Reparation as perlocution --- What an interesting example, thank you!

I would classify reparation as a so-called 'perlocution', in that it is a possible outcome but not a necessary one since financial compensation is not an integral part of an apology.

However, in a culture where reparation is expected, the boundary becomes fuzzy between what is being promised implicitly (in this case this would be the illocution) and what is subsequently delivered.

In linguistic theory, perlocution has proven so difficult to quantify and therefore controversial that it has been pretty much dropped from linguistic analysis. This has simply shifted the goalpost from linguistics to sociology.

Source author: Biljana Scott biscott@diplomacy.edu