American Research Journal of English and Literature

This paper is an integrative appraisal of Searle’s speech act theory. The nature of speech acts makes them worthy of scholarly attention. Most speech acts are focused and directed as they are encoded by the speaker and decoded by the hearer. They are intended to have a certain point, and they are intended to be understood as such. This investigation explores Lawal’s Communicative Model Theory and Acheoah’s Pragma-crafting Theory to contend for a vibrant, all-encompassing speech act theory and establish the strengths and weaknesses of Searle’s speech act theory. This study finds that: the notions “speaker’s intention” and “linguistic convention” mentioned in Searle’s speech act theory are loosely used. Context-phenomenon is not extensively discussed in Searle’s theory in which speakers’ intention is the core. Without a context-sensitive, integrative theoretical framework, the investigation of the contextual nuances which determine the use and interpretation of language remains a futile endeavour. Like Austin’s speech act theory, Searle’s speech act theory strongly recommends “linguistic conventions” for the performance of speech acts at the expense of a wide range of discourse constraints.