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Glite Dictionary
speech act

speech act

1 7.4
Words that you say to do something, like asking or promising
  • noun
  • /spiːtʃ ækt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : acto de habla
  • In this narrative, the speech act is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance.
  • speech act theory
  • performative speech act
  • empty speech acts

Examples

  • Without a receptive audience, any speech act is rendered meaningless.

    Academic text (2008)

  • The therapist, the listener, and the reader bring to the speech act of testimony cultural narratives that shape their interpretation and response.

    Academic text (2008)

  • So like a, a clear speech act of I'm sorry or an I apologize statement.

  • It's what we call a performative speech act, right?

  • One of the most interesting aspects of both series of speech acts is that each act is contingent.

    Academic text (2001)

  • The narrative locates both speech acts in a newspaper report of the trial.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Twenty-three percent of all his speech acts are requests for information or confirmation.

    Academic text (2005)

  • The chapter on discourse and purpose reviews speech act theory, contextualization cues, and rhetorical approaches to discourse analysis.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Beeman (1986) has argued that these kinds of pragmatic, performative speech acts have the quality of magical formulas.

    Academic text (2001)

  • In linguistics, a speech act can change a listener's perception or understanding through its intended meaning.

Synonyms

utterance
vsspeech act
22 4.8

A spoken word or short sound someone makes aloud

is seen as an action stressing speaker intention and effect

Surface Forms

speech act singular
speech acts plural

Morphology

speech + act

The phrase literally combines 'speech' (spoken utterance) + 'act' (a deed), so a learner who knows both words can infer an approximate meaning of 'an act of speaking' or a spoken action. However, the technical/pragmatic nuance that an utterance is to be analysed as a performative action (intentions, effects) is specialised and may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner, so it is only partially transparent.

Etymology

The term speech act comes from the simple idea that saying something can be a real 'action'. Think of speech as words and act as a small action — when you say 'I promise' you are doing the promising, so the phrase means a spoken action rather than just information.