Abstract: Sketch lines, as a kind of utterance, play the role of the performatives and convey different illocutionary acts. In terms of the speech act theory, sketch lines can be regarded as the two forms: the explicit performatives and the implicit performatives, and by which the sketch actors may perform such five sorts of illocutionary acts as “declarations”,“representatives”,“commissives”,“directives”and “expressives”,etc.

Key words: sketch lines, performatives, illocutionary acts