illocutionary

IPA/ˌɪləˈkjuːʃənəri/
IPA/ˌɪləˈkjuːʃəneri/

illocutionary — adjective

  • illocutionarypositive
  • more illocutionarycomparative
  • most illocutionarysuperlative

1. describing the intended social action that a speaker performs by saying somethin

1.adjectiveC1
Definition

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.

Example

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)

Common collocations
  • illocutionary force
  • illocutionary act
  • illocutionary meaning
  • illocutionary purpose
Synonyms
  • 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.

Antonyms
  • locutionary

    Locutionary refers to the literal act of uttering words, while illocutionary concerns the force or intention behind the utterance.

Grammar Patterns

illocutionary + noun (force, act, meaning, purpose)

Usage Note

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.

Common Mistakes

The word apology has illocutionary meaning.
The apology carried an illocutionary force of repairing trust.
illocutionary describes the intended action performed by an utterance, not a property of a single word.

Word family

  • illocution
    nounC2
  • illocutionarily
    adverbC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

These three terms all belong to speech-act theory but operate at different levels. Locutionary is the narrowest: it describes the literal act of uttering sounds or words (saying 'I will be there at six' simply as a string of words). Illocutionary describes what the speaker intends to accomplish by uttering those words (making a promise to arrive). Performative is a subset of illocutionary acts where the utterance itself carries out the action — saying 'I promise' is the act of promising. Pragmatic is the broadest term, covering all aspects of how context shapes meaning, not limited to speech acts. For example, 'I'll be there at six' can be a promise (illocutionary), a threat (different illocutionary force), or a simple statement depending on the context, and pragmatics studies all of these possibilities.

performative ↗pragmatic ↗locutionary

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • illocutionary force of an utterance

Etymology

LatinEnglish

Coined by British philosopher J. L. Austin in the 1950s, from the Latin prefix 'in-' (within, during) + 'locutio' (speaking, a speech) + the English suffix '-ary' (pertaining to). Austin introduced the term in his lectures at Harvard University, later published as 'How to Do Things with Words' (1962), to describe what people do with language beyond stating facts — the force an utterance carries in a social context.

First known use

1955

1955, in the meaning defined above