On Austin and Searle’s Speech Act Theory (3)

In 1965, Searle published a paper entitled "What is Speech Act?" In this paper, he proposed the prototype of speech act theory, which he published in 1969 in "Speech Act". The book "Behavior: Philosophy of Language" provides a comprehensive explanation of this theory and constructs his unique theoretical framework of speech acts. The publication of this book marked the formation of Searle's speech act theory, which we call the classical speech act theory.

1) Like Austin, Sean. It also believes that speaking a certain language is performing a speech act, such as making a statement, issuing an order, asking a question, making a promise, etc.; speaking is acting, and the meaning is equal to a certain behavior, so it claims that the study of language is behavioral theory Part (1969; 17).

2) The construction of Searle’s speech act theory is reflected in his distinction between the two concepts of linguistic philosophy and language philosophy. (1969: 4) He believes: ? Linguistic philosophy is an attempt to solve specific philosophical problems by focusing on the daily usage of specific words or other components in individual languages, while philosophy of language is an attempt to understand some general characteristics of language, as referred to , truth, meaning and necessity, giving a clear philosophical description. ?In his view, the philosophy of linguistics can be seen as a synonym for a certain method, and the philosophy of language can be seen as a synonym for a certain discipline. He (1969; 4) clearly points out that although he sometimes uses linguistic philosophy, his theory belongs to the philosophy of language rather than to the philosophy of linguistics.

3) Searle believes that speech act theory belongs to the category of what Sauss calls "language". The implementation of speech acts must comply with the rules of language, so it must involve many formal features of language. However, Searle believes that any theory that purely studies these formal features is incomplete. It must also explain how these features are used to implement certain functions. speech act. Any sentence must implement a certain speech act in a certain context; conversely, any speech act must be implemented through a certain sentence.

4) In Searle’s view, it is difficult to say that the study of sentence meaning and the study of speech behavior are two independent studies, but they should be regarded as two different aspects of the same study. side. Of course, some people accept this view and some people object to it.

5) In (Speech Acts) (1969), Searle divided speech acts into four categories: utterance act, propositional act, utterance act, and utterance act. In his opinion, locutionary act is just a class of illocu-tionary act. A utterance act is an act accomplished by uttering certain words, phrases, or sentences, and a propositional act is an act accomplished by making a reference or assertion.

6) Searle believes that the relationship between utterance behavior and propositional behavior and illocutionary behavior is not the relationship between means and ends. The utterance act is just to say words, phrases or sentences, while the propositional act and illocutionary act are to say certain words, phrases or sentences in a certain context, under certain conditions and with a certain intention. Therefore, we can complete an utterance act without completing a propositional act or a illocutionary act, or we can use several different utterance acts to complete the same propositional act or illocutionary act.

Such as:

( I ) Will John leave the room?

( 2 ) John will leave the room.

( 3 ) John, leave the room .

(4) If Only John would leave the room?

(5) If John leave the room, I will leave the room.

In Searle It seems that these five sentences have the same propositional content, but on different occasions, the five sentences perform different illocutionary acts.

(6) Rules for implementing speech acts

Since Searle regards the use of language as a social behavior governed by rules, what rules should be followed? We mentioned earlier Searle's teacher Austin once proposed three appropriate conditions for performing speech acts. On this basis, Searle made further elaborations to make them more complete.

Among the various rules that restrict people's social activities and behaviors, Searle first distinguished two categories: regulative rules and constitutive rules. Regulatory rules regulate behavior or activities that exist independently of the rules. Constitutive rules are different. Complying with constitutive rules itself constitutes or produces a certain form of behavior or activity. If a constitutive rule is violated, such behavior or activity will cease to exist. Searle's purpose in distinguishing these two types of rules is to illustrate that the use of language, a social activity, should follow constitutive rules. That is to say, if we use language to perform a certain behavior, such as "command", we must abide by certain rules. , if we violate one of the rules, we cannot issue the command effectively.

When any two people communicate in language, no matter what purpose the speaker wants to achieve, no matter what speech act he wants to perform, the two parties must have the same language and must have the same language for language communication. The objective conditions are that the speaking party must be able to successfully express his or her intention according to the rules of the language used, and the listening party must also be able to correctly understand the speaking party's intention according to the rules of the language used.

(7) Development of Searle’s speech act theory

1) Five classifications of acting behaviors Searle (1979: 12-20) divides acting behaviors into the following five categories:

(1) Assertives

(2) Directives

(3) Commiasives

(4) Expressives

(5) Declarations

Searle’s classification has a certain scientific nature, but this classification is quite general. To It is difficult to classify so many speech acts into several broad categories. However, no one has broken through him and proposed a more reasonable classification.

2) Indirect Speech Act Theory: Conventional and Unconventional Indirect Speech Acts

In 1975, Searle proposed the concept of indirect speech act in order to understand the nature of illocutionary force and explain illocutionary force and sentences. The relationship between forms or convention usage, as well as the relationship between illocutionary force and the knowledge and conversational principles of both speakers provide a unique explanation method, thus making up for the shortcomings of his early classic theory.

Searle proposed indirect speech acts in order to illustrate and explain the following two issues:

(1) From the perspective of the speaker, how does the speaker express a certain meaning while saying a sentence? Does it mean something else?

(2) From the perspective of the listener, how does the listener understand the other meaning that the speaker wants to express after hearing such words?

Searle believes that in indirect speech acts, the reason why the speaker can convey a meaning that is more than or different from the literal meaning of the utterance relies on the relationship between him and the listener. There is knowledge, which includes verbal and non-verbal information, as well as the general analytical and reasoning abilities of the listener.