Definition:
A perlocutionary act is the consequential effect that an utterance produces on the thoughts, emotions, or behaviors of the listener. It is the third level of J.L. Austin’s speech act theory, distinguished from the locutionary act (the utterance itself) and the illocutionary act (the communicative intent/force). Perlocutionary effects include: persuading, convincing, frightening, amusing, reassuring, inspiring, deceiving, and so on — whatever the listener actually thinks, feels, or does as a result of the utterance. The crucial distinction from illocutionary acts is that perlocutionary effects are not directly under the speaker’s control — they depend on the listener’s interpretation, psychological state, background knowledge, and response.
The Three-Level Framework
For the utterance: “You should really try the new Japanese restaurant downtown.”
| Level | What it is |
|---|---|
| Locutionary | The utterance with its grammatical structure and literal meaning (a restaurant is recommended) |
| Illocutionary | The act of recommending / suggesting |
| Perlocutionary | The listener is persuaded; they decide to go — OR — they feel annoyed at unsolicited advice; they ignore it |
The speaker can control the illocutionary force (they intend to recommend). The speaker cannot directly control the perlocutionary effect — the listener may be persuaded, resistant, confused, or indifferent.
Why Perlocutionary Acts Are Different
Austin emphasized that illocutionary acts are conventional — their force is determined by social convention and the speaker’s intent, and they are performed (even if not “successfully” in every sense) when the right conditions hold. Perlocutionary effects are non-conventional — they are causal consequences that depend entirely on the specific listener in the specific context.
This means:
- You can succeed in performing an illocutionary act (genuinely warning someone) without achieving the intended perlocutionary effect (they don’t take the warning seriously)
- You can achieve a perlocutionary effect without intending to (accidentally frightening someone)
Perlocutionary Acts and Communication
In language use, speakers often aim for perlocutionary effects — they want to persuade, inform, amuse, comfort. But perlocutionary success is interactionally negotiated, not guaranteed by the utterance alone.
In rhetoric and persuasion: A key goal is to understand what perlocutionary effects different argument strategies produce on different listeners.
In L2 pragmatics: Learners need to understand that:
- Not all well-formed illocutionary acts produce the intended perlocutionary effect in L2 — pragmatic transfer and cultural expectations mediate listener responses
- Understanding indirect speech acts and implicature is essential to interpreting the perlocutionary intent behind utterances
Perlocutionary Acts in Japanese
In Japanese communication:
- The concept of tatemae (public stance) and honne (true feelings) is related to the gap between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts — speakers may perform an illocutionary act (agreement) while the perlocutionary effect is understood as concealed refusal
- Reading the intended perlocutionary effect behind indirect communication is a key cultural-pragmatic competence for Japanese learners
History
The perlocutionary act was defined by J.L. Austin in How to Do Things with Words (1962) as the third level of his speech act framework. While the locutionary act is the act of saying something meaningful and the illocutionary act is the act performed in saying it (requesting, promising, warning), the perlocutionary act is the actual effect produced on the hearer — persuading, frightening, amusing, inspiring. Searle (1969) noted that perlocutionary effects are not conventionally encoded in the utterance (unlike illocutionary force) but depend on context, hearer state, and the relationship between speakers. This made the perlocutionary act the most difficult level to systematize within speech act theory.
Common Misconceptions
“The perlocutionary effect is what the speaker intended.”
The perlocutionary act is the actual effect on the listener, which may differ from the speaker’s intention. A warning (illocutionary act) intended to frighten (intended perlocution) might instead amuse the listener (actual perlocution). The gap between intended and actual perlocutionary effects is a core concern in cross-cultural communication.
“Every utterance has one perlocutionary effect.”
A single utterance can produce multiple simultaneous perlocutionary effects: a joke may amuse one listener, offend another, and confuse a third. The perlocutionary act is listener-dependent, not utterance-dependent.
“Perlocutionary effects are always immediate.”
Some perlocutionary effects are delayed — a persuasive argument may not change someone’s mind during the conversation but may influence their thinking later. Education is fundamentally a long-term perlocutionary enterprise.
“Perlocutionary acts are not important for language learners.”
Cross-cultural perlocutionary misfire — producing an unintended effect because you misjudged pragmatic conventions — is a major source of communication breakdown for L2 speakers. Understanding that your utterances produce effects beyond their literal meaning is pragmatically essential.
Criticisms
The perlocutionary act has been criticized as the least theoretically rigorous component of Austin’s framework. Because perlocutionary effects depend on the listener’s psychological state, beliefs, and interpretation rather than on linguistic convention, they are difficult to predict, categorize, or study systematically. This makes the perlocutionary act resistant to the kind of formal analysis that illocutionary acts have received.
Some speech act theorists have suggested that the perlocutionary act falls outside the scope of linguistics proper and belongs to pragmatics, psychology, or rhetoric. The boundary between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts has been questioned: the effects of conventional illocutionary acts (a promise creates an obligation) overlap with what might be classified as perlocutionary effects, creating classification ambiguity.
Social Media Sentiment
The perlocutionary act is virtually absent from language learning community discussions. Its relevance to learners surfaces indirectly in discussions about “how my message came across wrong” and cross-cultural communication failures — situations where the learner’s intended meaning produced an unintended perlocutionary effect due to pragmatic or cultural gaps.
The concept appears primarily in academic linguistics and philosophy of language courses, not in practical language learning contexts.
Practical Application
- Consider the likely effect of your utterances — Before speaking in formal or cross-cultural contexts, consider how your words will be received, not just what they mean. This is especially important for requests, refusals, and feedback.
- Learn the pragmatic conventions for your target culture — The same illocutionary act (e.g., refusing an invitation) may produce very different perlocutionary effects depending on how it is performed. Japanese indirect refusals are pragmatically expected; a direct “no” may produce a negative perlocutionary effect (offense) even though the literal meaning is clear.
- Monitor listener reactions — In conversation, attend to facial expressions, hesitations, and responses that signal whether your intended meaning is producing the expected effect.
- Study cross-cultural pragmatic norms — Pragmatic competence includes predicting perlocutionary effects across cultural boundaries. Explicitly study how speech acts are expected to be performed in your target language.
Related Terms
See Also
Research
Austin (1962) introduced the three-level speech act framework. Searle (1969, 1975) refined the analysis, noting that perlocutionary effects are “natural” consequences of utterances rather than conventional (rule-governed) features — distinguishing them from the conventionally encoded illocutionary force.
Cross-cultural pragmatic research (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989) in the CCSARP project documented systematic cross-cultural variation in how speech acts are performed and perceived — findings directly relevant to understanding cross-cultural perlocutionary effects. For SLA, Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (1993) documented cases where L2 speakers’ pragmatically inappropriate speech act performance produced negative perlocutionary effects (rejection of requests, damage to professional relationships) despite linguistically correct utterances.