locutionary

Locutionary refers to the act of producing a meaningful linguistic utterance—the words themselves, their surface form, and the literal semantic content conveyed by the sentence. In speech-act theory, the locutionary act is the actual utterance and its conventional meaning, including phonology, syntax, and the explicit proposition expressed.

The concept is best understood in contrast to illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, also described by J. L. Austin. The illocutionary act concerns the speaker’s intended function of the utterance, such as promising, ordering, or warning. The perlocutionary act concerns the effects the utterance has on a listener, such as convincing, persuading, orreeting. Thus, a single utterance can have distinct locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary dimensions.

Etymology stems from locution, from Latin locutio, meaning speech or utterance. The term locutionary is used primarily in philosophy of language and linguistics to distinguish the literal content of an utterance from its force and effects.

Example: Saying "It's raining" is a locutionary act—the surface form and literal content. The illocutionary force might be to inform or to warn about rain, and the perlocutionary effect could be someone grabbing an umbrella or changing plans. In contemporary pragmatics, locutionary content is often analyzed alongside illocutionary and perlocutionary aspects to understand how language functions beyond literal meaning.