A perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect) is the effect of an

utterance In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, by one person, before or after which there is silence on the part of the person. In the case of oral language, spoken languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded ...

on an interlocutor. Examples of perlocutionary acts include persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise affecting the interlocutor. The perlocutionary effect of an utterance is contrasted with the

locutionary act In linguistics and the philosophy of language, a locutionary act is the performance of an utterance, and is one of the types of force, in addition to illocutionary act and perlocutionary act, typically cited in Speech Act Theory. Speech Act Theor ...

, which is the act of producing the utterance, and with the

illocutionary force The concept of illocutionary acts was introduced into linguistics by the philosopher J. L. Austin in his investigation of the various aspects of speech acts. In his framework, ''locution'' is what was said and meant, ''illocution'' is what was done ...

, which does not depend on the utterance's effect on the interlocutor. As an example, consider the following utterance: "By the way, I have a CD of

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

; would you like to borrow it?" Its illocutionary function is an ''offer'', while its intended perlocutionary effect might be to impress the interlocutor, or to show a friendly attitude, or to encourage an interest in a particular type of music. The actual perlocutionary effect can be different from the intended perlocutionary effect. The speaker of such a sentence may intend to exhibit a friendly attitude, but a listener might become irritated if they suppose the speaker's intention is snobbishly to impress them.

References

Linguistics Pragmatics Oral communication Discourse analysis {{pragmatics-stub