Speech Acts

The theory of  speech acts (J.L.Austin and J.R.Searle) concerns the language user´s intention to attain certain communicative goals by performing acts through the use of language. From the stylistic perspective, Austin´s three types of speech act (locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary) are of special relevance, since it is esp. the variety of possible illocutions (i.e., uses which language can be put to) which offers innumerable choices. The types of speech acts as proposed by Searle (assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, declarations) are (loosely) associated with certain lingusitic categories (utterance types) (cf. Tárnyiková 1985). Of special significance is the relation between locution (locutionary meaning or propositional meaning) and illocution (illocutionary meaning, or illocutionary force) as this is not always of the one-to-one type: one locution may have more than one illocution. For example, The dinner is ready may be announcement, invitation, threat, command, etc. Conventionally, this utterance will be interpreted as an invitation to join the table rather than an announcement, hence an example of an indirect speech act. The use of indirect illocutions in preference to direct ones is often driven by the need to protect partner´s face (i.e., politeness concerns, esp. in requests and refusals, see 8.2). Similarly, the strategy of hedging is used to play down the illocutionary force of utterances (while demonstrating the metapragmatic awareness by explicitly referring to CP maxims) while employing a variety of linguistic manifestations (hedges, mitigators:  sort of, kind of, in a sense, I hate to say this, partial agreement before presenting disagreement: Yes, but..., using performatives in business correspondence: We are sorry to have to tell you..., etc.).

Weasel words are used to temper the straightforwardness of a statement making thus one's views equivocal (e.g., borrow instead of  steal,  crisis instead of war); in the pejorative sense they help avoid responsibility for one´s claim (e.g., The results of the experiment appear to be in direct contradiction with the stated hypotheses). Explicit use of performative verbs may cause a shift in formality level and create an atmosphere of authoritative claim (Sit down, I beg you).