Speech Act Theory in Depth

Speech Act Theory is one of the foundational theories of pragmatics. It was developed by the philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960) and subsequently refined and extended by John Searle (born 1932). The central insight of speech act theory is that language is not just used to describe the world — it is used to do things. When we speak, we perform actions: we promise, warn, request, apologise, declare, congratulate, threaten, and much more.

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J.L. Austin: How to Do Things with Words

Austin's theory, presented in his posthumously published lectures How to Do Things with Words (1962), began with a distinction between constatives and performatives, but eventually developed into a more comprehensive three-part analysis of speech acts.

Performative Utterances

Austin observed that some utterances do not describe a state of affairs — they perform an action. He called these performatives.