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Austin's Theory Of Speech Act Theory

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Austin’s Speech Act Theory
In 1994 the philosopher John L. Austin had investigated the various aspects of speech acts. Speech acts theory is a subfield of pragmatics concerned with the ways in which words can be used not only to present information but also to carry out actions (http://grammar.about.com/). In other words, Speech act is function based on the goal of communication. According to Austin, there are three kinds of speech acts, namely locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. Three of them have correlation to each other. In order to explain what can go wrong with statements we cannot just concentrate on the proposition involved as has been done traditionally. We must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued--the total speech-act--if we are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterances, and how each can go wrong. Therefore, the total speech act in the total speech situation is emerging from logic piecemeal as important in special cases: and thus we are assimilating the supposed constative utterance to the performative. …show more content…

It can be in the form of the production of words with meanings. The act of 'saying something' in the full normal sense, the performance of a locutionary act, and the study of utterances thus far and in these respects the study of locutions, or of the full units of speech. In performing a locutionary act we shall also be performing such an act as: asking or answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning, announcing a verdict or an intention, pronouncing sentence, making an appointment or an appeal or a criticism, making the identification or giving a

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