1. Getting Started
Let’s explore five types of speech acts and how they’re used in contemporary poetry.
By the end of this module, you should be able to:
- write a poem of your own utilizing directives, commissives, or speech act variation
- identify five types of speech acts
2. Video: Introducing Speech Acts
Access a transcript of this video.
3. Speech Act Types
In 1976, philosopher John Searle defined five types of speech acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives.
An utterance from a speaker can be understood as belonging to one or more of these types.
Click through the speech act types below to find out more about them.
Access a transcript of this image reel.
4. Knowledge Check
(1) Expressive, (2) Assertive, (3) Declarative, (4) Directive, (5) Commissive
Great job. You nailed it. You’ve really got the hang of this “speech acts” thing.
That’s incorrect. Take a look at the order again, and try to match it.
5. Beyond Assertives
All poems employ speech acts. Because poetry often seeks to convey experiences, most poems rely on assertives (statement and description). But some poems go beyond stating and describing, engaging the reader in other ways.
Click the image on the left to read “How to Play FIGHT!” by Craig Morgan Teicher. Use the following questions to guide your reading:
- How do the directives feel as you read this poem?
- How does the use of directives here fit the poem’s subject?
- How might this poem feel different if the “game” were revealed via description rather than command?
6. Speech Acts for Engagement
While assertives can narrate events or experiences in poems, these forms of reader engagement are somewhat passive. Other speech acts elicit more immediate, surprising forms of engagement.
Click through the speech act types below to explore how they engage the reader.
Access a transcript of this image reel.
7. Knowledge Check
In the image below, click on the speech acts that create engagement via expressives, directives, or commissives.
Correct. In this famous line, Emily Dickinson uses a directive to create a sense of closeness between the speaker and the reader.
Incorrect. Although lovely, this famous line from William Wordsworth is an assertive speech act.
Correct. In these lines from “Lady Lazarus,” Sylvia Plath uses the repeated warning of “beware,” an expressive, to arrest the reader.
Correct. In “A Fantasy,” Louise Glück uses a commissive here to focus the reader’s attention.
Correct. In this line from “Dream Song 14,” John Berryman is using a commissive to contrast what is true with what we are permitted to say.
8. Speech Act Variation
Some poems create a sense of immediacy and engagement through speech act variation. In these poems, the speaker rotates through different types of speech acts in order to create surprise.
Click the image on the left to read “We Have the Technology” by Michael Robbins. Use the following questions to guide your reading:
- How many different kinds of speech acts can you identify in this poem?
- How does the speaker’s roulette-style oscillation between speech acts feel?
- How does the use of couplets mitigate the chaos of the poem’s clashing utterances?
9. Prompt: Employing Speech Acts
Write a poem that goes beyond stating or describing.
- Option 1: Write a poem composed entirely of directives in the form of questions or commands.
- Option 2: Write a poem composed entirely of commissives in the form of promises or predictions.
- Option 3: Write a poem that employs speech act variation, using no more than two assertives in a row.
Share the resulting poem with some fellow writers whose opinions you trust, either informally or in a workshop setting. Ask them (and yourself) the following:
- Where specifically does this poem use speech acts to engage the reader?
- How do these moments feel? Does this feeling serve to strengthen the poem?
- How could these moments be more effective?
- What else needs to happen to create purposeful engagement with the reader?
10. Quiz: Identifying Speech Acts
Want to test your knowledge? Try the following quiz. For each utterance provided, identify the correct type of speech act.
#1. “I pronounce you married.”
#2. “Walk away now.”
#3. “Farewell, Alaska.”
#4. “I’ll save you a seat.”
#5. “It was the coldest March on record.”
Results
Great work! You nailed this quiz.
It looks like you could use some more time for practice and review on this topic, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Consider working your way through this module once more, then try the quiz again.
Before You Go
Check out the following resources on speech acts:
- Green, Mitchell. (2021). “Speech Acts.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
- Searle, John. (2012). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press.
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