John Langshaw Austin’s

How to Do Things with Words (1962)

Prepared by: Sem. Rafael T. Rivera
A.B Philosophy IV - Servi Amoris
1. Constative- are sentences that describe something that
is true or False/ is
Ex. The park closes at 6pm
Heatwave(News)

2. Performative are sentences to know/inspire an action/

does
Ex. Recycle trashcan
Marriage “Yes, I Do”
The Three Acts in one single speech act or event
we perform.

1.Illocutionary act
2.Locutionary act
3.Perlocutionary act
 ILLOCUTIONARY ACT
Are the real actions which are performed by the utterance.
We frm an utterance with some kind of function in mind.
This communicative force of an utterance is known as
illocutionary force. (Intention/desire of the speaker)

Ex.
 LOCUTIONARY ACT
Is the basic act of utterance, or producing a
meaningful linguistic expressions. We can say
performing an act of saying something or physical
utterances of words.

Ex. You can’t do that

 Perlocutionary act
Is the effect produced on the listener when
they listen a locutionary act or this is
hears response.

Ex.
 Theory of Speech Acts
Desire Effect
Illocution Perlocution
Physical Utterances
Locution
Ex.
You have a wonderful Smile.
(can function depending on contexts as praise,
telling irony, or even asking for money in
a certain situation.)