speech act

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An act that is performed by making an utterance, as the issuing of a warning, the making of a promise, or the giving of a greeting.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun linguistics An act carried out by speech, such as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the use of language to perform some act