Illocutionary act

The concept of illocutionary acts was introduced into linguistics by the philosopher J. L. Austin in his investigation of the various aspects of speech acts. In his framework, locution is what was said and meant, illocution is what was done, and perlocution is what happened as a result. When somebody says "Is there any salt?" at the dinner table, the illocutionary act is a request: "please give me some salt" even though the locutionary act (the literal sentence) was to ask a question about the presence of salt. The perlocutionary act (the actual effect), might be to cause somebody to pass the salt. The notion of an illocutionary act is closely connected with Austin's doctrine of the so-called 'performative' and 'constative utterances': an utterance is "performative" if, and only if it is issued in the course of the "doing of an action" (1975, 5), by which, again, Austin means the performance of an illocutionary act (Austin 1975, 6 n2, 133). According to Austin's original exposition in How to Do Things With Words, an illocutionary act is an act: (1) for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that the act is performed (Austin speaks of the 'securing of uptake'), and (2) the performance of which involves the production of what Austin calls 'conventional consequences' as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations (Austin 1975, 116f., 121, 139). Thus, for example, in order to make a promise I must make clear to my audience that the act I am performing is the making of a promise, and in the performance of the act I will be undertaking a conventional obligation to do the promised thing: the promisee will understand what it means to make a promise and fulfill it. Thus, promising is an illocutionary act in the present sense. Since Austin's death, the term has been defined differently by various authors. One way to think about the difference between an illocutionary act (e.g., a declaration, command, or a promise), and a perlocutionary act (e.g.