The "Logic" of the natural language functioning in the Oxford School philosophy

Abstract

This article focuses on the linguistic philosophy, specifically on John Austin's theory of speech acts. This theory examines the speech acts in the situation of direct communication. The theory author divides the speech acts into three action types, and introduces terms for their designation: locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary acts. Austin tried to identify and classify illocutionary verbs, but he did not give a precise definition or criteria for classification; he proposed dividing all the verbs into 'classes of use', upon that, the same verb could belong to different classes. The article author analyzes the speech act theory development lines, particularly, the research of John Rogers Searle, who was a follower of J. Austin. He introduced such terms as illocutionary point, conditions of satisfaction, direction of fit. These three terms allow him to identify five varieties of speech acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, declaratives. It is Searle's philosophy of language that remains popular among linguists who try to find the structural rules that create the phenomenon. The article discusses other development variants of John Austin's ideas, related to the speech communication modelling and discourse theory. The author concludes by pointing out the weaknesses of the everyday language theory.