According to the SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms,[1] a “speech act” involves a “speaker” who makes an “utterance.” This includes articulating general declarations, as well as specific hypotheses, explanations, and warrants. Also included in a “speech act” is the “production of a particular effect in the addressee.”   The British philosopher and linguistic analyst, J.L. Austin, was seminal in the development of speech-act theory. This is especially so with the posthumous publication of his lectures titled, How to do things with words.[2] Austin presented the latter at Harvard University in 1955.   Later, Oswald Bayer applied speech-act theory to the proclamation of the gospel.[3] He observed that when viewed through…