Performing illocutionary speech acts: an analysis

People perform speech acts when they use language. Thus typically when a person employs a language, a central question is what speech act(s) did he or she intend to perform. Those which are illocutionary are particularly informative in answering this question. One reason I will show is that they have the following essential characteristic: a use of language that results in their performance also results in the justified belief that the speaker intended the performance. A theory of language use must explain how an audience arrives at what action(s) a speaker intended to perform. Since illocutionary speech acts have the above characteristic, an analysis of what constitutes this kind of action is a significant component of the theory. My purpose is to contribute to this analysis. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.