illocutionary
1
9.9
- adjective
- /ˌɪləˈkjuːʃənɛri/
- Formal
- While, on one level, speaking or writing is already an action (a locutionary act), on another level, we also perform actions in saying something (an illocutionary act) or by—or in consequence of—saying something (a perlocutionary act).
- illocutionary act
- illocutionary adverbials
- illocutionary indicators
Examples
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When you promise to help someone, you perform an illocutionary act by explicitly stating your intention.
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Speech act theory, as explained by J. L. Austin, suggests that a single utterance contains three kinds of speech acts: (a) locutionary act: the act of saying something; (b) illocutionary act: the performance of an act in saying something; and (c) perlocutionary act: the consequential effects of the feelings of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons.
Academic text (1997) -
A designated kind of perlocutionary act, as well as an illocutionary act, must be performed.
Academic text (2001) -
Quite apart from the fact that he does not distinguish between author and narrator, he links the "as if" to illocutionary acts.
Academic text (2004) -
All of these have the function of contributing to the specification of the direct message (illocutionary act) intended by the speaker.
Academic text (2006) -
All of these encode information about the type of message (illocutionary act) the speaker intends to convey by way of the utterance.
Academic text (2006) -
Aymery interrupts the performative and then refuses to "swear" or to perform an illocutionary act, pushing it off until an undetermined future point.
Academic text (2017) -
Its effective meaning is not so much locutionary—concerning the verifiable content of the statement—as it is illocutionary: it performs its work in "appropriate circumstances," in a context and for an audience that understands, or at least repeats and is organized by convention.
Academic text (2002) -
By saying 'I apologize', you are making an illocutionary act that expresses regret.
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The teacher declared 'The lesson is over', which is an illocutionary act that conveys the end of the class.
Synonyms
1
9.9
To make something sound like someone telling important news
1
9.1
To speak words clearly so people can hear and understand them
Surface Forms
Morphology
illocutionary = illocution (transparent) = illocution + ary
Formed productively from the noun 'illocution' with the adjective-forming suffix '-ary'; the meaning 'relating to illocution' is directly derived.
Etymology
Illocutionary comes from parts that mean in- 'in' and locut- 'to speak'. So an illocutionary act is something done 'in speaking' — a thing you do by saying the words, like promising or declaring.