Linguistic or pragmatic description in the context of the performadox

Abstract

In this paper, I want to consider some problems which arise in relating the linguistic properties of a sentence (or other linguistic object) and the actual or potential speech act properties the sentence might have as an utterance. In doing so, I will be discussing some specific instances where there seems to be a grammatical relation between a linguistic element or process, and some aspect of the sentence as part of a speech act. The issue will be to determine which descriptive approach, if any, adequately characterizes such gram matical relations. It will be argued that both linguistically based and pragmatically based theories of linguistic objects and illocutionary forces postulate the same structures which undergo semantic interpretation. Hence both kinds of description fall within the Performadox of Boer and Lycan (1980). And so pragmatically based descriptions offer no advantage over linguistically based descriptions, and further fail to offer adequate or natural descriptions of linguistic patterns. Speech acts necessarily consist of linguistic objects: words, phrases, and sentences. Thus a theory of speech acts, such as Austin (1975) and Searle (1969), might attempt to characterize the connection between the illocu tionary force which may be ascribed to an utterance, and the form and contents of the linguistic content of the utterance. It might be claimed further that there is some connection between the illocutionary force which a speech act may have and the meaning (in a strict or loose sense) of its linguistic contents; some writers restrict the representation of the linguistic object so that its illocutionary force as a speech act is determined by virtue of what the sentence means literally (cf. Searle (1975), Stampe (1975), for various approaches in this vein). There is much appealing simplicity in this view, especially when applied to indirectly conveyed illocutionary forces. Clearly, there is some regular connection of meaning between Can you give me a lift and the request it conveys, as opposed to a private, previously arranged code whereby, for example, I own an Airedale conveys Meet me out in back.