A comprehensive review of speech act theory言语行为理论综述

A comprehensive review of speech act theory

1.Introduction:

Speech act theory is an important theory in the pragmatic study of language. It was initially proposed by the British philosopher John Austin in the 20th century 50's. According to the theory of speech acts, we are in the implementation of a behavior when talking. According to the theory of speech acts, three behaviors may be implemented simultaneously when the speaker is speaking: locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts.

a) A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses and conveying literal meaning of the behavior through syntax lexicon and phonology.

b) An illocutionary act is the act of expressing t he speaker’s intention which is performed in saying something.

c) A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something.

American philosopher-linguist John Searle made a deep study of speech act theory and classified illocutionary acts into five general types. Each type has a common, general purpose.

a) representatives: stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be true

b) directives: trying to get the hearer to do something

c) commissives: committing the speaker himself to some future course of action

d) expressives: expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing state

e) declarations: bringing about immediate changes by saying something

In each category of behavior, there is the same purpose. But the different illocutionary acts with the same purpose may have different degrees of external force.

2. Previous studies:

Since the speech act theory was born, it has caused no little influence in the field of linguistics. The original contribution of the speech act theory, which occupies a special position in linguistics, is of great historical and practical significance.

In the early 1990s, Thomas analyzed Austin's speech act theory in detail, and pointed out the reason that this theory has a great influence in linguistics, mainly in the following four aspects:

A. in the true value of conditional semantics by the frustration of the introduction of how to act in a timely manner;

B. his point of view is clear and easy to understand;

C. though he has made a change before and after his views, but his work has always maintained a coherent ideological line;

D. Many of the questions he raised is still an important topic in pragmatics.

However, there are still a lot of shortcomings and deficiencies in the theory itself and later development, which has caused considerable controversy and criticism.