ABSTRACT
Law is both ‘a product of and dependent on language’.1 In particular, law depends on the normative and performative nature of language. Language performs acts, speech acts. One important feature of legal language is that of the illocutionary force that originates from the theory of speech act first proposed by J.L. Austin2 and further developed by John Searle.3 In particular, the use of directives and declaratives is most significant in setting out obligations, permissions and prohibition. A statute is a speech act with illocutionary force.4 In English, the illocutionary forces of legislative provisions can be divided into three categories generally adopted for statutory interpretation at common law: (1) imperative language which imposes an obligation to do; (2) facultative language which confers a right, privilege or power; and (3) prohibitive language which imposes an obligation to abstain from doing an act.5 To convey the illocutionary force in English statutes, ‘shall’, ‘may’ and ‘shall not’ are generally used as the legal performative verbs. In other words, in legislative texts, sentences containing such modal verbs function as speech acts with the illocutionary force of ordering or imposing an obligation (shall), granting permission or conferring rights (may), and imposing prohibition (shall not).6
