The SEP entry to 'Speech Acts'

 

Conceptual and Material Diversity Ignored

 

As we see, each of the the different prominent "speech act theorists" give their own definition of the term "illocutionary act", thereby determining the central subject matter  of "speech act theory" in different ways. The obvious task of an entry to "speech acts" would be to offer an analysis of these different notions and extensions. This would, however, require a certain amount of expertship. The author of such an entry would have to be at least roughly familiar with the different "speech act theories" at hand, to collect at least the definitions (if not the theoretical claims) proposed by the most prominent different theories.

In the SEP entry to "Speech Acts", this difficulty is directly and carefully avoided: not a single one of the leading "speech act theories" is represented in any detail, and above all, the different ways of determining what "illocutionary acts", provided by Austin, Searle, Bach, Harnish, Alston, etc., are all perfectly ignored.

 

 

The definition given in the entry

 

[=>] Instead of taking any notice of the relevant definitions at hand, the SEP entry just introduces its own, new, idiosyncratic definition of the term "speech act": A "first approximation", the entry contends, is this: "speech acts are those acts that can (though need not) be performed by saying that one is doing so". This lets in cases like 'whispering', which the author finds inappropriate. To exclude such cases, he changes over to the following definition (the change from "saying" to "meaning" remains unjustified): "speech acts are cases of speaker meaning that can (but need not) be performed by speaker meaning that one is doing so". This definition associates the one introduced by Schiffer (1972), which equates "illocutionary act" performance with (one variety of) 'speaker meaning'. Yet it adds, for reasons which again remain unexplained, a 'sufficient-but-not-necessary' feature, which was earlier introduced by other authors, including, for example, Kemmerling (2001). (The entry gives, however, no acknowledgement of any predecessors.)

 

 

Idiosyncrasis of the proposed definition

 

Apparently, the author of the entry expects us to find his definition more convincing, or interesting (or ...?) than those stated earlier by the established speech act theorists. Yet the question is, For what particular reason should we consider assuming this (rather idiosyncratic) definition, and abandon the ones proposed by the established speech act theorists?

 

The only authorization the definition given is based on is a reference to the author's personal intuition. But what reason do we have to prefer this author's intuition about 'Speech Acts' to those of Austin, Searle and Bach/Harnish (when the latter are not even discussed)? More importantly, it is just perfectly unreasonable to rely the definition of a technical term on personal intuitions instead of the analysis of how this term is being defined by those who introduced it.

 

Apart from being arbitrary and unfounded, the presentation fo this definition shows a more serious problem. In stating it, the entry's author shows perfect unawareness of the polysemization problem: apparently, he is perfectly unaware that there the prominent "speech act theories" define the central terms in quite different ways, and also to be perfectly unaware how the leading "speech act theorists" define their terms. In the entry, all prominent theorists and their theories are bluntly ignored, and the problem of the intensional and extensional diversity of the prominent "speech act" definitions is overlooked.

 

The ignorance of the intensional and extensional diversity leads to various misapprehensions and mistakes in the entry. Let us consider two of them.

 

 

Crude misrepresentation of Austin's views

The first example concerns the entry's representation of  the views of J.L. Austin. Austin was concerned with acts like christening, bequeathing, wedding, etc. These are so-called 'institutional acts' (this term, subsequently made popular by Searle, was then not yet established; Austin used the term "conventional act"). The notion of an 'institutional fact' is much broader than the association with the common language word "institution" may suggest. 'Institutional acts' are acts constituted by a convention, to the effect that to do x (e.g., to say, under peculiar circumstances, "I hereby declare you husband and wife") is to do y (to wed the persons addressed). They can often well be identified by seeing that a given act involves the production of 'conventional effects', effects which are constituted by virtue of the convention constituting the act. For example, you can buy a car by communicating to someone that you accept their offer. In such a case, what the situation contains is an offer, and the communication of the acceptance of this offer. The convention constituting the act of buying complements these facts by at least two elements: the change of the possession of the car, and the emergence of a duty of payment. In the case of promosing (to take another example), the conventional effect is the commitment on the part of the promisee to realise the promised thing. 

 

While people surely often say and mean things in the performance of an institutional act, it is clear that even in these cases, the performance of an institutional act goes beyond both the saying and the meaning (indeed, is something principally different from either saying, or meaning, or both). In particular, buying a car, christening, bequeathing and wedding are not mere cases of someone's meaning something, but involve a lot more. It is quite in accordance with this, and anyway a fact, that Austin never represented 'illocutionary acts' as (mere) acts of meaning. Yet as we saw, the SEP entry assumes a definition of 'illocutionary act' performance as a case of speaker meaning. Keeping this in mind, let us consider the following passage from the entry, meant to represent Austin's  (!) "view" of speech acts under the name, perfectly alien to Austin, of "force conventionalism":

 

According to [force conventionalism], for every speech act that it performed, there is some convention that will have been invoked in order to make that speech act occur. [...] J.L. Austin seems to have held this view. For instance, in his characterisation of "felicity conditions" for speech acts, Austin holds that for each speech act 

There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances ... (1962, p. 14)

 

Assuming, as the SEP entry does, that "Speech Acts" refers to speaker meaning, Austin is here being credited with the following position: 

 

(1) Acts like christening, bequeathing and wedding are a variety of speaker meaning.

(2) Speaker meaning is constituted by conventions, involves conventional effects, etc.

 

To ascribe such a view to Austin, however, is to credit him with the statement of utter nonsense. As to (1), quite obviously, christening, bequeathing and wedding are not mere acts of speaker meaning. As to (2), Austin never discusses the nature of speaker meaning (and accordingly, he in particular never considers the idea that speaker meaning could be a matter of conventions). But there is another, even more serious problem. 'Speaker meaning'  (as applied in the relevant debates) amounts to the having of certain intentions; yet notice that intentions cannot be constituted by conventions (to say such a thing would be a category mistake). Thus, (2) amounts to utter nonsense, too. (In fact ist is just perfectly obvious for anyone who has ever really read Austin's How to Do Things With Words that speaker meaning has nothing to do with those conventions Austin refers to in his famous doctrine of the 'felicity conditions'.)

 

The underlying problem, quite apparently, is: The SEP entry overlooks the fact that the notion of 'Illocutionary Acts' it introduces and that which Austin had applied to that term are completely different. Based on this mistake, it interprets (quite absurdely) Austin's statement as a statement about speaker meaning, thereby crediting Austin (quite faultily) with the statement of a piece of utter nonsense.

Crude misrepresentation of Sbisà's view

 

The second example is supposed to concern the question, 'Can Saying Make it So?' This quotes a headline in Austin (1975, 7), where it is emphasised that 'illocutionary acts' (in Austin's sense of the term, of course) cannot be "felicitous", and cannot even as much as be performed, if certain external conditions fail to be satisfied:

 

Speaking generally, [for the performance of an 'illocutionary act'] it is always necessary that the circumstances in which the words are uttered should be in some way, or ways, appropriate, and it is very commonly necessary that either the speaker himself or other persons .should also perform certain other actions, whether 'physical' or 'mental' actions or even acts of uttering further words. Thus, for naming the ship, it is essential that I should be the person appointed to name her, for (Christian) marrying, it is essential that I should not be already married with a wife living, sane and undivorced, and so on: for a bet to have been made, it is generally necessary for the offer of the bet to have been accepted by a taker (who must have done something, such as to say 'Done'), and it is hardly a gift if I say 'I give it you' but never hand it over. (Austin 1975, 8-9)

 

 

As we know, and as the examples given in the quote most blatantly confirm, Austin uses the term "illocutionary act" for certain institutional acts. Austin emphasises that often, 'saying cannot make so' because institutional acts require much more than just the saying (and meaning). Clearly, the issue of 'Can Saying Make it So?' is just immaterial when the definition of 'illocutionary acts' which the SEP entry proposes. To this it fits that it is not easy to see what this section of the entry actually aims at.

 

 

In any case, under this puzzling headline, the entry introduces the following view attributed to M. Sbisà (2007): "[N]ot only can I perform a speech act by speaker meaning that I am doing so", she is represented as arguing, "I can also subsequently rescind that act by speaker meaning that I take it back". Keeping in mind that the entry defines 'speech acts' as mere cases of meaning, this credits Sbisà with the claim that you can make one's having meant something undone by meaning something else afterwards--which is apparent nonsense. And in fact Sbisà never says such a thing. The reason for the mistaken ascription is again the confoundation of two different notions of 'illocutionary act'.

 

(It is an ironical detail that in the paper under consideration, Sbisà even emphasises the difference between the two notions whose neglect causes the mistaken ascription of nonsense to her, and clearly sets out how to avoid the error made.)

 

In the passage under consideration, Sbisà refers to (Austin's reception of) Aristotle's view that "what is past is not capable of not having taken place". This is surely true for cases of meaning: You cannot make a case of meaning undone by subsequently meaning something else. Yet Sbisà refers to some notes by Austin, according to which the case of 'illocutionary acts' (nota bene: in the sense of certain institutional acts) is special in one sense: you can agree "about the nullity of" such an act--the conclusion of a contract may be null and void, for instance, when the participants turn out to have aimed at very different things, or a christening fail, when the bottle fails to smash at the ship's stem. While this feature is peculiar for "illocutionary acts" as Austin defines them--as a certain kind of institutional acts--its ascription to cases of meaning is not just false, but indeed absurd. Yet in the quote cited above, the entry clearly (and falsely) ascribes this absurd view to Sbisà. The reason is that the entry fails to take into regard the difference between its own notion of 'illocutionary act' and that assumed by Austin, as well as Sbisá, in the paper under consideration.