Searle, John (1932–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernie Lepore
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
University Of California ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
The University

John Searle was a pupil of J.L. Austin at Oxford in the 1950s. He is the Mills Professor of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught philosophy since 1959. According to Searle, the primary objects of analysis in the philosophy of language are not expressions but the production of expressions, speech acts, in accordance with rules. Learning a language involves (often unconsciously) internalizing rules that govern the performance of speech acts in that language. Speech-act theory aims to discover these rules and is itself a part of action theory, which concerns intentional states directed at or about something. It follows that speech-act theory is part of a more comprehensive theory of intentionality.

scholarly journals Comparing the Meaning Potential in Shakespeare and Manto through Speech Acts: A Discourse Pragmatic Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-600
Author(s):  
Tazanfal Tehseem ◽  
Muazzma Batool ◽  
Aqsa Arshad ◽  
Zohaib Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Meaning Potential ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Pragmatic Study

This paper attempts to explain the application of speech act theory (John Searle, 1976) on the soliloquies expressed by Hamlet and Keshulal Singh. The descriptive focus of this study is to draw attention to the felicity conditions whether they are being fulfilled by the speakers while making an utterance or not. Content analysis based on speech act theory is used for this paper. It has been pointed out that declaratives are less while directives are more applicable on these soliloquies, with the help of analysis. Hamlet and Keshulal’s inner self is being depicted through their speeches and it is analyzed that they are so much upset and are in the situation of to be or not to be that they do not know what should be their strategies, in taking their revenge. In actuality, they are trying to extinguish the storm which is bursting inside them through their soliloquies but by comparing the inner devastation of both characters. It is highlighted that Hamlet’s soliloquies are more self-explanatory than that of Keshulal because Hamlet makes vows, questions, deplores, and challenges the circumstances more than the Keshulal.

scholarly journals The Performativity of Literature

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Chitanu
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Per Se

Performativity in the philosophy of language means that certain deeds may be done using language, strictly speaking in speech, and the theory has become known as “speech-act theory,” its first theoreticians being J. L. Austin and John Searle. This article investigates the performativity of the text per se, how literature can “perform” for the reader, while also interpreting some related concepts: performance, drama, script, and intermediality through the analysis of three highly popular plays: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion.

Muḥammad’s Conversations with the Bedouin: a Speech-Act Analysis of Prophetic Discourse in Hadith

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Mohd Faizal Kasmani ◽  
Sofia Hayati Yusoff ◽  
Osama Kanaker
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Communication Style ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Perlocutionary Effect ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

Abstract Speech-act theory allows us to study how words have an impact in real life and the performative nature of words. At the same time, it can also contribute to an understanding of communication style and communication strategy. In this article, speech-act theory is applied to the conversations of Prophet Muḥammad with the Bedouin in two ways. First, the speech acts of the Prophet are analyzed using the categories put forward by John Searle to see how they function within the conversation. Second, the illocutionary force of an utterance and its perlocutionary effect – based on words and expressions that the Prophet used in his utterances – are examined to discover patterns in his communication strategy towards the Bedouin.

Preliminaries

Just Words ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 8-26
Author(s):  
Mary Kate McGowan
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
General Information ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Key Concepts

This chapter presents the material in the philosophy of language that is required to follow the arguments in the book. A general introduction to an intentionalist neo-Gricean framework for understanding language use is presented. General information about speech act theory and the felicity conditions for successful speech acts is covered. Since the book focuses on exercitive speech, that is, speech that enacts permissibility facts, additional information is given about exercitives and their felicity conditions. This chapter also clarifies some of the key concepts used throughout the book. The nature of enactment, different kinds of enactment, the important distinction between constituting and merely causing harm, and the nature of social norms are all presented.

scholarly journals Teori Tindak Tutur dalam Studi Linguistik Pragmatik

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Akhmad Saifudin
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Essential Condition ◽  
Illocutionary Acts ◽  
Present Information ◽  
Semantic Properties

This article explains the theory of speech acts proposed by John L. Austin and his student John R. Searle. Speech act theory is a sub-field of pragmatics. This field of study deals with the ways in which words can be used not only to present information but also to carry out actions. This theory considers three levels or components of speech: locutionary acts (the making of a meaningful statement, saying something that a hearer understands), illocutionary acts (saying something with a purpose, such as to inform), and perlocutionary acts (saying something that causes someone to act). Many view speech acts as the central units of communication, with phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of an utterance serving as ways of identifying the meaning of speaker’s utterance or illocutionary force. There are five types of Illocutionary point according to Searle: declarations, assertives, expressives, directives, and commissives (1979:viii). A speech act, in order to be successful, needs to be performed along certain types of conditions. These conditions were categorized by the linguist John Searle, who introduced the term felicity conditions: propositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition.

New Work on Speech Acts

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Work ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Relationship

The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives generally. It is the goal of this book to reflect the diversity of current thinking on speech acts as well as to bring these conversations together, so that they may better inform one another. Topics explored in this book include the relationship between sentence grammar and speech act potential; the fate of traditional frameworks in speech act theory, such as the content-force distinction and the taxonomy of speech acts; and the ways in which speech act theory can illuminate the dynamics of hostile and harmful speech. The book takes stock of well over a half century of thinking about speech acts, bringing this classicwork in linewith recent developments in semantics and pragmatics, and pointing the way forward to further debate and research.

Sexual Harassment, Speech Acts, and Public Secrets in U.S. Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Debenport
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Online Conversations ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Discursive Representations

This chapter draws on data from U.S. higher education to analyze the ways that the language used to describe sexual harassment secures its continued power. Focusing on two features viewed as definitional to sexual harassment, frequency and severity, the discussion analyzes three sets of online conversations about the disclosure of abuse in academia (a series of tweets, survey responses, and posts on a philosophy blog) from grammatical, pragmatic, and semiotic perspectives. Unlike most prior research, this chapter focuses on the language of victims rather than the intentions of harassers. The results suggest that speech act theory is unable to account fully for sexual harassment without accepting the relevance of perlocutionary effects. Using Gal and Irvine’s (2019) model of axes of differentiation, the chapter demonstrates how opposing discursive representations (of professors, sexual harassers, victims, and accusers) create a discursive space in which it becomes difficult for victims to report their harassers.

scholarly journals Uttering geographies: Speech acts, felicity conditions and modes of existence

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 1124-1140
Author(s):  
Miles Ogborn
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Everyday Talk ◽  
Modes Of Existence

The geographies of speech has become stuck in a form of interpretation which considers the potentially infinite detail of spoken performances understood within their equally infinitely complex contexts. This paper offers a way forward by considering the uses, critiques and reworkings of J.L. Austin’s speech act theory by those who study everyday talk, by deconstructionists and critical theorists, and by Bruno Latour in his AIME (‘An Inquiry into Modes of Existence’) project. This offers a rethinking of speech acts in terms of power and space, and a series of ontological differentiations between forms of utterances and enunciations beyond human speech.

scholarly journals Mandarin Language Students Illocutionary Acts in Japanese Language Learning at the University of Sumatera Utara

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Taulia Taulia ◽  
Laraiba Nasution
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Mandarin Language ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Recorded Data ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
The University ◽  
Department Faculty

Speech acts play an essential role in language learning as an aspect that can improve a learner's ability to speak orally. In this research, illocutionary speech-acts  were described in the Japanese language learning process for students of the Mandarin Language Department, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, University of Sumatera Utara. This research is qualitative. The data are speech acts in the lecture process in class, especially in the discussion. The data sources were 40 fourth-semester students of the Mandarin Language Department. The theory used was the Searle speech act theory. Data collection techniques were carried out through observation, recording , and note-taking techniques. Data analysis techniques were carried out applying Miles & Huberman's opinion by condensing data through transcription of recorded data into written form, identifying forms, speech act functions, data presentation, and concluding. As a result, there were forms of illocutionary speech acts, namely directive, expressive, and declarative. Furthermore, the purpose used in class was in directive speech acts which were to order, ask, invite (engage). In other words, in expressive speech-act was praising, and in declarative speech-act was prohibiting. In conclusion, Japanese speech acts in Japanese class occured between lecturers and students and only consisted of several types of speech acts due to students' limited mastery of Japanese.

scholarly journals An Analysis of Speech Acts in the Inaugural Address of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the President of the Republic of Ghana on January 7, 2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
John Demuyakor
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Inaugural Address ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
The Republic

Speech acts as an important element during communication, because it explains the thoughts of the speaker(s). A speech act is more about what is performed when uttering words and not about individual words or sentences that are known to form the basic elements of human communication. An attempt to do something through speaking is what is known as a speech act and a lot of things can be done through speaking. A speech act is studied under speech act theory and is found in the domain of pragmatics. Using a qualitative research design, the key objective of this study is to analyze the types of speech acts adopted in the inaugural address of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo as the President of the Republic of Ghana for his second term on the 7th January 2021. This study analyzed the Inaugural Address using Searle’s theory of speech act as a theoretical framework with emphasis on Searle’s five categories of speech act. The study showed that out of a total of 74 locutionary / Statements in the inaugural address,assertive acts are 40.5% of the utterances, commissive acts are 25.6%, while directive, expressive and declarative have small portions, of 13.5%, 12.2%, and 8.2% respectively.

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