P.F. Strawson: "Intention and Convention in Speech Acts" (1964)

One early important contribution to the definition of "illocutionary act" is PF Strawson's "Intention and Convention in Speech Acts". It starts from a skeptical attitude towards Austin's construal of "illocutionary acts" as "conventional" acts. According to Strawson, it is "clear" that "there are many cases in which it is not as conforming to an accepted  [convention] that an illocutionary act is performed" (1964, 443). Strawson concludes that some 'illocutionary acts' are not conventional in the present sense (443-5). (Notably, Strawson seems to presume that he possesses certain knowledge which acts actually are 'illocutionary' and which are not; otherwise he would surely rather conclude that the relevant acts actually are not "illocutionary acts", rather than conclude, as he does, that the notion of an "illocutionary act" must be adapted. )

As a consequence, Strawson suggests that there be two (very different) varieties of 'Speech Acts'. There are those acts which are performed according to an accepted convention ('institutional acts', as they would be called today); and there is another variety of 'illocutionary act', which is not performed according to such a convention (cases of 'speaker meaning' in one of the senses addressed by Grice in "Maning" (1957); for details click here).

To convince us that Austin himself might have admitted this second variety of "speech acts" (or "illocutionary acts"), he presents a (somewhat dubious) argument: He focuses on one isolated, rather obscure passage in Austin's text, according to which the illocutionary act is said to be "conventional in the sense that at least it could be made explicit by the performative formula". He points out (quite rightly) that this sense of 'conventional' is not the sense of being an institutional act. Then he (445-6) introduces a tentative equation between the notion of 'a speaker's meaning something' (in one of the senses addressed in Grice's "Meaning") and Austin's notion of the "securing of uptake". He (447) adds a tentative equation between this variety of speaker meaning and an "attempt at communication". He finally arrives at the proposal that there are two (essentially different) kinds of phenomenon worth calling "illocutionary acts". The first one is that "conventional" action which Austin picked out, according to Strawson; the second variety, however, "is not essentially a conventional act". It is either an attempt to communicate something, or an act of successful communication (an attempt at communication which achieves the 'securing of uptake'; cf. ibid., 458).

The result is

Leaving out some lack of clarity in the details, there is one striking upshot: To Strawson's mind, there are two different kinds of 'Illocutionary Acts'. On the one hand, there are institutional "illocutionary" acts (it is unclear if additional features, such as the 'securing of uptake', are supposed to play a role here); on the other hand, there are acts closely connected (in some way not precisely specified) with attempted communication, or achieved communication and Grice's notion of meaning something by an utterance. Apparently, the two varieties of 'Illocutionary Acts', so construed, are indeed very different--so different that you may ask what, actually the common element is supposed to be which may lead us to the application of the term "illocutionary" in both cases. 

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Grice, H.P. (1957), "Meaning", The Philosophical Review 66/3, 377-388.

Strawson, P.F., "Intention and Convention in Speech Acts", The Philosophical Review 73/4, 439-460.