Austin and Searle

• Biography
• Austin’s analysis of an utterance. The locution/illocution distinction
• Searle’s response to Austin’s theory
• Criticism of the theories

1     1.Biography

JohnLangshaw Austin (1911-1960) was born in Lancaster, England. He studied Classics in Oxford, receiving a First in Classics and Philosophy and went on to then become a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford after serving in the war. His work has covered a wide range of areas of philosophy, including knowledge, perception, action, freedom, truth, language, and the use of language in speech acts. What concerns us is the distinctions that Austin drew in his work on speech acts—in particular his distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts—, which has assumed something like canonical status in more recent work. It is possible to say that all the topics he investigated are intertwined in his works, for it is from the relation between his view of truth and language, which his theory of Speech Acts arises.

On the other hand, John Searle, (1932-) is an American philosopher who currently works as Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkley. He started his education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then attended Oxford University, where he completed his studies, and went on to work there. He is mostly known for his work in the fields of philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and social philosophy. He has received numerous awards. Within the field of philosophy, he tried to synthesise the ideas of other philosophers such as Austin and his ‘illocutionary act’, but also ideas from Ludwig Wittgenstein or from Griece, so that his work embraces ideas from many different authors. In his book Speech Acts, published in 1969 he attempts to give his own view on illocutionary act bearing in mind the ideas of these authors among others.

2. Austin’s analysis of an utterance. The locution/illocution distinction

Austin is usually correctly credited with founding Speech Act theory with his How To Do Things With Words published in 1962. Austin’s fundamental insight was that utterances not only say things but “do things”.

Austin’s analysis of an utterance

For Austin, speech acts or illocutionary acts can be analysed on three levels:

(1) A locutionary act: the saying of an utterance (making noises conforming to certain vocabulary and grammar)

(2) An illocutionary act: the force of an utterance such as informing, warning or undertaking (its intended significance as a socially valid verbal action)

(3) A perlocutionary act: the effect of an utterance, the action performed by speaking. (persuading, convincing, scaring…) (Marc Lloyd, 2007)

The locution / illocution distinction

Austin distinguished locution and illocution by pointing out that the same locution (e.g., “I am coming back” ) could be used to perform a number of different illocutions (e.g. stating, predicting, promising, encouraging, warning, questioning). Searle rejected Austin’s division between locution and illocution.

Performative utterances

An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that performed in the utterance of what Austin calls performatives, typical instances of which are "I nominate John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment", or "I promise to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating, sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.

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.

3. Searle’s response to Austin’s theory

Searle rejected Austin’s division between locution and illocution, rightly seeing that the meaning of an utterance is usually inextricably bound up with its force.

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.

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.

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). 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.

Without a doubt, Searle’s work in this area has superseded Austin’s one. His work in the classification of illocutionary acts is a significant advance on Austin’s and has become the standard theory.

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.

Searle's illocutionary acts

5 mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes:

• Assertive- the speaker becomes committed to the truth of the propositional content. Example “it is raining”

• Directive- the speaker tries to get the hearer to act in such a way as to fulfil what is represented by the propositional content. Example “Close the door”

• Commissive- the speaker becomes committed to act in the way represented by the propositional content. Example promising, “I will finish the paper my tomorrow”
• Expresive- the speaker simply expresses the sincerity of condition of the illocutionary act. Example: “I’m glad it is raining!”
• Declarative- the speaker performs an action representing herself as performing that action. Example: “I name this ship Queen Elizabeth”

4. Theories' criticism

The speech act borrows its ideas from structuralism which claims that the elements of the language are rather synchronic, they have the meaning they are given at a certain point, they don't carry historical meaning (diachronic)

While most philosophers of language had examined the dennotative meaning (the literal meaning)of words and the logic of propositions, Speech Act Theorists focus on connotations and the instrumentality of language.

Response

The theory of speech acts has had a tremendous influence on functional aspects of pragmatic theory but it has also received very strong criticism. They were criticised because:

1. They based their theory only on acoustic and momentary communication

2. They were only focussed on a very specific type of expressions and did not watch the complete reality of the linguistic communication. They didn't work on a theory of the communicative interaction

3. Very simple verbal contexts in which they apply their theory

4. Huge tendency for showing a very fragmented linguistic reality: Weinrich in 1981 criticized that speech acts shouldn't help linguistic to pack reality in boxes.

To sum up, the main critique they received was that conversation is not just a mere chain of independent illocutionary forces rather, speech acts are related to other speech acts with a wider discourse context. Speech act theory, in that it does not consider the function played by utterances in driving conversation is, therefore, insufficient in accounting for what actually happens in conversation."

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