case and focused on analysing illocutionary acts particularly in
FBMB (Faculty of Culture, Management, and Business)
UNDIKMA under A Pragmatics Analysis.
Theoretically and practically, this research is expected to
contribute to the development of the theoretical basis, particularly
to clarify their features and scope in the domain of teaching and
learning linguistics study, and conducting scientific study in
English or other languages. Furthermore, it is also expected to
give contribution to the implementation of this study of the
teaching and learning linguistics and literature in character
building oriented, and the politeness principles of speech acts;
illocutionary acts.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. A Pragmatics Analysis
Levinson, (1983: 9) revealed that the term pragmatics
shelters both context-dependent features of language construction
and philosophies of language practice and understanding that
69 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
have nothing or little to do with linguistics construction. This

means that pragmatics is concerned with quite desperate and
unrelated aspects of language. In pragmatics, there is a sentence’s
meaning and speaker’s meaning which in the literal meaning of
the concept the speaker is trying to convey to the hearer what he
or she wants the hearer to do. The main relationship between
pragmatics and speech acts is that speech acts is a part of
pragmatics in which pragmatics is talking about how language is
used in particular situation. To strengthen this statement, it is
quoted from Fromkin, et al. (2011: 216) that pragmatics is very
important in conveying and interpreting meaning in
communication, especially the relationship between sentence and
contexts, and situation in which they are occurred.
Thus, pragmatics is the study of speaker’s meaning,
contextual meaning, the study of how more meaning gets
communicated than it said, and it is the study of the expression of
relative distance.
B. Contextual Features
Hymes in Brown and Yule (1983: 40) have specified the
features of context which is relevant to the identification of
components and the type of speech acts, they are: participants,
topic, setting, channel, code, message form, event, key, and
purpose.
C. Speech Acts
70 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
There are two philosophers who first proposed speech acts

theory, first spelled out by Austin (1962) he introduced the idea
of speech acts and the relationship between utterances and
performance. The second philosopher is his follower J. R. Searle
(1969: 16) who believes that all linguistics communication
involved linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is
not, as he generally been supposed, the symbol or word or
sentence in the performance of a speech act and there is a shift
towards the events or acts that occur via language, hence the
name ``speech acts''. More precisely, the production or issuance
of a sentence takes under certain condition is a speech act, and
speech acts are the basic or the minimal units of linguistics
communication.
Searle, (1969: 18) expresses that the speech act or acts
performed in the utterance of a sentence are in general, a function
of meaning of the sentence. The meaning of a sentence does not
in all cases uniquely determine what speech act is performed in a
given utterance of that sentence, for a speaker may mean more
what actually he says, but it is always in principle possible for
him to say exactly what he means.
D. Kinds of Speech Acts
1. Locutionary Acts
Locutionary act is the production of a meaningful linguistic
expression, (Mey, 2009: 1002). The act of saying something that
makes sense in language i.e. follows the rules of pronunciation
71 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
and grammar. Yule and Stubbs (Yule, 1996: 48; Stubbs, 1983:98-
99) further explain that in performing a locutionary act, one also
performs an act such as stating, asking or answering a question,
reminding, and informing.
72 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
2. Illocutionary Acts
Illocutionary act is the action intended to be performed by a
speaker in uttering a linguistic expression, by virtue of the
conventional force associated with it, either explicitly or
implicitly, (Mey, 2009: 1002).
The illocutionary act refers to the fact that when ones say
something, he/she usually says it with some purposes in mind. In
other words, an illocutionary act refers to the type of functions
that the speaker intends to fulfil, or the action that the speaker
intends to accomplish in the course of producing an utterance; it
is also an act defined within a system of social conventions. In
short, it is an act accomplished in speaking. Examples of
illocutionary acts include accusing, apologizing, blaming,
congratulating, declaring war, giving permission, joking,
marrying, nagging, naming, promising, ordering, refusing,
swearing, and thanking. The functions or actions just mentioned
are also commonly referred to as the illocutionary ‘force’ (or
‘point’) of the utterance. For instance; in the novel,
“I promise” she said as air rushed back into her lungs, she
found herself standing alone on the curb as the bus pulled
off. Tentatively she touched her fingers to her lips while
she watched the bus kick up dirt and turn the bend, “I promise”.
In relation to those explanations, Mey, (2009: 2003) has

argued that the meaning of a sentence consists in it having a
73 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
certain illocutionary act potential (IAP) that is closely and

conventionally associated with its form. On this view, to know
what a sentence means is to know what range of illocutionary
acts it can be conventionally used to perform. Conversely, the
same speech act can be performed by different linguistic
expressions, or the same illocutionary force can be realized by
means of different locutionary acts.
Of the discussion above, the researcher gained that it may the
same illocutionary acts can be performed by a different
linguistics expression in different occasion, and different time,
because it may also the same utterance can be produced by the
same person but in different occasion will have different meaning
as well.
3. Perlocutionary Acts.
Perlocutionary act is the bringing about of consequences or
effects on the audience through the uttering of a linguistic
expression, such consequences or effects being special to the
circumstances of utterance, (Mey, 2009: 1002).
A perlocutionary act concerns the effect an utterance may
have on the addressee. Put slightly more technically, a
perlocution is the act by which the illocution produces a certain
effect in or exerts a certain influence on the addressee. Still
another way to put it is that a perlocutionary act represents a
consequence or by-product of speaking, whether intentional or
not. The effect of the act being performed by speaking is
74 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
generally known as the perlocutionary effect. There is an

extensive literature on the differentiation between locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts (Mey, 2009: 1003).
E. The Functions of Speech Acts
Yule (1996:53, Leech, 1983: 105-106, Levinson, 1983: 240)
revealed that there are just five basic kinds of actions that one can
perform in speaking, by means of the following five types of
general functions of performed by speech acts: representatives,
directives, commissive, expressive, and declarations.
RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
This study applied a qualitative approach to analyse
illocutionary acts towards the students of English Education at
FPBM Undikma since the data are in the form of' words. Denzin
and Lincoln (1998: 3) describe qualitative research as a study of
things in natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or
interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them. Qualitative research involves the studies use and
collections of variety of empirical materials-case study, personal
experience, introspective, life story, interview, historical,
instructional, and visual texts- that describe routine and
problematic movement, and meanings in possible life. The
content analysis was also employed in this research to maintain
and fragmenting the speech.
75 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
76 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
B. The Source of the Data and Data

The source of data in this study was three students of English
Education at FPBM Undikma utterances which were classified
into fragments. There were 40 fragments with the main
considerations of the reduction on the main speakers’
involvement, were taken as the object of the analysis of the
utterances with the main consideration focused on the main
characters’ involvement, the relevance of the topics. Those
students were taken from different classes as the representative.
C. Research Instrument.
Since the object of the data is a novel written by Donna Hill
What Mother Never Told Me, then the researcher will become
the key instrument in this study and the data is in the form words.
This novel is read continually, recognizably, and finally identifies
the units of speech acts in each section to be related to each other
as a whole as well as recognizes and identifies the context in
order to interpret the meaning easily and find out the kinds of
speech acts.
D. Procedures of Data Collection
1. Interviewing the Students to Get the Utterances Needed
To gain the data needed, the researcher carefully, intensively,
and comprehensively interviews the students under the certain
topics.
2. Segmenting the utterance into Fragments
77 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
After taking the data, it is then segmented into fragments

which are related to the topics of a conversation. It is done due to
know the setting or the context of the conversation performed by
the students.
3. Identifying the Data (Illocutionary Acts) of Each Fragment
After segmenting, then identifying the kinds of illocutionary
acts, the functions of illocutionary acts as well as the ways each
kind of illocutionary is used by the students.
4. Procedures of Data Analysis
After conducting the whole procedures of the data collection,
it is then conducting the data analysis which is under the main
procedures; they are; classifying the data which refers to the
illocutionary act’s classification.
The data which refers to the kinds of illocutionary acts is
analysed based Austin’s (1962) classification (locutionary acts,
illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts). And the data which
refers to the functions of illocutionary acts; it is then analysed
based on the Searle’s (1969) classifications (representative,
directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative). The data
which refers to the way each kinds of illocutionary acts is used is
then analysed based on Yule’s (1996) classification of the
structural forms of sentences (declarative, interrogative, and
imperative). It is then followed by the description of the
utterances in the fragments.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
78 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
This part deals with finding and discussion of illocutionary

acts which is performed by the three students of FBMB Undikma.
1. The Kinds of Illocutionary Acts Performed by the Students
of FBMB Undikma Mataram.
After analysing the data which were in the form of words,
sentences, and phrases taken during process of collecting data
needed. The data was gained in form of interview; conversation
form. Of the data, then the researcher firstly fragmenting the
whole conversation which consists of 65 fragments under the
focus of the consideration that those fragments are taken from all
of the students without separating the three main students as the
main focus of the data. The 60 fragments were then reduced into
50 fragments with the main consideration of the reduction is
focused on the main students’ involvement. Of the 50 fragments,
40 fragments were then taken as the object of the analysis with
the main consideration of the reduction were focused on main
characters’ involvement, and the relevance topics.
It is truly found that the Austin’s theory of the kinds of
Illocutionary acts is existed in the conversation of the students at
FBMB Undikma Mataram. Those kinds of Illocutionary that the
students performed were Locutionary acts, Illocutionary acts, and
Perlocutionary acts. This description is tabled in the table below;
The kinds of illocutionary acts performed by the students of
FBMB Undikma Mataram
Locutionary Illocutionary Perlocutionary Total
acts acts acts frequency
of
79 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
repetition
180 167 115 464
Based on the result of the analysis about the kinds of

illocutionary acts performed by the three main students that the
highest dominantly performed that is locutionary acts 180 times,
it is then followed by illocutionary acts 167 times, and the lowest
frequency of repetition is perlocutionary acts 115. Thus, the
number of the total repetition found that the kinds of speech acts
are repeated 464 times. This means that the speakers, most of
them performed locutionary acts to tell, ask, or order the hearers
to do something that the speakers believe that it truly happened.
2. The Functions of illocutionary acts performed by the
students of FBMB Undikma Mataram.
This part represents the functions that the three main students
performed at FBMB Undikma Mataram. The result of this
analysis shows that the most dominant functions performed by
the three main characters are representative 163 times. It is then
followed by directive 28 times, expressive 26 times, commissive
is 5 times, and none of the characters performed declarative
function. So, the total count of the functions performed is 224
times.
Table 4.30. The summary of the functions of speech acts
performed by the students of FBMB Undikma Mataram.
The functions of illocutionary acts performed by the students
of FBMB Undikma Mataram
Illocutionary acts Total
80 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
freque
ncy of
repetiti
on
Represent Direct Commis Express Declarat
ative ive sive ive ive 224
163 28 26 5 -
Based on the result of the analysis about the functions of

speech acts performed by the students above that the highest
dominantly performed that is representative 163 times, it is then
followed by directive 28 times, expressive 26 times,
commissive is 5 times, and none of the characters performed
declarative function. And the total count of the functions
performed is 224 times. This means that the speakers, most of
them performed representative function to commit the truth of
the expressed proposition. It means that the speakers believe
what they said is true. The speaker may know from observation,
experience or knowledge. It is usually to assert, conclude state,
suggest, boast, complain, claim, and report, etc.
3. The Way Each Kind of Speech Acts Performed by the
students of FBMB Undikma Mataram.
This part deals with the way or how the speech acts were
performed by the students. Based on the findings that the
meaning of utterances did not always depend on the forms of
sentences. Meanings that a declarative sentence is not always as
a statement, but it can be representative, directive, commissive,
and expressive, as well as interrogative sentence, it is not
81 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
always as a question, or imperative sentence is not always a

command or an order, yet, interrogative sentence may
functioned as representative and expressive; and imperative
sentence may functioned as a directive.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

After conducting the analysis and discussion on findings, it
is concluded that the kinds of speech acts performed by the
students were locutionary acts 224 times, illocutionary acts 222
times, and perlocutionary acts 215 times, and the total frequency
count of the kinds of speech acts was 661 times. The speakers
also produced three types of sentences; they were; declarative
131 times, interrogative 75 times, and imperative 18 times.
While, there were four kinds of functions performed; they were
directive, commissive, expressive, and representative. The
frequency count shows that the dominant Searle’s speech acts
categories were representative 163 times, it is followed by
directive 28 times, commissive 26 times, expressive 6 times, and
none of the speakers performed declarative function. The total
frequency count is 662 times.
This research finds out that speech acts can be used to
signal the interrelationship between one elements of a speech/
communication in daily life with the others. This means that the
use of speech acts may help someone to smooth the flow of talk
(i.e., conversation). Thus, it is worth suggesting here that the use
82 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
of speech acts could be extended, strengthened and improved in

the practical contexts to cover the attempts to conduct further
research in this topic. So, it is advisable that future researchers
could follow up the results of this study for the development of
similar research in the field of pragmatics in English. This is
strongly suggested because there are still many problems and the
essences of pragmatics that need to be uncovered to help the
users of English (e.g., English learners) to develop their
understanding about the importance of this field of study in the
contexts of language use, not only for the students of the tertiary
education but also at the secondary education.
REFERENCES
Austin, J.L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Anggara, Dwi Asianti. 2007. Thesis. An Analysis of English
Speech Acts in Cross Cultural Communication between
Indonesian and Native Speakers. Universitas Negeri
Surabaya, Program Pasca Sarjana Program Studi
Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra, (unpublished)
Borg, Walter R., and Gall, Meredith. 1983. Educational Research:
An Introduction. New York: Longman.
Brown, Gillian and Yule, George. 1983. Discourse Analysis.

Cambridge: University Press.
Cruse, Alan. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to

Semantics and Paragmatics. New York: Express
University Press.
83 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
Cutting, Joan. 2002. Pragmatics and Discourse. London and New

York: Rutledge.
Denzin, Norman K. and Lincoln, Yvonna S. 1998. The

Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues.
California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Fromkin, Victoria., Rodman, Robert., and Hyams, Nina. 2011.

An Introduction to Language. Ninth Edition. Wadsworth:
Cengage Learning.
Gies, Michael L. 1995. Speech acts and Conversational

Interaction. Cambridge: University Press.
Lestari, Chatarini Septi Ngudi. 2004. Thesis. An Analysis of

Speech Acts in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers”.
Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Program Pasca Sarjana
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra.
(unpublished)
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London:

Longman Group.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Mey, Jacob. L. 2009. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics:

Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd.
Oishi, Etsuko. 2006. Austin’s Speech Acts Thoery and the

Speech Situation. University Trieste: Esercizi Filosofici.
Vol. 1. Pp. 1-14.
Pamela, Stoll. 1996. Speech Acts and Conversation: The

Interactional Development of Speech Acts Theory. In
Universidad de Alicante, Departmento de Filologia
Inglesa, Ap. Correos. Vol. 1133-682X. Pp. 3-4, 465-475.
84 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020
Quinn, Edward. 2006. A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic

Terms. Second Edition. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of

Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stubbs, Michael. 1983. Discourse Analysis: The Sociolinguistic

Analysis of Natural Language. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press.
Yule, George. 1983. The Study of Language. New York:

Cambridge University Press.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.
Yule, George. 2010. The Study of Language. Fourth Edition.

Cambridge: University Press.
85 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Jurnal Kajian Bahasa Dan Budaya: Cordova Journal

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Jurnal Kajian Bahasa Dan Budaya: Cordova Journal

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Cordova Journal / Jurnal kajian Bahasa dan Budaya

terbit 2 kali setahun

SPEECH ACTS ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

67 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Key Words: Speech Acts, Locutionary acts, Illocutionary acts,

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

68 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

(illocutionary acts), and the speech act causes an effect on the

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

69 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

have nothing or little to do with linguistics construction. This

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

70 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

There are two philosophers who first proposed speech acts

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

71 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

72 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

In relation to those explanations, Mey, (2009: 2003) has

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

73 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

certain illocutionary act potential (IAP) that is closely and

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

74 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

generally known as the perlocutionary effect. There is an

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

75 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

76 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

B. The Source of the Data and Data

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

77 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

After taking the data, it is then segmented into fragments

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

78 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

This part deals with finding and discussion of illocutionary

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

79 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Based on the result of the analysis about the kinds of

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

80 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Based on the result of the analysis about the functions of

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

81 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

always as a question, or imperative sentence is not always a

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

82 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

of speech acts could be extended, strengthened and improved in

Brown, Gillian and Yule, George. 1983. Discourse Analysis.

Cruse, Alan. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to

Copyright © 2020 by Cordova Journal

83 | Vol. 10, No. 1, 2020

Cutting, Joan. 2002. Pragmatics and Discourse. London and New

Denzin, Norman K. and Lincoln, Yvonna S. 1998. The

Fromkin, Victoria., Rodman, Robert., and Hyams, Nina. 2011.

Gies, Michael L. 1995. Speech acts and Conversational

Lestari, Chatarini Septi Ngudi. 2004. Thesis. An Analysis of

Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London:

Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge

Mey, Jacob. L. 2009. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics:

Oishi, Etsuko. 2006. Austin’s Speech Acts Thoery and the