Name: Jelita Sinurat

Class: 5C
NPM: 218110075
Pragmatics

Please state your ideas/understanding about SPEECH ACT, especially the Differences
between: Locutionary Act, Illocutionary Act, and, Perlocutionary Act.
State your genuine Examples that could Elaborate the fundamental meaning as well As
differences among them. I should be about 500-1000 words.
Answer: What is a speech act in pragmatics? Speech act theory is a subfield of pragmatics
that studies how words are used not only to present information but also to carry out actions.
The speech act theory was introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin in How to Do
Things With Words and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle.

The meaning of Speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. We

perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation,
compliment, or refusal. Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:
Greeting: “Hi, Eric”.

A locutionary act is an act of saying something, and to perform an act of saying something
involves uttering noises of certain types belonging to and as belonging to a certain
vocabulary," The locutionary act intended by some person is usually interpreted by the words
he uses in a certain utterance. A Locutionary Act is a true ‘speech act’ such as informing,
ordering, warning, undertaking.”

An example of an illocutionary act would be: “The black cat is stupid.” This statement is
assertive; it is an illocutionary act in that it intends to communicate. This statement is a
perlocutionary act because it seeks to change behavior.

An illocutionary act is a complete speech act, made in a typical utterance, that consists of.
The illocutionary act "is a conventional act: an act done as confirming to a convention". It is a
reaction to the illocutionary act which does not include "joking, showing off, and
insinuating". In other words, it is what is meant by the interlocutors to be performed by the
other party.
The delivery of the propositional content of the utterance (including references and a
predicate), and. A particular illocutionary force, whereby the speaker. Asserts. An
illocutionary act is an instance of a culturally defined speech act type, characterized by a
particular illocutionary force.

For example, in the utterance ‘I promise you this’

The word ‘promise’ is identified as performative verb which is one of the devices to identify
illocutionary force

Thus the illocutionary force of the utterance is not an inquiry about the progress of salad
construction, but a demand that the salad is brought. There are five types of illocutionary acts
by Searle: declarations, assertive, expressive, directives, and commissives.

Also, know, What is the difference between locutionary and illocutionary acts? Thus words
alone do not have a simple fixed meaning. Locutionary act: saying something (the locution)
with a certain meaning in the traditional sense. Illocutionary act: the performance of an act in
saying something (vs. The general act of saying something).

A perlocutionary act is a speech act that produces an effect, intended or not, achieved in an
addressee by a speaker’s utterance. Here are some examples of perlocutionary acts:
Persuading. Convincing. Scaring.

Another example is when a boy says to a girl “You’re beautiful”, if the girl is attracted to the
boy usually the girl will blush and feel happy; but on the contrary, if the girl is not attracted to
the speaker, then usually she will only say “Thank you” and don’t feel as happy as in the first
case.

In conclusion, locutionary act is the production of meaningful utterances and expressions

(“go away!”, “come here”, “who are you?”, etc) which leads to illocutionary act, the intention
of producing meaningful expression (promise, offering, etc), which causes the performance
of the perlocutionary act, which is the effect  of the locutionary and illocutionary act
(behavior, feeling, belief, etc).. The three components of communication, from a pragmatic
point of view, are Locution–the semantic or literal significance of the utterance; Illocution–
the intention of the speaker; and. Perlocution–how it was received by the listener.