Philosophy of language Speech act theory

Abstract Speech acts are the basis on which day to day communications amongst humans is founded. It was however not until the mid 20th century that proper studies were carried out on this topic (Sosa Villanueva 2006). Over the years there have been heated debates and discussions on the topic particularly under the influence of the works philosophers such as J.L Austin and John Searle. The theory of speech acts has since then come to achieve importance in other fields aside from philosophy (Platts 1989).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Philosophy of language: Speech act theory specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The speech act theory has come to be recognized as very important in everyday life and particularly after the revelation by scholars that these speech acts do much more than describing reality. Studies that have taken place over the years since the speech act theory was proposed have come to distinguish the p hilosophy of language as an entity different from other philosophies (Platts 1989). An understanding of the speech act theory has also come to establish some basic structuring for the field of linguistics. This structure includes some various aspects used to describe reality. This essay seeks to elaborate on the concept of the speech act theory. To this end, an analysis of the works of the original proponents of the theory shall be provided. This shall basically summarize the works of John Searle and J.L. Austin. A further analysis of the theory shall be presented under the guide of the works of modern day philosophers. Introduction Speech acts are a set of actions that are performed through uttering of sounds with an aim of conveying a particular meaning; meanings which are characteristically linked to that combination of sounds. It is a well known fact that when an individual speaks, he/se wants to pass across a particular meaning and that whatever that individual says, or the set of sounds that come from his/her mouth already have an associated meaning. According to proponents of this theory, in order for one to have an understanding of a particular language, he/she must first comprehend the intention of the speakers of the said language when they use a particular combination of sounds. This theory is based on the simple premise that speech is an act in itself. The various combinations of sounds (speech) used to convey a particular meaning are not merely used to designate but they are self standing actions. J.L Austin’s study on speech acts J.L. Austin is one of the key proponents of the speech act theory and most of his work on the topic was published in 1978 after his death by his students in a book known as how to do things with words. Though this publication cannot be fully taken as Austin’s work it is a general representation of his views and there is a chance that his opinions would not have differed much had he published the book himsel f. According to Austin utterance was an act in itself. According to Austin (1978) there are two major distinctions of speech acts viz: constatives and perfomatives.Advertising Looking for essay on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Constatives are those utterances that tend to present reality as it is and can therefore be described as either true or false. Perfomatives on the other hand are described as either felicitous or infelicitous. Austin however comes to the agreement that a majority of statements are basically perfomative. This basically means that most people when speaking they are participating in one form of action or other. According to Austin, â€Å"Performing a locutionary act †¦ is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain sense and reference, which is again equivalent to meaning in the traditional sense. Second, we said that we also perform illocutionary acts such as infor ming, ordering, warning, undertaking, etc., i.e. utterances which have a certain conventional force. Thirdly, we may also perform perlocutionary acts: what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring and even, say, surprising or misleading† (1978). According to Austin, the action that the speaker is involved is in essence, forming some realities that can only make sense when placed within the context of a particular society. For example, when one uses a definite perfomative sentence such as â€Å"I declare him the president† in the case of an election vote tallying in which the individual is confirming which contestant won the seat, he/she is in essence modeling an instance of social reality. That is, in this particular context, a leadership figure. J.L. Austin came up with three major characteristics or features of utterances which start with the basic structuring or words and conclude with the impact of those words on the a udience being targeted. These were locutionary acts, illocutionanary acts and perlocutionary acts. Locutionary acts are basically normal sentences that are aimed at conveying a particular meaning while illocutionary acts are those statements that carry some characteristic of force (such as warning and ordering). Perlocutionary acts are the end results of utterances i.e what is achieved as a consequence of saying something. These perlocutionary acts include persuasion and surprising. The major focus of Austin’s study was on illocutionary acts. This is because statements in this category clearly explaining the concept of performance as an aspect of speech. For instance a statement like â€Å"Don’t drink and drive† possesses the forceful nature of a warning. The same statement can be framed in such a way that it is a definite perfomative act, for example â€Å"The president is warning you, don’t drink and drive.† The person being addressed may hear th e utterance and receive it as a warning, then the person can be said to have been warned. This does not however mean that the person will behave in a way that will correspond to the warning. This therefore means that illocutionary acts such as the statement shown above can not be classified on a true/false basis. Austin in his studies insisted that individuals should understand that while analyzing a sentence, the focus should not be on the sentence itself but rather on how it is uttered.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Philosophy of language: Speech act theory specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More His maintenance that any utterance should be considered a performance act basically depended on the premise that analyzing a sentence or its constitutent words (locutionary acts) without placing them in the proper social context ended up explaining the net effect of the communication (illocutionary act) insufficiently (Sos a Villanueva 2006). This disregard of social context also greatly compromises the explanation of the effect of the utterance on the target audience (perlocutionary acts) Austin and other scholars of the speech-act theory have always strived to explain their ideas by use of what can be described as imaginary examples. In their arguments the social context of a statement is ignored in order to make literal point. Later, the same social context is added to the utterance in a way basic statements appear very complicated. In order to illustrate how utterances (perfomances) operate Austin summarized the illocutionary act as F(p). In this particular expression, F is the force behind the illocutionary act and p is proposition that the utterance is making John Searle and speech acts John Searle is one of the major philosophers who did an extensive study the speech act theory following its inception by J.L. Austin. He majorly focused his work around studies on illocutionary, locutionary and p erlocutionary acts. His findings suggested that an illocutionary act is said to have happened whenever someone talks or writes to another person (Searle, 1989). According to him illuctionary acts form the basis of all linguistic communication. He also agreed that an illocutionary act has to be intentional in its underlying nature. This basically means that a person has to have a reason for speaking and would not make an utterance if he/she did not intend to achieve something out of the action (Tsohatazidis 2007). The person being addressed also has a major part to play if the illocutionary act is said to have achieved its purpose. This hearer should be able to understand the intention of the speaker’s utterance by picking meaning from an already established way of decoding utterances (Searle, 1989). This is what is referred to as a perlocutionary effect. For example, an individual may say something like â€Å"Drive the car† with the intention that the hearer will recei ve this communication as a command and also that t hearer will respond by driving the car. However, according to Searle’s findings a speech act may end up affecting the hearer in a different way from the initial intention of the speaker. For instance, the speaker may say â€Å"Drive the car,† and the hearer may choose not to perform the action commanded and instead make his/her response by saying â€Å"I don’t feel like driving, you drive it yourself.†Advertising Looking for essay on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This according to Searle reveals that illocutionary acts are inherently intentional and is the basis on which meaning is founded. Perlocutionary depending on the circumstances in which they present may either be intentional or unintentional. This stand by Searle has in recent times been the subjects of debate. Individuals who do not support this stand have argued that it is the perlocutionary act that actually defines the intentions of the speaker. Though language can be used in uncountable ways, Searle in his literature proposes that there just a few things that can be accomplished by use of language. In the F(p) basic structuring of illocutionary acts, the propositional aspect of an utterance can take very many forms (Searle, 1989).. However Searle’s contention comes in the number of forces behind an illocutionary act. Searle suggests that the number of verbs that describe the eventual effect of the illocutionary act on the hearer limits the number of forces behind illocuti onary acts (McDowell 1980). In order to ensure that the argument on the forces behind the illocutionary acts is not merely based on the verbs associated with the act, Searle brings about the concept of the illocutionary point. The illocutionary point according to Searle is what the speaker when he/she performs an illocutionary act. This presents in the form of a verb aimed at describing the action that the sentence is involved in. this is basically the same as a schema that had been set earlier by Searle’s predecessor, J.L Austin (Tsohatazidis 2007). Searle in his studies on speech acts proposed the classification of illutionary points into five different categories, Viz.: Assertives, Directives, Commissives, Expressives and Declaratives (Searle, 1989). Assertives. These are the kind of utterances that can either be judged as true or false. This because statements in such categories are mainly intendended to describe how things are in the physical world. Directives. These ar e utterances that intended at making the hearer respond in the same way that the particular statements are proposing. Commissives. These are utterances that demand that the hearer makes a commitment to the action being proposed by the speaker. Expressives. These are utterances that basically define how sincere the illocutionary act is. Declaratives: These are utterances that are intended at making changes to the world. They achieve this by defining the world as having undergone some changes. From the above classifications, Searle concluded that when an individual is speaking or writing, he/she can be said to be doing one or a number of the following actions: â€Å"Asserting, directing, commiserating, expressing or declaring† (McDowell 1980). Searle also declared that the force behind an illocutionary act comes about as a result of the speaker’s intentions. It is only when the hearer derives meaning from the illocutionary point/force that communication can be said to h ave taken place. Foundation of the speech act theory The best way to analyze the features that form the foundation of the speech act theory is to make a comparison between it and other theories that are presented in the philosophy of language. This part of the essays shall take into consideration the relations between speech acts and aspects like semantics, grammar and meaning. Any act that is presented by observable behavior takes place with an underlying intention. When a speaker says â€Å"you will go to school next week†, generally leaves the person being addressed wondering whether the utterance should be regarded as an order or as a prediction. This statement does not clearly describe the force behind it and hence the unexplained questions. There may be many theories may strive to explain the meaning behind the statement above, it is clear that the speakers intention was to state that the addressee will go to school in the following week (McDowell 1980). If someone asks what the force of the wording in sentence will essentially be seeking to know whether the statement should be received as an order or as a prediction (Michael 2007). He/She (addressee) would therefore not be particularly asking the speaker to add more explanations to the content of the statement. However whether the statement intended to issue an order or make a prediction will only be determined by some details within the statement that were not elaborated. From this proposal, the speaker may have meant either of these two things: 1) â€Å"I predict that you will go to school next week† or 2) I command you to go to school next week. In order to avoid contradictions arising as a result of an individual saying one thing while in essence he/she means another would require the understanding that for a single speech act to occur, a number of different utterances have to be made. Force and content as independent aspects Generally, a proposition on its own is not enough to elicit a particular response from the addressee. For example, by just suggesting that coal is black cannot be regarded as a comprehensive speech act. This is because for a speech act to be seen to have occurred, an illocutionary force has to be included alongside the proposition. This illocutionary force may present in the form of a command, an inquiry, an assertion, and so on (Kriptke 1980). It is by the nature or this illocutionary force that individuals can point out the unifying element in the following three statements, â€Å"You are driving the car†, â€Å"Are you driving the car?†, and â€Å"Drive the car!† The common factor amongst all the three sentences is the fact that the car is being to driven, with the first statement being an assertion, the second being an inquiry and the third being a command. It can also be said that the components of a communicative act will basically dictate the force of the particular act. That is why when someone says â€Å"you wi ll go to school nest week† it is impossible to find out the force behind the statement. However, the relationship between force and the components of a statement can be seen to be symbiotic in the sense that the force of an utterance can also determine the content of the statement (McDowell 1980). The is the basic distinguishing factor between speech act theory and other theories is that speech act theory analyzes statements in terms of two constituent components, viz., content and force. Speech acts and the existence of things/ideas Speech acts have to be distinguished from acts of speech. This is because an individual can perform a speech act such as making an inquiry without necessarily having to make an utterance (Michael 2007). For instance, a shrugging of shoulders can easily be used to mean that the individual is not aware of what is being asked. In the same way, one can make an utterance without it being a considered a speech act. For example, when one is testing a mic rophone, he/she can speak into the equipment without intending for anyone to respond to the message. In general, it is agreeable that in some instances, things can be made to be by simply saying that they should be (Michael 2007). It is physically impossible to say that a person can lose weight by simply saying it. However an individual can promise to buy someone a present by simply making the statement, â€Å"I promise to buy you a present.† The same can be used when religious leaders consolidate marriages, where it is common to here pastors and church ministers say, â€Å"I hereby declare you man and wife.† Such types of speech acts can actually happen without the speaker saying that he/she is performing the act. Components of illocutionary force Searle and Vanderveken (1985) strived to clearly distinguish between illocutionary forces that are used by the speakers of a particular language from all the illocutionary forces possible. In their publication, Searle and Va nderveken identified seven features that can be used to differentiate illocutionary forces. These are explained below: Illocutionary point. This is the basic intention of the speaker by the performance of a particular speech act. For example, the basic intention of a question is to invoke a person to respond in a suitable way. Strength of the illocutionary point. Two illocutionary acts may basically be trying to make the same point (Warnock 1989). However, the strength of the illocutionary force behind the two statements is what will be used to set the two apart. For example when someone requests an explanation and when he/she insists that an explanation be given, both statements will be aimed at getting the person being addressed to offer the explanation. However, insisting is stronger than requesting. Achievement mode. Various illocutionary points of a speech act have different special ways in which they are achieved. For instance, when one testifies that a certain service is the best and when he/she asserts the same, both utterances will be aimed at making a description of the service (Warnock 1989). However, testifying asserts the speaker has been a witness to the quality of service, while asserting does not necessarily require that he/she be a witness. The same can be said of ordering and requesting in the sense that both are intended at getting the person being addressed to do something only that when making an order the speaker has to be in an authoritative position (Kriptke 1980). Contents of the proposition. In some instances, illocutionary statements can only make sense provided the propositional composition of the statement is well accounted for (Recanati 1987). For example an individual can make a promise about something provided it happens in the future and it is within his/her control (Michael 2007). This essentially means that the person cannot promise something that has already happened. Preparatory conditions. This is the sum total of all the factors that must be taken into consideration for the speech act to be seen to have effectively taken place (Recanati 1987). These conditions however mostly depend on the social status of all the parties involved in the performance of the interlocution act. For instance, an individual cannot appoint a person unless he/she already has been given the power to do so by the institution in which he/she is in (Kriptke 1980). Conditions of sincerity. A majority of speech acts are a mainly performed with intention of expressing a particular chain of events in the psychology of the speakers. For instance, a question will express inquiry and an apology illustrates regret (Recanati 1987). A speech act is said to be sincere only if the speaker and his/her speech act are in the same level of psychological conditions. Strength of the conditions of sincerity. When analyzed from a certain viewpoint, two speech acts may be seen to be exactly the same (Recanati 1987). However, they may be seen to be different when viewed in terms of their psychological states. When a person makes a request and when he/she implores, both actions can be said to illustrate some element of desire (Warnock 1989). However, imploring tends to suggest a stronger level of desire for the particular need than a request. According to Searle and Vanderveken, all illocutionary forces can be analyzed based on the above seven aspects. Two illocutionary forces will be seen to be identical if they have the same levels of the seven values discussed above. Grammatical mood and force The relationship between the content of a speech act and the force behind the illocution can be described as symbiotic in the sense that one influences the other. However, some extraneous factors such as the grammatical mood can also be seen to influence the force of the utterance (Michael 2007). The statement â€Å"you will go to school tomorrow† is at basic level in the indicative mood grammatically. However, this grammatical mood cannot determine the force of the statement. This also applies to other moods. If someone hears another person say â€Å"drive the car†, he/she cannot immediately tell whether the person is issuing a command or just making an assertion. If the statement happens to be an assertion, then the speaker will have used the imperative mood. The same relationship can be seen with the interrogative mood. For instance, when a person hears another say â€Å"which visitors are coming†, he/she cannot immediately know whether the speaker has asked a question or whether it is just a statement. The speaker may have been saying â€Å"Patricia is wondering which visitors are coming.† Force conventionalism According to studies conducted by some philosophers in order for a speech act to happen, some form of convention will have to be applied (Warnock 1989). For instance for the statement â€Å"I promise to take you out for lunch† to regarded as a promise, all the words u sed in the statement must be in tandem with their conventional implications. There should also be an already established convention that establishes that when used in a particular way this set of words constitutes a promise (Warnock 1989). Conclusion Since J.L Austin did studies on the speech act theory in 1962, various philosophers have followed on his findings and even gone ahead to broaden the discussions on the subject. Most of the professionals in this school of thought have unanimously support the original findings by Austin that all forms of utterances are essentially independent actions in themselves. Another conclusion that has been agreed upon by a majority of modern day philosophers is that communication cannot occur if all the components of a speech act are not availed which implies that the speech act itself does not take place. In conclusion, it is worth noting that since the inclusion of the speech act theory in the field of philosophy has come to over the years chang e the definition of communicative practices as were hitherto known. The inclusion of propositional content and illocutionary forces into the study has served to not only enable sentences bear meaning but also provide explanations as to why statements that seem inherently alike may be defined as different. This essay has analyzed the speech act theory in detail. A summary of the work of J.L Austin has been provided followed by a summary of the work of his successor John Searle. A further review of the major concepts of the speech act theory has been presented based around literature by later-day philosophy scholars. The theory of speech acts is in itself a wide field of study in itself and could only be briefly detailed in this essay. Reference List Austin, J.L. 1978. Logic and language. Oxford: Blackwell Kriptke, A.S. 1980. Naming and necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press McDowell, J. 1980. Meaning, communication, and knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Michael, M. 2007. An Introduction to the Philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Platts, M. 1979. Ways of Meaning: an introduction to a philosophy of language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Recanati, F. 1987. Meaning and Force: The Pragmatics of Performative Utterances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Searle, R.J. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, R.J. Vanderveken. 1985. Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. CUP Archive. Sosa, E. Villanueva, E. 2006. Philosophy of Language. Boston MA: Blackwell Tsohatazidis, S. 2007. John Searle’s philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warnock, G.J. 1989. J.L. Austin: Arguments of the philosophers history workshop  series. United Kingdom: Taylor Francis This essay on Philosophy of language: Speech act theory was written and submitted by user Bo B. to help you with your own studies. 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