Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

PL EN


2009 | 5 | 1 | 85-106

Article title

Speech acts and the autonomy of linguistic pragmatics

Title variants

Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
This paper comments on selected problems of the definition of linguistic pragmatics with a focus on notions associated with speech act theory in the tradition of John Langshaw Austin. In more detail it concentrates on the (ir)relevance of the use of the Austinian categorisation into locution, illocution, and perlocution in locating a divide in between pragmatics and semantics, and especially the distinction between the locutionary act and the illocutionary act and its implications for the definition of pragmatics and its separation from the semantic theory.The relation between form and meaning is further briefly reviewed against dichotomies including the Gricean and neo-Gricean ‘what is said’ versus ‘what is implicated’ or meant, between what can be ‘locuted’, but not said, and what can be said, but not asserted. These dichotomies are related to the theoretical commitments as to the accepted operative forces in speech acts, primarily convention and intention. It is suggested that, roughly, the development of the speech act theory can be viewed as a process by which the theory moves away from its originally sociolinguistic orientation towards a more psychologistic account, which in turn leads towards diminishing the role of (traditional) semantics and the subsequent juxtaposition of pragmatics and syntax rather than pragmatics and semantics.

Publisher

Year

Volume

5

Issue

1

Pages

85-106

Physical description

Dates

published
2009-01-01
online
2009-07-06

Contributors

  • University of Łódź

References

  • Allwood, Jens. "A Critical Look at Speech Act Theory" In Logic, Pragmatics and Grammar edited by Dahl, 53-99. Lund: Studentlitteatur, 1977.
  • Austin, John. Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960.
  • Austin, John. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962/1975 2nd ed.
  • Bach, Kent. "You don't say?" Synthese 127 (2001): 11-31.
  • Bach, Kent and Robert Harnish. Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979.
  • Barker, Stephen. Renewing Meaning: A Speech-Act Theoretic Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.
  • Barker, Stephen. "Semantics Beyond the Distinction between Sense and Force". In John Searle's Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning and Mind, edited by Savas L. Tsohatzidis, 190-210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • Borg, Emma. Minimal Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Borg, Emma. "Saying what you mean: Unarticulated constituents and communication" In Ellipsis and Nonsentential Speech. Edited by R. Elugardo & R. Stainton, 237-262. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005, doi: 10.1007/1-4020-2301-4_13.[Crossref]
  • Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". Routledge, New York, London, 1993.
  • Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. Routledge, New York, London, 1997.
  • Cappellen, Herman & Ernie Lepore. Insensitive Semantics. A defence of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
  • Carston, Robyn. Thoughts and utterances. The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
  • Carston, Robyn. "Linguistic Communication and the semantics/pragmatics distinction" Synthese. Vol. 165/3 (2008), 321-346, doi: 10.1007/s11229-007-9191-8.[WoS][Crossref]
  • Dekret z dnia 12 grudnia 1981 r. o stanie wojennym (Decree on martial law in Poland of 12 December 1981). Dz.U. 1981 nr 29 poz. 154.
  • Gazdar, Gerald. Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition and Logical Form. New York: Academic Press, 1979.
  • Grice, Herbert P. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989.
  • Harnish, Robert M. "Internalism and externalism in speech act theory". Lodz Papers in Pragmatics. Special Issue on Speech Actions, edited by Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka & Maciej Witek. 5.1 (2009; this volume): 9-31, doi: 10.2478/v10016-009-0001-2.[Crossref]
  • Horn, Laurence R. "More issues in neo- and post-Gricean pragmatics". Intercultural Pragmatics. 3.1 (2006): 81-93, doi: 10.1515/IP.2006.004.[Crossref]
  • Hornsby, Jennifer. "Feminism in Philosophy of Language: Communicative Speech Acts". In: The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, edited by Miranda Fricker & Jennifer Hornsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 87-106, 2000.
  • Kalisz, Roman. Pragmatyka językowa [Linguistics Pragmatics]. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 1993.
  • Katz, Jerald. Propositional Structure and Illocutionary Force. New York: Crowell, 1977.
  • Kearns, John T. "Conditional assertion, denial, and supposition as illocutionary acts". Linguistics and Phillosophy 29 (4) 2006, 455-485, doi: 10.1007/s10988-006-0007-y.[Crossref]
  • Kissine, Mikhail. "Illocutionary Forces and What is Said" Mind & Language, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2009), 122-138, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2008.01356.x.[Crossref]
  • Korta, Kepa and John Perry. "How to say things with words". In John Searle's Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning and Mind, edited by Savas L. Tsohatzidis, 169-189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • Levinson, Stephen. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
  • Millikan, Ruth. "Proper function and convention in speech acts." In Language: A Biological Model, 139-165. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, doi: 10.1093/0199284768.003.0008.[Crossref]
  • Morris, Charles. Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1938.
  • Neale, Stephen. 2007 "Heavy Hands, Magic, and Scene-Reading Traps" EUJAP, Vol. 3, No. 2, 77-132.
  • Perry, John. Reference and Reflexivity. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2001.
  • Recanati, François. "What is said." Synthese 128 (2001): 75-91.[Crossref]
  • Recanati, François. "Does linguistic communication rest on inference?" Mind and Language 17 (2002): 105-126, doi: 10.1111/1468-0017.00191.[Crossref]
  • Recanati, François. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • Sadock, Jerrold. Toward a linguistic theory of speech acts. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
  • Sbisà Marina. "Illocutionary force and degrees of strength in language use". Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 1791-1814. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(00)00060-6.[Crossref]
  • Sbisà Marina. "Speech acts in context." Language and Communication 22 (2002): 421-436, doi: 10.1016/S0271-5309(02)00018-6.[Crossref]
  • Sbisà Marina. "How to read Austin". Pragmatics 17 (2007): 461-473.
  • Sbisà Marina. "Uptake and Conventionality in Illocution" Lodz Papers in Pragmatics. Special Issue on Speech Actions, edited by Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka & Maciej Witek. 5.1 (2009; this volume): 33-52, doi: 10.2478/v10016-009-0003-0.[Crossref]
  • Searle, John (1969) Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
  • Searle, John Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
  • Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. London: Blackwell, 1986/1995.
  • Stalnaker, Robert C. "Pragmatics" In: G. Harman and D. Davidson (eds.): Semantics of Natural Language, 380-397, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1972.
  • Stalnaker, Robert. "Assertion." In Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics, Peter Cole, 315-332. New York: Academic Press, 1978, doi: 10.1093/0198237073.003.0005.[Crossref]
  • Strawson, Peter F. "Intention and convention in speech acts." Philosophical Review 73 (1964): 439-460, doi: 10.2307/2183301.[Crossref]
  • Verschueren, Jeff, Understanding Pragmatics, London and New York: Arnold, 1999.
  • Witczak-Plisiecka, Iwona. Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of Speech Acts in English Legal Texts, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Lodz, Poland, 2001.

Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.doi-10_2478_v10016-009-0008-8
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.