Utterance act

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Utterance act

Utterance act: The utterance of words; a type of speech act. Introducing the term in Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969), American “ordinary-language” philosopher John R. Searle maintained that utterance acts “consist simply in uttering strings of words.” Thus, an utterance act occurs whenever someone says something, regardless of whether or not it makes sense.