Austin’s Distinction between Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts

Abstract

Towards the end of How to do Things with Words,¹in what may be regarded as the final version of his doctrine (so far as anything in the book can be called final), Austin makes a threefold distinction between locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. I shall not in this paper be saying much about the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, which I have maintained elsewhere in other terms.² I think it of great importance — which is not to say that it is entirely plain sailing; the neglect of this distinction has perhaps done more in recent years to confuse people, especially in ethics, than any other single mistake. However, I shall mention this distinction only in passing, and shall concentrate on the other, between locutionary and illocutionary acts — a distinction to which Austin attached equal importance, but which to me is so unclear that I am tempted to say that it cannot be sustained.