Definition
The term speech act refers to the action speakers sometimes perform when using language. It is a concept which is first introduced by Austin (1962) and then developed by Searle (1969). Austin (ibid) asserts that saying something may mean performing an action. He disagrees with philosophers who believe that the issue of a statement is always either describing or stating and claims that the concern of utterances is sometimes to perform actions and not only stating facts. For example, in the statement: ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth' (Austin, 1962, p. 5), the speaker here in appropriate conditions, according to Austin, neither describes nor informs what s/he is doing; rather s/he is performing the action of naming the ship.
Speech acts are interactions between speakers and hearers. They are utterances that have a role in communication. Thus, offering a request, greeting, refusal, apology, etc., means performing a speech act.
