speech act theory

 Speech Act Theory:

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/speech_act.htm


Pronouns—Benveniste and Jakobson

p.286 what does I or You refer to?

“I signifies ‘the person who is uttering the present instance of the discourse containing I’”
“It has no value except in the instance in which it is produced.”
You=the individual spoken to in the present instance of discourse containing the linguistic instance you.”

“These pronominal forms do not refer to ‘reality’ or ‘objective’ positions in space of time [as he or she or cat or dog do] but to the utterance, unique each time, that contains them, and thus they reflect their proper use” p288

In order to solve the problem of intersubjective communication [words traded between adressor and addressee that refer to themselves]---“Language has solved this problem by creating an ensemble of ‘empty’ signs that re non referential with respect to ‘reality’.”

“These signs are always available and become ‘full’ as soon as a speaker introduces them into each instance of his discourse.”

“Language wards off this danger by instituting a unique but mobile sign, I, which can be assumed by each speaker on the condition that he refers each time only to to the instance of his discourse.”

Think of I and you as words that you can never own, but you can borrow them (from the library as it were) to enable your expression and communication and to refer to yourself and to your addressee.

I and you mark the “difference between language as a system of signs and language assumed into use by the individual [the speech act, parole, as distinct from langue].”

With the use of I: “language is turned into instance of discourse, characterized by this system of internal references of which I is the key, and defining the individual by the particular linguist contstruction he makes use of when he announces himself as the speaker.”

The speaker “appropriates” I/you, but it is not hers even though the usage actualizes I/you
Bringing it into discourse. [and then return it to the library for another’s use]

The third person he/she does not have the same elasticity and emptiness/fullness of The I/You. They refer “not the themselves but to an ‘objective’ situation.” (289)
The assumption with pronouns:

I/You = subjective
He/She = objective

He/She serve as “abbreviated subsitutes” for the proper name of a person. “Professor Miller no longer coughs. He is feeling better.”

JaKobson—
Distinguishes between MESSAGE [meaning of words] and CODE [mode of transfer/utterance] — even as both are vehicles of linguistic commnication.


I/You are indexical symbols. They indicate the presence of a person who is speaking or is spoken to, and at the same time they are words, and hence symbolic.

“For Jakobson, a shifter is a term whose meaning cannot be determined without referring to the message that is being communicated between a sender and a receiver.” I/You/Here/There are without meaning save for how they are being deployed, and by whom, in what context.

http://nosubject.com/Shifter


Jakobson attempts to devise a typology of verbal categories/
1. Speech itself and its topic, the narrated event. Jim talks about walking his dog Fido. [I heard Jim talk about his dog Fido]
2. the event itself (also the event of the speech)

Jim walks his dog—the event
Jim talks – the speech event, the narrated event, also an event, but one about an event that at least initially was not narrated.

From this there are four distinguisable items:
1. narrated event. (jim walking his dog
2. a speech event (jim talking about walking his dog)
3. a participant of the narrated event (fido, Jim)
4. a participant of the speech event whether addresser or addressee (Jim/those who hear Jim)



quantifiers (such as related to numbers) and qualifiers (such as related to gender)

 

 

deixis/demonstratives + regulative vs constitutive rules

A deictic is of or relating to a word, the determination of whose referent (the object or person to which the word refers to) is dependent on the context in which it is said or written. In the sentence "I want him to come here now" the words I, here, him, and now are deictic because the determination of their referents depends on who says that sentence, and where, when, and of whom it is said. In the previous sentence the word "that" is also deictic, but is also a demonstrative.

A demonstrative specifies or singles out the person or object referred to: the demonstrative pronouns these and that. "I want that car." "I don't want this one. "That" is distal (far way) and "this" is proximal.

deixis indicate the situational ‘co‐ordinates’ of person (I/you, us/them), place (here/there, this/that), and time (now/then, yesterday/today)

demonstratives include this, that, these, those, yonder, and the archaic yon and are pronominal, indicating the location (in relation to the speaker) of a noun.

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regulative vs constitutive rules

rules that govern how we dine (the use of specific utensils, not talking with mouths full) etc is regulative. It doesn't define what we eat; it regulates how we eat, eating is a pre-existing activity.

Searle argues that games like football and chess are constitutive. the rules are itself the game; nothing exists but adherance to the rules (and mastery). constitutuve rules not only regulate the activity but constitute it. Non-adherance to the rules is cheating. there is no outside to the construction of the game.

he suggests that so it is with illocutionary acts. they are made up or constituted by rules (and not just regulated by then). the rules related to speech acts (that pre-exist the speaker) constitute the speech act itself.

cf. the Saussurean notion, emphasized by Lacan that language is a pre-existing condition, a system that is not defined by the user, but uses her to reassert its structures.