{{Short description|Utterance that serves a performative function}} {{use dmy dates |date=March 2024}} {{For|the U.S. law|SPEECH Act}} In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a '''speech act''' is an utterance considered as an instance of action in a social context rather than as the mere expression of a proposition. To say "I resign", "I apologise" or "You're fired" is, in suitable circumstances, to perform the very act of resigning, apologising or dismissing, not simply to describe it.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=How to do things with words|last=Austin|first=J. L.|date=1975|publisher=Harvard University Press|editor-last1=Urmson |editor-first1=J. O. |editor-last2=Sbisà |editor-first2=Marina.|isbn=978-0674411524|edition=2nd|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=1811317}}</ref> Speech-act theory therefore treats speaking a language as a kind of rule-governed social behaviour in which people make claims, issue orders, ask questions, make promises and so on by means of utterances.

Following J. L. Austin and John R. Searle, many accounts distinguish at least three levels of act in ordinary utterances: the locutionary act of producing a meaningful expression, the illocutionary act performed in saying something (such as asserting, warning, requesting or promising), and the perlocutionary act consisting in its further effects on an audience, such as persuading, amusing or alarming them. Later work has added notions such as metalocutionary acts, which organise or comment on the discourse itself, and has analysed performative utterances and indirect speech acts, in which one kind of act is performed by way of another.

As a systematic theory, the contemporary notion of speech acts originates in Austin's 1955 Harvard lectures published as ''How to Do Things with Words'', and in Searle's subsequent development of explicit rules and taxonomies for illocutionary acts. Historical research has identified important predecessors and parallels, including the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the accounts of "social acts" in the work of Thomas Reid and Adolf Reinach, and early-20th-century linguistic theories of ''Sprechhandlung'' ("speech action"), as well as earlier reflections in Hegel on speaking as a form of acting.

Speech-act theory now plays a central role in pragmatics, discourse analysis and communication studies, and has been taken up in a wide range of other fields. In language acquisition, it is used to describe how children learn to perform basic communicative acts such as requesting, greeting and protesting; in computer science and information systems, it underpins models of human–computer interaction, workflow and multi-agent system communication that treat messages as illocutionary moves creating and discharging commitments; in political science and international relations, it informs theories of securitization and the construction of security; and in law, economic sociology and finance, it has been applied to the performative role of legal norms and mathematical models in shaping social and economic practices.

==History== For much of the early analytic and positivist philosophy of language, language was treated mainly as a vehicle for representing facts and for stating propositions that are either true or false; the action-character of ordinary utterances was largely downplayed or bracketed.<ref name="SmithHistory">{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Barry |year=1990 |chapter=Towards a History of Speech Act Theory |editor-last=Burkhardt |editor-first=Armin |title=Speech Acts, Meanings and Intentions: Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle |location=Berlin |publisher=de Gruyter |pages=29–61 |doi=10.1515/9783110859485.29 |isbn=978-3-11-011300-6 }}</ref> J. L. Austin explicitly criticised this presupposition at the beginning of ''How to Do Things with Words'', noting that philosophers had often assumed that the business of a "statement" is simply to "state some fact".<ref name=":0"/>{{rp|1}}

A major precursor of speech act theory in the analytic tradition is the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who urged that instead of asking for the abstract meaning of an expression one should look at its use within a practice, and who described speaking a language as engaging in a family of "language-games".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wittgenstein |first=Ludwig |title=Philosophical Investigations |year=1953 |publisher=Blackwell |location=Oxford}}</ref> On this view, understanding an utterance requires seeing it as a rule-governed move within a social activity, not merely as a bearer of truth-conditions. Subsequent surveys of speech act theory often take this shift to "meaning-as-use" as part of the background to contemporary work on speech acts and pragmatics.<ref name="BachREP">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bach |first=Kent |title=Speech Acts |encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=11 March 2024 |url=https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/speech-acts/v-1 |doi=10.4324/9780415249126-U043-1 |date=1998 |publisher=Taylor and Francis |isbn=978-0-415-25069-6 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="GreenSpeechActs">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Green |first=Mitchell S. |title=Speech Acts |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2021 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/ |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref>

The contemporary use of the expression ''speech act'' is usually traced to the work of the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin. In his 1955 Harvard lectures, posthumously published as ''How to Do Things with Words'', Austin introduced the distinction between locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts and drew attention to "performative" utterances such as "I apologize" or "I promise", in which saying something is already doing something.<ref>{{cite book |last=Austin |first=J. L. |title=How to Do Things with Words |series=The William James Lectures |year=1962 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |oclc=954890698}}</ref> Austin's analyses encouraged philosophers and linguists to treat a wide range of utterances—requests, orders, apologies, warnings, declarations and so on—as actions performed in accordance with socially recognised rules or "felicity conditions".<ref name="LittlejohnSpeechAct">{{cite encyclopedia |editor-last1=Littlejohn |editor-first1=S. W. |date=2009 |title=Speech act theory |editor-first2=K. |editor-last2=Foss |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Communication Theory |pages=919–921 |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc. |volume=2 |doi=10.4135/9781412959384.n356 |isbn=978-1-4129-5937-7 |url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/communicationtheory/n356.xml |access-date=11 March 2024 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Austin's student John R. Searle further systematised these ideas in ''Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language'' (1969) and, in later writings, developing explicit rules for the performance of illocutionary acts and proposing influential taxonomies of their types.<ref>{{cite book |last=Searle |first=John R. |title=Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language |year=1969 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Searle |first=John R. |year=1975 |title=A taxonomy of illocutionary acts |journal=Language, Mind and Knowledge |editor1-first=K. |editor1-last=Gunderson |series=Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science |volume=7 |pages=344–369}}</ref> Subsequent work by Searle and others connected speech act theory with accounts of intentionality, social ontology and discourse structure, and it became a central framework in philosophy of language, pragmatics, communication studies, legal theory and artificial intelligence.<ref name="GreenSpeechActs"/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Mabaquiao |first=Napoleon M. |year=2018 |title=Speech Act Theory: From Austin to Searle |journal=Augustinian: A Journal for Humanities, Social Sciences, Business, and Education |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=35–45}}</ref>

Historical research has shown that Austin and Searle were not the first to analyse what are now called speech acts. In the Scottish common-sense tradition, Thomas Reid distinguished "solitary" mental operations from essentially "social" acts of mind—such as asking, commanding and promising—which require expression to another person and generate obligations between speaker and hearer.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reid |first=Thomas |title=Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind |year=1788 |publisher=John Bell |location=Edinburgh}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schuhmann |first1=Karl |last2=Smith |first2=Barry |year=1990 |title=Elements of Speech Act Theory in the Work of Thomas Reid |journal=History of Philosophy Quarterly |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=47–66}}</ref> Within early phenomenology, Adolf Reinach's 1913 essay ''Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes'' developed a detailed ontology of "social acts"—promising, claiming, commanding and related performances—that bring about new normative relations when successfully performed.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Reinach |first=Adolf |year=1983 |title=The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law |journal=Aletheia |volume=3 |pages=1–142 |translator-last=Crosby |translator-first=John F.}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Salice |first=Matthias |title=Adolf Reinach |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2017 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reinach/ |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref> Reinach's work, together with that of Reid and others, has been recognised as an early, systematic speech-act theory developed independently of the later Oxford tradition.<ref name="SmithHistory"/>

Comparable ideas were developed in early-20th-century linguistics. The Slovene philologist Stanislav Škrabec analysed performative uses of tense and aspect and discussed utterances in which, as later theorists would say, "saying so makes it so", such as judicial pronouncements and explicit permissions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grgic |first1=Matejka |last2=Žagar |first2=Igor Z. |title=How to Do Things with Tense and Aspect: Performativity before Austin |year=2011 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |location=Newcastle upon Tyne}}</ref> The psychologist and linguist Karl Bühler employed the terms ''Sprechhandlung'' ("speech action") and ''Theorie der Sprechakte'' ("theory of speech acts") in his 1930s work on the functions of language, especially in ''Sprachtheorie'' (1934), which has been read as an important forerunner of later speech act theorising.<ref>"Die Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften", ''Kant-Studien'' 38 (1933), p. 43.</ref><ref>Karl Bühler, ''Sprachtheorie'' (Jena: Fischer, 1934).</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Schlobinski |first=Peter |title=Die Bühler'sche Sprachtheorie |url=https://www.mediensprache.net/de/basix/misc/sprachtheorie/ |website=Mediensprache.net |date=2007 |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref>

Beyond these relatively direct predecessors, some scholars have also emphasised the roots of speech-act thinking in classical German philosophy. In his lectures on the philosophy of right, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel describes speaking as a form of acting (''sprechen ist so nicht bloß sprechen, sondern handeln''), linking utterance to the actualisation or transformation of social reality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hegel |first=G. W. F. |title=Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie |volume=3 |series=Gesammelte Werke |publisher=Felix Meiner |location=Hamburg |year=1995 |page=1467}}</ref> These earlier reflections on "social" or "performative" uses of language are brought together in historical reconstructions of speech act theory that place Austin and Searle within a broader, multi-stranded tradition.<ref name="SmithHistory"/>

==Types of speech act== {{main|locutionary act|illocutionary act|perlocutionary act|metalocutionary act}}

Following J. L. Austin's distinction in ''How to Do Things with Words'', many philosophers and linguists analyse ordinary utterances as involving at least three kinds of act: a locutionary act (producing a meaningful linguistic expression), an illocutionary act (performing an action such as asserting, questioning, or promising in saying that expression), and often a perlocutionary act (bringing about further effects on an addressee, such as convincing or alarming them).<ref name="Austin1962">{{cite book |last=Austin |first=J. L. |title=How to Do Things with Words |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1962 |edition=2nd |editor1-first=J. O. |editor1-last=Urmson |editor2-first=Marina |editor2-last=Sbisà}}</ref><ref name="Green2021">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Green |first=Mitchell |title=Speech Acts |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-first=Edward N. |editor-last=Zalta |edition=Summer 2021 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/speech-acts/ |access-date=2025-01-01}}</ref> Later theories refine this framework but usually retain some version of the threefold distinction.<ref name="BachHarnish1979">{{cite book |last1=Bach |first1=Kent |last2=Harnish |first2=Robert M. |title=Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=MIT Press |year=1979}}</ref>

In this tradition, speech acts can be described on multiple, partly overlapping levels:

# A '''locutionary act''' is the act of producing a particular linguistic expression with a certain phonological form, syntactic structure and conventional meaning—the act of ''saying'' something meaningful in a language.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Birner2013">{{cite book |last=Birner |first=Betty J. |title=Introduction to Pragmatics |location=Malden, MA |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2013}}</ref> # An '''illocutionary act''' is the act a speaker performs ''in'' saying something, characterised by its illocutionary force: for example, asserting that something is the case, asking a question, issuing an order, giving a warning, or making a promise.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Searle1969">{{cite book |last=Searle |first=John R. |title=Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1969}}</ref> # A '''perlocutionary act''' is the act a speaker performs ''by'' saying something, namely the further effects an utterance has on an audience, such as persuading, discouraging, amusing, frightening, or getting someone to perform a certain action, whether those effects are intended or not.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Birner2013" /> For example, if a speaker says, "I'm hungry" and the hearer responds by preparing food, the hearer's reaction can be described as part of the perlocutionary effect of the original utterance. # A '''metalocutionary act''' is a speech act that comments on or organises the discourse itself (for instance, marking topic boundaries, highlighting quoted material, or signalling the start or end of a turn) rather than further advancing its subject matter. In prosody and orthography, metalocutionary functions have been analysed as the use of intonation and punctuation to highlight or delimit portions of an utterance.<ref name="GibbonMetalocution">{{cite book |last=Gibbon |first=Dafydd |year=1981 |chapter=A New Look at Intonation Syntax and Semantics |editor1-first=A. R. |editor1-last=James |editor2-first=P. |editor2-last=Westney |title=New Linguistic Impulses in Foreign Language Teaching |location=Tübingen |publisher=Gunter Narr Verlag |pages=88–93}}</ref><ref name="MetalocutionaryAct">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Metalocutionary act |encyclopedia=Wikipedia |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalocutionary_act |access-date=2025-01-01}}</ref>

===Illocutionary acts===

The notion of an illocutionary act is central in speech-act theory, since it corresponds to the basic kind of social action a speaker performs by means of an utterance. Austin's examples include acts of stating, warning, ordering, and promising, each governed by appropriate "felicity conditions" that must obtain if the act is to succeed (for instance, that the speaker has the requisite authority to pronounce a couple married).<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Green2021" />

Searle develops Austin's insights by treating "speech act" and "illocutionary act" largely interchangeably and by offering a systematic taxonomy of basic illocutionary types (such as assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations) characterised in part by the psychological states they express (beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on).<ref name="Searle1969" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Searle |first=John R. |year=1976 |title=A Classification of Illocutionary Acts |journal=Language in Society |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=1–23 |doi=10.1017/S0047404500006837}}</ref> Whereas Austin tends to emphasise the conventional procedures associated with illocutionary acts, Searle and later authors highlight the role of underlying mental states and inferential recognition in individuating and understanding them.<ref name="BachHarnish1979" /><ref name="Green2021" />

===Perlocutionary acts===

While illocutionary acts are primarily defined in terms of the speaker's communicative intention and the conventional force of an utterance, perlocutionary acts concern the actual effects that utterances have on hearers and other addressees. These effects can involve changes in belief, emotion or behaviour: an assertion may convince someone, a warning may alarm them, a request may prompt them to act, and so on.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Birner2013" /> Because perlocutionary effects depend on the audience and context, the same utterance may have different, even unintended, consequences for different hearers.<ref name="Green2021" />

===Performative speech acts===

A particularly clear class of illocutionary acts is found in performative utterances, where the act named by a verb is performed in uttering a sentence containing that verb in an appropriate form and context. Typical examples include "I promise to pay you back", "I apologise for being late", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment", or "I hereby name this ship ''Sojourner''". In such cases, the utterance does not merely describe a promise, apology, sentence, or naming; it ''constitutes'' one, provided the relevant felicity conditions are satisfied.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Green2021" />

Austin argued that performative utterances are not aptly evaluated as true or false, but rather as "happy" (felicitous) or "unhappy" (infelicitous), depending on whether those conditions are met—for instance, whether the speaker is authorised to perform the act, whether the procedure is correctly executed, and whether the participants have the appropriate intentions.<ref name="Austin1962" /> Subsequent work has refined this idea by distinguishing explicit performatives (such as "I promise…") from cases where the same act is performed without using a corresponding performative verb (as when saying "I'll be there at six" functions as a promise in the right context).<ref name="BachHarnish1979" /><ref name="Green2021" />

Linguists sometimes use the term ''performative speech act'' more narrowly for utterances that contain a first-person singular present-tense performative verb and pass the so-called "hereby test" ("I hereby promise/apologise/declare…"). Expressions like "I intend to go" or "I hope to go", although they use first-person present-tense verbs, normally report mental states rather than perform conventional acts of promising or vowing, and so are not standardly treated as explicit performatives.<ref name="Birner2013" /><ref name="Ling001">{{cite web |title=Linguistics 001 – Lecture 13: Pragmatics |url=https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2019/ling001/pragmatics.html |website=Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |access-date=2025-01-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240416051206/https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2019/ling001/pragmatics.html |archive-date=2024-04-16}}</ref>

===Indirect speech acts===

In many cases, speakers perform speech acts indirectly: they use one sentence type to perform an illocutionary act that is different from the one conventionally associated with that form. For example, the question "Can you close the window?" is typically used not to inquire about the hearer's ability but to make a request, and the declarative "It's cold in here" may be understood, in context, as prompting someone to close a window or turn up the heat.<ref name="Searle1975">{{cite book |last=Searle |first=John R. |year=1975 |chapter=Indirect Speech Acts |editor1-first=Peter |editor1-last=Cole |editor2-first=Jerry L. |editor2-last=Morgan |title=Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts |location=New York |publisher=Academic Press |pages=59–82 |isbn=0-12-785423-1}}</ref><ref name="Ling001" />

Indirect speech acts are especially common for making requests and refusals. When asked "Would you like to meet for coffee?", a reply such as "I have class" is ordinarily taken as a polite rejection rather than as a bare report about one's schedule.<ref name="Birner2013" /> Many languages make routine use of conventionalised indirect request forms (for example, English "Could you…?", "Would you mind…?"), which have become standard ways of mitigating the social imposition associated with directives.<ref name="BlumKulka1987">{{cite journal |last=Blum-Kulka |first=Shoshana |year=1987 |title=Indirectness and politeness in requests |journal=Journal of Pragmatics |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=131–146 |doi=10.1016/0378-2166(87)90192-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Request Strategies Across Languages |url=https://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/requests/strategies.html |website=Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition |publisher=University of Minnesota |access-date=2025-01-01}}</ref> They may also rely on non-verbal cues: for instance, fieldwork on Jordanian shops and streets describes vendors using music, scents and other environmental signals, alongside verbal formulas, to attract customers and invite purchases without issuing explicit commands.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alalya |first1=Muna |last2=Altakhaineh |first2=Abdel Rahman Mitib |last3=Yaseen |first3=Zain |date=10 December 2024 |title=Culture-specific discourse in marketing: a study of socio-cultural traditions in Jordanian shops and streets |journal=Language and Semiotic Studies |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=593–615 |doi=10.1515/lass-2024-0046 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Such cases pose a classic problem for theories of communication: how do hearers reliably identify the intended illocution when the literal sentence meaning points to another act? In a seminal proposal, Searle argued that indirect speech acts can be derived by a sequence of inferences based on Grice's Cooperative Principle and conversational maxims: the hearer reasons from the literal meaning and contextual information to the hypothesis that a request, offer, refusal, and so on, is being performed.<ref name="Searle1975" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Grice |first=H. P. |year=1975 |chapter=Logic and Conversation |editor1-first=Peter |editor1-last=Cole |editor2-first=Jerry L. |editor2-last=Morgan |title=Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts |location=New York |publisher=Academic Press |pages=41–58}}</ref> Subsequent work in pragmatics, politeness theory and experimental psycholinguistics has questioned whether a single inferential pattern can account for all indirect speech acts and has proposed alternative models for how hearers recover indirect meanings.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=Herbert H. |last2=Schunk |first2=Deborah H. |year=1980 |title=Polite responses to polite requests |journal=Cognition |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=111–143 |doi=10.1016/0010-0277(80)90011-8 |doi-broken-date=22 December 2025 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Penelope |last2=Levinson |first2=Stephen C. |title=Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1987}}</ref><ref name="Boux2023">{{cite journal |last=Boux |first=Ilse Pauwels |year=2023 |title=Cognitive features of indirect speech acts |journal=Language, Cognition and Neuroscience |volume=38 |issue=7 |pages=781–802 |doi=10.1080/23273798.2022.2077396}}</ref>

More generally, speakers need not explicitly use verbs such as "apologise", "promise" or "praise" in order to perform those actions; whether an utterance counts as an apology, a promise or a compliment depends on its conventional form and on how it is understood in context.<ref name="Birner2013" /><ref name="Ling001" />

==Examples== Speech acts are commonplace in everyday interactions and are important for communication, as well as present in many different contexts. Examples of these include: *"You're fired!" expresses both the employment status of the individual in question, as well as the action by which said person's employment is ended.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mann|first=Steven T.|date=March 2009|title='You're Fired': An Application of Speech Act Theory to 2 Samuel 15.23—16.14|journal=Journal for the Study of the Old Testament|volume=33|issue=3|pages=315–334|doi=10.1177/0309089209102499|s2cid=170553371|issn=0309-0892}}</ref> *"I hereby appoint you as chairman" expresses both the status of the individual as chairman, and the action that promotes the individual to this position.<ref>{{Cite book|title=It is hereby performed-- : explorations in legal speech acts|first=Dennis|last=Kurzon|date=1986|publisher=J. Benjamins Pub. Co|isbn=9789027279293|location=Amsterdam|oclc=637671814}}</ref> *"We ask that you extinguish your cigarettes at this time, and bring your tray tables and seatbacks to an upright position." This statement describes the requirements of the current location, such as an aeroplane, while also issuing the command to stop smoking and to sit up straight. *"Would it be too much trouble for me to ask you to hand me that wrench?" functions to simultaneously ask two questions. The first is to ask the listener if they are capable of passing the wrench, while the second is an actual request. *"Well, would you listen to that?" acts as a question, requesting that a listener heed what is being said by the speaker, but also as an exclamation of disbelief or shock.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/edling/handouts/speechacts/spchax2.html|title=Speech Acts and Conversation|website=www.sas.upenn.edu|access-date=2019-03-04}}</ref>

==Felicity conditions and misfires== In ''How to Do Things with Words'', Austin introduced the notion of ''felicity conditions'' for the conventional procedures he took to underlie many performative utterances and other illocutionary acts.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Green2021" /> On his account, the success or "happiness" of a speech act depends not only on the conventional meaning of the words uttered but also on background features of the context of utterance: there must be an accepted procedure for performing the act, the circumstances and participants must be appropriate to that procedure (for instance, a legally authorised official pronouncing a couple married), and the procedure must be carried out correctly and completely, with participants having the requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions and, where relevant, engaging in the expected subsequent conduct.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="SbisaAustin">{{cite journal |last=Sbisà |first=Marina |year=2007 |title=How to read Austin |journal=Pragmatics |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=461–473 |doi=10.1075/prag.17.3.06sbi}}</ref> Felicity conditions are thus pragmatic constraints on when an utterance of a given type counts as a valid performance of a particular kind of act, rather than as a mere emission of words or as a statement that can simply be evaluated for truth or falsity.<ref name="Green2021" /><ref name="KroegerFelicity">{{cite book |last=Kroeger |first=Paul R. |title=Analyzing Meaning: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics |location=Berlin |publisher=Language Science Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-3-96110-034-7 |url=https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/144 |access-date=2025-11-22}}</ref>

Austin calls failures of felicity ''infelicities'' and divides them into two main classes, ''misfires'' and ''abuses''.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Green2021" /> In cases of misfire, the purported speech act does not come off at all: the conventional procedure is not properly invoked or executed, so that, although words are spoken, no marriage is contracted, no bet is laid, no christening or declaration succeeds.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="SbisaAustin" /> This may happen, for example, because the speaker lacks the relevant authority, because some presupposed condition is not met (such as there being an appropriate object or addressee), or because participants fail to complete the required sequence of actions. By contrast, abuses are cases in which the conventional act is successfully performed but is defective because some sincerity or subsequent-conduct condition is violated—for instance, when a speaker promises without intending to keep the promise, makes a bet without intending to pay, or issues an apology without regret.<ref name="Austin1962" /><ref name="Green2021" /> In such cases, there is still a promise, bet or apology, but it is an insincere or otherwise defective one; sincerity is treated as a paradigm felicity condition that an act of a given type ought, but need not, satisfy.<ref name="Green2021" /><ref name="SbisaAustin" />

Searle generalised Austin's ideas by analysing felicity conditions as sets of constitutive rules associated with each basic type of illocutionary act.<ref name="Searle1969" /><ref name="Green2021" /> For a paradigmatic case such as promising, he distinguishes four kinds of condition: a ''propositional content condition'' restricting what may be promised; ''preparatory conditions'' concerning the relationship between speaker, hearer and situation (for example, that the hearer prefers the promised action to its absence, and that the act is not already certain to occur); a ''sincerity condition'' requiring the speaker to intend to carry out the promised action; and an ''essential condition'' according to which the utterance counts as undertaking an obligation.<ref name="Searle1969" /><ref name="KroegerFelicity" /> Violations of content or preparatory conditions are typically treated as yielding failed or infelicitous attempts to perform the act (a kind of misfire), whereas violations of the sincerity condition generate insincere but nonetheless binding promises, orders or apologies (a kind of abuse).<ref name="Green2021" /><ref name="KroegerFelicity" />

Later work extends the idea of felicity conditions beyond explicit performatives to speech acts more generally, including assertions, questions and indirect speech acts, and links them to norms governing what speakers may do with words in different social settings.<ref name="KroegerFelicity" /><ref name="SbisaAustin" /> On this view, felicity conditions articulate the normative background that allows utterances to create or modify obligations, entitlements and other elements of social reality, and they can be used to explain how power relations, institutional roles and patterns of uptake affect which acts can be successfully performed.<ref name="Green2021" /><ref name="Sbisa2014">{{cite journal |last=Sbisà |first=Marina |year=2014 |title=The Austinian conception of illocution and its implications for value judgement and social ontology |journal=Ethics & Politics |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=619–631}}</ref> Contemporary discussions debate how far such conditions can be captured in finite lists for each illocutionary type and to what extent they should instead be seen as defeasible, context-sensitive constraints on when speakers are entitled to perform particular acts and when hearers are entitled to treat those acts as successful and binding.<ref name="Green2021" /><ref name="Sbisa2014" />

==In language development== In 1975, John Dore proposed that children's utterances were realizations of one of nine primitive speech acts:<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dore|first=John|date=1975|title=Holophrases, Speech Acts and Language Universals|journal=Journal of Child Language|volume=2|pages=21–40|id={{ProQuest|85490541}}|doi=10.1017/S0305000900000878|s2cid=145758149 }}</ref> #labelling #repeating #answering #requesting (action) #requesting (answer) #calling #greeting #protesting #practicing

==Formalization==

There is no agreed formalization of speech-act theory. In 1985, John Searle and D. Vandervecken attempted to give some grounds of an illocutionary logic.<ref>Searle, J.R., Vandervecken, D.: Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1985</ref> Other attempts have been proposed by Per Martin-Löf for a treatment of the concept of assertion inside intuitionistic type theory, and by Carlo Dalla Pozza, with a proposal of a formal pragmatics connecting propositional content (given with classical semantics) and illocutionary force (given by intuitionistic semantics). Up to now, the main basic formal applications of speech act theory are to be found in the field of human–computer interaction in chatboxes and other tools. Recent work in artificial intelligence proposes a Bayesian approach to formalize speech acts. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gmytrasiewicz |first1=Piotr |title=How to Do Things with Words: A Bayesian Approach |journal=Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research |date=August 2020 |volume=68 |pages=753–776 |doi=10.1613/jair.1.11951 |s2cid=221324549 |url=https://www.jair.org/index.php/jair/article/view/11951/26599|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==In computer science==

In computer science and information systems, speech-act theory has been used to model human–computer interaction, office work, multi-agent system communication and other forms of computer-mediated interaction by treating messages as illocutionary actions that change the social state of an interaction rather than merely transmitting data.

===Human–computer interaction and dialogue systems===

Early work on computational models of speech acts in human–computer interaction proposed representing dialogue as a sequence of illocutionary moves, with explicit changes of conversational state associated with each move. In 1991, Morelli, Bronzino and Goethe described a computational speech-act model of human–computer conversations for medical decision support, in which user inputs and system replies are typed as requests, assertions, confirmations and other speech-act categories that drive the underlying expert system.<ref>{{cite conference |location=Hartford, CT |conference=Bioengineering Conference, 1991., Proceedings of the 1991 IEEE Seventeenth Annual Northeast |pages=263–264 |title=A computational speech-act model of human-computer conversations |author1=R. A. Morelli |author2=J. D. Bronzino |author3=J. W. Goethe |doi=10.1109/NEBC.1991.154675 |year=1991}}</ref>

Later work has used speech-act based models to support automated classification and retrieval of conversations: for example, Twitchell ''et al.'' modelled conversations in e-mail and chat as sequences of speech acts in order to classify threads and retrieve segments relevant to particular tasks.<ref>{{cite conference |title=Using Speech Act Theory to Model Conversations for Automated Classification and Retrieval |author1=Douglas P. Twitchell |author2=Mark Adkins |author3=Jay F. Nunamaker Jr. |author4=Judee K. Burgoon |conference=Proceedings of the 9th International Working Conference on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2004) |year=2004 |url=http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~aakhus/lap/Twitchell%20et%20al%20-%20SAT%20for%20classification.pdf |access-date=22 November 2025 |archive-date=30 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070330035357/http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~aakhus/lap/Twitchell%20et%20al%20-%20SAT%20for%20classification.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref>

More recent natural-language processing research treats speech-act recognition as a text classification problem. Qadir and Riloff, for example, train statistical classifiers to recognise sentences in online message boards as instances of Searle's main speech-act categories (commissives, directives, expressives and representatives).<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Qadir |first1=Ashequl |last2=Riloff |first2=Ellen |chapter=Classifying Sentences as Speech Acts in Message Board Posts |title=Proceedings of the 2011 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing |pages=748–758 |publisher=Association for Computational Linguistics |year=2011 |url=https://aclanthology.org/D11-1069.pdf |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref> Related work has applied machine-learning methods to classify speech acts in online chat and other forms of computer-mediated communication.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Moldovan |first1=Constantin |last2=Rus |first2=Vasile |last3=Graesser |first3=Arthur C. |chapter=Automated Speech Act Classification for Online Chat |title=Proceedings of the 22nd Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference (MAICS) |pages=23–29 |year=2011}}</ref>

=== ''Conversation for action'' and workflow modelling ===

Another influential application of speech-act theory is the ''conversation for action'' framework developed by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores in ''Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design''.<ref name="win">{{Cite book |last1=Winograd |first1=Terry |last2=Flores |first2=Fernando |title=Understanding computers and cognition: a new foundation for design |year=1986 |isbn=0-89391-050-3 |location=Norwood, NJ |oclc=11727403}}</ref> They analyse everyday coordination of work as networks of conversations in which participants make requests, offers, promises and declarations, and represent these conversations using a state-transition diagram that tracks the illocutionary status of each commitment (for example, whether a request has been accepted, fulfilled or declined).<ref name="medinamora">{{cite conference |last1=Medina-Mora |first1=Raúl |last2=Winograd |first2=Terry |last3=Flores |first3=Rodrigo |last4=Flores |first4=Fernando |chapter=The action workflow approach to groupware |title=Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work |year=1992 |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery}}</ref> In this view, a computer process can track the social state of a transaction—such as which commitments have been made or discharged—even when it does not model in detail the external world that the commitments concern.

The conversation-for-action model has influenced computer-supported cooperative work, workflow management and business process modelling. For example, Medina-Mora ''et al.'' propose ''action workflow'' as an office-automation architecture in which work is coordinated through structured conversations for action,<ref name="medinamora"/> and Auramäki, Lehtinen and Lyytinen use a speech-act-based office modelling approach (SAMPO) to analyse office activities as chains of commitments created and modified by speech acts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Auramäki |first1=Esa |last2=Lehtinen |first2=Erkki |last3=Lyytinen |first3=Kalle |date=1988-04-01 |title=A speech-act-based office modeling approach |journal=ACM Transactions on Information Systems |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=126–152 |doi=10.1145/45941.214328 |s2cid=16952302 |issn=1046-8188 |doi-access=free}}</ref> This line of work is sometimes described as the Language/action perspective on information systems design.<ref>{{cite web |title=Language–Action Perspective |url=https://is.theorizeit.org/wiki/Language-Action_Perspective |website=Theorize IT |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref>

===Rules and protocol design===

In specifying communication protocols for distributed and multi-agent systems, computer scientists have drawn on John Searle's distinction between ''regulative'' and ''constitutive'' rules.<ref>{{cite book |last=Searle |first=John R. |title=Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1969}}</ref> Regulative rules prescribe or constrain behaviour in an activity that could in principle exist without them (for example, traffic regulations), whereas constitutive rules do not merely regulate but help to define an activity, such as the rules of games or institutional practices.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rawls |first=John |title=Two Concepts of Rules |journal=The Philosophical Review |volume=64 |issue=1 |pages=3–32 |year=1955 |doi=10.2307/2182230 |jstor=2182230 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Glüer |first1=Kathrin |last2=Pagin |first2=Peter |title=Rules of Meaning and Practical Reasoning |journal=Synthese |volume=117 |issue=2 |pages=207–227 |year=1998 |doi=10.1023/A:1005001701726 |doi-broken-date=22 December 2025 }}</ref> Within the language–action and multi-agent systems traditions, interaction protocols are often described as constitutive rules that create and shape social realities such as commitments, permissions and institutional facts, rather than as mere constraints on message passing.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Singh |first=Munindar P. |title=An ontology for commitments in multiagent systems: Toward a unification of normative concepts |journal=Artificial Intelligence and Law |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=97–113 |year=1999 |doi=10.1023/A:1008319631231}}</ref>

===Multi-agent systems===

In multi-agent systems, communication between software agents is commonly modelled using speech-act labels that express the intended illocutionary force of a message. A message with the performative ''inform'', for example, is understood as an attempt to add some content to the recipient's knowledge base, whereas a performative such as ''request'' or ''query'' asks another agent to perform an action or provide information. Early agent communication languages such as KQML and the FIPA Agent Communication Language define sets of performatives (such as "inform", "request" and "query") together with a formal semantics inspired by Searle's analysis of speech acts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Finin |first1=Tim |last2=Labrou |first2=Yannis |last3=Mayfield |first3=James |chapter=KQML as an agent communication language |editor=Jeffrey M. Bradshaw |title=Software Agents |publisher=MIT Press |year=1997}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=FIPA ACL Message Structure Specification |url=https://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00061/ |website=Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref>

The semantics of KQML and FIPA ACL are often described as ''mentalist'' or ''psychological'', because they interpret communicative acts in terms of the beliefs, desires and intentions that agents are presumed to have.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Singh |first=Munindar P. |title=Agent communication languages: Rethinking the principles |journal=IEEE Computer |volume=31 |issue=12 |pages=40–47 |year=1998 |doi=10.1109/2.735849 |bibcode=1998Compr..31l..40S }}</ref> Munindar P. Singh has argued that such mentalist semantics are ill-suited to open systems, and has instead advocated a ''social semantics'' in which communication creates and manipulates publicly observable social commitments between agents, without making strong assumptions about internal mental states.<ref>{{cite conference |last=Singh |first=Munindar P. |chapter=Social and psychological commitments in multiagent systems |title=Proceedings of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Knowledge and Action at Social and Organizational Levels |pages=104–106 |year=1991}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Singh |first=Munindar P. |title=A social semantics for agent communication languages |journal=In F. Dignum and M. Greaves (Eds.), "Issues in Agent Communication" |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |volume=1916 |pages=31–45 |publisher=Springer |year=2000}}</ref> Andrew J. I. Jones and co-authors have likewise criticised psychological approaches to agent communication, arguing for semantics grounded in social and institutional facts.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Andrew J. I. |last2=Sergot |first2=Marek |title=A formal characterisation of institutionalised power |journal=Journal of the IGPL |year=1995}}</ref> A later collection of manifestos on agent communication reports a broad consensus in favour of commitment-based social semantics for open multi-agent systems and questions the adequacy of the original FIPA ACL semantics for such settings.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Chopra |first=Amit K. |title=Research directions in agent communication |journal=ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology |year=2012}}</ref>

===Other uses in technology===

* An office can be seen as a system of speech acts. The abbreviation ''SAMPO'' stands for '''S'''peech-'''A'''ct-based office '''Mo'''deling a'''p'''pr'''o'''ach, which "studies office activities as a series of speech acts creating, maintaining, modifying, reporting, and terminating commitments".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Auramäki |first1=Esa |last2=Lehtinen |first2=Erkki |last3=Lyytinen |first3=Kalle |date=1988-04-01 |title=A speech-act-based office modeling approach |journal=ACM Transactions on Information Systems |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=126–152 |doi=10.1145/45941.214328 |s2cid=16952302 |issn=1046-8188 |doi-access=free }}</ref> * Speech act profiling and related techniques have been used to detect deception in synchronous computer-mediated communication, for example by analysing the distribution of different speech-act types in chat and instant-messaging conversations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adkins |first1=Mark |last2=Twitchell |first2=Douglas P. |last3=Burgoon |first3=Judee K. |last4=Nunamaker |first4=Jay F. Jr. |editor-first1=Dawn A. |editor-first2=Alex F. |editor-last1=Trevisani |editor-last2=Sisti |chapter=Advances in automated deception detection in text-based computer-mediated communication |title=Enabling Technologies for Simulation Science VIII |journal=Proceedings of SPIE – the International Society for Optical Engineering |volume=5423 |pages=122–129 |year=2004 |doi=10.1117/12.548450}}</ref> * Automatic speech-act classification has been applied in a variety of natural-language processing tasks, including the detection of questions, answers and other conversational roles in online discussion fora and chat logs.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Qadir |first1=Ashequl |last2=Riloff |first2=Ellen |chapter=Classifying Sentences as Speech Acts in Message Board Posts |title=Proceedings of the 2011 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing |pages=748–758 |publisher=Association for Computational Linguistics |year=2011 |url=https://aclanthology.org/D11-1069.pdf |access-date=22 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |last1=Moldovan |first1=Constantin |last2=Rus |first2=Vasile |last3=Graesser |first3=Arthur C. |chapter=Automated Speech Act Classification for Online Chat |title=Proceedings of the 22nd Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference (MAICS) |pages=23–29 |year=2011}}</ref>

==In political science== In political science, the Copenhagen School adopts speech act as a form of felicitous speech act (or simply 'facilitating conditions'), whereby the speaker, often politicians or players, act in accordance to the truth but in preparation for the audience to take action in the directions of the player that are driven or incited by the act. This forms an observable framework under a specified subject matter from the player, and the audience who are 'under-theorised [would] remain outside of the framework itself, and would benefit from being both brought in and drawn out.'<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1232/1/WRAP_McDonald_0671572-pais-270709-mcdonald_securitisation_and_construction_of_security_ejir_forthcoming_2008.pdf |title=Securitisation and the Construction of Security |first=Matt |last=McDonald |date=2008 |journal=European Journal of International Relations |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=563–587 |doi=10.1177/1354066108097553}}</ref> It is because the audience would not be informed of the intentions of the player, except to focus on the display of the speech act itself. Therefore, in the perspective of the player, the truth of the subject matter is irrelevant except the result produced via the audience.<ref name="buzan">{{Cite book |first1=Barry |last1=Buzan |first2=Ole |last2=Waever |first3=Jaap |last3=de Wilde |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4BGr-Elsp8C&q=%2522speech%2520act%2522 |title=Security: A New Framework for Analysis |publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers |year=1998 |isbn=978-1-55587-784-2 |language=en}}</ref>

The study of speech acts is prevalent in legal theory since laws themselves can be interpreted as speech acts. Laws issue out a command to their constituents, which can be realized as an action. When forming a legal contract, speech acts can be made when people are making or accepting an offer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/03/legal-theory-lexicon-speech-acts.html|title=Legal Theory Lexicon: Speech Acts|website=Legal Theory Blog|access-date=2018-04-15}}</ref> Considering the theory of freedom of speech, some speech acts may not be legally protected. For example, a death threat is a type of speech act and is considered to exist outside of the protection of freedom of speech as it is treated as a criminal act.

==In economic sociology== In a sociological perspective, Nicolas Brisset adopts the concept of speech act in order to understand how economic models participate in the making and the spreading of representations inside and outside of the scientific field. Brisset argues that models perform actions in different fields (scientific, academic, practical, and political). This multiplicity of fields induces a variety of felicity conditions and types of performed actions. This perspective is a criticism of the essentialism of philosophical modelling studies.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brisset|first=Nicolas|date=2018-01-02|title=Models as speech acts: the telling case of financial models|journal=Journal of Economic Methodology|volume=25|issue=1|pages=21–41|doi=10.1080/1350178X.2018.1419105|s2cid=148612438|issn=1350-178X|url=http://www.gredeg.cnrs.fr/working-papers/GREDEG-WP-2017-25.pdf}}</ref> This approach is largely inspired by the work of Pierre Bourdieu<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brisset |first1=Nicolas |last2=Jullien |first2=Dorian |date=2020-04-02 |title=The model (also) in the world: extending the sociological theory of fields to economic models |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350178X.2019.1680857 |journal=Journal of Economic Methodology |language=en |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=130–145 |doi=10.1080/1350178X.2019.1680857 |s2cid=210479183 |issn=1350-178X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and Quentin Skinner.

In finance, it is possible to understand mathematical models as speech acts: in 2016, the notion of "financial ''logos''" was defined as the speech act of mathematical modelling of financial risks. The action of the financial ''logos'' on financial practices is the framing of financial decision-making by risk modelling.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/j.ribaf.2016.01.022 |title=The financial Logos : The framing of financial decision-making by mathematical modelling |journal=Research in International Business and Finance |volume=37 |pages=597–604 |year=2016 |last1=Walter |first1=Christian }}</ref>

==See also== * {{annotated link|Analogy}} * {{annotated link|Cooperative principle}} * {{annotated link|Dialog act}} * {{annotated link|Direction of fit}} * {{annotated link|Discourse-completion task}} * {{annotated link|Entailment (pragmatics)}} * {{annotated link|Implicature}} * {{annotated link|J. L. Austin#How to Do Things with Words|''How to Do Things with Words'' (J.L. Austin's book)}} * {{annotated link|Metaphor}} * {{Annotated link|Performative verb}} * {{annotated link|Phatic expression}} * {{annotated link|Presupposition}} * {{annotated link|Politeness theory}} * {{annotated link|Relevance theory#Speech acts|Relevance theory}}

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==Bibliography== * John Langshaw Austin: ''How to Do Things With Words''. Cambridge (Mass.) 1962, paperback: Harvard University Press, 2nd edition, 2005, {{ISBN|0-674-41152-8}}. * William P. Alston: 'Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning'. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2000, {{ISBN|0-8014-3669-9}}. * Bach, Kent. "Speech Acts." Speech Acts. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. * Doerge, Friedrich Christoph. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100108051728/http://tobias-lib.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/volltexte/2006/2273/pdf/Dissertation_Doerge.pdf ''Illocutionary Acts – Austin's Account and What Searle Made Out of It''. ]. Tuebingen 2006. * Dorschel, Andreas, 'What is it to understand a directive speech act?', in: ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'' LXVII (1989), nr. 3, pp.&nbsp;319–340. * John Searle,'' Speech Acts'', Cambridge University Press 1969, {{ISBN|0-521-09626-X}}. * John Searle, "Indirect speech acts." In ''Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts'', ed. P. Cole & J. L. Morgan, pp.&nbsp;59–82. New York: Academic Press. (1975). Reprinted in ''Pragmatics: A Reader'', ed. S. Davis, pp.&nbsp;265–277. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (1991) * Geo Siegwart, "Alethic Acts and Alethiological Reflection. An Outline of Constructive Philosophy of Truth." In ''Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the philosophy of language'', ed. D. Greimann & G. Siegwart, pp.&nbsp;41–58. New York: Routledge. (2007) * Terry Winograd & Fernando Flores, ''Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design'', Ablex Publishing Corp, (Norwood), 1986. {{ISBN|0-89391-050-3}}. * Birgit Erler: ''The speech act of forbidding and its realizations: A linguistic analysis''. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2010, {{ISBN|978-3-639-23275-2}}. * Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford: [https://archive.today/20121228024849/http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/69/3/488 ''Illocutionary acts, Subordination, and Silencing''] in ''Analysis'', July 2009. * Outi Malmivuori: ''Zu Stand und Entwicklung der Sprechakttheorie. Zu Grundsätzen der Theorie des sprachlichen Handelns''. AkademikerVerlag. 2012. {{ISBN|978-3-639-44043-0}}. * Matt McDonald: [https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354066108097553 ''Securitisation and the Construction of Security.''] University of Warwick. (2008) * Barry Buzan, Ole Waever & Jaap de Wilde: ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=j4BGr-Elsp8C&q=%22speech+act%22 Security: A New Framework for Analysis].'' Colorado Boulder: Lynne Rienner. (1998)

==Further reading== * {{cite journal | last1 = Schuhmann | first1 = Karl | last2 = Smith | first2 = Barry | year = 1990 | title = Elements of Speech Act Theory in the Work of Thomas Reid | url = https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1874/fa9c53d50f69294de7d4e17965d177255286.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190805132946/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1874/fa9c53d50f69294de7d4e17965d177255286.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2019-08-05 | journal = History of Philosophy Quarterly | volume = 7 | pages = 47–66 | s2cid = 18906253 }} * {{cite journal | last1 = Brock | first1 = Jarrett | year = 1981 | title = An Introduction to Peirce's Theory of Speech Acts | journal = Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society | volume = 17 | issue = 4| pages = 319–326 | jstor = 40319937 }}

==External links== *{{cite SEP |url-id=speech-acts |title=Speech Acts |last=Green |first=Mitchell}} * [http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbach/spchacts.html ''Speech Acts'' entry from ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', by Kent Bach] * [http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith//articles/speechact.html Barry Smith, ''Towards a History of Speech Act Theory''] ed. M. McDonald, pp.&nbsp;2–3. Warwick: University of Warwick. (2008) * [http://www.fipa.org Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070817084541/http://www.iles.umn.edu/IntroToSpeechActs/ Strategies for Learning Speech Acts in Japanese] by Noriko Ishihara

{{philosophy of language}} {{formal semantics}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speech Act}} Category:Discourse analysis Category:Semantics Category:Oral communication Category:Concepts in the philosophy of language Category:Pragmatics Category:Formal semantics (natural language)