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Article In:
The Speech Act(ion) of Commenting in Social Media and Beyond
Edited by Robert Külpmann and Rita Finkbeiner
[Pragmatics & Cognition 31:2] 2024
► pp. 294–317

Is commenting an expositive illocutionary act?

ORCID logo | University of Trieste
The paper outlines an analysis of the act of commenting within the author’s Austin-inspired speech-act theoretical framework. The general lines of that framework are concisely expounded, and it is suggested that the act of commenting should be described as belonging to Austin’s Expositives. The preliminary problem whether the act of commenting is illocutionary at all (given the absence of a performative use of the verb “to comment”) is discussed, and it is argued that nothing stands in the way of analyzing it as illocutionary. Some difficulties that can be found in dealing with commenting as an illocutionary act, concerning the variable linguistic form and the diversity of functions of the utterances that can be taken to be comments, are illustrated and discussed within the theoretical framework adopted. The characterization of commenting as having (among others) also a specifically expositive illocutionary effect is illustrated. Finally, some open problems worthy of further discussion are highlighted.
Keywords: speech acts, illocution, commenting, Expositives, J. L. Austin
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An Austin-inspired theoretical framework
  • 3.A preliminary hurdle to the analysis of commenting as an illocutionary act
  • 4.The variety of linguistic forms and functions of comments
    • i.Sentence type
    • ii.Size
    • iii.Lexicon
    • iv.Non-verbal means
      • a.Kinds of object
      • b.Purposes
      • c.Attitude expressed
      • d.Interactional functions
  • 5.How to account for the problems raised by the variety of form and function of comments
  • 6.The illocutionary effect of comments
  • 7.Concluding remarks
    • i.The illocutionary pluralism of comments
    • ii.How comments are made recognizable
    • iii.Pairs, triplets and the place of action
  • Note
  • Author queries
  • References
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