Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Speech Act Theory and Scripture

Marc Lloyd

April 2007

Table of Contents

I. Speech Act Theory: An Introduction and Summary 3

Austin’s analysis of an utterance 5

The locution / illocution distinction 6

Performatives 6

Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts 7

(1) Assertives 7

(2) Directives 7

(3) Commissives 8

(4) Expressives 8

(5) Declaratives 8

(6) Assertive Declaratives 8

The illocution / perlocution discussion 9

Felicity conditions, misfires and abuses 10

Written Texts as Speech Acts 11

II. Speech Act Theory and Scripture: A Summary and Evaluation 12

The usefulness of speech act theory in biblical hermeneutics 12

An extra-biblical category or a biblical view of language? 13

Speech Act and Liturgy 15

The contribution of speech act theory to the doctrine of Scripture 17

Words and deeds of God 17

Objective and Subjective Revelation 17

The Propositional and the Personal 17

The Personal Presence of God by his word 18

Self-involvement and transformative reading 19

God’s efficacious word 19

The Bible as God’s covenant promise 19

A Trinitarian speech act account of revelation 20

Conclusions 21

Endnotes 22

I. Speech Act Theory: An Introduction and Summary

This section provides an introduction and summary to some of the key ideas of speech act theory together with indications of ways in which speech act theory may be useful in understanding utterances.

Although he did not create it complete andex nihilo [1], the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin is usually correctly credited with founding Speech Act theory with his 1955 William James Lectures,How To Do Things With Words delivered at Harvard University and posthumously published in 1962[2]. Speech Act theory was further developed and systematized by John Searle[3]and others and is now a well-established species of ordinary language philosophy[4]which can be seen as a branch of pragmatics[5].

Vanhoozer calls the speech-act “the great discovery of twentieth-century philosophy of language.”[6]

Whereas semiotics is characteristically focused on words (as signs), often in the abstract without much of a specific context, speech act theory deals much more at the level of sentences, or better, meaningful utterances, as they are used by speakers for particular purposes in certain situations.

Austin’s fundamental insight was that speakers “do things” with their words. He begins by contrasting making statements (“constating”) with other things that speakers do with words (other than merely speaking), rejecting the “descriptive fallacy” that speakers simply seek to make true propositions about the world[7].

Austin thus makes what he calls a “preliminary isolation of the performative” by examining utterances which are not nonsense, and have the grammatical form of statements but which satisfy the following conditions:

they do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything at all, are not ‘true or false’; and

the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of the action, which would notnormally be described as saying something.[8]

Austin gives the following phrases as examples of performatives that do something in being said:  the “I do”, in a marriage ceremony; “I name this ship…”, “I give & bequeath…”, “I bet you…”[9]. Austin rejects the common feeling that such utterances are “(merely) the outward and visible sign, for convenience or other record or for information, of an inward and spiritual act”[10]. Rather, in these performative utterances, “the issuing of the utterance is the performance of the action.”[11]

It is worth noting at this early stage thatHow To Do Things With Words is a series of lectures that has the character of an unfolding argument and a developing approach. Austin is trying out accounts of language use, as Briggs puts it: “essentially proposing a series of distinctions and then abandoning and / or replacing them by others”[12]. For example, the contrast between describing and doing just mentioned is not absolute: Austin later recognises that describing the world by stating true propositions is itself something that we do with words[13]. Indeed, Searle argues that:

The main theme of Austin’s mature work,How To Do Things With Words , is that this distinction [between utterances that are “sayings”, such as making statements, and utterances which are “doings”, such as promising] collapses. Just as saying certain things constitutes getting married (a “performative”) and saying certain things constitutes making a promise (another “performative”), so saying certain things constitutes making a statement (supposedly a “constative”). As Austin saw but as many philosophers still fail to see, the parallel is exact.[14]

Making a statement is just as much performing an action as other more obviously performative actions, such as marrying, promising or betting.

Even where Austin’s work has been challenged, rejected or revised,How To Do Things With Words continues to attract attention and has remained foundational and programmatic for speech act approaches to language use.

Austin’s analysis of an utterance

Austin eventually analyses utterances into:

(1) Locution: the saying of an utterance (making noises conforming to certain vocabulary and grammar) that has a meaning (a particular sense and reference)[15]

(2) Illocution: the force of an utterance such as informing, warning or undertaking etc.

(3) Perlocution: the effect of an utterance, the action performed by speaking.[16]

Ted Cohen’s approximate summary of these distinctions is widely accepted:

a locution is an actof saying something, an illocution is an act donein saying something, a perlocution is an act doneby saying something.[17]

The locution / illocution distinction

Austin distinguished locution and illocution by pointing out that the same locution (e.g., “I am coming back”[18]) could be used to perform a number of different illocutions (e.g. stating, predicting, promising, encouraging, warning, questioning). When the form of an utterance coincides the force the speaker intends to convey, this is termed a direct speech act. Indirect speech acts have an illocutionary force which is not directly apparent from the form of the locution, for example, as when the statement, “it’s cold in here” is used as a request that the window might be closed or the heating turned up. Such indirect or multi-purpose speech acts are particularly interesting cases of interpretation since a greater degree of construal is required.

Searle rejected Austin’s division between locution and illocution[19], rightly seeing that the meaning of an utterance is usually inextricably bound up with its force[20]. For example, we might say that “please shut the door” means “I would like you to shut the door and request that you do so”. On this understanding the meaning contains the force of the request.

Searle suggested replacing Austin’s locution / illocution distinction with the alternative distinction of:

(1) utterance acts, in which the speaker utters words

(2) propositional acts, in which the speaker refers and predicates and

(3) illocutionary acts, which have a particular force[21].

For Searle, an illocutionary act is a function both of its propositional content and its illocutionary force and can be expressed using the notation F(p), where F is the force and p is the propositional content of reference (R) and sense (S), p=RS.

Briggs comments that:

… Austin’s definitions of locution and illocution do not match up either to the examples he gives or his subsequent discussion. Without a doubt, Searle’s work in this area has superseded Austin’s exploratory discussion…[22]

Performatives

Discussion of speech acts has sometimes focused on performative verbs that explicitly name the illocution being performed[23]. The form of such explicit performatives is:

I (hereby)performative verb [24]you (that)…

Vanderveken lists 270 performative verbs according to their illocutionary point, though he notes that many speech act verbs can have several different uses, for example, one may “swear” that a proposition is true or that one will perform a future action[25].

A speech act analysis of a discourse may involve making the illocutions explicit, perhaps even rewriting them in this form. However, as has been demonstrated above, all illocutions are performative in the sense that they do something by being said.

As Briggs puts it: “… all speech acts are performative, but some are more performative than others.”[26]He suggests that:

it is helpful to consider illocutionary acts (or forces) in a spectrum ranging from strong to weak. In the weak sense we may say that almost any utterance is an illocutionary act. However, we shall want to reserve most of our attention for ‘strong’ acts, where the illocutionary force plays a significant role in the utterance.[27]

For Briggs this category is similar to Austin’s preliminary performative discussed above and is characterised by a reliance on a non-linguistic convention that certain words under certain circumstances can perform a certain function. Weak illocutions depend only or largely on the (conventional) linguistic meaning of the utterance such as “the lamp is on the table”, which made explicitly performative is, “I (herby) state (or inform you) that the lamp is on the table”[28].

Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts

Briggs argues that “Searle’s work on classifying illocutionary acts… is a significant advance on” Austin’s and “has become the standard theory”[29].

In contrast to Wittgenstein, who imagined an infinite number of language uses, Searle argued that there are a limited number of types of thing that we can do with words[30]and that the illocutionary point or purpose of an utterance will allow it to be classified.

Searle introduced to speech act theory the analysis of the differences in direction of fit between words and the world in different utterances. This distinction considers whether a speaker attempts to conform his words to the world (a word to world fit, as in statements, descriptions, assertions or explanations) or the world to his words (a world to word fit, as in requests, commands, vows and promises)[31]. Though this is a useful distinction, it should be noted that every utterance affects the world by itself becoming a new fact in the world. Even if only the speaker hears his own word to world statement, he is changed by having made it.

Searle also described the psychological state in the speaker or sincerity condition which is required for each type of illocutionary act, and the propositional content involved.

This yields the following taxonomy[32], though the categories are not intended to be mutually exclusive - one utterance may perform a number of illocutions:

(1) Assertives

illocutionary point: commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition

direction of fit: words to world

sincerity condition: the speaker believes the propositional content expressed

propositional content: the thing asserted

examples: statements, hypothesizing, boast, complain, conclude, deduce

(2) Directives

illocutionary point: attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something

direction of fit: world to words

sincerity condition: want (wish or desire)

propositional content: that the hearer does the future action specified

examples: ask, order, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat, invite, permit, advise, dare, defy, challenge

(3) Commissives

illocutionary point: commit the speaker to some future action

direction of fit: world to words

sincerity condition: intention

propositional content: that the speaker does some future action

examples: promise, vow, pledge, covenant, contract

(4) Expressives

illocutionary point: to express a psychological state

direction of fit: no direction of fit - presupposed

sincerity condition: the psychological state expressed

propositional content: the state of affairs / property specified related to speaker or hearer

examples: thank, congratulate, apologize, condole, deplore, welcome

(5) Declaratives

illocutionary point: to bring about the of affairs specified

direction of fit: words to world and world to words

sincerity condition: none

propositional content: the thing declared

examples: I resign, you’re fired, I excommunicate you, I christen, I appoint you, War is hereby declared

(6) Assertive Declaratives

illocutionary point: to declare that a certain state of affairs is the case

direction of fit: assertive words to world and declarative world to words and words to world

sincerity condition: belief in the propositional content being asserted

propositional content: the thing being asserted and declared

examples: you are out, you are guilty

Within a class of speech acts there may be different degrees of force or intensity. For example, directives may hint, suggest, request, order, demand or insist. Determining the degree of intensity in a speech act can be significant for the interpretation of an utterance.

The illocution / perlocution discussion

Illocutions focus on what the speaker is intending to do by what he says. Perlocutions focus on what the speaker actually does, the effect of what is said on the hearers. The analysis of utterances into illocution and perlocution can thus assist in making valuable distinctions between aims and results and clarify what is being intended and done. Often the illocution and the perlocution will be the same, at least in part (for example, someone may seek to convey an instruction and successfully do so) though the perlocution may be different from the illocution (if, for example, the intention is to convey an instruction but the hearer thinks that the speaker is joking the perlocution may be amusement rather than the receiving of the instruction and hence the performance of the action required). In other words, for an illocutionary act to be successful and achieve the perlocutionary effect the speaker desires, there must be illocutionary uptake: for example, Austin argues that it is normally necessary to be heard and understood by the promisee as promising if one is to effectively make a promise to someone[33]. This may be contrasted with the conventions that citizens are bound by the laws of a state even if they are unaware of certain statutes. Speech Act theorists have sought an analyse the conditions required for illocution and perlocution as follows.

Felicity conditions, misfires and abuses

Austin considers utterances which are not so much true or false but more or less successfully performed. He outlines the following felicity conditions for the happiness of a performative utterance:

(A1) convention that the words are performative;

(A2) the persons and circumstances are appropriate;

(B1) there is a correctly and

(B2) completely executed procedure; and

(G1) thoughts, feelings, intentions or

(G2) subsequent actions may also be necessary.[34]

If A and B are not in place then the speech act “misfires”: it is void and the purported action has not been achieved, though other things may have been done. IfGis not the case then the speech act is an “abuse”: it has been achieved but insincerely or hollowly[35].

If the conditions in A are not in place there is a “misinvocation” of a procedure, specifically in A2 a “misapplication” of a procedure. If the conditions in B are not fulfilled there is a “misexecution”: “the purported act is vitiated by a flaw [B1] or hitch [B2] in the condition of the ceremony.”[36]

Austin notes that:

… infelicity is an ill to whichall acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, allconventional acts: not indeed that every ritual is liable to every form of infelicity (but then nor is every performative utterance). [37]

Written Texts as Speech Acts

Those who are interested in employing speech act theory to help interpret the Bible will especially want to consider the theory’s applicability to written texts[38].

Austin states, without argumentation, that written words can also be regarded as speech acts: as with spoken words, writing / “saying” them, under the correct conditions, can also make it so[39]. Searle also asserts that: “speaking or writing in a language consists in performing speech acts… called ‘illocutionary acts’”[40], when considering the speech acts performed by fictional texts.

Paul Ricoeur speaks of texts as discourse fixed by writing and argues that: “to the extent that the illocutionary act can be exteriorised… it too can be inscribed.”[41]

Thiselton also rejects the view that speech act theory should be restricted to oral discourse, arguing that: “Legal texts, for example, clearly embody commitments and set up transactions which potentially function as acts: acts of transferring property, acts of authorization, and so forth.”[42]Later he adds: legal wills, love letters, and written promises can also function as effectiveacts which change situations in the public domain.”[43]

Mary Louise Pratt has defended the usefulness of apply speech act understandings to literature. Pratt’s summary is worth quoting at length:

speech act theory provides a way of talking about utterances not only in terms of their surface grammatical properties but also in terms of the context in which they are made, the intentions, attitudes, and expectations of the participants, the relationships existing between the participants, and generally, the unspoken rules and conventions that are understood to be in play when an utterance is made and received.

There are enormous advantages in talking about literature in this way, too, for literary works, like all our communicative activities, are context dependent. Literature itself is a speech context. And as with all utterance, the way people produce and understand literary works depends enormously on unspoken, culturally-shared knowledge of the rules, conventions, and expectations [such as the idea of genre] that are in play when language is used in that context. Just as a definition of explaining, thanking, or persuading must include the unspoken conventional information on which the participants are relying, so must a definition of literature.[44]

Stanley Fish provides what Briggs calls “one of the clearest examples of how to use speech act theory in literary criticism”[45]in his 1976 article entitled ‘How To Do Things With Austin and Searle’[46]which provides a “speech act ‘reading’” of Shakespeare’sCoriolanus . Fish’s conclusions (which are similar Briggs') are that “while a speech-act analysis of such texts will always be possible, it will also be trivial (a mere list of the occurrences or distribution of kinds of acts)…”[47]. In Fish’s view it is texts that are in some way about the conditions of intelligibility that will be the most fruitful for a speech act approach.