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A rhetorical view of locutionary,

illocutionary, and perlocutionary
acts
a
Paul Newell Campbell
a
Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
at Queens College , City University of New York
Published online: 05 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: Paul Newell Campbell (1973) A rhetorical view of locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 59:3, 284-296, DOI:
10.1080/00335637309383177

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 A RHETORICAL VIEW OF LOCUTIONARY,
ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARY ACTS
Paul Newell Campbell
RDINARY language philosophy is
O perhaps the most frequently dis-
cussed recent philosophical movement
or school of thought. Yet that move-
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ment has had, so far as I can judge, al-
most no effect upon the field of com-
munication.1 On the face of it, this is
rather an oddity, for ordinary language
philosophy is not only concerned "with
language but, in the main, deals with
language from the point of view of "use"
or "usage." Indeed, those two terms are
central to most ordinary language phi-
losophy.2 And certainly the field of com-
munication is also concerned with lan-
guage, especially language as it is
"used."
Within ordinary language philosophy,
J. L. Austin has been commonly con-
sidered a major figure and a shaping
Mr. Campbell is Associate Professor of Com-
munication Arts and Sciences at Queens College
of the City University of New York.
1
One of the very few theorists who has tried
to relate ordinary language philosophy and
communication is John R. Searle, "Human
Communication Theory and the Philosophy of
Language: Some Remarks," in Human Commu-
nication Theory, ed. Frank E. X. Dance (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), pp.
116-129.
2 on our discipline.
See, for example, Gilbert Ryle, "Ordinary
Language," J. L. Austin, "A Plea for Excuses,"
and Stanley Cavell, "Must We Mean What We
Say?" in Ordinary Language, ed. V. C. Chappell
(New York: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 24-40, 41-
63, 75-112; J. L. Austin, "The Meaning of a
Word," Leonard Linsky, "Reference and Refer-
ents," and J. O. Urmson, "Parenthetical Verbs,"
in Philosophy and Ordinary Language, ed.
Charles E. Caton (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois
Press, 1963), pp. 1-21, 74-89, 220-240; Gilbert
Ryle, "Systematically Misleading Expressions,"
Margaret Macdonald, "The Philosopher's Use
of Analogy," and John Wisdom, "Gods," in
Logic and Language, ed. Anthony Flew (1951
and 1953; rpt. New York: Doubleday, 1965),
pp. 13-39, 85-105, 194-216.
force. V. C. Chappell describes the "two
main philosophical groups" that prac-
tice ordinary language philosophy—the
first headed by Wittgenstein, Wisdom,
Malcolm, Waismann, Anscombe, Bouws-
ma, and Lazerowitz, the second, "under
the leadership first of Ryle and later of
Austin,"3 made up of Strawson, Hart,
Hampshire, Hare, Urmson, and War-
nock. Charles E. Caton offers a similar
description: ordinary language philoso-
phers are those theorists "whose work
is influenced by, similar to, or reminis-
cent of the later work of G. E. Moore,
John Wisdom, and Ludwig Wittgenstein
at Cambridge and of the work of Gil-
bert Ryle and J. L. Austin at Oxford."4
In conceptual terms, Austin's major
work, and surely the work most widely
commented on,5 was How To Do
Things With Words,6 and in this essay
I shall attempt to show why that work
has not had an important effect on the
study of communication and also why,
to the extent that Austin is representa-
tive of ordinary language philosophy
(but only to that extent), that philoso-
phical movement has had little impact
AUSTIN'S BASIC CATEGORIES
The goal of Austin's work is set forth
3
V. C. Chappell, ed., Ordinary Language,
pp.42-3.
Charles E. Caton, ed., Philosophy and Or-
dinary Language, p. vi.
5
These comments are now conveniently
available in one source: Symposium on J. L.
Austin, ed. K. T. Fann (New York: Humanities
Press, 1969).
6
J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With
Words (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962).
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARY ACTS
clearly enough: "The total speech act
in the total speech situation is the only
actual phenomenon which, in the last
resort, we are engaged in elucidating."7
En route to this goal, Austin argues that,
within "normal," "serious," "nonparasi-
tic" uses of language, there are three
kinds of linguistic acts: locutions, illo-
cutions, and perlocutions. In differen-
tiating among these linguistic acts, he
writes, "It is the distinction between il-
locutions and perlocutions which seems
likeliest to give trouble."8 Interestingly,
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although these concepts have been wide-
ly criticized, most theorists have appar-
ently disagreed with Austin's estimate
of the source of the major difficulties, for
they have concentrated on the illocu-
tionary act and the locutionary-illocu-
tionary distinction.9
I should like to reverse critical direc-
tions and to take Austin at his word.
Thus, I shall first review Austin's argu-
ment and then propose that the illocu-
tionary-perlocutionary distinction is in-
deed likeliest to give trouble and that,
from a rhetorical point of view, that dis-
tinction threatens Austin's entire classi-
ficatory system.
A locution is the performance of an
act of saying something and "is roughly
equivalent to uttering a certain sentence
with a certain sense and reference, which
again is roughly equivalent to 'mean-
ing' in the traditional sense."10 Locu-
tionary acts are subdivided into three
interdependent, or at least partially in-
terdependent, types: the phonetic act,
which is "always to perform the act of
uttering certain noises";11 the phatic act,
which is "always to perform the act of
uttering certain vocables or words, i.e.
7
Ibid., p. 147.
8
Ibid., p. 109.
9 13
See the commentaries on How To Do
Things With Words in Symposium on J. L.
Austin,
10
ed. K. T. Fann.
Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 108.
11
Ibid., p. 92.
285
noises of certain types belonging to and
as belonging to a certain vocabulary, in
a certain construction, i.e. conforming
to and as conforming to a certain gram-
mar, with a certain intonation, &c";12
and the rhetic act, which is "generally
to perform the act of using [the phatic
act] or its constituents with a certain
more or less definite 'sense' and a more
or less definite 'reference' (which togeth-
er are equivalent to 'meaning')."13
An illocution is the performance of an
act in saying something, i.e., it has "a
certain (conventional) force"i* indicat-
ing the way the utterance is meant to
be taken or understood (as a warning,
compliment, reprimand, etc.)15 Illocu-
tionary acts are subdivided into five
overlapping, but not interdependent,
types: verdictives (typical examples: giv-
ing a verdict, estimating, and apprais-
ing), exercitives (examples: ordering, urg-
ing, and warning), commissives (promis-
ing, pledging, declaring), behabitives
(thanking, apologizing, and resenting),
and expositives (affirming, informing,
and correcting).
And a perlocution is the performance
of an act by saying something, i.e., it is
the act of saying something that "will
often, or even normally, produce certain
consequential effects upon the feelings,
thoughts, or actions of the audience, or
of the speaker, or of other persons."16
Austin stressed the interrelatedness of
locutionary and illocutionary acts, stat-
ing explicitly, "To perform a locution-
ary act is in general, we may say, also
and eo ipso to perform an illocutionary
act,"17 and, "Furthermore, in general the
locotionary act as much as the illocu-
tionary is an abstraction only: every
12
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 92-93.
14
Ibid., p. 108.
15
Ibid., pp. 98-100.
16
Ibid., p. 101.
17
Ibid., p. 98.
 286 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH

genuine speech act is both."18 But sig-
nificantly, he neither pointed out the
same sort of interdependencies between
illocutions and perlocutions nor subdi-
vided perlocutions into component types.
In fact, as one critic writes, "perlocu-
tionary acts are allowed nearly to fade
away in the last part of the book. He
does not classify them and this is surely
the strongest proof of his loss of interest
in them."19 Whether Austin indeed lost
interest in perlocutions, I do not know,
but I shall argue that his philosophical
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locutionary act is liable to be brought
off, in sufficiently special circumstances,
by the issuing, with or without calcu-
lation, of any utterance whatsoever, and
in particular by a straightforward con-
stative20 utterance (if there is such an
animal)."21 I take this to mean that, be-
cause any given "effect" can, in certain
situations, be produced by a wide or un-
limited variety of utterances, there is
no meaningful way to tie a given effect
to a given utterance.22

Second, Austin argues that the very

and linguistic structure is endangered by names for "acts of saying something,"
the illocutionary-perlocutionary distinc- unlike the names for physical actions,
tion, and particularly by his concept of seem "expressly designed to mark a
perlocutions. break at a certain regular point between
the act . . . and its consequences. . . ."23
AUSTIN'S VIEW OF Thus, "urging," "advising," "ordering,"
PERLOCUTIONS VS. ILLOCUTIONS "protesting," etc., are acts in that they
Austin makes three important com- are separate and apart from any actual
ments on the differences between illocu- or intended consequences, and we must
tionary and perlocutionary acts. First, he avoid the idea "that to say 'he urged
says that the consequences or results of me to' is to say that he said certain
acts (consequences that, by their occur- words and in addition that his saying
rence, define acts as perlocutions) must them had or perhaps was intended to
somehow be declared irrelevant to the have certain consequences (? an effect
24
sense in which an utterance is, in and upon me)."
of itself, the act that is done, i.e., an il- Third, the consequences of utterances,
locution. In earlier works and in the i.e., perlocutions, "are usually not the
25
first part of How To Do Things With saying of anything." While a physical
Words Austin calls such utterances per- action is, "being a bodily movement, in
formatives, while at the end of his pari materia with at least many of its
book performatives have blended into immediate and natural consequences . . .
illocutions. But in each instance his whatever . . . the natural consequences
paradigm cases [of performatives-illocu- of an act of saying something may be,
tions] are betting, promising, and mar- they are at least not normally other fur-
rying, each of which is an act accom- ther acts of saying something, whether
plished in the very saying "I do," "I more particularly on the speaker's own
26
promise," or "I wager." Now why must part or even on the part of others."
the results of acts be irrelevant to per-
20
formatives or illocutions? Because, ac- "Constative" is a term Austin uses, in
preference to "description," to refer to state-
cording to Austin, any result or conse- ments.
quence, i.e., "any, or almost any, per- 2 1 Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 109.
22
Ibid., see Austin's foonote no. 2, p. 110.
18 23
Ibid., p. 146. Ibid., p. 111.
19 24
Walter Cerf, "Critical Review of How To Ibid., pp. 113-114.
25
Do Things With Words," Symposium on J. L. Ibid., p. 111.
Austin, p. 354. 26
Ibid., p . 112.
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARY ACTS
Were Austin's distinctions between il-
locutions and perlocutions to end here,
matters would be complicated enough,
but he goes on to qualify what he has
said thus far by arguing that illocution-
ary acts are also "connected with the
production of effects,"27 but are con-
nected in three very special ways. The
first way is the production of an effect
that must occur if an illocution is to
"have been happily, successfully per-
formed."28 Promises, orders, reprimands,
and the like are utterances that are, in
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themselves, acts, but these utterances
must be taken by the audience in a cer-
tain sense. That "certain sense" means
that "an effect must be achieved on the
audience,"29 and "generally, the effect
amounts to bringing about the under-
standing of the meaning and force
of the locution. So the performance of
an illocutionary act involves the secur-
ing of uptake."30 The unusual term "up-
take" refers to the fact that, while mean-
ing is a property of locutions and force
a property of illocutions, both require
understanding on the part of the audi-
ence—an understanding that is to be
regarded not as a result or consequence
of either locution or illocution but as
an effect of the illocution.
The second way in which illocutions
are connected with effects concerns the
fact that, although they do not produce
"consequences in the sense of bringing
about states of affairs in the 'normal'
way, i.e. changes in the natural course
of events,"31 illocutions are acts the ef-
fects of which are that "certain subse-
quent acts . . . will be out of order."32
Thus, being persuaded or convinced or
deterred are consequences of perlocu-
tions, but the fact that it is out of order
27
Ibid.,p. 115.
28
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 116.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
287
to refer to a ship by any name other
than the one with which it is christened
(an illocutionary act) is the effect of an
illocution.
The third way involves effects of the
sort Austin calls responses or sequels,
which are invited by convention, as ar-
guing invites arguing, ordering invites
obeying or disobeying, and asking for a
"yes or no" answer invites a "yes" or a
"no."33
All the above "effects" are to be dis-
tinguished from the "effects" of perlocu-
tionary acts, as Austin firmly indicates:
"So here are three ways in which illocu-
tionary acts are bound up with effects;
and these are all distinct from the pro-
ducing of effects which is characteristic
of the perlocutionary act."34
A RHETORICAL VIEW OF
PERLOCUTIONS VS. ILLOCUTIONS
And now Austin has, in my judgment,
erected a structure that is in imminent
danger of collapse. One of the problems
is the odd assertion that the conse-
quences of saying something "are at
least not normally other further acts of
saying something, whether more partic-
ularly on the speaker's own part or even
on the part of others." There are two
difficulties here. First, although it is
surely possible to distinguish between
oral and silent uses of language, that
distinction may not be especially signifi-
cant. If, after hearing or reading a cer-
tain argument, I think or believe differ-
ently without speaking aloud, is there
an important difference between that
silent linguistic behavior and oral ut-
terances? At least insofar as the concept
of perlocutionary acts is concerned, it
would seem that there is not. The con-
sequences produced by perlocutions
would appear to include oral and silent
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., p. 117.
 288 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH
utterances. But second, and more im-
portant, if Austin is attempting to dif-
ferentiate, not between oral and silent
verbal activity, but between verbal or
linguistic acts and nonverbal or non-
linguistic acts, the problem is more com-
plex and more dangerous. Some years
ago, rhetorical theorists assumed that the
goal of most or all persuasive discourse
was to get people to do those "real"
things, those things that counted—build-
ing bridges, giving money, voting, and
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such like—and that words and the ways
they were used were merely means to that
end. That assumption has, I believe,
been discarded, and it has now been ad-
mitted that persuasive discourse at-
tempts to influence the way people be-
lieve, think, talk, i.e., the way they use
symbols.35 Indeed, the most concrete and
"real" acts seem entirely inseparable
from "symbolic" acts, from the use of
language, from symbolization itself.
And in addition there is Austin's own
statement that perlocutions produce ef-
fects on "the feelings, thoughts, or ac-
tions" (italics mine) of various persons.
Are not such effects produced precisely
35
This state of affairs was described some
years ago by Theodore Clevenger, Jr.: "We
have talked, psychologists and people in speech,
as if words are not really important, as if what
we really were interested in was other kinds
of behavior. . . . In the final analysis we sort
of retreat to the position that the language is
really not important except in the sense that
it moves . . . , it gets things done. . . . Lan-
guage in itself is really nothing except as it
influences behavior. This, I say, is the kind of
attitude under which we have been operating
in the past.
I wonder if this is really true. I wonder if,
much of the time, we don't make speeches
just in order to get people to talk a certain
way . . . , to change the verbal behavior of our
respondents, to make them say certain things
or stop saying certain things, or deal with
people in a certain way—on a purely verbal
level. . . ." An Informal Colloquium on Trends
in Speech Communication Research sponsored
by the Speech Communication Division of the
Department of Speech and Drama and the
Communication Research Center, University of
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, August 7, 1965
(Lawrence, Kansas: The Communication Re-
search Center, 1966), pp. 23-24.
by getting these persons to use words
in a certain way, to speak aloud or si-
lently in a desired manner?
Put briefly, the consequences of what
Austin calls perlocutions are very often
further speech acts (as in ordinary con-
versations); also, they are very often
silent verbal acts (as in responding to
written messages); and whether or not
overt, nonverbal behavior is involved,
the symbolic process, i.e., some sort of
language usage, is always present.
Another problem, and a more urgent
one, is the manner in which speech acts
do or do not produce consequences and
the kinds of consequences they produce.
Austin's goal is the elucidation of
"the total speech act in the total speech
situation," and, interestingly, all or very
nearly all of the examples he provides
are clearly interpersonal, i.e., they are
utterances by one person directed to an-
other. But the existence of the interper-
sonal or total speech situation seems to
be denied by the assertion that illocu-
tions are not "intended to have certain
consequences (? an effect upon me)."
Thus, we are confronted with so-called
illocutions—to use Austin's own ex-
amples, "He urged (or advised, ordered,
Sec.) me to shoot her,"36 and "He pro-
tested against my doing it"3t—that we
are to accept as utterances not intended
to have an effect on the audience! Now,
to my mind, that is so extreme a point
of view that one must immediately
search for a less radical interpretation.
And while it appears to me that Austin
is indeed saying that intentionality is en-
tirely excluded from illocutions, I am
willing to concede the possibility, though
I think it a bare one, that he means
that intent is not completely absent
from illocutions but that it is not an
36
Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 101.
37
Ibid., p . 102.
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOGUTIONARY ACTS 289

important or defining characteristic of essay even before they have read it,
illocutionary acts. In addition, of course, much less understood its force and
we must remember Austin's qualifica- meaning.
tion: illocutions do produce the effect But there is a further inconsistency.
of securing "uptake," i.e., "bringing Although he puts very little emphasis
about the understanding of the mean- upon it, and gives no examples of it,
ing and force of the locution." But, in Austin does include in his definition of
my judgment, Austin has merely mud- perlocutions the production of "effects
died the waters. What does it mean to upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions
say that I urge someone to do or believe of . . . the speaker" (italics mine). Hence,
something, that my urging must have intended or unintended intrapersonal
the effect of being understood as to its effects are also to be considered perlocu-
force and meaning, but that it is not in- tions. Presumably, however, everything
Downloaded by [Carnegie Mellon University] at 09:34 24 January 2015

tended to have an effect on the person said in distinguishing between interper-

toward whom it is directed, or at the sonal illocutions and perlocutions will
very least, that such an intended effect also be applicable here. Thus, "I urged
is not a defining characteristic of my myself to shoot her" becomes an illocu-
urging? I suggest that such a descrip- tion—an act that included no intent to
tion of urging (or ordering, warning, affect the self—, while "I persuaded my-
and so forth) can mean only one thing— self to shoot her" becomes a perlocu-
a completely speaker-centered view of tion. The simple facts of linguistic ex-
the "total" speech situation, a view that perience make us familiar with the pro-
entirely eliminates the audience. If I cesses of verbally cheering ourselves up,
am aware of an audience—and I must calming ourselves down, reprimanding
be aware of them if I urge, warn them, ourselves, and the like.38 Yet, if we fol-
etc.—and if I praise, blame, argue with, low Austin, we must regard these in-
or condemn that audience, it is utterly trapersonal uses of language as utter-
meaningless to say that I address myself ances by the self directed to the self,
to that audience but intend to have but not intended to have any effect up-
no effect upon that audience, or that the on the self or, at least, not characterized
intent to affect them is not a major by that intent. To so regard them is,
characteristic of the act of addressing it seems to me, to stand face to face with
them. It must follow, then, that utter- schizophrenia.
ances of this sort, i.e., illocutions, are At this point, I want to propose a
speech acts in which there is no aware- question that Austin neglected to ask:
ness of an audience and from which the What are some typical speech acts that
audience is excluded. Of course, there is neither intend to, nor do in fact, pro-
a direct contradiction between this exclu- duce effects on those who hear and/or
sion of the audience and the notion of
audience understanding or uptake, but 38
that notion becomes a highly proble- nicative Such intrapersonal processes are commu-
in nature, i.e., they are utterances by
matic one at this point. A speaker does the self to the self. Austin deals only with
not wait for uptake to occur before in- personal, but itlanguage
communicative acts, intra- and inter-
should be noted that, under-
tending to affect his or her audience. girding such communicative acts, there are con-
Rather, he intends to affect them wheth- stitutive symbolic processes. And in relation to
constitutive acts, Austin's notion of illocutions
er or not uptake, or any other effect, is a very different and, I think, a much more
actually comes about, quite as I intend profitable one. For a discussion of constitutive
processes, see my "Language as Intrapersonal
to have an effect upon readers of this and Poetic Process," Philosophy & Rhetoric,
2 (Fall 1969), 200-214.
 290 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH
those who utter them? Even if we ac-
cept the distinction between under-
standing meaning and force as one sort
of effect and getting people to do, think,
or feel something as a different sort of
effect, what are some fairly ordinary ex-
amples of speech acts that do not pro-
duce or intend to produce effects of the
latter variety? So far as I can tell, Austin
gives only one specific example of such
a speech act, and it is a particularly un-
fortunate one. In referring to "parasitic
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uses of language" in which there is "no
attempt made at a standard perlocu-
tionary act, no attempt to make you do
anything," he cites Walt Whitman who,
he says, "does not seriously incite the
eagle of liberty to soar."39 I find this
example unfortunate because it suggests
that figurative language is not intended
to produce effects, and I find the phrase
"parasitic uses of language" unfortunate
as applied here because it distorts and
degrades the nature and function of
metaphor by implying that whatever
meaning Whitman's exhortation may
have derived from "conditions of refer-
ence" having to do with an actual eagle
and with actual flight. Searching, then,
for likelier instances of speech acts that
neither attempt to produce nor succeed
in producing perlocutionary effects,
where shall we find them? Not, it should
be noted, in cases involving partial un-
derstanding: the common experience of
catching the "tone" of an utterance, i.e.,
knowing that it is, say, a threat, but
being unable to understand exactly
what was said because of noise, a bad
P.A. system, great distance, etc., is not
an example of what we are looking for.
And the reason is simply that the force
but not the meaning of the utterance
has been understood, whereas the un-
derstanding of both is necessary if Aus-
tin's distinctions are to be followed.
39
Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 104.
By his standards, such instances are
neither illocutions (which must achieve
uptake to exist) nor perlocutions (be-
cause the mere awareness of being threat-
ened is part, but not all, of the illocu-
tionary and not the perlocutionary ef-
fect). Excluding such cases, one might
think that the most probable candidates
for the illocutionary but nonperlocu-
tionary role are those utterances that pro-
duce no overt, observable changes in be-
havior. And it is conceivable that this
is what Austin had in mind, given his
overwhelming emphasis on perlocutions
that do produce behavioral changes
("He persuaded me to shoot her," "He
pulled me up, checked me," etc.) But
the difficulty here is that the effects of
perlocutions, in Austin's own words, are
exerted upon "the feelings, thoughts, or
actions" (italics mine) of the speaker or
hearer. So, the search is for illocutions-
but-not-perlocutions that produce neith-
er overt, behavioral changes nor effects
upon the feelings or thoughts of the ut-
terer or the person(s) addressed. And I
put it that the search is doomed because
there simply is no such thing. All speech
acts produce some effect upon the feel-
ings, thoughts, or actions of those in-
volved in such acts, and, therefore, all
speech acts are perlocutions.
Many critics have accepted Austin's
concept of perlocutions as self-evident.
For example, L. Jonathan Cohen says
that "the existence of what Austin calls
perlocutionary acts is commonly ac-
cepted and, indeed, undeniable. In dif-
ferent circumstances utterances with the
same meaning can have such vastly dif-
ferent effects on their hearers that it is
obviously wrong to identify any part of
the meaning of an utterance with its
actual effect on its hearers"40 (italics
mine). Cohen, and Austin before him,
40
L. Jonathan Cohen, "Do Illocutionary
Forces Exist?" Symposium on J. L, Austin, p.
422.
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARY ACTS
has, I believe, fallen into a trap that is
quite familiar to rhetoricians. It is the
trap of assuming that the message has
some objective reality that is unchanged
from speaker to speaker, hearer to hear-
er, and situation to situation. Cohen's
words, "In different circumstances utter-
ances with the same meaning . . . " can
only mean that neither speakers, hearers,
nor speech situations determine the
meaning of utterances. Since those ut-
terances keep "the same meaning" in
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varying circumstances and have different
effects on hearers, it must be that mean-
ing is somehow in the utterances and
that it affects various people variously.
But that is to say that, if I perceive a
speaker to be my friend, enemy, etc., I
do not alter my perception of what he
says. Indeed, what he says does not de-
pend on my perception of it at all, for
"the same meaning" is there regardless
of my, or other persons', varying percep-
tions. Such an objective view of mean-
ing fits well with Austin's stress on con-
ventions, for, although he never puts it
quite as directly as Cohen does, his con-
stant implication is that meaning is in
the locution (because locutions involve
the use of words with sense and refer-
ence), that meaning is in the illocu-
tion (because illocutions are also locu-
tions), and that meaning is in the per-
locution (because perlocutions may in-
clude the intent to produce effects, and
intent surely involves meaning). At ev-
ery turn, the move is away from the
speaker and/or hearer as a source of
meaning and toward the utterance, the
message. And the move is somewhat
startling, given Austin's statement that
" . . . for some years we have been realiz-
ing more and more clearly that the oc-
casion of an utterance matters seriously,
and that the words used are to some ex-
tent to be 'explained' by the 'context'
in which they are designed to be or have
actually been spoken in a linguistic in-
291
terchange. Yet still perhaps we are too
prone to give these explanations in terms
of 'the meanings of words'."41 But Austin
apparently did not realize the far-reach-
ing significance of his statement, and
just as I have argued that his notion of
illocutions excludes the audience, I
would argue now that his notions of lo-
cutions and perlocutions exclude both
speaker and audience as determinants of
meaning. We are left with a theory of
meaning that is totally nonexperiential;
words and sentences mean what they
mean, rather than the experiential view
that my or your words mean what my
or your experiences allow them to mean.
That theory, whatever else it may be,
has, in my judgment, no relationship to
communicative and rhetorical reality.
The familiar processes by which atti-
tudes or biases (either the speaker's or
the hearer's) alter "the" message, by
which my experience as a sufferer from
allergy and yours as a pet lover make
"cat" mean different things, and by
which we change the very reality around
us in the act of naming it are all ruled
out by Austin's proposals. And to rein-
troduce these processes would require
that both those who utter and those to
whom utterances are directed be ac-
knowledged as major sources of mean-
ing. Since that reintroduction would
necessarily treat the creation or distor-
tion of meaning by speaker and hearer
as consequences, it would also and of
equal necessity treat all speech acts as
perlocutions.
Approaching this problem of effects
and the manner in which they are pro-
duced from a slightly different angle, I
would point out that Austin consistently
implies a simplistic cause-effect process
as the basis of speech acts. His confusing
comments on intentionality are confined
to the speaker; nowhere is there a ref-
41
Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 100.
 292 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH
erence to the intentions of audiences.
Hence, it is quite possible to assume that
effects are produced regardless of the
intent of hearers or readers. In only one
statement, a footnote, does Austin direct
his attention to this problem: ". . . the
sense in which saying something pro-
duces effects on other persons, or causes
things, is a fundamentally different sense
of cause from that used in physical
causation by pressure, &c. It has to oper-
ate through the conventions of language
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and is a matter of influence exerted
by one person on another: this is prob-
ably the original sense of 'cause'."42 The
door is opened here, though only barely,
for a treatment of the ways language
produces effects that would, in my opin-
ion, have been profitable. Austin might
have gone on to say that, because effects
are produced using the conventions of
language, there is no possibility of one
person causing another to do something
in any direct, immediate sense. He
might have gone on to say that, because
each party to a speech act possesses lan-
guage and hears the language, i.e., the
meanings, of the other in terms of his
or her own language and meaning, the
power to persuade, convince, or alter an-
other's beliefs is always shared by, i.e.,
is possessed by no one of, those involved
in the communicative process. He might
have gone on to say that in the "total
speech situation" both speaker and lis-
tener act, rather than implying that the
speaker acts while the listener is acted
on, that there is an active-passive dichot-
omy in which to urge, persuade, compli-
ment, or what have you are acts, while
to be urged, persuaded, complimented
are not acts at all, but mere passive re-
sponses. And he might have gone on to
say that speakers, therefore, operate
within an eternal dialectic: on the one
hand they intend to persuade their au-
42
Ibid., p. 112.
diences; on the other, they must accept
and rely on the audiences' power to
choose to persuade or not to persuade
themselves, i.e., to exercise their free-
dom of choice.
But, of course, he could not add such
comments. To do so would have meant
re-doing his entire argument, for, among
other things, he would have been forced
to say that the effects of perlocutions are
further illocutions in which audience
members create their own statements
with their own meanings.43 Further, he
would have been forced to give inten-
tionality a central role in his concept of
act or action, a role that would have
drastically changed his system of classi-
fication. Instead, by eliminating inten-
tionality as a defining characteristic of
acts, Austin places himself in a strange
and inconsistent position. He grants
that in some acts effects are intended
while in others they are not, but specifi-
cally excludes the latter from the realm
of illocutions. Following his notions, if
acts that produce effects, intended or
unintended, are perlocutions, and if il-
locutions do not include the intent to
affect the audience, what shall we call
the act in which I intend to convince
or change someone's mind but have no
actual effect upon that person? That
such an act is possible from Austin's
point of view is clear from this state-
ment: "when the speaker intends to pro-
duce an effect it may nevertheless not oc-
cur, and . . . when he does not intend
to produce it or intends not to produce
it it may nevertheless occur."44 An act
that does not produce an effect is not a
perlocution, but if it includes intent it
is not an illocution either. What, then,
is it? I suppose Austinians might answer
43
For a very different and interesting treat-
ment of this problem faced by Austin, see Mats
Furberg, "Meaning and Illocutionary Force,"
Symposium on J. L. Austin, pp. 445-467.
44
Austin, How To Do Things With Words,
p. 105.
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARV ACTS
that such an act is an illocution be-
cause, as I indicated earlier, Austin was
not saying that intent never exists in
illocutions, but merely that it is an in-
cidental and not a defining characteristic
of illocutions. But, in addition to the
oddity of the emphasis with which in-
tent is excluded from illocutions, follow-
ers of Austin must, I think, account for
further discrepancies, for the problem
of intentionality stretches throughout
Austin's categories. In his discussion of
locutions, despite the statement that the
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phonetic act (uttering noises), the phatic
act (uttering words), and the rhetic
act (uttering words with meaning) to-
gether "add up to 'saying' something
in the full sense of 'say',"45 i.e., to the
locutionary act, Austin does separate the
three. "If a monkey makes a noise in-
distinguishable from 'go' it is still not
a phatic act,"46 though it is a phonetic
act. Also, "it is clear that we can per-
form a phatic act which is not a rhetic
act, though not conversely. Thus we may
repeat someone else's remark or mumble
over some sentence, or we may read a
Latin sentence without knowing the
meaning of the words."47 Hence, from
one direction the three are incremental
processes, i.e., all rhetic acts are phatic
acts, and all phatic acts are phonetic
acts; from the other direction the three
can be discrete and separate processes,
as a phonetic act need not be a phatic
act, nor a phatic act a rhetic act. To my
mind, there is one stark question that
cannot be avoided at this point. How
do we know, how can we tell that the
"go" uttered by the monkey is not a
phatic act, or that the Latin sentence
uttered by one who knows no Latin is
not a rhetic act? If we are presented with
the utterances qua utterances (recorded
or otherwise separated from the utter-
45
Ibid., p. 92.
46
Ibid., p . 96.
47
Ibid., p. 97.
293
ers), I submit that we do not, that we
cannot know. Only after realizing that
one utterer is a monkey and the other
a nonspeaker of Latin can we distin-
guish the phonetic from the phatic or
the phatic from the rhetic act. And I
submit that, call it what we may, we
are at that juncture dealing with in-
tentionality. Because the monkey cannot
(or so we believe) have intended to ut-
ter a word, the utterance was not a
phatic act; and because the person ig-
norant of Latin cannot have intended
to produce a meaningful Latin sentence,
that utterance was not a rhetic act. Thus,
the problem of intentionality reaches all
the way from perlocutions to the first
level (phonetic acts) of locutions. And
its solution seems to me to require a
conception of acts that includes delib-
erateness, consciousness, and choice on
the part of both speaker and hearer and
that leaves no room for simple, manipu-
lative, cause-effect processes in which the
speaker acts while the passive, inert lis-
tener is acted on.
The final problem is Austin's elim-
ination of those uses of language he calls
"parasitic," "etiolated," "not serious,"
"not the 'full normal use' "—as in "jok-
ing," "acting a part," "fiction," "poetry,"
"quotation and recitation." This elim-
ination creates what are, in my opinion,
almost endless difficulties. I have already
referred to Austin's citation of Walt
Whitman who "does not seriously incite
the eagle of liberty to soar," and I take
it that this is a fairly representative ex-
ample of the sort of language with which
Austin is not concerned. I take it, too,
that "When in disgrace with fortune
and mens' eyes, . . ." that sonnets gen-
erally, that the genre of poetry, and that
all distinctly figurative or metaphorical
language are outside the area of Aus-
tin's interests. Apparently, he concen-
trates on those uses of language in which
 294 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH
"the normal conditions of reference"
prevail. Certainly the examples he pro-
vides are notable for their "literalness";
there is not a single magic-laden or
provocative metaphor among them
(though that is not to say that his argu-
ment includes no metaphors, as we shall
see). Evidently, Austin believes the para-
digm cases of language to exist in "lit-
eral," serious, "factual" prose and con-
siders the realms of literature and of
figurative language parasitic, not seri-
ous, derivative, and relatively insignifi-
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cant in sociolinguistic processes. Rhe-
torically, Austin has very clearly elevated
"normal" language to a position of great
importance and has relegated parasitic
language to an inferior role.
It is noteworthy, however, that Austin
has only asserted that there is something
called serious and something else called
parasitic uses of language; he has made
no argument for the existence of these
two forms of language. And it is equally
uoteworthy that Austin's assertion brings
him into direct conflict with those the-
orists who have argued that, far from
being etiolated or parasitic, poetic and
metaphorical processes generate new
meanings, new methods of categoriza-
tion, new ways of perceiving "reality,"
and are logically and symbologically
prior to other uses of language.*8
In general terms, such theorists argue
that "Metaphor is the law of growth of
every semantic,"49 and, "As for poetics
pure and simple: I would take this mo-
tivational dimension to involve the sheer
exercise of 'symbolicity' (or 'symbolic ac-
tion') for its own sake, purely for love
48
Various forms of this argument are found
in the works of Kenneth Burke, Susanne K.
Langer, Owen Barfield, Northrop Frye, and
Ernst Cassirer.
49
Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New
Key (1942; rpt. New York: Mentor Books, 1951),
p . 130.
of the art."50 Specifically, "winter of
our discontent" made possible the de-
scription of seasonal urban unrest as the
"summer of our discontent"; which is
the etiolated version of the other? "Win-
dow" comes from the Teutons' "wind's-
eye";51 which is the derivation and
which the source? "Delirious" can be
traced to the pre-classical delirare—to go
out of the furrow when plowing;62
which is metaphorical and which seri-
ous? And "capital" is a descendant of
the "Latin 'capitalis' from 'caput'—a
head, and thus 'the status of Roman
citizenship.' Under old Roman law each
citizen was assessed according to the
number of beasts which he possessed.
Thus, the word cattle is also derived,
through French, from 'capitalis'. Com-
pare the derivation of pecuniary from
'pecus'—a head of cattle, and fee from
Old English 'feoh' (cattle)."53 Which are
normal and which are not?
Within Austin's argument, the cen-
tral phrase "performance of an act"
functions as a definition, and as such it
is, in Eurke's words, "the critic's
equivalent of a lyric, or of an aria in
opera."54 The creative function of that
phrase might easily be overlooked, but
Walter Cerf points out that about the
only context in which "performing an
act" would ordinarily be used is "the
somewhat extraordinary world of the
circus and variety shows."55 And if asked
to describe John's behavior in speaking,
"imagine someone answering, 'He is per-
forming speech acts'. Is John putting on
a show? Is he doing tricks? Is he playing
50
Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Ac-
tion (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1966),
p . 29.
51
Cited by Owen Barfield, History in English
Words (1953; rpt. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wil-
liam B. Eerdmans, 1967), p . 30.
52
Ibid., p. 39.
53
Ibid., p. 60.
54
Burke, p . 3.
55
Cerf, p . 360.
 LOCUTIONARY, ILLOCUTIONARY, AND PERLOCUTIONARY ACTS 295
a role? Is he on the stage? Nonsense, he such parasitic and etiolated elements in
is just talking."56 a work that purports to deal only with
Why, then, this phrase that seems to serious, normal language. The meta-
strain, if not abuse, ordinary usage? Cerf phorical use of "force" is particularly in-
argues that Austin may have been led teresting: one "literal" meaning, "the
very smoothly, even unknowingly, from power to persuade or convince or impose
"talking" or "speaking" to "performing obligation," conflicts directly with the
a speech act" by a chain of substitutions illocutionary-perlocutionary distinction;
something like this: to speak or to say another, "the real import or significance
something—to issue an utterance—to do (of a document, word, sentence, symbol,
something—to perform an action—to etc.)," clashes with the Iocutionary-illo-
perform an act. Hence, "to say some- cutionary distinction. Austin's meaning
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thing is . . . to perform an act of speak- for the word seems to be something like,
ing, that is a speech act."57 Cerf ques- "the patterns of significance with which
tions all the links in the chain, but is custom and convention fill both words
particularly unhappy with the move and the users of words"—rather a strik-
from "performing an action" to "per- ing meaning, especially for such a nor-
forming an act." However, it is just that mal and serious term.
move that most suits Austin's purposes, Lastly, considering the fashion in
as Cerf indicates: whereas "performing which Austin qua Austin uses language,
an action" would not be equally ap- there is the consistent and impressive
plicable to locutions, illocutions, and absence of such formulations as these:
perlocutions, "performing an act" can "But the philosopher who proceeds from
be so applied, thus making possible "a ordinary language is concerned less to
homogeneous specification of the genus avenge sensational crimes against the in-
'saying something (= 'performing speech tellect than to redress its civil wrongs
acts) into locutionary, illocutionary and . . . for who is it that the philosopher
perlocutionary acts"68 (italics mine). In punishes when it is the mind itself
other words, Austin found what he which assaults the mind,"61 and, "When
wanted—a creative way of bending "or- an argument hurts me, cuts me, or
dinary" language to his own needs and cleanses and liberates me it is not because
unifying processes that he could then a particular stratum or segment of my
treat as related or interdependent. world view is shaken up or jarred free
And in addition to that central phrase, but because / am wounded or enliven-
there are in Austin's work such expres- ed—/ in my particularity . . . feelings,
sions as "excess of profundity, or rather, pride, love, and sullenness,62the world of
solemnity, at once paves the way for im- my actuality as I live it." Additional
modality"59 and "now if we sin against examples by the score, if not the hun-
any one (or more) of these six rules,"60 dreds, could be given, but I think these
and such crucial terms as "happy," "un- two show clearly enough the 63
oddly dead
happy," "uptake," and "force" meta- quality of Austin's writing. It is as if,
phorically used in describing illocu-
61
tions. One is struck by the presence of Cavell, p . 90.
62
Maurice Natanson, " T h e Claims of Im-
mediacy," Philosophy, Rhetoric and Argumenta-
56
Ibid., p. 361. tion, ed. Maurice Natanson and Henry W.
57
Ibid. Johnstone, J r . (University Park: Pennsylvania
58
Ibid., p. 363. State Univ. Press, 1965), p p . 15-16.
59 63
Austin, How To Do Things With Words, T o base this judgment solely on How To
p. 10. Do Things With Words is, of course, unfair.
60
Ibid., p. 15. T h a t work was written as a set of lecture notes.
 296 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH
unlike the authors quoted above, Aus-
tin had made every attempt to keep him-
self out of his writing, to eliminate all
traces of a persona. I am willing to ar-
gue that the result is an unfortunately
dull style, but I am more interested in
arguing that this is simply another in-
stance of a so-called parasitic, not seri-
ous, etiolated aspect of language that
Austin has (to his own disadvantage) ig-
nored. This instance is like all the oth-
ers in that, by excluding a clear-cut, vi-
brant persona, one is left, not with no
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persona at all, but with a boring one;
similarly, the elimination of overt meta-
phors and intricate stylistic manoeuvres
results, not in the absence of metaphor
and style, but in the presence of faded,
but critical, metaphors and lifeless style.
EPILOGUE
Because the use of language leads to,
but does not cause, further oral or silent
utterances—because all utterances are
However, it seems to me that Austin's other
writings are quite similar in stylistic terms.
Those writings are available in J. L. Austin,
Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1961).
attempts to affect the hearers and/or the
utterers themselves—because each party
to a language or communicative act pos-
sesses language and, therefore, is not
simply manipulated by others, but par-
ticipates in the acts of persuading, order-
ing, etc.—because action, as opposed to
sheer motion, must be defined in terms
of intentionality—and because meta-
phorical and poetic language are not
parasitic forms of serious, normal lan-
guage, but are the very sources of such
language—because of all these, I pro-
pose, not only "that the concept of il-
locutionary force, as Austin himself de-
fines it, is empty,"61 but that the con-
cepts of perlocutions and the production
of perlocutionary effects are similarly
empty. As a linguistic Linnaeus, Austin
has ignored the sense in which language
is a single, unified process; he has ig-
nored, too, the dimensions of language
that are rhetorical in the traditional
sense of intending to persuade and the
modern sense of stylistically adapting ut-
terances and discourses to desired ends.
64
"Note by L. Jonathan Cohen," Symposium
on J. L. Austin, p. 468.