【正确答案】正确答案：The speech act theory was proposed by John Austin. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking. Actions performed through utterances are generally called speech acts. An utterance can perform different speech acts depending on the context and that one speech act can be performed by more than one utterances. According to Searle, speech acts all into five general categories. Specific acts that fall into each type share the same illocutionary point, but differ in their strength. (1)Representatives: acts of saying what the speaker believes to be true; they include stating, describing, asserting, and so on; such as "It"s raining" , "They won the game". (2)Directives: acts of trying to get the hearer to do something. Commands, orders, requests, warnings, suggestions, and on so are of this type, as illustrated in " Be quiet!" , " Don"t touch that!" (3)Commissives; acts of committing the speaker himself to some future course of action. They include promising, vowing, offering, threatening, and so on. Examples are "I"ll take her to the vet. " and "We won"t do that. " (4)Expressives; acts of expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing state. They can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, sorrow, and so on. For example, "I"m sorry to hear that". (5)Declarations: acts of bringing about immediate changes by saying something. They include resigning, dismissing, naming, appointing, and so on. For example, the priest may say in a wedding "I now pronounce you husband and wife".