Research Information System
Civil Academy, no.3, pp.65-80, 2007 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
In this article J. L. Austin's speech act theory is introduced and the criticisms raised by his student Searle and some other researchers against this theory and the speech act theory put forward by Searle are presented. Austin identifies some felicity conditions to realize a successful performative act and then becomes aware of the fact that all utterances are performatives. He divides the utterances produced by a speaker into three groups as locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act and writes that the interpretation of a locutionary act is an issue of meaning whereas the interpretation of an illocutionary act is an issue of force. He also classifies illocutionary acts into five groups. Searle challenges Austin's distinction between locutionary act and illocutionary act and argues that in fact locutionary act is an illocutionary act. He focuses on meaning and intentionality and background information while explaining illocutionary act. Subsequently he specifies the conditions that should be satisfied and required for a successful illocutionary act and divides illocutionary acts into five groups after presenting the shortcomings of Austin's classification. However, there exists some problems concerning the application of his speech act theory to real communication activities.