For each of the following verbs, give an example of a locutionary act containing it, and state the illocutionary force and the perlocutionary effect: pronounce (as in pronounce someone husband and wife, pronounce someone dead), quit, fire, appoint, predict, warn, tell.
Section 9.3 Illocutionary force
It is an old idea in linguistics that by uttering a linguistic expression, we perform actions that have consequences in the real world. The British philosopher J.L. Austin was the first to discuss this extensively. He pointed out cases like the following, which he performatives:
By saying I sentence you to five weeks’ imprisonment, a judge would of course be performing a linguistic act — she would assert the truth of the proposition in (6):
- (6)
- SENTENCE-TO(x, y, z), where x is the speaker, y is the hearer and z is a five-month prison term
However, she would also be performing a non-linguistic act: she would actually sentence H to a prison term. As a consequence of this, S would make a change to the world: H would now have to spend 5 weeks in jail.
Subsection Speech acts
Austin proposed terms for the different acts Speakers perform when they utter a linguistic expression:
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locutionary act for the linguistic act of uttering an expression with a particular form and meaning (for example, the sentence in (1) with the meaning in (6)),
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illocutionary act for the non-linguistic act performed by doing so (for example, sentencing H to five weeks in jail); note that the term illocutionary force is often used instead to refer to S’s intention to perform a particular illocutionary act;
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and perlocutionary act or effect for the effect or consequence of the illocutionary act (e.g. the fact that H now has to go to jail).
All three acts taken together make up a Speech act (but note that this term is often used to refer just to the illocutionary act/force).
Let us look at another example, the one in (2):
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The judge says I order you to report to Pentonville prison. This is the locutionary act, its meaning can be determined based on the verb order, which means ‘tell someone that they have to do something’, where the judge is the one performing this action and the Hearer is the one who should perform the action; the action is described by the verb report, which in this case means ‘go to a prison in order to be taken in as a prisoner’, the Hearer is the one performing this action and Pentonville Prison is the prison.
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By performing this locutionary act, the judge is not simply describing a situation in the world, she is actually doing the thing she is describing: issuing an order that H must report to Pentonville Prison. This is the illocutionary act.
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As a result of this illocutionary act, the judge has created an obligation for H to report to Pentonville Prison. This is the perlocutionary act.
Question 9.3.1.
Note that sentences in (1) to (5), and the ones you created yourself just now, are special in that they indicate the illocutionary force explicitly using the verbs sentence, ask, order, apologize and promise (such verbs are sometimes called performative verbs). However, utterances do not need to contain such verbs in order to have an illocutionary force. Consider the following paraphrases of (2) to (5):
They have the same illocutionary forces as their performative counterparts. In the first two cases, this force is indicated by the sentence type: (2’) is an interrogative and (3’) is an imperative — interrogatives function to ask questions and imperatives function to give orders.
Because they can indicate illocutionary force, sentence types and performative verbs are sometimes referred to as illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs). But as (4’) and (5’) show, not all utterances have such IFIDs. In Section 9.4, we will return to the question how Hearers figure out that a sentence like (4’) can be an apology and sentence (5’) can be a promise.
So, how many possible illocutionary forces are there? It depends on how specific we want to be: at the most specific level, there are at least as many illocutionary forces as there are performative verbs in a given language — since cultures differ with respect to what actions they consider important, languages will differ with respect to the verbs they have for describing actions. However, it would be nice if we could categorize all these illocutionary forces into a few general categories, and many linguists and philosophers have attempted to do so.
There is no general agreement, but the following categories, which were first suggested by the American philosopher John R. Searle, are wildely used:
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assertive — illocutionary acts by which S asserts the truth of the expressed proposition (statements);
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directives — illocutionary acts by which S intends to make the Hearer do something (orders, requests, advice, but also questions, which are requests for information);
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commissives — illocutionary acts by which the Speaker commits to a future action (promises, warnings, oaths, bets)
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expressives — illocutionary acts by which the Speaker expresses a particular attitudes or emotions (apologies, congratulations, condolences, excuses, greetings, thanks)
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declarations — illocutionary acts by which the Speaker performs a conventionalized cultural action (baptisms, sentencing, quitting a job, firing someone, marriage pronouncements)
A given utterance can fall into more than one of these categories — they often make a statement in addition to one of the other functions, a commissive may also be expressive (I am sorry, it won’t happen again!), etc.
Question 9.3.2.
Categorize examples (1) to (5) and the examples you came up with yourself according to these five categories.
Subsection Felicity conditions
The fact that not all utterances are statements poses a problem for the idea that we can treat the meaning of sentences in terms of their truth conditions: This approach works only for assertives! What would it even mean to say that a question, an order or a promise are “true” or “false”?
Austin proposed a more general way of dealing with the meaning of utterances: instead of thinking of them merely in terms of truth conditions, we should think of them in terms of a more general set of conditions that must be met in order for an utterance to be successful (or, as Austin called it, felicitous).
These conditions are referred to as felicity conditions, and are usually regarded as falling into three types (following suggestions by Searle):
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Content conditions — if an utterance has propositional content (either directly expressed or as part of its presuppositions), that content must be true; for example, if a judge says I order you to report to Pentonville Prison or Report to Pentonville Prison, or if they ask the lawyer Can you guarantee that your client will report to Pentonville Prison, it must be true that there exists at least one prison (existential presupposition).
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Preparatory conditions — if there are certain preconditions to the illocutionary act, these must be fulfilled. Such conditions may pertain to the social status, legal rights, or physical and mental abilities of the Speaker and the Hearer; in order to actually sentence someone to prison by saying I sentence you to five weeks’ imprisonment, S must be a judge, H must have been found guilty of a crime in a trial or by plea agreement. If the bailiff utters the sentence in the same situation, the locutionary act is the same, but the illocutionary act is not performed. Similarly, if S wants to order H to do something by saying I order you to do this, S must be in a position of authority that is accepted by H and by the community of which they are members.
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Sincerity conditions — S must be sincere in performing the illocutionary act, i.e., their intentions must match the act; for example, in order to sentence H, S not only has to be a judge, she also has to intend to sentence H. If a judge says to the accused I sentece you to five months’ imprisonment — no, I’m joking, you are free to go!, the illocutionary act of sentencing has not been performed. Likewise, if the accused says I apologize for blocking the traffic, this only counts as an apology if they feel regret for their actions (that is why public apologies by politicians often cause outrage — we know that they do not regret their actions).
Note, first, that our theory of truth-conditional semantics still works where it needs to work, namely in the case of assertives — they assert a proposition, and the content condition ensures that truth conditions apply to the proposition.
Speech acts can fail to meet their felicity conditions in two ways: they can unintentionally “misfire”, or they can be intentionally abused.
Misfiring occurs where the Speaker is sincere, but where the content conditions or one or more of the preparatory conditions are not met. For example, Zoe may say I promise to feed your dog while you’re on vacation, without knowing that Noah has decided to take his dog with him — obviously, Noah is not going to hold Zoe to this promise and expect her to come with him! Or Noah may say to Zoe I bet you fifty euros that my dog can run faster than you — but unless Zoe agrees to this, no bet has taken place, because this agreement is one of the preparatory conditions of a bet.
Abuse occurs when the sincerity condition is not met. For example, Zoe may say I promise not to block roads again because she is hoping for a shorter prison sentence, while already planning the next road block in her mind. In this case, Hearers will typically hold Speakers responsible — if Zoe is caught blocking traffic again, the judge will not accept her explanation that she didn’t really mean her promise.
In fact, Speech acts imply (or perhaps even presuppose) their sincerity conditions — it sounds very odd to say things like the following
Question 9.3.3.
(a) Choose three of the examples you came up with in the earlier exercise and list their content, preparatory and sincerity conditions.
(b) Look at the following four situations and explain in terms of content, preparatory and sincerity conditions, in which of them Aylin performs the Speech act of quitting her job felicitously:
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Aylin works in a local coffee shop. On a particular day, all her customers are entitled and demanding and she is very tired. She says to a coworker: “I can’t deal with these people any longer. I quit.”
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Aylin works in a local coffee shop. On a particular day, all her customers are entitled and demanding and she is very tired. She goes into the back office and says to her manager: “I can’t deal with these people any longer. I quit.”
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Aylin works in a local coffee shop. One day she comes into work and her manager tells her that she is five minutes late and that she is fired. Aylin says: “Well, in that case, I quit.”
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Aylin is a customer in a local coffee shop. All the other customers are entitled and demanding and Aylin is very tired. She walks up to the counter and tells the barista: “I can’t deal with these people any longer. I quit.”
Subsection
CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0. Written by Anatol Stefanowitsch
