Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,5, language: English, abstract: John R. Searle was born in 1932 in Denver, Colorado. In his article What is a Speech Act? Searle develops a theory in the philosophy of a language, according to which speaking in a language is a matter of performing illocutionary acts with certain intentions, according to constitutive rules (Grewendorf / Meggle 2002: 4). The following paper will deal with the ideas on speech acts developed in Searles article.

First, a fundamental understanding of the assumptions Searles theory is based on will be provided. There will be a brief introduction to the theories of J.L. Austin and H.P. Grice, whom Searles article was mostly influenced by. Grices Meaning and Austins How to do things with words will constitute the reading mostly consulted.

After providing a basis for Searles theory, his article What is a Speech Act? will be looked at in detail. The examinations will include Searles distinction between regulative rules and constitutive rules and his introduction of the notions proposition-indicating element and function-indicating device, as derived from illocutionary act and propositional content of an illocutionary act. The focus will then be on Searles conditions for the illocutionary act of promising, and the rules for the use of the function-indicating device for promising, which he derives from these conditions.

There will finally be a brief overview on revisions and amendments Searle developed on his theory after 1965. These include a more detailed classification of speech acts and a distinction between speaker meaning and sentence meaning.