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Searle's Speech Act Theory Paper 1 Abstract: People have never stopped discussing the essence of language, and speech act theory is one of the major breakthroughs. This paper introduces Austin and Searle's speech act theory, systematically expounds the connotation and value of Austin's speech act theory and Searle's perfection and development of Austin's theory, and finally summarizes the significance of speech act theory to linguistic research.
Paper Keywords: Speech Act Theory; Indirect speech act; pragmatics
Speech act refers to people's use of language to achieve communicative purposes in a specific context. British anthropologist M.Malinovski first put forward this concept in 1923 ... From the perspective of anthropology, Malinowski studies the function of language by observing the cultural life and customs of a nation, and thinks that language is a "way of behavior" rather than a "signal of thought". After the rise of pragmatics, this term has been widely used. Speech acts are understood as human activities to achieve their goals and constitute an organic part of human activities. People's behavior is always dominated by social customs, and speech act is considered to be an act dominated by various social customs. The British philosopher J.L.Aus put forward the speech act theory in 1950s. After Searle's perfection and development, this theory has become an important research topic in philosophy and linguistics, and it is also one of the core contents of modern pragmatics.
First, Austin's speech act theory
Speech act theory was first put forward by British philosopher Austin. 1957, he went to Harvard University to give a lecture, and published the whole contents of the lecture on the topic of "teaching by example". In his discussion, there is a view that the purpose of a person's speech is not just to speak, but to conduct an action when he says a sentence. The basic starting point of speech act theory is that the basic unit of human language communication should not be words, sentences or other language forms, but people's behavior with words or sentences. Austin believes that traditional grammar divides sentences into declarative sentences, interrogative sentences and imperative sentences according to their functions, which is not conducive to people's understanding and use of speech, because the same sentence has different functions in different contexts. He believes that many words not only provide information, but also complete or help to complete many behaviors. Austin put forward the speech act theory on this basis.
(a) Expressions and expressions
In Doing Things with Words and Actions, Austin first distinguishes between constituent sentences and performative sentences. For a long time, philosophers have assumed that the function of statements is either to describe the state of things or to state a fact, and statements can only be true or false. Philosophers have always been concerned only with the verifiability of statements, that is, how to verify whether a statement is true or false, and how to stipulate that a true statement must meet the conditions of humiliation. Austin philosophically questioned this traditional view in language research. He believes that "many statements are false-state-ment", and many things people say seem to pseudo-state-ment, but they are not intended to describe or convey information about facts frankly or only partially. Sometimes it is unnecessary and impossible to distinguish between "true" and "false" sentences, because some sentences are just an act, and the act is only appropriate and inappropriate, but not true or false. Austin advocates distinguishing between true and false sentences and appropriate and inappropriate sentences. Sentences that are divided into true and false are declarative sentences, whose functions are to assert or state the facts, describe the state and report the state of affairs, and the content expressed can be verified, that is, it is either true or false; Sentences that are appropriate and inappropriate are performative sentences. They don't have the function of reporting, describing and expressing, but they have the function of implementing some behavior. Shi Wei's words can't be verified, and it doesn't matter if they are true or false. Austin used four examples to illustrate this argument:
1)Id0 (used in wedding ceremony);
2)in ale, the ship Elizabeth (used for the ship naming ceremony);
3) I gave and bequeathed my watch to my brother (used in my will);
I bet you sixpence that it will rain tomorrow.
In some cases, what some people say actually constitutes the implementation of certain behaviors. In other words, when the speaker says these words, he is not making a statement or description, but completing an action, such as getting married, naming, bequeathing and betting.
(B) the necessary conditions for the smooth completion of speech acts
Austin stressed that although Wei Shi's judgment is not true or false, there are still some conditions that must be met, otherwise it will not play a role in the implementation. The first condition for the successful implementation of a certain behavior through discourse is that the speaker must have the conditions to implement a certain behavior, and must have a suitable object to implement this behavior. For example, if you don't have a watch, you can't leave it. The second condition is that the speaker must be sincere. Without sincerity, nothing can be done. The third condition is that the speaker cannot go back on his word. If there is no proper procedure, if it is not said by the right person, speech acts will not work. Similarly, even if this person is right, it will not work if the occasion is wrong. If the Queen of England says "InamehteshiptheQueenElizabeth" at home, this sentence will not work either. For some behaviors, the psychological state of the parties is very important. For example, a person who promises must be prepared to keep his promise.
(C) the three main points of speech act theory
With the deepening of research, Austin realized that, in a sense, every sentence can be used to implement behavior, and it is not just the sentences that express it that have this function. Even typical descriptive and narrative verbs such as "state" can be used to realize actions. When a person says "am I responsible for this", he makes a statement and assumes a responsibility. Therefore, Austin divides the speech acts that people show when they speak into three categories, namely, "referring to things with words" (1ocution) (also called illocutionary acts), "acting with words" (also called illocutionary acts) and "perlo.cuifon" (also called illocutionary acts), or referring to things with words generally refers to all meaningful things spoken by voice. Words and deeds involve the speaker's intention, such as conclusion, question, order, description, explanation, apology, thanks and congratulations. The content of speech involves the effect the speaker has achieved on the listener, such as making him happy, excited, angry, afraid and convinced. To urge the other party to do something or give up the original plan. Each discourse completes three actions at the same time. For example, A says "Closehtedoor" to B, which is an illocutionary act; A's intention is to close B, which is an illocutionary act; After listening to what A said, B closed the door and achieved the effect of speaking, which is illocutionary act. It can be seen that speech act theory is of great significance to explain the intention of speech act.
In addition, Austin classified illocutionary acts into five categories:
1) verdict: indicating a judgment or evaluation, such as the judgment of a judge or referee.
2)Ex-executives: the exercise of expressing power.
3) Commitment/Commitment: Express commitment or announce intention.
4) Exception: used for explanation, elaboration and demonstration.
5) behavior/behavior: used to show attitude.
Second, Searle's development of speech act theory
Austin's speech act theory immediately triggered a lot of philosophical discussions. Among them, the American philosopher Searle has the greatest influence. He systematized speech, expounded the principles and classification standards of speech acts, and put forward the theory of indirect speech acts, a special speech act. It is through his efforts that speech act theory has become an important part of pragmatics today.
(A) the principles and classification of speech acts
Searle did not simply inherit Austin's speech act theory, but promoted the isolated study of discourse meaning in speech act theory to the study of human communication. He believes that the use of language, like many other human activities, is an intentional behavior subject to rules. These rules are divided into rules-if rules and consistency rules. Regulation rules regulate pre-existing behavior forms, and the existence of such activities is logically independent of the existence of rules; Constitutive rules not only regulate, but also create or stipulate new behaviors, which logically depends on the existence of rules. [6] Austin tried to demonstrate the hypothesis that the semantics of a language is regarded as a system of rules, and the behavior of words and deeds is the behavior completed according to this constitutional rule. Searle inherited Austin's "intention" theory, thinking that speaking a language is to complete a series of speech activities, and each speech act reflects the speaker's intention.
Searle revised Austin's speech act theory into speech act theory and indirect speech act theory on the basis of research and inheritance. He transformed Austin's speech act theory into propositional content and action through words and deeds. He believes that in order to successfully implement a speech act, in addition to the general input and output conditions, the following four conditions must be met:
First, this condition (essential conditions)-by saying a word, the speaker intends to make him undertake the obligation to implement a certain behavior;
Second, content conditions: the speaker expresses a proposition when he utters a sentence, and when he expresses this proposition, the speaker determines his future behavior;
Third, the preparation conditions (preparation conditions):
1) The listener wants the speaker to do something, and the speaker thinks that what he wants to do is in the interests of the listener, but it is not what he often does;
2) Neither the speaker nor the listener is obvious, and the speaker will carry out some behavior in the normal course of things. Words and deeds should have a certain direction. There is a principle of minimum effort at work in language, which is embodied in the principle of minimum language effort and maximum result through words and deeds; Fourth, self-defined conditions: the speaker intends to engage in some behavior. Of these four conditions,
The fourth condition is an example of making rules.
While the first to third conditions correspond to the adjustment rules. In the process of using "appropriate conditions" (to ensure the successful implementation of speech acts) as the rules for using appropriate deixis, Searle also mentioned the "expression principle", believing that it can independently make the analysis of speech acts consistent with the basic pragmatics of literal semantic analysis, so that speech act theories can be divided into two categories:
One is semantic speech act theory (semantic-oriented),
The other is pragmatic-oriented speech act theory. The former focuses on the analysis of the expression of speech act characteristics, while the latter takes the communication process as the starting point.
Searle reclassified speech acts into five categories. His classification is based on the relationship between different "words" and "world", which is determined by speech and grammar indicators and different speech acts. These five speech acts are:
1) assertion class, also known as predicate. A statement refers to a speech act that describes the situation or events in the world, such as assertions, claims, reports, etc.
2) Instruction, the speaker wants the listener to do something, such as suggestions, requests, commands, etc.
3) Commitment refers to the speech act of the speaker that he will do something, such as promise and threat;
4) Ex。 Pressure, the speaker expresses his feelings and attitudes towards something, such as apology, complaint, thanks and congratulations.
5) Declarative refers to the speech act that can change a certain state of affairs in the world. For example, a judge said in court, "Guilyt!" The defendant became a sinner.
(2) Indirect speech act
Searle's other great contribution to speech act theory is that he put forward the theory of indirect speech act. A person directly realizes his communicative intention through the literal meaning of discourse form, which is a direct speech act; When we achieve the effect beyond the word itself through the form of words, it is called indi-rcctspeech. Simply put, indirect speech act is to do another illocutionary act by doing another illocutionary act, or it can be said: "By doing another illocutionary act, another illocutionary act is indirectly implemented." The problem to be solved in the theory of indirect speech acts is how the speaker expresses the indirect illocutionary force through the literal intention, that is, pragmatic intention, or how the listener infers the indirect illocutionary force from the literal intention, that is, pragmatic intention. Searle put forward the theory of conventional indirect speech act and unconventional indirect speech act. The so-called conventional indirect speech act refers to the indirect speech act obtained through the general inference of "how to intend" The so-called general inference of literal intention actually means that indirect "illocutionary force" (pragmatic intention) can be inferred immediately according to the syntactic form of discourse. Unconventional indirect speech acts are complex and unstable. Conventional indirect speech acts can infer the indirect implication of words according to habits, while unconventional indirect speech acts mainly depend on the language information and context that both speakers know.
Indirect speech acts are very common in verbal communication. Declarative sentences are not declarative sentences, imperative sentences are not imperative sentences, and interrogative sentences are not interrogative sentences. Sometimes, when a speaker utters a sentence, he expresses the literal meaning of the sentence, but at the same time he expresses other meanings besides the literal meaning, that is to say, the meaning of the sentence is not completely consistent with the meaning of the sentence itself. For example, "Can you give me the book?" Literally, it means asking the listener if he has this ability, but the implication is often a request. The request is made in the form of inquiry, but it also expresses the speech act of the request. As for how to understand the unconventional indirect speech act of "scolding here", the situation is more complicated. The speaker may really state this fact, or he may ask the other person to close the window or door, or turn on the electric heater. In this case, the listener needs to rely on context, common knowledge or pragmatic reasoning to be effective.
The manifestations of indirect speech acts are varied, and the factors that affect the understanding of indirect speech acts are also varied, sometimes depending on the context, sometimes depending on the identity and background of the listener, and some also depending on the listener's analysis and reasoning ability. Therefore, the understanding of indirect speech act sentences is not only a semantic category, but also a pragmatic category.
Third, the conclusion
Speech act theorists, represented by Austin and Searle, shift the focus of language research from sentence structure to sentence meaning, intention and social function. Speech act theory has great influence on language research, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and language acquisition research. On the one hand, it makes scholars' research in related fields shift from focusing on grammar or language form to focusing on speech function; From single sentence-centered to discourse-centered; From the center of language itself to the center of language users, communities and language environment; On the other hand, speech act theory has shifted many studies from focusing on language knowledge to focusing on communicative function; It also makes foreign language teaching shift from focusing on language forms and teaching methods to focusing on language functions and teaching contents. In this way, learners not only have a certain knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, but also know the correct sentence structure, and also learn how to use language properly to avoid pragmatic failures. Therefore, speech act theory is the basic theory to study language use, which opens up a new field for linguistic research.
Searle's Speech Act Theory Paper 2 Keywords: Speech Act Theory; Indirect speech act; intentionality
Speech act theory, put forward by Austin and perfected and developed by Searle, has become an important research topic in philosophy and linguistics and one of the core contents of modern pragmatics. Searle's indirect speech act theory studies the meaning of language from the perspective of use and communication, which provides a unique interpretation method for understanding the essence of illocutionary force. Searle pays attention to the relationship between language and mind, and thinks that meaning must be explained in connection with intentionality in speech acts. This paper discusses Searle's indirect speech act and his philosophy of language.
First, the origin of the theory
The emergence of speech theory has its profound historical background. Tracing back to the source, we can link it with the development of western philosophy. The development of western philosophy from ancient Greece to the 20th century is usually summarized as a three-stage model, and its central topic is: ontology-epistemology-language. At the beginning of the 20th century, philosophy produced a fundamental "linguistic turn", and language replaced epistemology as the central topic of philosophical research. The appearance of "language turn" marks the beginning of the era of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Judging from the analytical methods used, analytical philosophy can be divided into two schools. One is the school of logical analysis, also called the school of logical positivism; The second is the school of daily analysis, also known as general language philosophy. J Austin, a British philosopher, put forward a speech act theory based on the truth conditional semantics theory of logical positivism, that is, the famous "speech act trisection": speech act, illocutionary act and illocutionary act. Austin divides agency behavior into five categories: judgment, effort, entrustment, behavior and explanation. Speech act theory looks at language activities from the perspective of behavior and grasps the dynamic characteristics of language, so it has become an important part of pragmatics.
Austin's classification of agent behavior has been criticized by many scholars because of the lack of clear standards, but some of his views laid the foundation for later research. J Hill (1e), an American language philosopher, inherited and developed Austin's speech act theory and put forward the famous theory of indirect speech act. Searle's speech act theory is embodied in his distinction between philosophy of language and philosophy of language. Philosophy of language tries to solve special philosophical problems by analyzing the common usage of specific words and other components in language, while philosophy of language tries to make a philosophical explanatory description of the general characteristics of language. In Searle's view, the former is about the study of methods, while the latter is about the study of subjects. Searle believes that his theory belongs to philosophy of language rather than philosophy of linguistics. Searle defined speech act as the smallest unit of language communication in the process of studying language philosophy, and placed speech act at the center of studying language, meaning and communication.
Second, the theory of indirect speech act
(A) Searle's classification of agency behavior
Searle promoted speech act theory to explain human language communication. In his view, speaking a language is to complete a series of language activities. Searle distinguished propositional content from agent behavior in the process of studying discourse, and revised Austin's three-part-of-speech behavior theory, holding that each sentence includes speech behavior, propositional content behavior, agent behavior (I 1- position behavior) and perlocutionaryact behavior.
In the aspect of implementing the rules of speech act, Searle thinks that speech act is implemented according to a certain agreement, and agency act is a normative act. Searle put forward the difference between constitutional rules and adjustment rules. Constitutive rules are rules that create or define new forms of behavior. Without behavior, they cannot exist independently. Regulatory rules only stipulate and exist logically independent of behavior. In Searle's view, control rules are external social rules, which do not constrain agents' behavior, while constituent rules are internal semantic rules, and agents' behavior is derived from constituent rules. Searle put forward the constitutive rules of successful implementation of agency behavior, and divided these rules into four categories: pre-content rules, preparation rules, sincerity rules and necessary rules. Searle's establishment of these rules has gone through the process of concrete analysis, abstract generalization and concrete understanding. Compared with Austin's analysis, it is more scientific and convincing in method.
Searle's outstanding contribution to speech acts is to classify speech acts and give theoretical explanations for different types or categories of speech acts. Searle believes that one of the most obvious problems in any philosophy of language is how many ways to use language. Wittgenstein believes that this question cannot be answered in any limited category. He said in (philosophical research): "How many sentences are there? Like judging, asking questions and giving orders? There are countless kinds of sentences: what we call symbols, words and sentences have countless uses. " Searle opposed Wittgenstein's point of view and analyzed the classification standard of agent behavior from 12. Finally, he believes that the following three aspects are crucial, which form the basis of classification:
(1) illo-keratinocyte. This is the basis of classification.
(2) Direction fitting. Some agents try to adapt speech to the objective world (speech ~ objective world), while others try to adapt the objective world to speech (objective world-speech).
(3) mental state. On this basis, Searle divides agency behavior into five categories: assertion, instruction, commitment, expression and statement.
(2) Indirect speech act
Searle first noticed the indirect speech act and put forward the difference between direct speech act and indirect speech act. He said that when an agent is indirectly expressed through another speech act, an indirect speech act occurs. As we know, there is no absolute one-to-one correspondence between the form and function of sentences. In daily conversation, in order to be polite, people often avoid using imperative sentences directly when asking others to do something, and seek more euphemistic expressions. Searle believes that in indirect speech acts, the communication between the speaker and the listener can make the listener understand the intention beyond the literal meaning of the speech, and he relies on the background information he and the listener know. Searle thinks that indirect speech acts can be divided into conventional indirect speech acts and unconventional indirect speech acts. Conventional indirect speech acts refer to indirect speech acts obtained by general inference of "literal intention". This kind of behavior has formed a kind of idiom or language form, and the speaker and listener may no longer feel the literal intention of this speech act. Unconventional indirect speech acts are complex and uncertain, and depend more on the background information and context of both parties.
Searle's interpretation of the theory of indirect speech acts solves the relationship between the literal meaning of sentences and the speaker's behavioral intention to a great extent, and reveals the pluralistic relationship between sentence structure and function. However, Searle's theory has been strongly criticized by relevance theorists. In the field of pragmatics in 1980s, theorists represented by Sperber and Wilson briefly commented on Searle's theory, claiming that speech acts were either excluded from the study or replaced. The view is that although speech act theory has certain explanatory power, its classification is not a part of communication, and it is not necessary for speech act theory to exist. Undeniably, speech act theory pays attention to the empirical classification of description, which can't fully and effectively explain the dynamic communication process. However, Searle's indirect speech act theory explains how many seemingly incoherent words are effectively executed in daily life. He clearly shows the process of people's subconscious understanding of behavior intention, so that human beings have a deeper understanding of their own language communication process. When people accept a speech act, they generally don't realize that the act has different levels, so they can't distinguish the different meanings contained in these speech acts. Searle's indirect speech act theory has raised people's understanding of the process of expressing and understanding meaning to a higher stage and made great contributions to the development of language research. (C) the interpretation of indirect speech acts
Theorists have two different views on how to explain indirect speech acts in language communication: habit theory and inference theory. Linguists believe that some words can indirectly perform certain functions because of their own language forms or idioms, and they try to explain the indirect usage of language by establishing a connection between some language forms and their functions indirectly realized through idioms. But in fact, a sentence pattern is not always used to exercise one of its functions, and there is no one-to-one correspondence between form and function. Reasoning theorists believe that only through a series of reasoning steps can the speaker infer the real intention of the speaker from the literal meaning of the sentence, and attach importance to the consideration of contextual factors. Searle is a theorist. He believes that in the implementation of indirect speech acts, the speaker relies on the linguistic and nonverbal background information of both parties and the logical reasoning ability of the listener to convey the purpose of the agent to the listener. These two theories can be combined to explain indirect speech acts. Some forms are used to perform a certain function in most cases, and idiom theory can explain some indirect speech acts. However, in most cases, a sentence has different meanings when spoken in different contexts, which varies with the time and place of conversation. Only through contextual factors can the pragmatic intention of discourse be deduced, and inference theory has stronger explanatory power.
Third, intentionality
Since 1970s, Searle's pragmatic concept and its research focus have changed greatly. Searle believes that most of our mental states have a * * * feature, that is, they are all related to a certain state of affairs or objects. When in love, this love always points to one or some specific objects. This is the psychological state of "about sex" and "orientation". Searle collectively called it "intentionality" and elaborated this theory in his book "Intentionality". Searle thinks that an important feature of speech act is its intentionality. In this behavior, not only language symbols are used, but also the speaker's intention is expressed. Linguistic symbols are used here as a means of expressing intention. On this basis, Searle divides the agent's behavior into five kinds, which he thinks are all based on experience. Judging from the function of intentionality theory, intentionality determines that speech acts will adopt these types of ways.
In fact, in the book Speech Acts, there has been an opportunity to turn to the study of spiritual philosophy. When examining the honest conditions of pragmatic behavior, Searle emphasized that in order to make the statement honest, the speaker must have confidence in the state of affairs of the statement; In order to make the order honest, the speaker must be willing to respond to the receiver, and so on. No matter what kind of language behavior, if the speaker has no corresponding psychological state in his heart, he can't be said to be honest. In Searle's view, if the intentionality of mental state is abandoned, then words are just a sound from the mouth. Similarly, sentences are just physical symbols written on paper. Words themselves have no meaning. So how does it express infinitely diverse propositions in various discourse forms? That is through the state of intention. It is in the state of intentionality that people transfer intentionality to their meaningless sounds and symbols when they speak. It is the characteristics of intentionality that make pragmatic behavior desirable. Karl's theory of intentionality embodies the relationship between language and psychology, which is the deepening and development of speech act theory?
Four. conclusion
Searle systematized and refined the speech act theory, made an indelible contribution to the development of speech act theory, and opened up a new field for the study of language philosophy and pragmatics. Searle put forward the theory of indirect speech act, which solved the relationship between the literal meaning of sentences and the speaker's illocutionary force to a great extent and made up for the shortcomings of the early speech act theory. Searle attaches importance to the study of agent behavior, emphasizes the influence and function of the speaker's conscious activity and psychological state on speech behavior, and puts forward the theory of intentionality. Searle's theory has a great influence on the fields of philosophy of language, cognitive science and pragmatics, and provides us with a new way of thinking to fully understand the phenomenon and essence of language.
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