Illocutionary force

Illocutionary force is the effect a speech act has in the world. In certain situations, for example, merely uttering the words "I resign" effects one's resignation. In this example, the resignation is the illocutionary force of the utterance.

Some utterances' illocutionary force is less obvious: if someone says, "it sure is cold in here", the effect of the statement is contextual. It could be that the person is simply describing the room, in which case the illocutionary force would the description of the temperature of the room. If it is possible to change the environment, say by turning up the heat or closing a window, the person's intent may be to get someone else to do something about the cold, in which case the illocutionary force would be the other person's action.

See also

J. L. Austin -- linguistics -- performative utterance -- pragmatics -- semantics