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Speech Acts: A Socially-Constructed Concept
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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: November 26, 2006
Latest Update: December 30, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
How Do We Manage to Get Things Done with Words?In the 20th Century there was a turn towards language. In simple terms, as I understand it, that means that we began to realize that language wasn't nearly as simple as it seemed when we learn to speak in our native language. Some of the famous names in this area are Chomsky, Althusser, and others I'll list for you. Mostly, you just want to know that in speaking we can do many things: tell the truth as we see it; fib; persuade another to do what we want, intimidate another, and so on. A speech act is the choice of one of these choices: something that we do, intentionally, or out-of-awareness; an act.
Beau directed my attention to a law review article that defines speech acts and illocutionary acts, etc. It offers good source material for you should you need to follow this further in your graduate or professional studies. And every time I define these concepts anew, from a different perspective, they become a little clearer for all of us. This is one of the reasons we remain open to the knowledge of the Other to enhance our own perceptions.
I guess I would simply define a speech act as getting things done by words. But it's lots more complex than that (See the last paragraph of the excerpt I copied from the law reveiw article.), if we're willing to study it more deeply.
There are many different kinds of speech acts. Let's look at some:
Definitions:
- reporting a fact, which may or may not be true
- constative act
example: "I am an elf." Whether the statement is true or false may depend on the social context to which it refers. If I mean I am an elf in a play in which I am performing, this is more likely true than it I am a professor teaching criminal justice in your classroom.
performative act - I lay my hands on Susan's head and say "You are an elf."In this instance the issue is less one of true or false than one of do I have the power or authority to change Susan into an elf by laying my hands on her head and saying that she is an elf, i.e, by my performative act. We might ask whether the performative speech act was successful or unsuccessful.
locutionary act. A locutionary act tells you something that you can understand or interpret within a context to which the speaker has alerted you. Example, "You got an A in the course." The speaker would have needed to identify the context, i.e. which course, and which semester, which college, and whether the A was for the course or for some work you did in the course.
"This is the act of saying something with a certain meaning, where words are uttered with a more or less definite sense and reference." At p. 7-8 of pdf file. International Commentary on Evidence Vol. 4, No. 2, Article 1.
illocutionary act. "The locutionary act, as we saw, is the act of saying something. There is, secondly, the illocutionary act; this is the act performed in saying something. We now shift our attention from the meaning of a sentence to its force. To perform a locutionary act is ipso facto to perform as well an illocutionary act. But a meaningful sentence can be uttered with different forces. To use Searle’s example, the sentence ‘I am going to do it’ has one literal meaning (orpropositional content) but can have the force of any one or more of a variety of illocutionary acts; the utterance can amount to a promise, a prediction, a threat, a warning, a statement of intention and so forth. (Footnote 32 omitted.) At p. 11of pdf file. International Commentary on Evidence Vol. 4, No. 2, Article 1.
"The thoughts, feelings or behaviour of others are frequently affected by our utterances. I may, by the use of language, achieve the consequential effect of convincing or deterring or shocking you. In saying ‘Don’t do it’ (a locutionary act), I could be advising you not to do it (an illocutionary act) and if you are persuaded by me not to do it, that is the perlocutionary effect of my illocutionary act.38 My utterance may not achieve the intended effect. It does not when, for example, you refuse to obey my command. The intended effect is one thing, the actual effect is another."
perlocutionary act. "Perlocutionary act and illocutionary point: the consequential effect of a verdict: First, ‘to say something is to do something’ (executing a locution, the act of saying something), and secondly, ‘in saying something, we do something’ (performing an illocution). Now we come to the third: ‘by saying something, we do something’.37 At p. 13.
"Bach [2 ]defines three levels of speech acts;locutionary act (the act of saying something),illocutionary act (what one does in saying something),and perlocutionary act (what one does by saying something).
Discussion Questions
- We have defined illocutionary discourse for our Dear Habermas community as discourse designed to give us a clue as to why or how the Other came to the conclusion on some issue that he/she did. Does that fit with Meyer's explanation of Lara's Moral Textures?
Consider that the act of saying something can have many intentions or "forces" in the social context in which it is uttered. One of those forces is offering some form of identity to the group which may help them understand your position. Remember that we have ruled out the idea that anyone is "right" or "wrong," leaving only that we want to try to understand each others' positions as humans in face of confusing and sometimes terrible social conditions both at home and abroad. I think that fits. Now I have to explain how art deserves an equal place with narrative. The whole Frankfurt school was biased towards literature. I'm biased towards art, literature, and philosophy as they intersect. More soon, but this is going to take lots of reading, thinking, and writing, as well as a lot of conceptual drawing. jeanne
References:
- "Speech act belongs to the theory of language use (pragmatics), which is different from, although related to, the theory of linguistic meaning (semantics). For the distinction and relation between them, see Kent Bach, ‘Speech Acts and Pragmatics’ in Michael Devitt and Richard Hanley (eds), Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language (Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2006). Note 27.International Commentary on Evidence Vol. 4, No. 2, Article 1
- Speech Acts and Peer Learning in Product Development Case-Study DIiscussions Shankaran Sitarama, Andy Dong, and Alice M.Agogino. Speech acts analysis applied to classroom teaching with fairly large classes. Gives you a sense of the universality of application of speech acts analysis. May pay to have at least a rudimentary grasp of it.
- Review of Maria Pia Lara's Moral Textures by Stephan Meyer. Helpful review for me. Prof. Meyer clarifies that Maria Pia Lara uses the illocutionary force of speech acts to refer to whole narratives, not to single speech acts, as does Habermas. I think I had a glimmer of understanding about that, but I understand it better now. The thrust, as I understand it, and as we use it in Dear Habermas, is what we accomplish in the act of saying something, which takes me back to Bakhtin and answerability.
