94 Looking at the structural
pattern of these utterances, you can see that the performative verbs have a special place in the utterances fitting into the sentence frame like this I (hereby) verb you complement. Such utterance we have above are also referred to as
performative utterances.
3.3 Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts Austin identifies three kinds of acts that are performed when a language is used. He made a distinction between
locutionary act,
illocutionary acts and
perlocutionary acts. Locutionary acts are considered as acts of speaking – acts involved in the construction of speech. They include using particular words in conformity with the particular rules of a language and with certain senses and references as determined by the rules of the language from which they are drawn. (Sadock, 2006:54).
Illocutionary acts are acts done in speaking – acts that are the apparent purpose for
using a performative utterance, such as promising,
sentencing, guaranteeing,
thanking, and so forth.
Perlocutionary acts are the consequences or the byproduct of speaking. They produce some effect upon the thoughts, feelings and actions of the addressee and the speaker.