The intentionality of questions – a critique of Searle’s analysis of speech acts

Simon Borchmann

doi:10.7146/sss.v11i1.121360

Abstract

Searle’s analysis and classification of speech acts entails that one of the two components of a speech act is a proposition. The first part of the article demonstrates that the analysis and classification is misleading when applied to three authentic examples of questions embedded in an everyday activity. Considerations concerning the situations that give rise to the questions suggest that the discrepancy is due to assumptions about intentionality and perception implied by the proposition-based analysis and classification of speech acts. In the second part of the article, Searle’s theory of intentionality and perception is compared with cognitive ethnographic observations of the situations that give rise to the three questions. The comparison shows that Searle’s theory of intentionality and perception is insufficiently informative and partly misleading as regards human intentionality and perception in the performance of an everyday activity. The claim is that the assumptions about intentionality and perception that form the basis of the proposition-based analysis and classification of speech acts are insufficient as a basis for a general theory of speech acts.

Highlights

The claim is that the assumptions about intentionality and perception that form the basis of Searle’s proposition-based analysis of speech acts are inadequate as a basis for a general theory of speech acts, and that an informative and accurate analysis of certain types of commonly used speech acts requires an alternative basis
I have traced this inadequacy back to the theory of intentionality and perception that forms the basis of the theory of speech acts
In assessing Searle’s theory of intentionality and perception as a basis for an analysis and classification of speech acts, one must take into account the knowledge interests by which it is driven

Summary

Introduction

The problem appears when Searle’s analysis of the general form of speech acts, F(p), is applied to everyday language use. The examples derive from a cognitive ethnographic (Hutchins 1995) study with particular regard to the socio-cognitive tasks (Harder 2010) that language fulfills (Borchmann 2019, 2018, 2016) The advantage of this method with regard to the issues of intentionality and perception is that it provides access to ample information concerning the language users’ knowledge and skills, the practical and cognitive tasks (Cook 1994, Vicente and Rasmussen 1992, Roth and Woods 1989, Rasmussen 1985) that the language users are confronted with and need to solve, the non-linguistic behavior that accompanies the linguistic behavior and serves as criteria for the understanding of the linguistic behavior (Wittgenstein 2009/1953), the goals and values (Hodges 2007, Hodges and Baron 1992) that guide the activity that the speech acts are part of, and the lawful constraints that set the boundary conditions on the space of possibilities (Flach and Rasmussen 2000, Rasmussen et al 1993).

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion