Speech act theory has developed within analytical philosophy, and its background is to be found in the work of philosophers such as Frege, Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin and H. P. Grice. The trend in philosophy of language and pragmatic research which is commonly called speech act theory, is characterized by two main ideas. One is that a distinction has to be drawn between the meaning expressed by an utterance and the way in which the utterance is used (i.e. its ‘force’) and the other is that utterances of every kind (assertions included) can be considered as acts.