Listen Up

There was one time wherein my two friends who were a couple, were making out at a mall. There were so many people and I felt embarrassed but then I didn't want to interfere their "make-out" scene so I stayed out of it. I noticed people were looking and staring at them, but then again, I didn't want to interfere so I was distracting myself with other things. Out of the blue, Unconsciously, I said "Ang dami ng tao oh!" They took it as something else. They thought what I meant was for them to stop because there were too many people. They said that if I wanted to say something, I should have said it directly to them in the first place. I quote "Hindi yung magpaparinig ka pa." I didn't mean it that way though. I explained myself and fortunately, it got resolved.


Knowing the Speech Act Theory can help us ABCA students learn more on how a person talks and expresses himself/herself. A person can say a phrase (locutionary) and you may know what it meant, but there may be a hidden meaning to it (illocutionary). How a person would take effect on it is the perlocutionary act of the whole thing. Perlocutionary acts are external to the performance.