Speech Act Theory

• Speech Acts were introduced by John Austin.
• They have the characteristic of actions in that their utterance changes the world in an analogous way to physical actions.
• He identified a number of performative verbs which correspond to different types of speech acts.
  • request
  • inform
  • promise
• He also distinguished three aspecs of speech acts

1. locutionary act- the act of making an utterance.
2. illocutionary act- the action performed in saying something.
3. perlocution- the effect of the act

• If I say: “I will teach you the beauty of multiagent systems”
• locutionary- is the actual speaking I did.
• illocutionary- is the promise I made to you
• perlocution- is the effects it had on you. Hopefully, to convince you that I am here with a precise purpose.