This document discusses speech acts theory, elaborating on the different types of speech acts as defined by J.L. Austin and J.R. Searle, including locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. It also covers the practical implications of these speech acts in teaching English as a foreign language, particularly in an Indonesian context, highlighting how the classification of speech acts affects classroom communication and student comprehension. The findings indicate that directive speech acts are most frequently used by teachers, correlating with student engagement and achievement in productive language skills.

1. Speech Acts
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PRAGMATIGS – THURSDAY 7 A.M

2. ‘Suit the action to the word, the word to the
action.’
(Hamlet III.ii.20)

3. Speech Acts Theory
 Speech Act is a theory of a language developed by J. L Austin (1962) followed by Searle
(1975).
‘How to do things with words’.
 Speech Act is the study that concern in the meaning of act performed by speaker’s
utterance. Speech act can be described as utterance which the speaker says, or the
speaker perform in every speech.
 When speaker utter an utterance, it is not always to describe something. By giving
utterance, they actually do something (Austin, 1962)

4. Three Types of Speech Acts
(John L. Austin (1962)
1. Locutionary Act
(Literal Meaning)
2. Illocutionary Act
(Communicative Intention)
3. Perlocutionary Act
(Pragmatic Effect)

5. Lucotionary act
 performing the act of saying something.
=> It is the actual words uttered/the actual act of
uttering
(Ex: “Please do the dishes.”)

6. Illocutionary act:
performing an act in saying something
=> The force or intention behind the words
(Ex: By uttering the locution “please do the dishes.”
the speaker requests the addressee to wash the
dishes)

7. Perlocutionary act:
performing an act by saying something
=> The effect of the illocution on the hearer. This effect
is based on the particular context in which the speech act
was mentioned.
(Ex: “Please do the dishes” would lead to the addressee
washing the dishes)

8. Illocutionary Act Classification (John
R. Searle (1976)
Illocutionary Act Categories S= Speaker X= Situation
Declarations S causes X
Representative s S believes X
Expressives S feels X
Directives S wants X

9. Illocutionary Act Categories
1. Declarations:
=> a type of illocutionary act which brings a change in the external
situation.
 As: blessing, firing, baptizing, bidding, passing a sentence
Example: ‘I hereby pronounce you man and wife’

10. Illocutionary Act Categories
2.Representatives: a type of illocutionary act in which the speaker
expresses belief to be the case.
 As : Describing, claiming, hypothesising, insisting, and predicting
Example:
No one makes better pancakes than I do.

11. Illocutionary Act Categories
3. Commissives: a type of illocutionary act which commits the speaker to doing
something in the future.
 As: promising, planning, vowing, and betting, refusing, volunteering, offering
Example:
• I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet.
• I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.

12. Illocutionary Act Categories
4. Directives: a type of illocutionary act in which the speaker tries to make the addressee
perform an action or aimed at making the hearer do something
 As: commanding, forbidding, asking, ordering, requesting, inviting, advising, and begging
Example:
• Please close the door.
• Better remain silent and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and remove all possible
doubt.
(Ancient Chinese proverb)

13. Illocutionary Act Categories
5. Expressives: a type of illocutionary act in which the speaker expresses his / her
feelings or emotional reactions.
 As: thanking, apologizing, welcoming, regretting and deploring
Example:
• I am so sorry for not helping out in our group projects and letting you do all the work.
• a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle
(Steinem)

14. SENTENCES TYPES
Sentence Types Utterance Function Example
Declarative
(Subject + verb order)
Assertion You wear a seat belt
Imperative
(No Subject)
Order/ request Wear a seat belt!
Interrogative
(Verb + subject order)
Question Do you wear a seat belt?

15. DIRECT SPEECH ACT
There is a direct relationship between the structure and the communicative function of the
utterance. The following examples show that the form correspondences with the
function:
 A declarative is used to make a statement: “You wear a seat belt.”
 An imperative is used to make a command: “Wear a seat belt!”
 An interrogative is used to ask a question: “Do you wear a seat belt?”
(Yule (1996, 55)
Direct speech acts therefore explicitly illustrate the intended meaning the speaker has
behind making that utterance.

16. How about these sentences?
The utterance functions are different.
Sentence Types Utterance Functions Example
Declarative • Question
• Order/ Request
• I wonder when the train leaves -> do you know when?
• You’re standing in front of the TV.
Imperative • Assertion
• Question
• Have a good day -> I hope you have a good day.
• Tell me why it’s good for me
Interrogative • Assertion
• Order / Request
• Who cares -> no one cares
• Can you open the door?

17. INDIRECT SPEECH ACT
There is an indirect relationship between the form and the function of the utterance. The
following examples show that the form does not correspondence with the function:
 An interrogative is used to make a order/ request: “Can you open the door?”
 A declarative is used to make a request: “You’re standing in front of the TV.”
The speaker does not explicitly state the intended meaning behind the utterance. It is
the hearer’s task to analyze the utterance to understand its meaning.

18. Literal Meaning vs Pragmatics Meaning
 Who cares?
Literal meaning = someone cares – who is it?
But if we use in utterance may be have a
Pragmatics meaning = No one cares

19. Idiom Theory
Idiom also use as an indirect way of making a request or giving an order.
Example:
Rise and Shine!
Literal meaning = Something is rising and shining.
But if we use in utterance may be have a
Pragmatic meaning = Please Wake Up and Be Happy!

20. Conventional Understanding
 Literal meaning is a stable, consistent component of sentences and
utterances.
1. Can you pass the salt?
2. Pass the salt.
3. Pass the salt, please!
Three sentences above have the same literal meaning
But, the use of those sentences are different relates to the degree of
politeness.

21. Journal Articles about Speech Acts
A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF TEACHER TALK IN AN EFL
CLASSROOM
 https://ejournal.upi.edu/index.php/ije/article/view/6848/pdf

23. INTRODUCTION
The success in running English teaching and learning process in the
classroom depends on various factors, one of which is the language used by
the teacher. Celce-Murcia (2000) pointed out that language use applied in
the classroom affect students’ process and progress of learning. In the
matter of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching in Indonesian
context, in which the teachers are not the natives of English, running EFL
teaching and learning is troubling in terms of delivering the lesson using
English and getting students to understand the instruction mentioned using
the language.

24. However, there are problems related to the use of English (as a
foreign language) in the classroom. Nuraini (2015) in her research
mentioned a problem in the use of speech acts in English classroom. She
argued that the use of speech acts in Indonesian EFL class leads to a
misunderstanding due to the inappropriate use of the speech acts uttered.
Students may have different interpretations of a simple utterance said by
the teacher. This is caused by the failure of using IFIDs (Illocutionary
Force Indicating Devices) or deciding to use either direct or indirect
speech acts in certain situation. The culture contributes to different styles
of language use applied in making utterances.

25. This study is aimed at investigating classroom speech acts performed by an
English teacher in terms of speech acts classification determined by the theory of
John R. Searle (1999). The study hopefully fills the gap of research regarding
speech acts classification analysis which has been conducted previously mostly
by focusing on the analysis of political speeches.
There are three objectives of this study. The first one is to find out which
classification of speech act is mostly used by a teacher in teaching an EFL
classroom. The second objective is finding out the reasons why certain
classification of speech act is preferred by the teacher. The third one is figuring
out the implication of using the preferred classification of speech act towards
either the teaching process or students’ achievement.

26. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
• Teacher Talk
Teacher talk is the talk that a teacher does in the teaching and
learning process. Lei (2009) stated that good communication in the
teaching and learning process depends on a good and effective
teacher talk.
• Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a broad term in the field of linguistics. Akinwotu
(2013) simply defined pragmatics as the study of language in use.

27. Speech acts
There are three categories or dimensions of speech acts. Grundy (2008) explained that
when people say something, they may involve the three dimensions, which are;
• Locutionary acts
Locutionary acts are basic utterances uttered by people shaped in the right grammar
and understandable vocabulary.
• Illocutionary acts
Yule (1996) stated that the term “illocutionary acts” is often closely associated with
the term speech act. When people have communicative force in saying an utterance, it
means that they are performing an illocutionary act.
• Perlocutionary acts
People (speakers) perform perlocutionary acts by expecting to affect other people’s
(hearers’) behavior .

28.  Speech acts classification
Yule (1996) represented a table of the five speech acts
classification based on the theory of Searle.

29. METHOD
• Research Design
This study is categorized under the principle of qualitative research design,
specifically, a case study.
• Participants
An English teacher participated in this study. She comes from West Java, Indonesia.
She is 25 years old. She teaches in a well-known English course in Bandung and has been
teaching for about three years.
The class was chosen based on the highest average score among all in the English
course in the level of B1 in CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference).
Students’ ages in that B1 level class are varied, starting from 16 years old to 22 years old.

30. • Material
There are three types of data which were collected. First, a full-length video of a
teaching and learning process in one meeting. The video is 1 hour, 26 minutes and 34
seconds in length. Second, teacher’s interview and the last one is the documents of
students’ scores.
• Procedure
The data to be analyzed were collected by videotaping the process of teaching and
learning. Next, the teacher was interviewed to confirm some cases of speech acts
happening in the classroom while she was teaching. In addition, the document of students’
scores was collected from the teacher.
The videotaped-data were transcribed. It analyzed within the framework of the five
major classifications of speech acts developed by Searle: assertives, directives,
commissives, expressives, declaratives.

31. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
• Classification of Speech Acts Used by the Teacher to Students in an EFL
Classroom
Declarations (0%)
It is found that there are only four speech act classifications used by the teacher
to teach in the classroom. The teacher excludes the use of declarative speech act
classification.

32. • Representatives (21%)
Out of 673 utterances, it is found that 141 of them have the characteristics of
representative speech acts.
The finding related to representative speech acts obtained from the data includes
the act of concluding and repeating students’ answer to make sure or conclude what
is said as what it is. Some samples from the data are presented in the table below.

33. • Expressive (6%)
39 utterances characterized by expressive speech act word clue are
found in the data. Among those 39 utterances, most expressive speech
act uttered are listed below.
-“thank you”,
- “I’m sorry”, and
- “Oh my God!”
The utterance like “thank you” is always mentioned by the teacher
after receiving things from the students or whenever her students try to
remind her about something. “I’m sorry” is uttered when the teacher
makes mistakes such as forgetting students’ names or after making jokes
that she thinks might hurt her students.

34. • Directives (70%)
Among those 673 utterances, 70% of them have directive speech acts
word clues. Mostly, the teacher used directives with the intention is to ask the
students about something, and to command and request the students to do
something. Some samples of directive speech acts uttered by the teacher are
presented in Table 3.

35. • Commissive (3%)
Commissive speech acts are the least mentioned by the teacher while
teaching. The teacher only mentioned 19 utterances with commissive
essence, which means the percentage is only 3% out of 100%. Samples
of commissive speech acts are listed in Table 4.

36. • The Teacher’s Reasons of Using Directive Speech Act Dominantly
After carrying out teacher interview, it is found that the teacher does
not really realize that she mostly used the directive speech acts while
teaching.
Therefore, there are two main reasons why the teacher unconsciously
use directive speech acts. The first one is it is because the teacher carries
the principle of CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) Approach.
Second, the teacher wants to get students to be actively involved in the
classroom activities. what the teacher is trying to do is getting them to
talk by giving them chances through setting the classroom activities
around the approach of CLT.

37.  The Implication towards either the Teaching Process or Students’
Achievement that Can be Drawn from the Finding
Students achieve high scores, especially for two productive skills:
speaking and writing. The class consisting of 14 students where the
data of this study was taken has the average scores of 80% in speaking
and 81% in writing. The scores prove that the use of directive speech
act contributes in fostering students’ productive skills, which also
helps in building students’ communicative competence.

38. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
• The use of appropriate speech act classification while teaching apparently is based on the
teaching approach the teacher adopts.
• The implication which can be drawn from the finding is that using directive speech acts which
involves posing a lot of question, requesting, or commanding contribute to students’
achievements, especially in productive skills. It is because by posing a lot of questions students
are encouraged to answer the question and keep talking.
• The recommendation is addressed for English teachers, especially in Indonesian context. The
classroom language instruction which is better to be used is English to expose
them more to English. English teachers should realize soon their belief in teaching English. If
the approach believed is CLT, then the speech act classification they need to use daily is
directive speech act, which will engage students to talk more.

39. The Use of Direct and Indirect Speech Acts between Higher and
Lower Social Class in Titanic Movie
 https://jurnalmahasiswa.unesa.ac.id/index.php/language-
horizon/article/view/6422
Journal Articles about Speech Acts

40. Findings and Discussion.
 HIGHER CLASS VS HIGHER CLASS
The data is taken when higher class people gathering in a big hall for dinner. Cal, meanwhile, is
accepting the praise of his male counterparts, who are looking at Rose like a prize show horse.
Sir Cosmo : Hockley, she is splendid.
Cal : Thank you.
Gracie : Cal’s a lucky man. I know him well, and it can only be luck.
Ruth : [Steps over and takes Cal’s arm]. How can you say that Colonel? Caledon
Hockley is a great catch.
This description indicates that Ruth uses indirect speech act to denying Gracie’s
statement. She uses it to show politeness and modesty.

41. Findings and Discussion.
 LOWER CLASS VS LOWER CLASS
The data is taken when Jack and Fabrizio is rushing to reach Titanic which about to abroad. Officer
Moody is about to close the gate.
Jack : Wait!! We’re passengers!! [Flushed and panting, he waves the tickets]
Moody : [Hold the door]. Have you been through the inspections queue?
Jack : Of course! Anyway, we don‟t have lice, we‟re American. [Glances at Fabrizio] both of us.
Moody : Right, Come abroad.
Jack and Fabrizio : [Entering the ship]
Because there is a link between speaker’s utterance and hearer’s action, it is included
in direct speech acts.

42. HIGHER CLASS VS LOWER CLASS
The data is taken after Rose almost fall from the edge of the ship. Jack is someone who helps Rose, then he gets his reward
from Cal for his heroic action.
Colonel Gracie : Well! The boy‟s a hero then. Good for you son, well done! [to Cal] so it‟s all‟s well and back to our
brandy, eh?
Cal : Let‟s get you in. You‟re freezing. [Cal is leaving without a second thought for Jack].
Colonel Gracie : Ah... perhaps a little something for the boy?
Cal : Oh, right. Mr. Lovejoy. A twenty should do it.
Colonel Gracie uses indirect speech acts to give a request using interrogativeto Cal because he wants to apply
politeness.
Cal comes from higher social class will make Cal feels offended and angry due to his impudent.
Finding Discussion

43. Finding Discussion
HIGHER CLASS VS LOWER CLASS
Rose : Is that the going rate for saving the woman you love?
Cal : Rose is displeased. Mmmm... what to do? [ Cal turns back to Jack. Appraises him
condescendingly]. I know. [To Jack] “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to regale our
group with your heroic tale?”
Jack : Sure. Count me in.
Rose is actually does not ask a question about the currency or rate which is Cal given to Jack, but she
purposes to ask him to increase the reward for Jack.
Cal able to catch the intention behind Rose utterance and do the action which is wanted by rose. By this
evidence we can conclude that rose is performed indirect speech

44. Quiz : Fill the Utterance Function
Declarative Interrogative imperative
Utterance
Function
- Is the Pope Catholic? - A. …………..
1. I want to know who washed the
dishes.
2. I do not know who washed the
dishes.
- Why don’t you leave? B. …………..
1. The dishes are not washed yet.
2. I would like for you to wash the
dishes.
Can you wash the dishes?
- C. ………….

45. Thank You!