Indirect speech acts

Abstract

Many philosophers have developed a theory of speech acts, which refers to the many functions performed by utterances as part of interpersonal communications. This paper reviews a considerable amount of psychological studies on speech acts, particularly on indirect speech acts where the speaker communicates requests by virtue of asking questions to the addressee. Finally, orientations for future research are proposed, the most important being connected to problems in the experimental paradigm related to an examination of indirect speech acts. © 1991, The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology. All rights reserved.