Abstract

In the first part, will be presented the Austin’s distinction between constative/descriptive and performative statements. In the second part, will be presented the definition of felicity conditions of speech acts, being this is a condition of performative statement, that must be made so as the action of the speech act will be performed, being labeled the statement as successful and happy or unsuccessful and unhappy. In the third part will be discussed the Austin’s speech acts theory, divided into locutionary act ; illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. In the fourth part will be presented the contribution of Searle for the speech acts, classifying them in five categories: 1. Representative Act, 2. Direct Act, 3. Commissive Act, 4. Expressive Act and 5. Declarative Act, closing this restricted approach about the contribution of Austin and Searle to pragmatics and language, exposing not only the language as a description of the world, but as an active-performative entity before the physical world, in other words, a performative entity.