Some elements of Speech Act Theory
An analysis of the illocutionary acts that are the elements of a judicial decision presupposes to state a taxonomy of illocutionary acts. Any taxonomy must acknowledge, first, that there are at least five types of illocutionary acts and, second, that they may differ in along at least seven dimensions of illocutionary force, and in direction of fit and perlocutionary effect. On the one hand, the types of illocutionary acts are: assertives (e.g., a statement), directives (e.g., an order), expressives (e.g., thanks), commissives (e.g., a promise) and declaratives (e.g., a firing).On the other hand, according to Searle and Vanderveken, the seven dimensions of illocutionary force are: the illocutionary point, the degree of strength of the illocutionary point, the mode of achievement, the propositional content conditions, the preparatory conditions, the sincerity conditions and the degree of strength of the sincerity conditions.It is necessary to add the satisfaction conditions and the intended and actual perlocutionary effects to these components.
The illocutionary point is the basic component of the illocutionary force. It is the point or purpose which is internal to every illocutionary act, that is to say, “a successful performance” of a certain type of illocutionary acts necessarily achieves that purpose. To put it differently, it could not be a successful act of that type if it did not achieve that purpose.The point of an assertive is “to describe the world”, the point of a directive is “to direct one’s hearer to perform a certain king of act”, the point of expressives is “to express the speaker’s emotion or attitude”, the point of commissives is “to commit the speaker to doing something” and the point of declaratives (for instance, of the declaration that p) is “to make it the case that p”.
Different illocutionary acts may achieve “the same illocutionary point with different degrees of strength”,because of several causes. Searle and Vanderveken give good examples of this property: “if I requestsomeone to do something my attempt to get him to do it is less strong than if I insist that he do it”, or: “both pleading and ordering are stronger than requesting, but the greater strength of pleading derives from the intensity of the desire expressed, while the greater strength of ordering derives from the fact that the speaker uses a position of power or authority that he has over the hearer”
The mode of achievement is the way in which an illocutionary act achieves its purpose. For instance, an order achieves its purpose “by way of invoking the position of authority of the speaker” in issuing the order. Another example is the following: “a person who makes a statement in his capacity as a witness in a court trial does not merely make a statement, but he testifies, and his status as a witness is what makes his utterance count as testimony”.
The propositional content conditions are the conditions that the content of a speech act has to fulfil because of its illocutionary force. For instance, in commissives, the speaker commits himself to doing something. This kind of speech act sets a condition on its content: that the speaker does something in the future. For example, anyone who makes a promise commits himself to doing something in the future.
The preparatory conditions are conditions that it is necessary to fulfil for a successful and non-defective performance of an illocutionary act. For instance, “all acts whose point is to get the hearer to do something -orders, requests, commands, etc.- have as a preparatory condition that the hearer is able to do the act directed”. For example, unless we have a time machine, a judicial decision would be defective, if the judge gives the defendant the order to travel to the past and to stop the performance of some prior action of his.
The sincerity conditions are the conditions that the psychological states of the speaker have to fulfil for the illocutionary act to be non-defective. The utterance of an illocutionary act implies certain psychological states related to the content of the act. Thus, “an insincere speech act is one in which the speaker performs a speech act and thereby expresses a psychological state even though he does not have that state”. For instance, “an insincere promise is one where the speaker does not in fact intend to do the things he promises to do”.
The last of the seven dimensions of illocutionary force is the degree of strength of the sincerity conditions. As Searle and Vanderveken make explicit, “just as the same illocutionary point can be achieved with different degrees of strength, so the same psychological state can be expressed with different degrees of strength”. For instance, “the speaker who makes a request expresses the desire that the hearer do the act requested; but if he begs, beseeches, or implores, he expresses a stronger desire than if he merely requests.”
Now, as Ludwig and Boisvert explain: “assertives, directives, commissives and declaratives have satisfaction conditions, which come in two varieties: those with word-to-world direction of fit, and those with world-to-word direction of fit”.They also explain the difference between the illocutionary acts from this point of view: “Assertives have word-to-world direction of fit, since their point is to make the words match the world; directives and commissives have world-to-word direction of fit, since their point is to make the world match the words. Declaratives have at least world-to-word direction of fit since their point is to bring the world to match their contents […], and arguably, in some case, word-to-world direction of fit as well”.
Finally, when an illocutionary act is successfully and non-defectively performed, it produces an effect in its addressee. This effect is the perlocutionary effect of the speech act and refers to the impact it aims to have (intended perlocutionary effect) or really has (actual perlocutionary effect) on the “feelings, attitudes, and subsequent behaviour of the person or persons to whom it is addressed”.
