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exclamatory) and the general communicative functions (statement, question,
command/request). Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a
function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship
between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act.

Relationship between syntactic form and illocutionary force

Utterance Syntactic form Illocutionary force
Do exercise 2. Imperative Directive
Where does Mary work? Wh-Interrogative Wh-Question
Do you know Mary's sister? Yes-No Interrogative Yes-No Question
It is dark Declatative Representative
You're fired. Declarative Declaration
How clever of you! Declarative Expressive

However, as we can see from the table, the correspondence between each of the
categories of illocutionary act and a particular syntactic form is not always one-to-one. In
some cases, there is only a partial correspondence:
 an imperative is used to issue directives;
 a yes-no interrogative is used to issue yes-no questions;
 a declarative form is used to issue representatives and commissives;
 an exclamatory is used to issue expressives.
In general, an illocutionary act is issued directly when the syntactic form of the utterance
matches the illocutionary force of the utterance. An illocutionary act is issued indirectly when
the syntactic form of the utterance does not match the illocutionary force of the utterance.
Thus, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a
declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act. The utterance It's cold
outside is a declarative when it is used to make a statement that can be paraphrased as I
hereby tell you about the weather and it is functioning as a direct speech act. When the
utterance It's cold outside is used to make a command/request, that can be paraphrased
as I hereby request of you that you close the door, it is functioning as an indirect speech
act.
Indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than
direct speech acts. In order to under-stand why, we have to look at a bigger picture than
just a single utterance performing a single speech act.

EXPRESSED AND IMPLIED LOCUTIONARY ACTS

The locutionary act is concerned with the propositional content of the utterance,
which is what follows the performative verb in an explicit performative and the entire
utterance in a nonexplicit performative. In the following example, the propositional content
is in italics.
a. Explicit: I promise I’ll write the report tomorrow.
b. Nonexplicit: I’ll write the report tomorrow.
The propositional content of a locutionary act can be either expressed directly or
implied via implicature. The propositional content is expressed if the utterance actually
contains an expression of the propositional content condition for the illocutionary act