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Speech Act Clarification

Clarify what action an utterance performs, not only what information it states.

The Diagnostic Story

Symptom: A meeting ends, an email arrives, a document is signed — and participants walk away with completely different beliefs about what just happened. One side heard a decision; the other heard a discussion. One side recorded a promise; the other intended only sympathy or explanation. Because the action performed by the utterance was never named, accountability cannot be assigned and disputes cannot be resolved from the record.

Pivot: Make the performed act explicit: name what the utterance was — suggestion, decision, request, order, promise, consent, refusal — classify its authority requirements, confirm that the right people received and understood it, and attach consequences to the act that actually achieved uptake rather than to an assumed private intention.

Resolution: Disputes about whether a decision, commitment, approval, or consent occurred become resolvable from the record. Accountability is matched to the act, not to inference about intent. When wording, standing, or uptake is defective, repair is possible because the gap is visible.

Reach for this when you hear…

[contract law] “Whether this is an offer or an invitation to treat changes everything — we cannot just look at the words, we have to look at what she had authority to do.”

[hospital governance] “The committee said we should consider changing the protocol, but the minutes show it as a directive — that is going to cause a compliance problem we do not actually own.”

[software product] “The customer said yes in the demo and our sales team called it a commitment, but what we actually have is someone saying it looked interesting — those are not the same thing.”

Mechanisms / Implementations

  • Commitment Register: A commitment register implements the archetype by recording who committed to what, under what scope, and by when.
  • Meeting Action-Item Capture: Turns ambiguous meeting language into explicit decisions, owners, and deadlines.
  • Consent Confirmation Form: An artifact that makes consent a separate, scoped, freely-given, and comprehended act — so agreeing is something a person does knowingly, not something read off the fact that they participated.
  • Formal Declaration Record: A formal declaration record implements the archetype when a recognized utterance changes status: closing a vote, appointing a role, authorizing a transition, accepting a resignation, or declaring a process complete.
  • Request / Order Clarification Prompt: This mechanism asks participants to name whether a statement is a request, recommendation, assignment, or command.
  • Readback Confirmation: Asks the recipient to restate the performed act and expected response.
  • Apology / Repair Protocol: An apology or repair protocol helps distinguish sympathy, acknowledgment, responsibility-taking, restitution, commitment to change, and closure.
  • Contract Speech-Act Clause: A contract clause can specify what counts as notice, acceptance, waiver, approval, termination, representation, warranty, or binding commitment.
  • Authority Matrix: An authority matrix maps who may approve, decide, bind, consent, publish, or declare on behalf of a group.

Abstractions this archetype builds on — directly (a source ingredient) or as a related pattern. Links follow the typed catalog namespace.

Built directly on (2)

Also references 10 related abstractions

Variants

Narrower or domain-specific specializations that share this archetype's core structure. Recognized variants are established; candidate variants are provisional.

Commitment-Act Clarification · communication variant · recognized

Clarifies whether an utterance creates, accepts, modifies, transfers, or refuses a commitment.

Request / Order Distinction · communication variant · recognized

Clarifies whether an utterance asks, recommends, assigns, commands, or authorizes action.

Consent Uptake Confirmation · governance variant · recognized

Clarifies whether a statement, signature, click, silence, or gesture actually performs consent under the relevant conditions.

Declarative Status-Change Clarification · governance variant · merge review

Clarifies whether a recognized declaration creates, closes, authorizes, appoints, or changes a social or organizational state.

Apology / Repair Act Clarification · communication variant · recognized

Clarifies what an apology, acknowledgment, explanation, or repair statement is intended to do.