A Summary of Speech Act Theory (2)

A summary of speech act theory research

In the first half of the 20th century, most British philosophers thought that language analysis was the only legal philosophical research. These philosophers call themselves linguistic philosophers and their research analytical philosophy. They developed some viewpoints of neo-positivist logicians such as Carnape, and were also influenced by the works of Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein. They think that most of the things studied in philosophy are not wrong, but meaningless. They just get some obvious things from the misuse of everyday language. Once the conditions that produce philosophical problems are analyzed, these so-called philosophical problems will disappear; What used to be everyday language? Okay？ 、? Not good? 、? Responsibility? 、? Value? When the meaning of "equality" is clarified, the debate on moral philosophy will be empty and without any dependence. Oxford school, a self-proclaimed philosopher of everyday language, thinks that improper use of everyday language will lead to philosophical problems. Their main point of view is that meaning is usage, and describing the meaning of words is to give the way of use, that is, to show the language behavior that words let us complete.

Second, speech act theory

1. Austin's speech act theory.

Under the influence of the above historical background and various ideological trends, John? 1962 The publication of How to Act through Words and Actions by Austin marked the establishment of speech act theory. In this book, Austin thinks that not all statements that can be divided into true and false are true? Describe it? Yes, so Austin calls the declarative sentences of true and false narratives declarative sentences, and those sentences that are neither true nor false nor used for description or statement are called performative sentences.

Austin's research focuses on performative sentences. Acting sentences are sentences with action ability. These sentences generally contain verbs such as promise and apology. The subject of the performative sentence is the speaker, and the speech act verbs expressing the above functions use the simple present tense. In order to really implement speech act, Austin believes that three appropriate conditions must be met, otherwise it is inappropriate speech act. These conditions are as follows: a. There must be an established model that allows someone to say something in a certain environment, and it is acceptable to both parties. Specific people and environments must be suitable for this established model. All participants in speech acts must follow this behavior pattern completely and correctly. The speaker must speak from the heart and do what he says.

The speech act of the performative sentence is carried out by the performative verb, so how to distinguish the performative verb from the non-performative verb? Austin believes that there is no obvious dividing line, but it can be roughly divided into the following two standards:

A used verb can be used with hereby to form a used sentence. If the sentence used with it is not an performative sentence, it will appear unnatural. For example: A. I hereby promise to give you a book .. I am here to participate in a competition.

Action verbs can be expressed by the following formula: Are you saying """"I was? ING？ . Such as: A. talking? I promise "I am talking, B. When I say" I run ",I am running.

Therefore, there is a difference between sentences composed of behavioral verbs and sentences composed of non-behavioral verbs. The characteristic of acting sentences is what is said, and nothing can be done without using language. Action sentences are affirmative sentences, and sentences should have action verbs in the first person, present tense and active voice. Austin divided expressive sentences into explicit expressive sentences and implicit expressive sentences. According to Austin, when a speaker wants to do something through speech, if he uses a verb as the active word of a declarative sentence and uses the present tense, the first person and the main dynamic of the verb, then he uses an explicit verb. None of the verbs in the implicit performative sentence expresses the speech act to be implemented. We can say. Let's go ? To replace? I order you to go.

Austin found that the so-called narrative sentence can also be regarded as a hidden performance sentence, such as "the mat is on the mat." This sentence is actually equivalent to? I'm telling you, the cat is on the cat. ? This shows that narrative sentences are also implementing speech acts, so that narrative sentences and performative sentences lose the value and significance of distinction. And Austin also found that some sentences are neither narrative nor performative, but emphasize the influence on the listener or bring some results directly to the listener? For example, "I believe you, Howard is innocent." "I believe you will join this club." Are all effective behaviors. In addition, some performative sentences can be divided into true and false like narrative sentences. The appropriateness of performative sentences and the authenticity of narrative sentences are not a complete binary problem, but there are degrees in the middle.

Because of the above problems, Austin thinks? Do as you say. A complete speech act consists of three acts: speech act, agent act and effect act. Speech act is to say meaningful words in line with language habits, agent act is to give meaningful words a speech act or force in a specific context, and effect act is to produce some effect on the listener. Austin further divided speech acts into three types: vocalization, pronunciation and ideographic behavior. Austin's research focuses on agent behavior. There is a one-to-one correspondence between his pretentious behavior and the agent verbs, but he can't exhaust all the agent verbs, and he also thinks that some impure or semi-descriptive words and explicit agent verbs are evolved from the original agent verbs, such as? Sorry "impure or semi-descriptive", "I apologize" (clear proxy verb). It can be seen that the agent verbs can't be enumerated at all, so Austin turned to divide and classify the agent behaviors. According to the ability of agents (that is, speech power), he divided them into five categories: judgment, strength, commitment, expression and reasoning.

2. Searle's speech act theory.

Searle believes that the use of language, like many other social activities of human beings, is an intentional behavior subject to rules. The smallest unit of language communication is not a language unit such as words or sentences, but a speech act, and the meaning of speech act is the function of sentence meaning. Austin put forward the agent behavior, but he didn't connect the agent behavior of a sentence with the content of the sentence. Searle noticed the relationship between the propositional content of a sentence and its agent behavior when studying discourse. The propositional content of a sentence consists of two parts: the person or thing mentioned and the discussion of this person or thing. Will John leave the room? John will leave the room. John, leave the room. If John leaves the room, so will I. Searle thinks that the propositional content of these five sentences is the same, all about John, and all about John's leaving the room. However, on different occasions, these five sentences have carried out five different agency behaviors respectively.

Searle believes that the sentence expressing the agent behavior has a typical logical form: F(p), and P is the propositional content of the agent behavior, which is accompanied by a certain linguistic force (F). He said that most sentences used to complete the agent behavior contain a component that marks the proposition and a component that marks the agent behavior. For example. I promised I would come? In this sentence,? I'm here? Mark the propositional elements. I promise? The component of the agent's behavior is the linguistic force of this sentence.