ILLOCUTIONARY SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF PERSONALITY-PSYCHOLOGY CONCEPTS IN STEPHEN COVEY'S "THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE"

The article presents an illocutionary speech act analysis of personality-psychology concepts in Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (1989). Following the classification developed by J. R. Searle (1976), five illocutionary act types are examined: directives, assertives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. The analysis demonstrates that the seven habits themselves operate as a serial directive macro-act, while the proverbial and aphoristic frame of the discourse deploys assertive truth-claims, the implicit reader-address invokes commissive self-pledges, and the discourse of personal change relies on expressive self-evaluation. Authentic citations from Covey’s text serve as the empirical material.