J. Searle’s scientific contributions

... However, to accomplish this, such a construct needs to be precisely defined. The early development of pragmatics was significantly influenced by three key theories: Speech Act Theory (Searle, 1975), focusing on the actions performed through language, such as requests or apologies; Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987), emphasizing the social importance of maintaining and safeguarding the 'face' or self-image of both the speaker and the listener during communication; and Grice's Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975), focusing on how speakers and listeners work together to understand the intended meaning of utterances, recognizing that what is implied often goes beyond the literal words spoken. These theories later informed the development of basic concepts in pragmatics, namely pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (Leech, 1983). ...

Reference:

How Do Advanced L2 Learners Demonstrate Pragmatic Competence by Aligning Linguistic Choices with Their Interpretation of the Social Context in Oral Discourse?