illocutionary
illocutionary — adjective
- illocutionarypositive
- more illocutionarycomparative
- most illocutionarysuperlative
1. describing the intended social action that a speaker performs by saying somethin
describing the intended social action that a speaker performs by saying something — for instance making a promise, issuing a command, or offering a warning — rather than simply stating the literal words.
Dr. Tanvi explained the illocutionary force behind a simple promise during her linguistics lecture.
illocutionary + noun (force)
Selim asked his students to find the illocutionary act in a recorded phone conversation.
illocutionary + noun (act)
The customer's complaint carried an illocutionary meaning of requesting a full refund.
In a conference talk, Hui showed how illocutionary acts depend on the speaker's intentions.
The apology letter had a clear illocutionary purpose: to repair the damaged relationship.
- performative
Performative is a narrower term limited to utterances where saying the words IS the action (e.g. 'I promise'), whereas illocutionary covers all intended speech acts including commands, apologies, and warnings.
- pragmatic
Pragmatic is a broader term covering all aspects of meaning in context; illocutionary specifically refers to the speaker's intended action through speech.
- locutionary
Locutionary refers to the literal act of uttering words, while illocutionary concerns the force or intention behind the utterance.
文法句型
illocutionary + noun (force, act, meaning, purpose)
用法筆記
Frequently appears as a modifier in the noun phrases 'illocutionary force', 'illocutionary act', and 'illocutionary meaning'. This is a specialist term from speech-act theory (philosophy of language and linguistics); it is rarely used in everyday conversation.