The art of thinking · Language and meaning
Speech act theory
Also known as: Speech acts, Illocutionary act, Performative utterance
German: Sprechakttheorie
In philosophy of language, speech act theory holds that utterances are actions — stating, ordering, promising, warning — and analyzes what a speaker does in saying something; it was founded by J. L. Austin and systematized by John R. Searle.
- Thinking models
- Philosophy
- Linguistics
In one sentence
Speech act theory treats utterances as actions — stating, directing, promising, warning — after J. L. Austin and John R. Searle.
Example
“The valve may be opened” can be a permission, a statement of possibility or a weak instruction. Speech act theory explains why readers hesitate — and why instructions use the imperative for the act they mean.
How it applies
- Austin’s levels: The locutionary act (saying something meaningful), the illocutionary act (what is done in saying it — warning, ordering) and the perlocutionary act (its effect — the reader steps back). Austin started from performatives such as “I name this ship …”, which do what they say.
- Searle’s classes: Assertives (stating), directives (getting someone to do something), commissives (committing oneself), expressives (expressing an attitude) and declarations (changing a state of affairs by saying so).
- Felicity conditions: An act succeeds only under conditions — authority, sincerity, the right circumstances. An order from someone without authority misfires.
- Technical documentation: Information types are largely speech act types: concepts and reference assert, tasks direct, warnings direct and inform about consequences, declarations of conformity declare. Mixing acts in one sentence — a statement that is meant as an instruction — is a frequent source of unclear documentation.
Speech acts and function design
Function design (German Funktionsdesign®) is a method for standardizing and structuring technical documentation, developed since the early 1990s by Jürgen Muthig and Robert Schäflein-Armbruster. It rests on speech act theory: speaking and writing are already acting. A text is meant to guide the reader's actions or to create understanding, so it has a specific communicative function.
- Function before form: Each communicative function is expressed with phrasing patterns that fit the communicative goal of the passage — for example, an action step always in the imperative.
- Design supports the function: Matching layout and typography reinforce the communicative goal, so a reader can tell what a passage does before reading it in full.
- Functional units: Ultimately, every part of a document is identified unambiguously as a functional unit (German funktionale Einheit), the method's smallest communicative unit, defined as one speech act — such as a goal statement, a precondition, an action step, a result or a note. For each type, the method fixes its use, content, position in the sequence, phrasing pattern, visual design and explicit marking.
- Levels: Functional units are combined into sequence patterns (e.g. a step-by-step procedure), and sequence patterns into information products (e.g. operating instructions); recurring elements such as key names are marked consistently at word level.
The consistency this creates is also a basis for reuse and for XML-based authoring in a content management system. Function design is one structuring method among others: where Information Mapping® speaks of information types, function design speaks of functional units.
Speech acts vs. information types
Information types such as concept, task and reference are categories of a documentation method; speech acts are categories of language use. The mapping is close but not one-to-one: a task topic contains assertives (results, context) as well as directives.
External references
How to read this pool
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