Mises Daily: Friday, June 14, 2013 Language as Action by Danny Hieber Language is a variety of action.

Linguists have recognized this fact in its cont emporary understanding since at least the 1960s, when J. L. Austin coined the te rms speech acts and performative utterances to refer to the non-declarative function s of language.[1] Various other scholars had also written on the performative na ture of language as far back as the Greeks, and the power of speech as an act ev en features prominently in early Christian texts (e.g., the creative power of Go d s speech as he shapes the world with merely an utterance, Let there be light, or t he concept of the biblical Word). But in the years prior to Austin, philosophers of language, influenced by analytic philosophy and logical positivism, were mai nly interested in what sentences mean, i.e., their semantic, declarative, or pro positional content, and especially their truth values. Austin, however, pointed out that people do more than just communicate with language they use it to do th ings as well. Speaking is often an act in itself, such as when we say I promise or I hereby decla re. Today many linguists acknowledge that all language is performative. Even the innocuous declarative sentence I went to the store constitutes an act, i.e., the a ct of informing. Just like any other action, we speak and write in order to brin g about effects on the world, or in the mental states of others. Language, there fore, is a species of action, and thus subject to the laws of praxeology. Language is just one of the many underexplored areas in the broader field of wha t might be called praxeology of culture. Mike Reid, for example, has written a num ber of excellent articles in the Austrian tradition from an anthropological pers pective, and Paul Cantor has successfully applied Austrian insights to both lite rary and cultural analysis. If praxeology is really to be taken as the science o f human action, then these fields deserve their place as a new branch in the Rot hbardian taxonomy of the fields of praxeology.[2] Moreover, sociology, anthropol ogy, and cultural studies are those fields most in need of the insights of praxe ology and methodological individualism, since they have become notoriously colle ctivist in their ideologies. As Mike Reid once wrote to me, In my experience, the hard-core collectivists have fled the field of economics, meaning that we can t reach them there. They ve backed themselves into anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics, and the omnipresent grievance studies. Our work can reach out to the mountainous strongholds of error and hold up a candle of truth at the entrances to their caves. Come out! Come out! There s truth and ho pe out here! Yet as an area of praxeology language has garnered almost no recognition among A ustrians. One notable exception comes from Ludwig von Mises, the father of praxe ology himself. He concisely illustrates the performative nature of language in H uman Action: Action means the employment of means for the attainment of ends. As a rule one o f the means employed is the acting man s labor. But this is not always the case. U nder special conditions a word is all that is needed. He who gives orders or int erdictions may act without any expenditure of labor. To talk or not to talk, to smile or to remain serious, may be action.[3] And although Mises also writes extensively on the relationship between language and nation, and the politics of language, in his book Nation, State, and Economy , these comments are perhaps more political commentary than praxeological insigh

ts per se. Many prominent Austrian economists (Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard) also point t o language as an example of spontaneous order in society. Hayek s comments are the best-known in this regard: The basic tools of civilization language, morals, law and money lt of spontaneous growth and not of design.[4] are all the resu

Being a type of spontaneous order, it is no surprise that language is subject to the same kinds of centrally-planned disruptions as economic systems, as noted b y Rothbard: The system of compulsory state education has been used as a terrible weapon in t he hands of governments to impose certain languages and to destroy the languages of various national and linguistic groups within their borders. This was a part icular problem in central and eastern Europe. The ruling State imposes its offic ial language and culture on subject peoples with languages and cultures of their own, and the result has been incalculable bitterness. If the education were vol untary, such a problem would not have arisen.[5] These themes constitute the only real contributions to the praxeology of languag e in the Austrian tradition, other than the frequent but ill-informed assertion that language is decaying and that this is a symptom of a decaying society (a we ll-known fallacy in linguistics). Yet significant insights can be had from even a cursory application of the lessons of praxeology. Take the single most important principle of economics, for example opportunity c ost. Or, in the words of Bastiat, that which is unseen. As Mises puts it, But acting man chooses, determines, and tries to reach an end. Of two things bot h of which he cannot have together he selects one and gives up the other. Action therefore always involves both taking and renunciation. ... Wherever the condit ions for human interference are present, man acts no matter whether he interfere s or refrains from interfering. ... Action is not only doing but no less omittin g to do what possibly could be done.[6] This is no less true for language. Isn t that which is left unsaid just as importa nt as that which is said? For every utterance one speaks, there are an infinite number of other utterances left unspoken. Often, the ones left unsaid are so sal ient that they actually contribute to our interpretation of the utterance. If on e says, I have five dollars, this is because they opted not to say I have six do llars. Assuming that the goal of the utterance is to convey the amount of money the speaker possess, the listener can infer that the speaker has five and no mor e than five dollars, even though it is logically possible that the speaker has s ix or six thousand. The same goes for utterances such as, Well, I don t not like h im. No native speaker of English would deny that what is unsaid here is far more important than what is said. $25.00 $20.00 Yet in other situations, such inferences are unjustified. If asked, Does anybody have five dollars for the tip?, and you reply, I have five dollars and hand ove r the money, nobody is justified assuming that your wallet is now empty (at leas t not on the basis of your utterance alone). What makes the inference justified in one case but not another? How do listeners navigate these inconsistencies? At other times, questions can be dodged entirely, and it gives nobody the slightes t pause. Consider: A: Do you want to go to the movies with me at 6:00?

B: Is there a 7:30 showing? A: Sure is. B: Great! Let s do that. B isn t even answering A s original question, and yet B hardly comes across as uncoo perative or hard to understand. Much of our everyday speech is like this riddled with implications and things left unsaid. What makes it possible for listeners to pierce this linguistic fog is the simple fact that we interpret other people s utterances as targeted actions on the part of conscious actors aiming at a certa in communicative or social goals. Every utterance is interpreted through this le ns. It is the implicit recognition on the part of every listener that we are all actors aiming at ends that makes communication possible at all. In a way, this makes language a wonderful testament to the worth of the individu al. For every time I listen to what you have to say and attempt to understand it , I acknowledge your status as an autonomous individual with aims of your own. W e are all budding praxeologists thanks to language. Comment on this article. Danny Hieber is a linguist working to document and revitalize the world s endanger ed languages. Learn more about his work at his website. Send him mail. See Danny Hieber's article archives. You can subscribe to future articles by Danny Hieber via this RSS feed.

Notes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] See especially J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (William James Lect ures), 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). [2] Murray N. Rothbard, Praxeology: Reply to Mr. Schuller, American Economic Revie w, December 1951, pp. 943-946. [3] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Scholar s Edition / K indle Edition (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008 [1949, 1998]), pp. 931-934. [4] Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition, vol . 17, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011 [1960]), p. 495. [5] Murray N. Rothbard, Education: Free and Compulsory. Kindle Edition. (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1999 [1971, 1979]), pp. 577-581. [6] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Scholar s Edition / K indle Edition (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008 [1949, 1998]), pp 926-940.

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