DIETER WUNDERLICH

METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS ON SPEECH ACT THEORY

1. INTRODUCTION

I regard the notion of 'speech act' as one of the most fruitful notions of
contemporary linguistic theorizing. It orients our scientfic endeavours to-
wards the function of language in human communication. In doing so, it
allows for a combination of different methods and fields of linguistic, as well
as of philosophical, investigation, such as, e.g., the theory of grammar, the
theory of meaning and the theory of discourse.
The following remarks summarize some of the principles and topics of
speech act theory (§ § 2 and 3). I shall also discuss the distinction of pragma-
tics and semantics (§ 4). Some problems of speech act theory to be discussed
here will be illustrated by inspecting a small telephone conversation (§ 5).

2. GENERAL PROPER TIES OF SPEECH ACTS

The universal part of speech act theory deals with the following topics:
(1) the general structure of speech acts;
(2) the general structure of speech act sequences;
(3) the general institutional impacts on speech acts and speech act
sequences;
(4) the general classification of speech acts on the basis of 1-3;
(5) the general rules for inferring non-literal from literal meaning.
Re (1): It is widely accepted that each speech act can be characterized by its
propositional content and its illocutionary force or point. The propositional
content in general should, however, not be identified with a proposition.
Rather, the type of propositional content and the type of illocutionary force
of a speech act are intrinsically interrelated. My assumption is that the
propositional content of a speech act can explicitly be expressed by the
complement sentence of a reported form of that very speech act. Therefore
the primary methodological strategy for construing the types of propositional
content is to inspect pieces of reported speech. (This strategy may, however,
fail. Many forms of reported speech are language-specific and sometimes
291
J. R. Searle. F. Kiefer, and M. Bierwisch (eds.), Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics,
291-312 .
Copyright © 1980 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
292 DIETER WUNDERLICH

depend on the peculiar kind of verb used to express the illocutionary force in
question).
Some of the relevant types of propositional content may be illustrated by
the following table:

general type complement designation denotation

of speech act sentence of a of the complement sentence
report

representative that Paul came a proposition a truth value

(assertions)

directive a predicate a property of

(requests) to come concept individuals

erotetic whether Paul a propositional a property

(questions) came concept of propositions

who came an open time- a property

less proposition of term-
denotations

when Paul came an open tensed a property

proposition of dates

N.B. This table is not fully identical with the views expressed in Wunderlich (1976a, 69,
134). The changes have been prompted by the paper given by Hausser (1977).

The illocutionary force of a speech act should be characterized both (a) in

terms of (pragmatically) presupposed mental states of the participants, and
(b) in terms of the state of interactions brought about by performing that
speech act. This follows from the assumptions that:
(a) in performing a speech act, every speaker has something in mind,
consequently the hearer is entitled to infer that the speaker has a certain
belief or expectation;
(b) each speech act brings about a certain effect in that it changes the
obtaining state of interaction; consequently speaker and hearer are entitled
to assume a certain new state of obligations and commitments, of information
and of mutual social relationship.
Most generally an illocutionary force can be construed as a characteristic
outcome function (Cf. Wunderlich, 1976a, 1977b). This theoretical strategy
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 293

also conforms to the daily use of speech act-designating expressions. If some-

one has ordered something, then we say that there exists an order which one
expects to be satisfied in the future course of actions. Here we change our use
of the word "order" from the act-perspective to the result- or outcome-
perspective. The very purpose of the speech act of ordering is to bring about
an order.
Whereas the central notion in dealing with propositional contents is truth,
the corresponding notion in dealing with illocutionary outcomes is satisfac-
tion. For example, an order is said to be satisfied if the respective addressee
performs the ordered action, i.e., if he behaves in such a way that the property
denoted by the respective complement sentence of the reported speech comes
true of him. In case the propositional content is identical with a proposition,
truth and satisfaction coincide. If, however, they do not coincide, the pro-
positional content delivers the relevant point of view under which satisfaction
has to be defmed. This feature characterizes the intrinsic relationship of
propositional content and illocutionary outcome.
Incidentally, there is another variant of the notion of satisfaction concern-
ing the mental states connected with speech acts. For instance, a desire can be
said to be satisfied. These two variants of the notion of satisfaction are,
however, closely interrelated (er. Searle 1977).
Re 2: No speech act is performed in isolation. Moreover, no speech acts
follow each other in an arbitrary sequence. It is generally true of speech
acts that they are organized within a certain variable discourse pattern. This
feature is reflected in the particular structure of many speech acts as well. For
instance, a question is something that calls for an answer, a proposal some-
thing that calls for consideration, an apology something that calls for an
acknowledgment.
The most important notions for dealing with speech act sequences are as
follows:
turn, move, speech act pattern, complex speech unit and discourse
type.
When a participant speaks or makes a contribution to a conservation it is
said 'he takes a tum'. A tum may consist of a minimal utterance which doesn't
constitute a full speech act but it may also consist of a whole series of speech
acts. Each turn includes places where another speaker may start speaking.
Turns can also overlap but there is a tendency to reduce such situations. (For
details see Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson 1974).
The notion of move is used to characterize the function of a speech act for
294 DIETER WUNDERLICH

the ongoing of the discourse. One may distinguish between initiating, reacting
and continuing moves. Let's look at this piece of dialogue:
1 A: It's cold here.
2 B: Do you think so?
3 A: Yes, indeed, couldn't we move a little?
A's assertion (1) serves to initiate a theme, B's question (2) counts as a reac-
tion to it, whereas A's next turn (3), consisting of a conftrmation and a
question, serves to continue the theme of 1. Reacting moves can be topic-
accepting, or topic-rejecting, or neutral, i.e. leave open the option (Cf. Franck,
1977, in preparation). Besides these there may be further reaction types,
considered under the viewpoint of a phenomenological classiftcation (Cf.
Allwood 1977).
Some speech acts, in particular questions or requests, have a tendency to
function as initiating moves. This is not a coincidence, it is rather part of the
very nature of these speech acts. (This does not mean that they couldn't also
be used in reactions.) On the other hand, confirmations or answers are typical
reacting moves. Whether an assertion is called an answer, or a confirmation,
or something else, depends solely on its position in the speech act sequence.
For several reasons, in speech act analyses linguists and philosophers tend
to over-emphasize the class of initiating speech acts. (a) If one looks at speech
acts in isolation, one is intuitively tempted to conceive merely the beginning
of a sequence, and not parts of it. (b) A speech act which starts a sequence
must make explicit its propositional content and its illocutionary point or
force as much as possible. By contrast, a speech act within a sequence can
make use of parts of the propositional contents that have been provided by
preceding utterances, and its illocutionary force can partly be defined by its
position within the sequence. (c) There are in most, if not all, languages two
clear-marked grammatical moods: the interrogative and the imperative, which
indicate initiatively functioning speech acts. But clearly-marked grammatical
moods which indicate reacting speech acts are rare - obviously because there
is no need for them.
With respect to the notion of satisfaction it is not yet clear whether, and in
what way, it can be expounded to speech acts which function as reacting
moves. This is so because speech acts of this class, or at least some of them,
do not have an outcome that has to be satisfied in the future but it is their
very outcome that they satisfy something.
A speech act pattern is a conventionalized ordered sequence of speech
acts. The positions of this sequence have to be filled in by speech acts of a
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 295

certain kind, which in general must be performed alternately by the partici-

pants of the discourse. If one speaker starts with a speech act belonging to a
certain pattern then it is expected that the respective addressee, too, should
stick to this pattern, even if he interrupts it by a counter-question or alike.
(Certain sequences allow for sub-sequences at certain positions.) Some
patterns contain positions where certain alternatives are possible. Sometimes
there is a possibility of re-opening a part of a pattern such that a repetitive
structure emerges.
Prominent speech act patterns are the adjacency pairs in the sense of
Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson, like question-answer, proposal-accounting for the
proposal, opening and closing pairs of a conversation. But very often there are
also three-place-patterns. For instance, the minimal procedure of securing
understanding consists of the reference utterance, a confirmation, and a re-
confirmation.
A: The lecture takes place in room 14.
2 B: Ah, in room 14.
3 A: Yes, indeed, in 14.
Thanks-giving expressing gratitude for a favour received, consists of the
reference action, the thanks-giving, and an acknowledgment.
1 A (delivers B a package): Here you are.
2 B: Thank you very much.
3 A: You're welcome.
The first example could be a candidate for a rather universal speech act
pattern, whereas the second is certainly restricted to some cultural areas.
Universally valid speech act patterns could possibly be predicted by a general
theory of interaction. Culturally restricted patterns can only be found by a
thorough inquiry into real discourse phenomena; only a cross-cultural study
could show us, however, to what extent they are distributed among the
various language communities. A possible candidate for a speech act pattern,
be it a 2-place, a 3-place or a more than 3-place pattern, must at least meet
the methodological condition that each position is deemed necessary for
establishing a commonly accepted state of interaction.
A complex speech unit consists of several speech acts delivered by a
participant. He performs several stages in sequence; each one, however, can
be commented on by the addressee to the effect that this stage be enlarged
or reduced. Typical complex speech units are narration, argumentation, and
description. They normally have a beginning, a variable middle part, and a
296 DIETER WUNDERLICH

coda; none of these parts can be completely left out. The structure of complex
speech units is due to their complex tasks. A general theory of interaction has
thus to be able to characterize the task of a narration, of an argumentation,
and of a description.
Complex speech units bring up the problem of decomposition. Are, for
instance, the stating of a hypothesis and its justification two different speech
acts or just a single one? The first methodological rule might be to consider
each complete sentence to be able to convey an individual speech act, although
the notion of complete sentence needs further classification. However, this
question is not a problem of the universal part of the theory, being rather
language-specific.
The discourse type is the most complex unit of speech activity. It is the
unit that can be realized by a whole conversation. Typical examples are
getting-and-giving direction, instruction, interview, counseling. Each of them
may contain descriptions as well as argumentations, and even narrations, and
it will certainly contain stages with characteristic speech act patterns. Again,
the structure of a discourse type depends on its communicative task, on the
structure of the normal experiences of the participants, and on the structure
of the reality concerned.
Re 3: We may distinguish primary or natural speech acts, which are neces-
sary for any kind of human interaction, and secondary or institutional speech
acts, which are specific for a certain institution. By an institution I mean an
organized system of social life which results from the social division of labor,
and which is determined to fulfil the specific needs of society. Examples are
school-instruction, courtroom-investigation, political debate, commercial
advertising. Some institutions are distributed throughout the world according
to a certain cultural standard, and not very specific for a language community,
whereas others are more specific.
Institutions can have various impacts on the development of speech
activities.
(a) An institution can create new kinds of speech acts, mostly of the
declaration or of the satisfactive type, such as baptizing, judging, appointing,
opening a session. Some of these are performed by means of using specific
performative formulas.
(b) An institution can modify primary speech acts. For example, we have
a whole range of institutionally modified kinds of questions and requests,
such as examination questions, interrogation questions, test questions, or
control questions, admonitions, prescriptions, orders, regulations, directions,
summons or citations.
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 297

(c) An institution can produce new discourse types, which reveal specific
complex speech units and speech act patterns. These are sometimes regulatory
devices such as standing orders, but it may also happen that the conventions
are only implicitly given by the institutional background.
It belongs to the task of the general theory of interaction to characterize
the general aspects of processes leading to institutional speech activities,
which, of course, must be based on previous empirical work.
Re 4: There is no clear classification of speech acts. Neither Austin's, nor
Searle's, nor anybody else's attempts are really convincing. Searle, for ex-
ample, distinguishes representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, and
declarations (Cf. Searle 1976). But there remain some questions and open
problems with this classification. Let me mention just three: (a) Commissives
are certainly not a universal speech act type, they may rather be considered
as possible reactions to directives. (b) According to Searle questions are a
subtype of directives. They are, however, grammatically marked and hence
a candidate for a generic type of speech act. Searle's considerations are
obviously restricted to a strict information question leaving upon the problem
of deliberative questions, rhetorical questions etc. (c) Within Searle's five
types, there is no place for speech acts like warnings, advices, proposals,
offers, which share some properties of the representative and the directive (or
the commissive) type (Cf. Wunderlich 1977a).
AddreSSing is another speech act type which deserves special mentioning
because of its peculiar behavior. It plays a role in speech act theory which is
similar to that of proper names in logical semantics. Proper names serve to
identify persons or objects according to a history of familiarity which, ulti-
mately, goes back to a naming situation. By using a vocative, which may, but
need not, include an appropriate proper name, addressing serves to identify
an addressee and to attract his attention; it is in some sense the speech act-
counterpart of proper names.
On the basis of the topics I have discussed thus far we can envisage four
main criteria for speech act-classification. It will then depend on the purpose
of our theory to which one we want to give priority.
1. Speech acts can be classified according to the main grammatical markers
(and their possible functional equivalents) in a given language. These markers
are in languages like English and German at least the following ones: (a) the
interrogative mood - speech acts of the erotetic type; (b) the imperative
mood - speech acts of the directive type; (c) the declarative mood - speech
acts of the representative type; (d) specific performative formulas - speech
acts of the declaration type (in a broader sense than Searle's).
298 DIETER WUNDERLICH

2. Speech acts can be classified according to (a) the type of propositional

content, and (b) the type of illocutionary outcome or the type of satisfaction
condition, respectively. Because of the interrelationship of propositional
content and illocutionary outcome, an independent classification according
to either (a) or (b) is not possible. The results will partly overlap with the
results of the first classification, but they will not coincide.
3. Speech acts can be classified according to their function, i.e. as to
whether they represent an initiating or a reacting move, or, to put it different-
ly, according to their position within speech act patterns.
4. Speech acts can be classified according to their origin as either primary
(natural) speech acts or secondary (institutional) speech acts.
Re 5: Literal meaning is always language-specific. The meaning of an
utterance of a sentence s of language L is said to be literal iff it is only com-
posed of the meanings of the words and phrases in s in accordance with the
syntactic conventions in L. It is, however, not always clear what the meaning
of the words and phrases in s actually is, because the words may have different
meanings, and because their meaning often depel,lds on the context c of the
utterance. For example, the meaning of indexical expressions such as I, here,
now in an utterance, or the meaning of anaphoric expression such as he,
then, that in an utterance depends on c. Even words such as enough, but,
otherwise, big, can, and many others, have a context-dependend meaning,
i.e. their meaning includes a context variable x.
Let me introduce the notion of a neutral context Co of a sentence s. This
context is a proper part of the full context c of any proper utterance of s.
The neutral context Co of s provides all the features which are necessary to
determine the values of each context variable x in the meanings of words or
phrases in s. This means that a neutral context does not affect the proposi-
tional structure of s, and that it contributes nothing to the illocutionary force
of the utterance of s.
We can, now, redefine our notion of literal meaning. The meaning of an
utterance of a sentence s of language L is literal iff the context used to
determine the meaning is neutral with respect to s.
The meaning of an utterance of s is non-literal iff, in order to derive the
meaning, a richer context c is used than the neutral context Co of s.
Derivations of a non-literal meaning always make use of the literal meaning
and of certain contextual premisses. These include perceptual knowledge,
knowledge of the preceding context and of the respective state of interaction,
knowledge of the relevant discourse type, of the speech act pattern and of
the institutional background, knowledge about the world and about the
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 299

experiences and mental states of the participants, about preferences, and

about the general principles of cooperation. It is the task of the universal
theory of speech acts to specify the general structure of these inference
procedures. (Cf. for example Grice's notion of implicature, in Grice 1975,
and Wunderlich's generalized notion of a practical inference in Wunderlich,
1976b.)

3. LANGUAGE SPECIFIC PROPERTIES

The language specific part of speech act theory deals with the following
topics:
(1) the language specific devices utilized in speech acts;
(2) the phenomenology of language specific speech act patterns,
complex speech units, and discourse types;
(3) the phenomenology of language specific institutional speech acts;
(4) the phenomenology of language specific indirect speech act
routines and indirect speech act formulas;
(5) the language specific classification of speech acts on the basis of
1-4.
In a language like German it is possible to distinguish at least the following
classes of linguistic means which all serve to indicate the type of speech act
at hand:
(a) grammatical mood, (b) explicit performative formulas, (c) reference
to another (speech) act in the sequence, (d) expression of a mental state
connected with the speech act, (e) implicit contextual realization.
In German, grammatical mood is mainly characterized by the position
of the inflected verb, by the position of the subject phrase, and by fmal
intonation. In addition to the unmarked and most general declarative mood,
the interrogative and the imperative mood, one may identify two further
moods, the exclamatory mood and the optative mood. They are, however,
less frequently used, and morphologically they constitute subordinate elliptic
clauses with verb fmal position. Examples:
Wie bla,6 du aussiehst! (How pale you are!)
Ware er doch gekommen! (If only he had come!)
Let me postpone for a moment the discussion of the performative formulas.
The other three means (c-e) are utilized to indirectly perform speech acts.
Examples:
300 DIETER WUNDERLICH

(c) Willst du mir sagen, wie alt du bist?

(Will you tell me, how old you are?)

The speaker thematizes the answer to a question, hence his utterance may
count as a question about the addressee's age.
(d) Ich wi.i{he gerne, wie alt du bist.
(I would like to know how old you are.)
The speaker expresses his wish which can be satisfied by providing the in-
formation about age. For a discussion of this type, of Searle, 1975.
(e) Es gibt Kinder, die kennen noch nicht mal ihr Alter!
(There are kids who do not even know their age!)
Du gehst ja noch nicht mal zur Schule!
(literally: You are not yet going to school! - uttered to a 8 year
old girl forces her to demur and to reveal her school age.)
There are, of course, many other ways of indirectly expressing speech acts,
which have to be accounted for by a more elaborate phenomenology.
Performative verbs, i.e. verbs usable in an explicit performative formula,
are a proper subset of speech act designating verbs. A starting point for a
language specific classification of speech acts (or aspects, functions, or
complex units of speech acts) would be a careful inspection of the whole
set of speech act designating verbs. This, however, has not been done for any
language so far. There is no doubt whatsoever that speech act theory can
profit from a phenomenology of the language-specific speech act phenomena
mentioned under 2-4. But it seems to me that an examination of the use of
explicit performative formulas would be an inappropriate starting point for
speech act theory in general, and even for a language specific study of speech
acts, for several reasons:
(a) Most speech acts, particularly those of the non-institutional kind, are
more frequently realized by grammatical mood or by indirect or implicit
means, than by a performative formula.
(b) There are particular conditions of use connected with performative
formulas.
- Some speech acts cannot be performed by the use of a performative
formula at all.
- Some formulas can only be used if the uptake of a preceding utterance
has become problematic or dissentive.
- Some formulas are only used in executing institutional routines.
 SPEECH ACT THEOR Y 301

- The possible use or non-use of performative formulas is due to historical

change and diatopic variations.
(c) Performative formulas have an intricate semantic status which is not
yet clear. Normally, a performative formula is used non-assertively, i.e. it
expresses as a whole nothing which can be proved to be true or false in the
given context. There are at least three different approaches to escape this
trap in a reasonable way.
(i) The use of performative formula counts as a declaration in Searle's
sense. It brings about something true, provided the speech act was sincerely
performed. The formula denotes in every normal use the truth brought about
(cf. Heim 1977).
(li) The performative formula provides a non-assertive comment (or
specification) on the role which the subordinate propositional content is
supposed to play in the interaction stage (cf. Wunderlich 1976a). Such an
account seems to be necessary on independent grounds in the case of hedged
performatives.

"Unfortunately, I must confess that p."

Here the speaker confesses that p and he makes a comment to the effect that
there is some necessity which forces him to confess that p, and that he
deplores that such a necessity exists. Along the same lines we could say:
the speaker asserts that p, and he qualifies his assertion by saying that it is
done in the mode of confessing.
(iii) The speaker uses the performative formula assertively. In language,
however, a general detachment rule operates with the following effect: if
the speaker asserts a performative formula, then he wants to express its
subordinate propositional content (cf. de Comulier, 1977).
Hence the factual effect of the performative formula is to modify (or to
specify) this propositional content.
In a language specific investigation of speech acts, particularly in the
empirical study of discourse, one has to overcome some problems to which
I shall tum presently. This might be done partly on the basis of a pre-estab-
lished theory, partly on the basis of more precise empirical insights. Let me
summarize these problems under the following labels:
(a) The demarcation problem: One has to delimit individual speech acts
from the continuous flow of speech. Has every, even minimal, turn the status
of a speech act of its own? Or is it the sentence which we need as the minimal
syntactic unit for conveying a speech act? If this is so, how can we establish
302 DIETER WUNDERLICH

the notion of sentence vis-a-vis spoken language? Do complex sentences

convey just one speech act, or perhaps more than one?
(b) The identification problem: One has to identify the delimited speech
acts as belonging to one or another speech act type. What criteria has an
utterance to fulfil in order to be identified as a speech act of type A rather
than of type B? Are there any other labels for speech acts than the normal
predicates (verbs etc.) that are used in reporting that utterance in the language
under consideration?
(c) The classification problem (This problem is tightly interrelated with
the identification problem): One has to establish a workable classificatory
scheme for speech acts which can be found in a certain kind of discourse.
How many classes or types of speech acts would we want to distinguish?
What are the distinctive criteria, and to which degree are they independent
on each other? On which theoretical framework do we want to base our
classification?
(d) The specification problem (This problem arises only in connection
with the identification and the classification problem): For each class of
speech acts, one has to deal with a whole range of subtypes that may differ
in various respects. What are the criteria for subtypes? Which verbal means
serve to specify the conveyed speech act, and in which respect? What is the
respective strength of the illocutionary force and of the commitment brought
about? And, fmally, what is the social bias of the speech act?
(e) The (de)composition problem: One has to distinguish between simple
and more complex speech acts which may be composed of simple speech
acts. What is the relationship between simple speech acts in a complex speech
unit? Which types of complex units do we have to distinguish, and what are
their characteristic composition structures?
if) The projection problem: One has to relate the verbal means, words and
constructions, with the sentence meaning, described in terms of possible
speech acts performed by an utterance of that sentence. Which verbal means
contribute to the kind of speech act (to its illocutionary force), which ones
contribute to the related propOSitional content, which ones contribute to the
placement of the speech act in the discourse, which ones comment on the
speech act itself or on the mental states connected with the speech act? What
is the interrelationship between these different components of speech?
From the above sununary of these problems it becomes quite clear that
most of them have hitherto not yet been settled to any degree. The questions
I asked may, however, function as a methodological guide for a more precise
and a more empirically based study of speech acts.
 SPEECH ACT THEOR Y 303

4. ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS IN

SPEECH ACT THEOR Y

The notion of speech act theory, as I understand it, is not on a par with the
notion of pragmatics of natural languages. Speech act theory includes both a
semantical and a pragmatical part.
Let me shortly discuss two positions about the distinction of semantics
and pragmatics put forth on the 12th International Congress of Linguists
in the speeches of John Lyons' and Renate Bartsch's. According to Lyons,
semantics is concerned with the meaning of sentences described in terms of
grammatical form, whereas pragmatics is concerned with the meaning of
utterances described in terms of their function. The puzzle with this position
is that there is nearly no meaning at all, be it the meaning of words or the
meaning of constructions that can be described independently on any context
of use. Even the central notion of semantics, the notion of truth, cannot be
established without reference to a possible utterance situation.
Indeed, semantics has to deal with grammatical form but it must also
deal with its contribution to the function of utterances. Furthermore, prag-
matics has indeed to deal with the function of utterances, but it must also
consider the complex interrelationship of the grammatical form of sentences
uttered with other factors of the utterance situation that contribute to the
function.
On the other hand, Bartsch claimed that semantics deals with truth condi-
tions, whereas pragmatics deals with expressions that do not contribute to
truth conditions. Now, the puzzle with this position is that there would be a
large number of sentences, the meaning of which could not be described
within semantics. In the end, Bartsch's position would mean that only
propositional content is the subject matter of semantics; whereas none of
the other verbal means that do not directly contribute to the propositional
content can be the subject matter of semantics. The truth, however, is that in
semantics, truthfunctional methods are indeed predominant, but there are
phenomena that do not themselves contribute to the propositional content,
and hence to the truth conditions of an utterance, but which can nevertheless
be described by means of essentially truth functionally based methods. In
pragmatics other methods are predominant, for example Gricean implicatures
or practical reasonings of the speaker and the hearer.
Obviously, Lyons' position is more linguistically oriented in the traditional
sense of semantics where semantics is conceived of as the theory of meaning
(of sentences); whereas Bartsch's position is more logically oriented in the
304 DIETER WUNDERLICH

Tarskian sense of semantics where semantics is considered to be the theory of

truth conditions exclusively. My own position is somewhere in between.
In my view, semantics deals with literal meaning, i.e. with the interpreta-
tion of sentences or sentence fragments in a neutral context, which only
provides the values of contextual variables occuring in the description of
sentence meaning. Hence I am subscribing to Bartsch's view insofar as I think
that semantics is always concerned with utterances, but with utterances of
sentences in a neutral context. As far as illocutionary force is concerned, I
think that satisfaction conditions, though they differ from truth conditions,
can be defmed in terms of truth conditions. For example, the order brought
about by an utterance of the type "do a!" is satisfied iff it is true of the
addressee some time after the utterance that he performs the action a.
On the other hand, pragmatics deals with the interpretation of sentences
(or utterances) in a richer context, which includes the understanding of the
preceding discourse, the beliefs and expectations which speakers and hearers
have, their social relationship, their state of obligations, their state of knowl-
edge etc. Hence, pragmatics is concerned with all kinds of non-literal meaning,
but also with the perlocutionary effects, i.e. with the conclusions a hearer
draws from an utterance and with the consequential reactions of the hearer,
independently of whether the speaker intends to induce these conclusions
and consequences or not.
As I have demonstrated, there are speech acts that can be marked by
grammatical means: questions, requests, assertions, and most speech acts
which are performed by the use of an explicit performative formula. In their
fundamental characteristics these speech acts can be treated on the semantic
level. My proposal now is that the main classes of speech acts should be
defined within the semantics of grammatical mood. All possible specifications
of a speech act type, or its subclasses, will then be the subject matter of prag-
matics, e.g. the specifications of the difference between commands and en-
treaties within the directive type.
On the other hand, there seem, to be speech acts that can only be treated
on a pragmatic level, though they are not subtypes of one of the semantically
defmed types. An example are advices and warnings. In general, unless they
are realized by using the words "advice" or "warn", the only difference
between them lies in the fact that the advice predicts a subsequent event
which is favourable in the light of the addressee's interests, whereas the
warning predicts a subsequent event which is against the addressee's pre-
ferences . Normally it is thus implicitly imputed that the addressee, like any
normal person, would have such and such preferences.
 SPEECH ACT THEOR Y 305

Turn left, and you will get to the police control point.

Is the utterance of this sentence an advice, or a warning? Obviously it depends

on whether the addressee would like (or is expected to like) to meet the
police control or would rather like to avoid it (cf. Wunderlich 1976a; 1977 a).

5. ANALYSIS OF A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION - AN

ILLUSTRATION OF SOME PROBLEMS OF SPEECH ACT THEORY

Original transcription adapted from the Freiburg Corp~s

(Alltagsgesprache, 1975,68 f.)
1 E: Muller
2 [R: Eugen, da bin ich schon wieder
E: ja
3 [R: du, Eugen
E: ja
4 R: ich hab mir das uberlegt
5 es ist doch vielleicht viel besser, wenn ich zu dir reinkomme
6 E: ((niest»
7 R: ich sitze da in meinem Auto
8 und mir pfeift der Wind nicht urn die Ohren
9 E: Ach so, nein nein
10 ich ich fahr gem ein biPchen
11 R: ach so,ja, wenn du gerne fiihrst
12 E: naja, eben, ja, doch, doch
13 [E: ich mocht gem ein biPchen fahren
R: ach so ja ja
14 R: ich wollte dir nur sagen
15 sonst ware ich zu dir gekommen
16 ne?
rR:
E: och, das ist aber auch sehr nett
17 [E: ne?
R: nicht? fmdest du?
18 E,R: ((lachen»
19 [E: und n biPchen Bewegung Bewegung mu(3 ich haben
R: ja, ja ja,ja
20 E: ich bin jetzt vier Wochen nur gesessen
21 das hei{3t vier,ja vier Wochen
306 DIETER WUNDERLICH

22 [E: ja
R: ja, hm, hm, gut, Eugen, dann bis gleich
23 E: ja
24 [E: bis ein Uhr, nicht?
R: ne? ja!
25 [E: mit gemahlenem Kaffee
R: tschtij3
26 E: «(hustet,lacht»
27 R: ja,ja, ja
28 E: grti{3 dich
29 R: bis dann

Approximate translation
I E:Muller!
2 R:Eugen, here I am again.
3 Listen, Eugen,
4 I have thought it over:
5 it is perhaps much better, if I come [into town] to your place.
6 E: «sneezes»
7 R: I will be sitting in my car,
8 and the wind won't blow around my ear.
9 E: Oh, I see; no, no -
10 I want to ride a little bit.
11 R: Oh, I see; yes, if you want to ride!
12 E: Well,just that; yes, indeed,
13 I want to ride a little bit.
14 R: I just wanted to tell you;
15 otherwise I would have come to your place.
16 E: Oh, that's very kind.
17 [E: Isn't it?
R: Is it? You think so?
18 E,R: «(laugh»
19 E: and I need some exercise:
20 I have been doing nothing but sitting down for four weeks.
22 R: Yes, hm, hm, well, Eugen, see you later!
23 E: Well,
24 one o'clock, okay?
25 E : With ground coffee!
rR: Ciao.
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 307

26 E: ((coughs, laughs»
27 R: Okay.
28 E: Take care.
29 R: See you later.
Let me discuss this little piece of telephone conversation at some length. I
want to point out some of its properties which may, I hope, well induce a
rethinking of our present conception of speech act theory.
This call was preceded by another one, in which E took the initiative. E
told R that he had just returned from his Christmas-vacation, and that he
would be glad to have a little chat with R. E suggested he would ride on his
bike out to R's place, which R accepted. They arranged that E should bring
along some coffee powder. Both E and R are male academics.
Utterance 2 of R, "Eugen, da bin ich schon wieder", serves to identify
the speaker. The demonstrative "da" ('here') refers to the utterance itself.
"schon wieder" ('already again') takes up the presupposition that they spoke
to each other some time ago, and R comments on this by saying that the time
between this last conversation and the new one is much less than what might
have been expected. Hence, the utterance implicitly refers back to the earlier
conversation, and in doing so it makes the speaker identifiable. The speech
act type of R's utterance cannot be determined easily; we might conceive of
it as being of the representative type. However, the utterance displays the
truth of its propositional conte~t, namely that it is R who is 'now (back) on
line (Le. the utterance is self-verifying), and it does not inform of or assert a
certain state of affairs. It does, however, inform of the identity of the speaker
himself. In any case, Searle's condition that the speaker tries to make the
world fit with the words makes no sense here. Nor does the speaker try to
establish a correspondence between the world and the words, since it is true
from the very beginning that it is he who speaks.
The next part of R's turn, "du, Eugen" (3), is not covered by Searle's
classification of speech acts either. This vocative serves to attract the hearer's
attention and to signal a certain social recognition.
R's utterance 4 "ich hab mir das iiberlegt", indicates the purpose of the
whole conversation. Literally, R asserts the performance of a certain mental
process. The pronoun "das" refers both backwards to the appointments
made in the earlier conversation, and forwards to the result of R's considera-
tion, which he now wants to present. Hence, the point of the utterance is not
so much to describe R's mental efforts, it rather functions as a preparatory
formula. That is, it is a means of speech organization and a means of directing
the hearer's perception process. It also contributes to an explanation (or
308 DIETER WUNDERLICH

justification) of R's conversation initiative, since something that one has

thought over might be of common interest.
R's next utterance 5, "es ist doch vielleicht viel besser, wenn ich zu dir
reinkomme", presents the result of his consideration. With the particle
"doch" the speaker tries to correct some of the hearer's suppositions ("con-
trary to what you or we might have thought I came to the conclusion ... ,
on the basis of premisses which, I think, you will share"). The sentential
adverb "vielleicht" ('perhaps') makes the strength of the statement dependent
on further considerations, in this case - as we shall see - dependent on the
hearer's attitude. From the word "besser" we learn that R is comparing two
alternatives of action. The first one is the content of the previous appoint-
ment,

I: that E rides on his bike over to R's place.

The second one is introduced in the conditional sentence and is made more
precise in the connected utterance 7,

II. that R comes (drives) to E's place.

The utterance evaluates alternative II as being possibly more convenient (or

more adequate, or more preferable) than I. But II refers to a future action of
R as well. Hence, if it is true that R submits to E something for consideration
he places himself under the commitment to perform in due course the action
of alternative II. At first sight, the utterance 5 can be classified as an evalua-
tion, maybe even as an evaluative assertion, but this does not seem to meet
the ultimate purpose of the utterance. It occurs to me that in some sense the
type (and, in addition, the respective strength) of the speech act in question
has not been fully determined by utterance 5 itself. The very type of the
speech act remains to be clarified by the further interplay between the
participants.
In his utterance 7+8 R describes conditions which can be assumed to hold
during R's considered motion to E's place. This utterance is clearly related to
the preceding one. R makes an argument in terms of convenience which is an
argument pro alternative II and contra alternative I ("You will be sitting on
your bike, and therefore the wind will blow around your ears"). The utterance
serves to transmit to E the proposal that R would be ready to drive in place
of E in order to save E from an inconvenience. In the light of this backing
argument, utterance 5 turns out to be an offer of a certain kind:
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 309

If there are two alternatives of action at hand, and if, under the
general point of convenience, alternative II would be better than
alternative I, then I am ready to perform alternative II - unless
you have a strong inclination towards alternative I.

The pragmatic function of this speech act of offering can be described in

4 points.

(1) The speech act conventionally initiates a speech act sequence. An

offer is expected to be followed either by an acceptance, or a
refusal, or a further elaboration of the point or of the conditions
of the offer.
(2) On the basis of 1, the speaker expects the addressee to consider
the content of the offer, and to be informed about the results
of these considerations. The point of an offer is to induce mental
processes in the addressee's mind which lead to a decision, but
the decision is left up to the addressee. It is not the point of an
offer to get the addressee to accept the content of the offer
(whereas, for intance, the point of a request is to get the addressee
to accept its content and to take over the desired action, and the
point of a promise is to get the addressee to accept its content,
and to put the speaker himself under an obligation). From this we
can see that the offer is a kind of speech act which cannot be
handled within the framework of Searle's classification.
(3) The speaker commits himself to perform the respective action in
case the addressee will accept the content of the offer. This
property makes an offer comparable to a promise.
(4) The speaker signals his acknowledgement of a certain social
relationship with the addressee; in this case he indicates his wil·
ingness to save the addressee from an inconvenience.

The reaction of the addressee, E, consists of three steps. In the first step, E
asserts his own preference, which is opposed to the assumption of R (9-13).
In the second step E reacts to R's renewal of the offer (14-15) by appre·
ciating R's attitude (16-18). The mutual confirmation of this reaction comes
about in general laughter. Finally, E reacts in a third step by explaining his
preference, and hence his refusal of the offer, with a substantial argument
('I need some exercise since 1 have been doing nothing but sitting down for
four weeks') (19-20).
It is only after this that R really accepts E's refusal, showing this by
310 DIETER WUNDERLICH

uttering the pre-closing formula "dann bis gleich" (22). In order to re-establish
the social balance, so to speak, E subsequently confirms the other parts of
the appointment made in the earlier conversation. We have to take his utte-
rance 24-25 "bis 1 Uhr, mit gemahlenem Kaffee" partly as reminders (which
can perhaps be considered a proper subtype of assertions, but which also
share some of the properties of a request), partly as confirmations. E seems
to wish to express his willingness to carry out the responsibilities stemming
from the earlier appointment, inspite of his refusing to accept R's offer.
Let me come back to R's utterances 14-15. "ich wollte dir nur sagen"
(14) plays a similar preparatory role to "ich hab mir ·das uberlegt" (4). Most
important in my view is R's utterance 15: "sonst ware ich zu dir gekommen"
('otherwise I would have come to your place'). On the one hand R seems to
consider his offer to be obsolete, and its content to be counterfactual vis-a-
vis E's preferences. On the other hand R seems to regard E's refusal as not yet
definitive: R not only explains his initiative once more, he also maintains
his offer. R gives E the opportunity to consider his offer again. The proposi-
tional content of the offer is firstly made explicit in the context-dependent
conjunction "sonst" ('otherwise'), which means here: 'in case you would not
have liked to ride'.
As I have outlined in Wunderlich (1977a, p. 32), the offer can be viewed
as a speech act belonging to the conditional type . These speech acts interfere
with the addressee's planning of actions in that their propositional content,
which is a conditional, supplies the addressee with a certain cognitive premise
that he can use in his practical inferences. The propositional content of the
offer in question may be rendered as follows:
If you don't want to ride over to my place, then
I shall go by car to your place.
Obviously this conditional cannot remain without reaction. At least the
addressee is expected to express his attitude explicitly to that which is
hypothesized in the antecedent. Without such a (contextually or explicitly
given) antecedent concerning the attitude of the addressee the utterance
would not be an offer.
Let me summarize in what respects speech act theory can profit from
this very rough inspection of a real telephone conversation.
I. It requires a large amount of experience to delimit and to adequately
identify individual speech acts in a conversation. Obviously there are speech
acts that pose serious problems for any classificatory scheme of speech acts
hitherto developed in that they are either not covered by the classification, or
 SPEECH ACT THEORY 311

that they are sharing properties of more than one of the classes, while other
properties required by the analysis are missing. In particular, there are peculiar
speech acts which have to do with the interactional ongoing of a conversation
and with the continuous establishment of a socially balanced relationship.
2. Occasionally speech acts seem to be performed only tentatively. They
may in the sequel be overshadowed or changed in strength and liability.
Mutual reactions and confIrmations contribute to a clearer elaboration of the
intended speech act. The conversation discussed above shows two examples
of this kind. The initiator, R, needs three steps to elaborate and to maintain
his offer (4-5, 7-8, 14-15), and, likewise, for E it takes a series of three
reactions to make his refusal of the offer acceptable (9-10 + 12-13, 16-17,
19-21).
3. (a) A speech act may convey another speech act.
(b) Complex speech acts may be composed of more elementary
speech acts.
(c) Some speech acts are identifIable only on the basis of their
position in a sequence.
In our telephone conversation an evaluative statement (5), together with its
backing argument (7-8), turns out to convey an offer:
It is perhaps better, if I come into town to your place
(because )
I will be sitting in my car, and the wind won't blow around my
ears;
(whereas if you will be sitting on your bike, the wind will blow
around your ears).
(Therefore, I am ready to drive into town to your place, unless
you have an inclination to ride out to my place.)
And likewise, the preferential statement (10, 13), together with a backing
argument (19-21), turns out to be a refusal in the context of the preceding
offer:
I want to ride on my bike
(since)
I need some exercise
(since)
I have been doing nothing but sitting down for four weeks
(therefore, you need not drive to my place: i.e., I don't accept
your offer.)
312 DIETER WUNDERLICH

Obviously, a preferential statement by itself neither conveys a refusal nor

an acceptance. TIrls can only be done by taking into account the preceding
context as well. One might assume that the subsequent refusal is already
indicated by E's utterance "nein, nein" (9); this utterance by itself, however,
cannot constitute a refusal, since the scope of the negation is not yet clear.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am grateful to Florian Coulmas and Ferenc Kiefer for helpful comments.

Dusseldorf. 1977. This article does not render my present views (Nov. 1979).

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