Speech Act
SPEECH ACT By JOHN SEARLE
SUMMARY
·
Searle practices linguistic
analysis in the spirit of Austin
·
Like Austin
·
Using Austin
In
looking at a single act there are many ways of describing it: “The speaker will characteristically have
moved his jaw and tongue and made noises.
He will have performed acts within the class which includes making
statements, asking questions, issuing commands, giving reports, greeting and
warning. The members of this last class
are what Austin
·
For Searle the basic unit of
language is the speech act or illocutionary
act, the production of a token in the context of a speech act (not the
word, the sentence type, or the theory).
·
For a token to be an
instance of communication, the audience must take it as being produced by a
being with certain intentions (relevance of speaker intention, in contrast to
Russell or Frege or logical positivism).
·
Introduces and defines the
notion of a proposition as
the common content of various expressions such as (380)
1. Will
John leave the room?
2. John
will leave the room.
3. John,
leave the room.
·
Distinguishes between the notion
of a proposition and that of
an assertion: “An assertion is an illocutionary act, but a
proposition is not an act at all, although the act of expressing a proposition
is part of performing certain illocutionary acts.” (381)
·
Argues for the main thesis
that to perform an illocutionary act is to primarily to do (rather than to say)
and to engage in rule-governed behavior.
(378)
·
Responds to Austin
(1) he
utters an expression E where E is a device for promising and
(2) the
felicity conditions for promising obtain.
·
To explain the notion of
meaning, introduces the notion of semantical rules that govern the use of
expressions and distinguishes two types: regulative and constitutive.
“The
hypothesis that lies behind the present paper is that the semantics of a
language an be regarded as a series of systems of constitutive rules and that
illocutionary acts are performed in accordance with these sets of constitutive
rules.” (380)
·
Intends to explicate the
notion of an illocutionary act by (1) stating a set of necessary and sufficient
conditions for the performance of a particular kind of illocutionary act, and (2)
extracting from it a set of semantical rules of the use of the expression (378).
·
Describes a (Gricean) theory
of meaning that takes into account speaker intention. (382)
To
say that a speaker meant something by X is to say that the speaker intended the
utterance of X to produce some effect in the audience by means of the
recognition of this intention.
·
Evaluates Grice’s definition
as beneficial in that it points of the role of speaker intention but as
deficient in that it ignores the role of convention.
“It
fails to distinguish the different kinds of effects – perlocutionary versus
illocutionary – that one may intend to produce in one’s hearers, and it further
fails to show the way in which these different kinds of effects are related to
the notion of meaning.” (383)
An
American soldier addresses the Italian captors with “Kennst du as\and, wo die Zitronen bluhen?
Gricean
effect: persuading them I am a German soldier (perlocutionary) through the
recognition of my intention to do so.
But
it doesn’t follow that what I mean is that I am a German soldier when I say “Do
you know the land where the lemon trees bloom?”
“what
we can mean is a function of what we are saying, it is also a matter of
convention.” (384)
·
Amends Grice’s definition to
take into account the role of convention, as well as intention. (384)
To
say that a speaker meant something by X in the performance of a certain
illocutionary act is to say that the speaker intended the utterance of X to
produce some effect in the audience by means of the recognition of this
intention and furthermore, if he is using the words literally, he intends this
recognition to be achieved in virtue of the fact that the rules for using the
expressions he utters associate the expressions with the production of that
effect. (384)
·
Gives an analysis of
promising, providing its rules or set of necessary and sufficient conditions.
(1) Normal
input and output conditions obtain (same language, conscious, not under duress.
(2) S
expresses that p in the utterance of T.
(3) In
expressing that p, S predicates a future act A of S.
(4) H
would prefer S’s doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his
doing A to his not doing A.
(5) It
is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events.
(6) S
intends to do A. (Ammended: S intends
that the utterance of T will make him responsible for intending to do A.)
(7) S
intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A.
(8) S
intends that the utterance of T will produce in H a belief that conditions (6)
and (7) obtain by means of the recognition of the intention to produce that
belief, and he intends this recognition to be achieved by means of the
recognition of the sentence as one conventionally used to produce such beliefs.
(9) The
semantic rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly
and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions (1) – (8) obtain.
·
Derives rules to govern the
use of the function-indicating device “promise”
(1) Rule 1:
P is to be uttered only in the context of a sentence (or large stretch of
discourse) the utterance of which predicates some future act A of the speaker
S.
(2) Rule 2:
P is to be uttered only if the hearer H would prefer S’s doing A to his not
doing A, and S believes H would prefer S’s doing A to his not doing A. (a
preparatory rule)
(3) Rule 3:
P is to be uttered only if it is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A
in the normal course of events. (a
preparatory rule)
(4) Rule 4: P
is to be uttered only if S intends to do A. (the sincerity rule)
(5) Rule 5:
The utterance of P counts as the undertaking of an obligation to do A. (the
essential rule)
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