A Linguistic Critique of Sadock’s Speech Act Theory

Abstract

This study is a linguistic critique of Sadock’s (1974) speech act theory. Considering the fact that speaker-meaning is intentional content of speech act, deep and surface structure analyses which are essentially based on language structure/grammar, are worthy of scholarly attention. In such deep and surface structure analyses, propositional contents of clauses are brought to the fore. Sadock’s speech act theory is mainly a linguistic one. In his book, ‘Towards a Linguistic Theory of Speech Acts, Sadock contends that explicit performatives show that illocutionary forces cannot be ruled out of speech act theorizing. Arguably, Sadock’s speech act theory elucidates formal properties of language. This study hinges on two theoretical frameworks: Ogden and Richards Concept of Meaning and Transformational Generative Grammar. The study concludes that although Sadock’s speech act theory is a suitable framework for understanding illocutionary act/illocutionary force within clause-structure and grammar constsraints of language, it does not emphasize the pragmatic underpinnings of human communication.