Page "Speech act" Paragraph 42

For much of the history of linguistics and the positivist philosophy of language, language was viewed primarily as a way of making factual assertions, and the other uses of language tended to be ignored.

The work of J. L. Austin, particularly his How to Do Things with Words, led philosophers to pay more attention to the non-declarative uses of language.

The terminology he introduced, especially the notions " locutionary act ", " illocutionary act ", and " perlocutionary act ", occupied an important role in what was then to become the " study of speech acts ".

All of these three acts, but especially the " illocutionary act ", are nowadays commonly classified as " speech acts ".