In recent years, multiple researchers working on the evolution of language have put forward the idea that the theoretical framework of usage-based approaches and Construction Grammar is highly suitable for modelling the emergence of human language from pre-linguistic or proto-linguistic communication systems. It also shows that directive speech acts such as asking, commanding, prohibiting, requesting, and advising have been influenced by social relations between the interlocutor, including social distance and social power. The novel's directive speech acts play different functions, including asking for information and confirmation, asking someone to or not to do something, and suggesting. Prohibiting has 18 utterances or 5,50%, and advice has the lowest portion, nine utterances or 2,75 %. The next type is requesting, with 28 utterances or 8,56%.

The second is commanding, with 112 utterances or 34,25%. It is shown by Jim (a slave nigger), who always asks Huck Finn about everything. The data finding has shown that the highest type of asking is 160 utterances or 48,94 %. There are five types of Directive Speech Acts found in this novel: asking, commanding, requesting, prohibiting, and advising. The data were collected by reading the text closely, observing the dialogue in the text, note taking and highlighting the directive speech acts, coding and classifying the types of directive speech acts, then analyzing and interpreting the types of directive speech acts based on the theory proposed by Searle. The object of this research was the utterances of the main characters in the novel's dialogue. This research used a descriptive qualitative method by employing literary pragmatics analysis.

This research aims to explore Directive Speech Acts in the novel The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

The Study of Language by George Yule