Speech Act
SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN Speech act is performed action via utterance. When speakers are saying words, they not only produce utterance containing words and grammatical structure, but they also perform action in those utterances, s uch as assertion, apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal etc. If you say, � I will be there at six� , you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act of promising . Speech act theory belongs to the field of pragmatics . A speech act might contain just one word, as in � Sorry!� to perform an apology, or several words or sentences: � I�m sorry I forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind.� Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture. Here are some examples of speech acts we perform every day: Assertion: ...