A COMPARISON OF SEARLES SPEECH ACT THEORY AND

SPERBER AND WILSONS RELEVANCE THEORY

A Major Paper

Submitted to Dr. Robert Stewart and Dr. Charles Ray

of the

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary






In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

PHIL9402: Contemporary Philosophical Hermeneutics

in the Research Doctoral Program








Allyson R. Presswood

BA, Louisiana State University, 2010

MA, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012

April 11, 2013






iii
CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Brief Background of Pragmatics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Definition of the Term. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Two Basic Schools of Thought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 4

Three Basic Approaches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Semantic/Pragmatic Debate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Description of Speech Act Theory and Relevance Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Speech Act Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Relevance Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20


Comparison of Speech Act Theory and Relevance Theory at Selected Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Critical Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Cooperative Interaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31


Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36




1

Introduction

What does hermeneutics have to do with communication? Porter and Robinson illustrate
the basic meaning of hermeneutics by appealing to its titular character, the ancient communicator
Hermes.
Hermes, a character in the ancient Greek poems the Iliad and Odyssey, played a number
of interesting roles one of them was to deliver messages from the gods to mortals. He
was a medial figure that worked in the in-between as an interpreter of the gods,
communicating a message from Olympus so humans might understand the meaning. In
this way, Hermes, son of Zeus, was responsible for fostering genuine understanding
comprehensionHe had to re-create or reproduce the meaning that would connect to his
audiences history, culture, and concepts in order to make sense of things. In like manner,
hermeneutics tries to describe the daily mediation of understanding we all experience in
which meaning does not emerge as a mere exchange of symbols, a direct and
straightforward transmission of binary code, or a simple yes or no. Rather, meaning
happens by virtue of a go-between that bridges the alien with the familiar, connecting
cultures, languages, traditions, and perspectivesThe go-between is the activity of
human understanding that, like Hermes, tries to make sense of the world and the
heavens.
1


Since Biblical hermeneutics as a field of study deals with ancient texts, the issues interrupting
communication (i.e. historical distance) between an ancient author and a modern reader often
receive more attention than the process of communication itself, which is only to be expected
since such issues are usually the primary deterrents to understanding. Still, studying how
communication works normally should help in determining what to look for in ancient texts.
2

Speech Act Theory and Relevance Theory are pragmatic theories directly concerned with how
communication happens, and thus they provide valuable insights for hermeneutics.
Many scholars concerned with Biblical interpretation (especially those approaching the
subject from a philosophical/linguistic perspective) have used theories of communication to

1
Stanley E. Porter, and Jason C. Robinson, Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory, (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 2-3.

2
This presupposes that such communication is both possible and desirable, points which (due to the limits
of this paper) will not be defended here.
2


bolster their arguments. Anthony Thiselton, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Kevin Vanhoozer rely
explicitly on Speech Act Theory in their works on hermeneutics.
3
Gene Green connects
Relevance Theory to theological interpretation,
4
and Ernst-August Gutt uses Relevance Theory
as a basis for his Bible translation theory, with insights that are very applicable to hermeneutical
theory.
5
Since so much hermeneutical theory incorporates communication theory, a better
understanding of the latter should greatly strengthen an understanding of the former. In order to
apply SAT or RT, one must first correctly understand them. In this paper, I will give the
background and major tenets of two pragmatic theories, SAT and RT, in order to provide a solid
basis for understanding their use by hermeneutists.
In addition to the direct value of understanding pragmatic theories as they inform many
hermeneutical methods, an indirect value (perhaps a side effect) of studying pragmatic theories
is that pragmatics provides a microcosm within which major cross-disciplinary issues can be
clearly seen. For instance, the differences between Continental European and Anglo American
thought and theory (a major divide in many disciplines) is immediately apparent in pragmatics.
The huge debate in literary circles about where meaning is located (author/text/reader) is
reflected in the semantic/pragmatic debate plaguing pragmatists. Studying pragmatics puts
portions of these issues under the microscope so that they can be analyzed with precision, and
the decisions made about those portions may inform the greater issues.


3
Especially see Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1992),Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005) and Is There a
Meaning in the Text (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), and NicholasWolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical
Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks, (New York: Cambridge, 1995).

4
Gene L. Green, "Relevance theory and theological interpretation: thoughts on metarepresentation," Pages
75-90 in Journal Of Theological Interpretation 4, no. 1 (March 1, 2010), ATLA Religion Database with
ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed March 11, 2013).

3



Brief Background of Pragmatics


Definition of the Term

Pragmatics is notoriously difficult to define. Besides many peoples confusion between
the word as a technical linguistic term and its more popular usage meaning practical or
workable, even linguists who specialize in the subject disagree as to the proper definition of
the discipline (or perspective) they practice. Most recognize the centrality of context
6
in any
definition some in fact would define pragmatics as the study of context. But others believe that
the study of context is an insufficient or at least ambiguous explanation. Levinson spends an
entire thirty pages evaluating and discarding possibilities and eventually gives up.
7
Mey devotes
a chapter to the subject and eventually decides in favor of pragmatics as the study of the
conditions of human language uses as these are determined by the context of society.
8

Huang posits more precisely: Pragmatics is the systematic study of meaning by virtue of, or
dependent on, the use of language. The central topics of inquiry of pragmatics include
implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and deixis.
9
Archer and Gundry follow Levinsons
scheme in quoting six previously proposed definitions and analyzing each one, but they settle for

5
Ernst-August Gutt, Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context, 2
nd
ed., (Manchester: St. Jerome
Publishing, 2000).

6
Dawn Archer, and Peter Grundy, eds., The Pragmatics Reader, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 2. On the
other hand, many specialists avoid the term, as it simply begs the question of defining context and brings the
tensions between schools of thought to the forefront.

7
Stephen C. Levinson, Pragmatics, (New York: Cambridge, 1983), 5-35.

8
Jacob L. Mey, Pragmatics, (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993), 42. Discussion on 35-52.

9
Yan Huang, Pragmatics, (New York: Oxford, 2007), 2. To further define his definition Implicature:
what is implied but not explicitly stated in an utterance, presupposition: contextual and situational factors which lead
a person to expect certain communications, speech acts: the intentional force behind what is said, deixis: words such
as we/you/that/there which refer to another substantive in the conversational or concrete context (often a cause of
confusion in seminar papers mea culpa in this regard).
4


the fairly simple explanation of pragmatics as the cognitive, social, and cultural study of
language and communication.
10
I would propose that pragmatics could be defined even more
simply as the study of language as it is used for communication. The divergences in definition
stem primarily from the existence of two quite different schools of thoughts in pragmatics,
secondarily from various bases that underlie the study, and tertiarily from some disputed
questions at the heart of the discipline. A brief discussion of each of these should help unmuddy
the water or at least bring into focus the various chunks of dirt floating therein.

Two Basic Schools of Thought
Pragmatics at its core denotes two very different enterprises: the Anglo American and the
European Continental.
11
Anglo American pragmatists see a basic triadic structure to the study of
language,
12
1) syntax, 2) semantics, and 3) pragmatics. As this division makes apparent,
pragmatics is thus a component
13
of linguistics and could be termed a discipline or even a field
of study. Anglo-American linguists tend to concentrate theoretically, subsequently analyzing
data to determine a theorys accuracy or making up examples to explicate their theories. On the


10
Archer and Gundry, 5. They follow the Benjamins Handbook of Pragmatics for this definition.

11
Levinson, 2; Huang, 4-5; Archer and Gundry, 3-5. Also notable is Leechs further division of pragmatics
into five schools (British (1): speech act, meaning, use, intention, British (2): context, situation, function, German:
agenthood of (transcendental) subject, dialogue, pronouns, speech act, French: subjectivity, markers of subjectivity,
indexicals, enunciation, American: meaning as action, the triadic sign relation), though his delineations seem
specific rather than broad, and thus not especially helpful in defining pragmatics. See Dawn Archer et al,
Pragmatics (RAL), (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 148.

12
The distinction was coined by Charles Morris in 1938. See Levinson, 1. In this division syntax has to do
with the form or grammar of a language, semantics with the relationship between form and meaning, and pragmatics
with the relationship between user, meaning, and form. While many use meaning and communication
interchangeably, I believe (and will attempt to show) that meaning is properly in the domain of semantics and
communication in the domain of pragmatics. These terms are merely my attempt to be precise in an
overwhelmingly complicated discussion, and I make no claim that this terminology reflects that of SAT or RT; I do
believe that it reflects their conceptual views.

13
Terminology (language-component vs. language-use, presumptive context vs. emergent context) from
Archer and Gundry, 4-6.
5


other hand, European Continental linguists view pragmatics as a perspective.
14
In their view,
pragmatics concerns language use and is inextricably intertwined with syntax, sociology, and
even anthropology; the study of language from any angle yields important information, and all of
it must be considered in tandem to arrive at correct conclusions. European Continental linguists,
then, tend to concentrate on data and derive theories from it.
15

A fundamental difference between the two can be seen in their views of context. The
Anglo American school defines context as the set of variables that statically surround strips of
talk,
16
while the European Continental school argues that context stand[s] in a mutually
reflexive relationshipwith talk, and the interpretive work it generates so that talk shapes
context as much as context shapes talk.
17
Thus context is on the one hand static and on the other
shaping, on the one hand surrounding and on the other intertwining. These two views are
summed up as context-presumptive and context-emergent. The battle over context reflects
and encapsulates the heart of the differences between the two schools.
18


Three Basic Approaches
Pragmatics has emerged as its own field of study connected most closely with linguistics,
but the pragmatics river has at least three separate tributaries, each flowing from a different
discipline and wending its way toward a specific goal. One of these tributaries flowed from


14
Verschueren typifies this approach when he say Pragmatics cannot possibly be identified with a specific
unit of analysis, so that it cannot partake in the division of labour associated with the traditional components of a
linguistic theorytherefore, pragmatics does not constitute an additional component of a theory of language, but it
offers a different perspective. See Jef Verschueren, Understanding Pragmatics, (New York, Oxford, 1999), 2.

15
Archer and Gundry, 3-4.

16
Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, Rethinking Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1992), 31.
Quoted in Archer and Gundry, 2.

17
Ibid., 31. Quoted in Archer and Gundry, 2.

6


philosophy.
19
In the early 1900s, philosophers Gottlob Frege and (his protg) Bertrand Russell
wrote with a focus on defining propositions and statements by creating a language of logic.
20

Philosophers in the 1950s and forward Austin, Strawson, and Grice in particular saw the
problems which resulted when principles from this logical language were extrapolated to apply
to natural language with all its complexities of context.
21
The reactors proposed various
theories (Austin: Speech Act Theory, Grice: conversational maxims) to explain how natural
language assertions could contain truth value in spite of being context-dependent and not subject
to the strict rules and functionalities of the logical language set forth by Frege and Russell.
22
The
philosophical stream of pragmatics highlights semantics, what the words say along with
pragmatics, what the speaker means as complementary endeavors which both contribute to a
full understanding of how language works.
23
Many questions addressed by those who use
pragmatics to help solve philosophical problems target the semantic/pragmatic interface in that

18
Archer et al, 3.

19
Putman gives an excellent description of the two (main) stages of 20
th
c. philosophy of language, logical
positivism and the ordinary language school, based on the two stages of Wittgensteins thought. See Rhyne
Putman, Postcanonical Doctrinal Development as Hermeneutical Phenomenon (PhD diss., NOBTS, 2012), 129-
31.

20
Frege separated sentence meaning into force, sense, and denotation, each holding importance. He
focused his theorizing on denotation, though, and most following him concentrated also on that aspect of language
or tried to add analysis of the sense of language. Ordinary language philosophers (Austin, Grice) later focused on the
force aspect, with Searle and Vanderveken eventually outlining a logical language which made it possible to
express, in logical language, the insights about language use involving force as well as sense and denotation. See
Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, Essays in Speech Act Theory, ( Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001), 2-5.

21
Huang, 2-3. He names the two streams within analytic philosophy in the 1950s-60s as ideal language
philosophy and ordinary language philosophy. In the former camp, Frege and Russell were followed by Richard
Montague, David Donaldson, and David Lewis, who extended their logical language principles to apply to ordinary
language and thus brought on the reaction by Austin and Grice, ordinary language philosophers.

22
This point will be discussed in more detail later, but the early philosophers separated (in differing ways)
semantic content and pragmatic extra, usually locating truth-conditionality in the semantic content.

23
Robyn Carston, Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication, (New
York: Blackwell, 2002), 3. As per the discussion in the previous section, this is obviously an Anglo American
approach.

7


they use pragmatics to solve semantic indeterminacies.
24

A second tributary flowed from cognitive studies. The advent of cognitive pragmatics
has brought a rather different orientation: pragmatics is a capacity of the mind, a kind of
information-processing system, a system for interpreting a particular phenomenon in the world,
namely human ostensive communicative behavior.
25
More simply, cognitive pragmatists wish
to work out how inferred meanings are processed and represented in the mind.
26
Many
pragmatists in this stream focus on language development in children or on certain mental
disabilities/injuries in order to understand how the brain processes language and thus how people
communicate. Although some cognitive scientists have claimed that cognitive processes are too
complex to ever be understood fully, cognitive linguists have proposed various (somewhat)
testable theories that give at least a cognitive account of the processes involved in
understanding utterances.
27
Though they may not be able to explain all cognitive functions, they
believe that explicating language processing capacity is not beyond the realm of possibility.
The third stream flows from sociology and cultural studies and concerns basically the
way that intentions [are] most appropriately presented in a range of different social settings.
28

An example of socio-linguistics can be found in Haruko Cooks article, Why Cant Learners of
JFL [Japanese as a foreign language] Distinguish Polite from Impolite Speech Styles?
29
In

24
Ibid., 4.

25
Ibid., 4. Though it is not as clear, cognitive approaches generally fall into the Anglo American view of
pragmatics. Their high concentration on theory and tendency to view context as presumptive match the Anglo
American view; however, they are very open to incorporating insights from other disciplines (especially psychology
and sociology), which is a hallmark of the Continental European view.

26
Archer and Gundry, 6.

27
Carston, 3-4.

28
Archer and Gundry, 5. This approach certainly falls under the Continental European view and is
sometimes identified as the CE view.

8


many languages, contextualization clues allow native speakers to correctly express their
intentions, but non-native speakers, who often simply repeat the syntactical formulas they have
learned, miss key ingredients necessary for communication. This approach to linguistics is
especially situational. Though some specific studies can be generalized, socio-linguists are not
primarily concerned with general, abstract theories and prefer to focus on individual problems
that can be solved through pragmatics.
30

These pragmatic tributaries flow from the larger geographic divisions of Anglo
American and Continental European. Both the philosophical and cognitive streams are primarily
Anglo American foundationally and functionally. The socio-cultural stream fits the Continental
European mindset. Understanding the interrelationship between these various views
demonstrates why a simple definition of pragmatics escapes even the greatest pragmatists.
Perhaps simpler is better after all. The definition of pragmatics as the study of language as it is
used for communication seems to be broad enough to capture the basic aims of the various
approaches and streams, but specific enough to differentiate pragmatics from semantics or
communication studies.

The Semantic/Pragmatic Debate

Besides the distinctions seen among the broad categories of Anglo American/ European
Continental and philosophical/ cognitive/ socio-cultural, a few other basic decisions often
undergird a particular approach to pragmatics but sometimes are not explicitly stated. The major
decision involves the primacy of what is said or what is implicated. All pragmatists agree that
what is implicated is integral to communication, but they do not all agree about how a sentence

29
Article included in Archer and Gundry, 354-70.

9


(string of words) and an utterance (spoken string of words including context) relate to each
other.
31
Levinson clearly sets forth (but does not espouse) the traditional view,
32
which basically
says that a sentence is the starting place for meaning, but when it is issued forth into a context as
an utterance, the hearer fills in the blanks
33
and makes decisions about ambiguous words. On
the other side are radical contextualists who see a bigger gap between sentence and utterance,
holding that at least part of the communication occurring from an utterance actually has no
relationship to the sentence itself.
34
In the traditional view, what is said has primacy; in the
latter position, what is implicated does.
35

Based on this divide, some linguists separate sentence meaning and speaker meaning,
holding speaker meaning as the proper domain of pragmatics and sentence meaning as
semantic in nature. Problems immediately arise in attempting to clearly delineate these two, and
pragmatists debate whether a sentence meaning totally apart from speaker meaning actually
exists in any case. This linguistic debate mirrors (and perhaps underlies?) the hermeneutical
debate over authorial or textual meaning.
36
Though many other factors are in play in the

30
Eugene A. Nida, Sociolinguistics and Translating, in Sociolinguistics and Communication, Ed by
Johannes P. Louw, (New York: UBS, 1986), 1-3.

31
Levinson, 18-19. Each linguist has their own specific terminology and definition for sentence and
utterance, but those two terms seem to capture most simply the basic idea that most are attempting to
communicate, and will suffice at this point.

32
Stephen C Levinson, Presumptive Meanings, Pages 86-98 in The Pragmatics Reader, Ed by Dawn
Archer and Peter Grundy, (New York: Routledge, 2011), 92-93. He gives a helpful chart picturing what he believes
is Grices view (94). See footnote 35.

33
For example, the sentence Who does he think he is? could be used as an utterance communicating
something like I am displeased that John, our boss, cut our lunch break in half, or something like Which famous
person does my (elderly) uncle believe that he is today?

34
There are many positions in between these two extremes, and indeed within each of the two options
listed. For an excellent summary and discussion of them, see Claudia Bianchi, Ed, The Semantics/Pragmatics
Distinction, (Stanford: CSLI, 2004).

35
Bianchi, 5-7.

10


hermeneutical debate, the primary location of meaning linguistically (in sentence or utterance)
certainly has a major role.
Interestingly, even descriptions of the semantic/pragmatic debate by pragmatists are
determined in large part by the pragmatic stream a writer is in. Philosophers are often interested
in this decision because of truth-value location: can only semantic meaning hold truth value
(Grice) or can speaker meaning be truth-conditional (the later Searle)?
37
Linguists and cognitive
scientists see the debate as an interaction between the code-model of communication and the
inferential-model of communication. The code-model (usually assumed as the basic way people
communicate, by encoding and decoding messages) held sway at least until the 1900s, and
supports what is said as primary in communication. The inferential-model (proposed by H.P.
Grice and an American philosopher, David K. Lewis, among others) supports what is
implicated as primary in communication.
38
Thus Grice is on two different sides of the debate
depending on which perspective one views it through!
39


36
Speaker meaning, of course, would correspond roughly to an authorial location of meaning, and
sentence meaning to a textual location of meaning. For a discussion of the hermeneutical debate, see Kevin J.
Vanhoozer, Meaning, 15-32, and Thiselton, 55-79.

37
Using Fregean terminology, does sentence meaning require analysis only of denotation/sense or also of
force?

38
Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition, 2
nd
ed., (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 1995), 2. The code-model describes communication as a simple matter of encoding thoughts into
language, which is heard and decoded it is semantic in nature because everything the speaker intends to
communicate is present in the language itself. The inferential model describes communication as a complex matter
in which the speakers words do not contain his entire meaning, but require contextual input as well.

39
Grice holds the traditional view from a philosophical perspective, in that he does not locate truth-value
in speaker meaning, but he actually was one of the first to break from the traditional view and propose a new one in
the linguistic perspective. His inferential model may show primacy of what is implicated in communication, which
is what cognitive scientists and linguists are interested in. Interpretations of Grice seem to suffer from more trouble
than usual since his interpreters approach pragmatics with different goals; this may be due, too, to the fact that he
did not answer the primacy question of the semantic/pragmatic debate but merely pointed out (for the first time!)
that language is inferential (not necessarily primarily so). Searle is also on different sides depending on perspective.
In the philosophical scheme, he falls on the side of truth-value (or, as he shifts it, felicity) being also measurable,
meaning that he supports what is implied (Vanderveken and Kubo, 6) but in the cognitive scheme, he moves from
Grices inferential scheme back to the code model (Sperber and Wilson, Relevance, 24).
11


Seeing all these options may be confusing,
40
but without an introduction to the
presuppositions forming the bases of various pragmatic theories, understanding how they relate
and interact would be nearly impossible. As Cappelen and Lepore point out, it is impossible to
take a stand on any issue in the philosophy of language without being clear on these issues
because what you consider as evidencedepends on how these distinctions are ultimately
drawn.
41
Carston warns strongly that simple comparisons between pragmatic theories are not
possible, and that one must consider all the factors in play between (for instance) cognitive or
social approaches, and between semantic/pragmatic decisions, in order not to compare apples to
oranges (or even bicycles).
42
In spite of all the complexities, the theories have a great deal in
common. As Archer and Grundy sum up eloquently, We leave you to judge who represents the
good and who the bad in these epic struggles, hoping perhaps that the various schools and
traditions will in the fullness of time turn out, like the protagonists in that galaxy far, far away, to
be closely related members of an estranged family with a lot more in common than they had
supposed.
43







40
And these options, even just in the semantic/pragmatic debate, are only the tip of the iceberg! For
example, cognitive scientists would bring in Chomskys competence (semantic)/performance (pragmatic) distinction
in the theory of mind to explain their understanding of the debate (Carston, 6-10).

41
Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore, Insensitive Semantics: A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and
Speech Act Pluralism, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), ix.

42
Carston, 11.

43
Archer and Grundy, 8.

12


Descriptions of Speech Act Theory and Relevance Theory

Speech Act Theory
44

Austin

J.L. Austin (1911-1960) was an ordinary language philosopher whose turn toward
linguistics was a primary impetus toward and foundation for the new field of pragmatics.
Philosophers of language are primarily interested in the truth-value of language, and for Gottlob
Frege and Bertrand Russell in the early 1900s, that equated to being concerned with the truth
value of declarative sentences, with each declarative being necessarily true or false, and other
language types (modals, etc.) given very little attention. Austin, concerned with a scheme which
seemed to force natural language to conform to an idealized language, wanted to change the
focus to How to Do Things with Words
45
in other words, how ordinary language works.
46

Ordinary language philosophers turned the debate over truth conditions on its head by claiming
that a sentence has complete truth conditions only in context.
47
In lectures (at Oxford in 1952-
4 and at Harvard in 1955) he promulgated his ideas, especially his central thesis that saying is
(part of) doing, or words are (part of) deeds.
48

Austins work was the catalyst for Speech Act Theory (SAT), but his foundational ideas
have been developed by other scholars in ways far beyond his initial theorizing. Still, the basis he
laid is important. In order to investigate natural language, he first separated constative

44
Speech Act Theory definitively falls into the Anglo American philosophical approach to pragmatics. In
fact, SAT is nearly constitutive of the philosophical branch of linguistics, as Austins and (later) Searles SAT is the
fountainhead of the philosophical tributary feeding linguistic pragmatics. For a more detailed (and philosophically
precise) discussion of the history of SAT, see Vanderveken and Kubo, 1-21.

45
The title of his canonical work on Speech Act Theory, published after his death in 1960.

46
Archer et al, 5; Archer and Grundy, 11.

47
Bianchi, 3.

48
Huang, 93.
13


sentences, descriptive sentences which were the only meaning-laden ones according to his
contemporaries, from performative utterances, which act instead of describing. Perfomatives
could be implicitly so, as when the enormous evil lupine states Ill blow your house down, or
explicit, if he says I threaten to blow your house down.
49
Constatives could be true or false, but
performatives could merely be felicitous or infelicitous based on success.
50
Though Austin
began with this distinction, he later proposed that all language was in fact performative. Under
this scheme he introduces his much-quoted distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary acts the stated words, speakers performative intention, and effects on the
hearer,
51
respectively.
52
Though all three of these were part of the foundational essay (How to
Do Things with Words) from which SAT derived its name, illocutionary acts are the focus and
possibly only essential issue in SAT.
53
Austin divided Speech Acts into five types: verdictives,
exercitives, commissives, behabitives, and expositives.
54



49
On another interpretation, both of these could be indirect speech acts trying to accomplish the declarative
illocutionary act most directly expressed by Let me in!

50
Levinson, 229.

51
The distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary is vague and suffers from an extreme lack of
precision, especially in Austins writing. Huang elucidates the division helpfully: The main differences between
illocutions and perlocutions can be summed up as follows. In the first place, illocutionary acts are intended by the
speaker, while perlocutional effects are not always intended by him or her. Secondly, illocutionary acts are under the
speakers full control, while perlocutionary effects are not under his or her full control. Thirdly, if illocutionary acts
are evident, they become evident as the utterance is made, while perlocutionary effects are usually not evident until
after the utterance has been made. Fourthly, illocutionary acts are in principle determinate, while perlocutionary
effects are often indeterminate. Finally, illocutionary acts are more, while perlocutionary effects are less
conventionally tied to linguistic forms (103-4, italics mine). Searle says very little about perlocutionary effects
since, in his scheme, illocutionary effects include any effect on the speaker which is part of the illocutionary force.
So in promising or warning, when the hearer recognizes the promise or warning, that is the illocutionary effect. John
R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay on the Philosophy of Language, (New York: Cambridge, 1969), 71.

52
Archer et al, 35.

53
Levinson, 236. Huang agrees: The term speech act in its narrow sense is often taken to refer
specifically to illocutionary acts. Huang, 31. Searle has written very little on perlocutions, since he views them as
outside the SA itself. It has seemed crucial to the theorists of speech acts, unlike earlier behavioristic theorists of
language, to distinguish the illocutionary acts, which is a speech act proper, from the achievement of the
perlocutionary effect, which may or may not be achieved by specifically linguistic means. John R. Searle et al, ed.,
14


Searle
John R. Searle (1932- ), similarly to Austin, is an ordinary language philosopher
55

interested in naturally occurring rather than idealized language. He is the Slusser Professor of
Philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley, and has written enough books and articles
to fill a 63-page bibliography.
56
He originally built on Austins SAT, but has greatly refined and
extended it, especially by intentionally integrating it with linguistics.
57
Thus Searle borrows
terminology and many basic ideas from Austin, but he does not use the words or apply the
concepts in exactly the same way. His primary works on the subject include Speech Acts (1969),
Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Act (1979), Speech Act Theory and
Pragmatics (1980), and Foundations of illocutionary logic (1985) with Daniel Vanderveken.
Searles hypothesis in Speech Acts is that speaking a language is performing acts
according to rules.
58
The heart of Searles theory is his idea of illocutionary act (IA).
Illocutionary has to do with speaker intentionality, and act reflects his foundational idea that
language does something. He distinguishes between the propositional content (p)and
illocutionary force (F) of an illocutionary act, such that a p = I blow your house down

Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics, (Boston: D. Reidel, 1980), viii. Searle also sees the theory of perlocutionary
effects as having the ability to collapse SAT altogether. If we could get an analysis of all (or even most)
illocutionary acts in terms of perlocutionary effects, the prospects of analyzing illocutionary acts without reference
to rules [read: codes] would be greatly increased. The reason for this is that language could then be regarded as just
a conventional means for securing or attempting to secure natural responses or effectsIllocutionary acts would
then be (optionally) conventional but not rule governed at all. Searle, SA, 71.

54
J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2
nd
ed, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1975), 151. Since his categories
have since been replaced by Searles, extensive definitions will not be given here.

55
Searle, as can be seen by a brief glance at the contents of Speech Acts, is driven by philosophical
questions. He discusses fallacies, deriving ought from is, reference, and many other topics heavily debated in
philosophical circles (v-vi).

56
John Searle, http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/ (accessed March 29, 2013).

57
Archer and Gundry, 12-13.

58
Searle, SA, 36.
15


combined with a F = I threaten would yield an F(p) = I threaten to blow your house down,
which might be expressed simply as F(p) = Ill blow your house down.
59
Further, he divides
the propositional indicator p into a referring (R)
60
and a predicating (P)
61
part.
The distinctions between F, R, and P allow him to be precise in talking about language,
and to simultaneously uphold its ability to have truth value while taking into account how it
works in reality. Since he has distinguished between content (p or RP) and function (F), he can
assign both reference and predication to the content portion of an utterance, which is completely
dependent on its function. The truth of R rests on whether it successfully indicates to the hearer a
singular definite reference intended by the speaker.
62
The truth or falsity of P is determined
by its occurring in a certain illocutionary mode determined by the illocutionary force indicating
device of the sentence,
63
or more simply: P is true or false for the content depending on the
function. To give an example, the utterance Your house is burning can be seen as made up of R
= your house, P = (is) burning, and F = warning/assertion (depending on context). If R
successfully refers to a known location, P accurately expresses the current properties of R, and
the F with which the speaker speaks is recognized, then the utterance is felicitous (or happy or
successful, depending on the SA theorist).


59
Ibid., specific example mine. See SA, 31 for Searles more detailed instructions for symbolizing various
types of Speech Acts, i.e. requests are expressed by ! (p) and yes-no questions by ? (p).

60
Searle gives Rules of Reference including seven conditions which have to be met for reference to
succeed, and three semantic rules derived from those which must be met in order that R make a singular definite
reference. SA, 94-6. The discussion of referents is more complex than one might first suppose, since Searle deals
with the real/fictional divide, deixis, and a host of other issues under this heading. 72-96.

61
Searle discusses predication in detail and notes that he does not define predication as many of his
contemporaries. SA, 26; 97-127. Contra Frege, he argues that predicates do not refer (to either an entity or a concept)
but attribute properties. 102.

62
Ibid., 96.

63
Searle, SA, 127.
16


In his chapter on The Structure of Illocutionary Acts, Searle analyzes and categorizes
illocutionary force.
64
His goal is to identify the rules by which the game of language functions;
not rules in the sense of prescriptive commandments, but rather rules in the sense of function
descriptors.
65
In a later essay Searle builds on Austins and his own earlier works but attempts to
provide a better classification system for illocutionary acts.
66
Using three dimensions (quite
similar to his earlier rules), illocutionary point (or purpose), direction of fit, and sincerity
condition,
67
as determinates, he distinguishes five categories of illocutionary acts: assertives,
directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations divided by their illocutionary point.
68

Though some English verbs may seem to fall into one category, they can usually be used with
various illocutionary force. What is the importance of categorizing Speech Acts? According to
Searle, being able to classify all language utterances (by use of illocutionary point) shows that
language is a game with set rules, not an inchoately infinite number of language uses.
69
His


64
Searle. SA, 54. Chapter 3: 54-71.

65
Ibid., 33-42. The game of language sounds very Wittgensteinian, but Searle and Wittgenstein actually
part company over this very issue.

66
John R. Searle, A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts, Pages 1-29 in Expression and Meaning, Ed., John
R. Searle, (New York: Cambridge, 1979).

67
The five illocutionary points correspond exactly to the five SAs and are the main determining factor
thereof. Ibid., 2-5.

68
Ibid., 12-20. Assertives serve the purpose of committing a speaker to the truth of what he says; they have
a words world fit (meaning that they match words to the world); they can be judged by the sincerity of truth or
falsity .12-13. Directives have the purpose of getting a hearer to do what the speaker wants; they have a world
words fit (meaning they want the world to match their words); they can be judged by the sincerity of desire, not
truth. 13-14. Commissives have the purpose of committing the speaker to a future action; they have a world words
fit; they are judged by the sincerity of intention. 14-15. Expressives have the purpose of express[ing] the
psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content.
15; they have no direction of fit. Declarations serve the purpose of matching world words simultaneously with
matching words world; they have no sincerity condition . 17-20. (Unfortunately for those who prefer order,
declaration was chosen rather than declarative.)

69
Ibid., 29.

17


attempt to precisely define the pragmatics of language mirrors earlier linguists classification
systems for syntax and semantics.
Thus far Searles early work. Following his initial publications, a great number of
scholars began to respond to, refine, refute, or use his ideas; though Searle does not necessarily
disagree with uses of his theory, he felt the need, two decades later, to focus again on the
philosophical aspects of SAT. Vanderveken and Searle together wrote Foundations of
Illocutionary Logic in 1985, Searles most mature work to that date and his last major
publication specifically about SAT. This work does not advance Searles ideas about SAT so
much as it codifies them, or sets forth a complete system by which they can be expressed using
formal logic.
70
The ability to exploit in SAT the resources of the theory of truth developed in
the logical trend in contemporary philosophy came from Searles replacement of Austins
locutionary act with utterance and propositional act.
71
. After this, Searle began to study
philosophy of the mind and then philosophy of society or institutions; his works in both of these
areas reflect his ideas on SAT but do not impact the theory itself.
72


Other Developments
Several other scholars have written on SAT; some have further developed what Austin
and Searle originally proposed, and others have taken their most basic idea (illocutionary acts)

70
John R., Searle and Daniel Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, (New York: Cambridge,
1985).See especially Chapter 6: Axiomatic Propositional Illocutionary Logic, (106-122), which Searle calls the
central chapter of the book, x.

71
Vanderveken and Kubo, 6. Making this distinction allowed Searle to connect his force and content
with Fregian sense and denotation.

72
A great summary of Searles shift in concentration from one area to another can be found in John R.
Searle, Speech Acts, Mind, and Social Reality, Pages 3-16 in Speech Acts, Mind, and Social Reality, Ed., Gunther
Grewendorf and Georg Meggle, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 79, Ed., Gennaro Chierchia et al, (Boston:
Kluwer Academic, 2002). In his view, understanding cognitive function (from a philosophical perspective) and
social function is necessary as a proof of SAT. He believes that his work in these areas has bolstered his theory of
language by giving it a basis on which to rest. Searle, SA, 7-11.
18


and proceeded in a different direction. Daniel Vanderveken is notable in the former camp. After
co-authoring a book with Searle, Vanderveken edited and contributed to a collection of Essays in
Speech Act Theory with Susumu Kubo which are especially helpful in extending and more
precisely defining Searles theory. For example, Vanderveken (with Searles agreement)
identified six components which make up an illocutionary force: its illocutionary point (the
main component), its mode of achievement of illocutionary point, its propositional content
conditions, its preparatory and sincerity conditions, and its degree of strength.
73
Each
component can vary; if two illocutionary acts have all six components in common, they are
identical, but the variation of any one of them creates a different IA (though the different IAs
could still be classified under the same basic category if they had the same illocutionary point).
One of Vandervekens main contributions to SAT is his attempt to extend it to apply to discourse
(instead of being limited to the utterance level). He uses Searles directions of fit as the
deciding factor between his four discursive goals: descriptive (words things), deliberative
(things words), declarative (words things), and expressive ( ).
74

Many pragmatists following Searle greatly criticize the specific categories of IA he
proposed, even if they agree that categories exist. Scholars have proposed at least five other
classification systems for IAs (besides Austins and Searles).
75
Levinson, along with Sperber
and Wilson, suggest a move toward better defining the basic syntactical (relating to form)
categories of declarative, interrogative, and imperative in terms of SAT since these appear to be


73
Daniel Vanderveken, Universal Grammar and Speech Act Theory, Pages 25-62 in Essays and Speech
Act Theory, Ed by Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001), 28.

74
Vanderveken and Kubo, 19.

75
Levinson, 241.
19


fairly universal, unlike Searles five categories.
76
This form-based investigation leads usually to a
reduction in major categories, though perhaps to a better specification of minor categories.
Others suggest that better defining the semantic (relating to function) categories could form the
foundation for a more precise categorical system. This function-based investigation usually ends
in a multiplication of categories, usually less precise and much less helpful than Searles
summary.
77
Both of these tendencies show a move away from pragmatics and back toward a
more categorizable syntax or semantics a drive toward order and simplicity, as it were.
Unfortunately pragmatics, as most areas of study involving people, is far from simple.
One major issue which Searle raised (but, according to many later SA theorists, did not
sufficiently answer) deals with indirect speech acts. Direct speech acts, normally just called
speech acts by Searle, can describe part of language function, but utterances which structurally
fall into one category can actually function in another category (i.e. a seeming assertive by C-
3PO: Its restricted is actually a directive to R2-D2: Dont go in!). Searle answers this by
saying that one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another.
78

Huang argues instead that indirect speech acts are used for politeness, since indirect assertions or
requests can accomplish the goals of the speaker with the least offense.
79
Levinson goes further,
and posits that pragmatic considerations determine illocutionary force (contra Searle, who would
hold that force can be determined by literal indicators), so that indirect speech is not a different


76
Ibid., 242; Sperber and Wilson, 246-7.

77
Levinson, 241.

78
John R. Searle, Indirect Speech Acts, Pages 30-57 in Expression and Meaning, Ed., John R. Searle,
(New York: Cambridge, 1979). He adds that speakers use SAs indirectly because of convention (relying on Gricean
cooperation). This view entails the illocutionary force indicating device being inherent in the sentence type (which
Searle supports), so that the literal illocutionary force can be separated from the functional illocutionary force
(Levinson, 263-4).

20


type of illocutionary act, it just does not have the form one normally expects of a speech act
category.
80
Most later SA theorists agree more closely with Levinson, but since SAT is identified
so closely with Searle, his answer has a certain prominence and to some purists is definitive.

Relevance Theory

Grice

Relevance Theory
81
derives directly from an idea of H. P. Grice (1913-1988), an
Ordinary Language Philosopher closely related to Austin and Searle. Grices background as a
British philosopher led him to tackle the same challenge (namely: formal logical language versus
ordinary language) as his colleagues Austin and Searle. Contributing to that discussion, he drew
a definite distinction between semantics (linguistic meaning) and pragmatics (linguistic use),
saying that the former alone had truth value.
82
Instead of following the path of SAT which
Austin paved, Grice came up with his own theory to explain how ordinary language functioned.
Grices two central and far-reaching ideas were implicature and conversational maxims, the
latter being based on his Cooperative principle. Implicatures, meanings implied by an
utterance without being concretely stated, can be conventional or conversational, stemming
either from the normal meaning of the words or from the surrounding cooperative dialogue.
83


79
Huang, 112-119.

80
Levinson, 276-278.

81
An excellent online bibliography (updated regularly) for RT can be found here for anyone interested in
learning more about the topic: http://www.ua.es/personal/francisco.yus/rt.html#General.

82
Archer et al, 30-3.

83
H. P. Grice, Logic and Conversation, Pages 43-54 in The Pragmatics Reader, Ed., Dawn Archer and
Peter Grundy, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 44. An example of a conventional implicature would be understanding
She got married and had a baby to mean She got married and then had a baby in that order. Though and is
merely a linking word and does not imply temporal order, the normal convention in English is to list occurrences in
chronological order. An example of a conversational implicature would be to understand 5 to mean 5 oclock in
21


His four types of conversational maxims
84
are categories of his Cooperative Principle: Make
your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
85
The maxims are
Quantity (give as much information as necessary but no more), Quality (do not say what is false
or uncertain), Relation (be relevant), and Manner (avoid obscurity, ambiguity, and
disorderliness). Implicatures can be understood by hearers because speakers are assumed to be
following the Cooperative Principle. Regarding the maxim of Relation, Grice says though the
maxim itself is terse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good
dealI find the treatment of such questions exceedingly difficult, and I hope to revert to them in
later work.
86


Sperber and Wilson
Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson tackled the exceedingly difficult problem of the
Relation Maxim and built an entire theory of communication around it. Their Relevance Theory
builds on Grices work in many ways, specifically with regard to his ideas concerning
implicature and cooperation, but Sperber and Wilson have different goals and approach the
problem of communication from a different perspective than Grice. Relevance theory is a rather
wide-ranging framework (or research programme) for the study of cognition, devised primarily
in order to provide an account of communication that is psychologically realistic and empirically

response to the question What time should I come for dinner?, but to understand it to mean 5 children in
response to How many children do you have? This follows Grices principle of quantity.

84
Grice actually lists nine distinct maxims grouped into four categories. The categories are sufficient here
to understand his case, but a complete list of the nine can be found in Logic and Conversation. Grice, 45. Also
they appear (in an easier-to-read format) in S&W, Relevance, 33-4.

85
Grice, 45.

86
Grice, 45.
22


plausible.
87
Thus Sperber and Wilsons main collaborative work is titled Relevance:
Communication and Cognition, and the language used by relevance theorists in general is closer
to scientific than to philosophical terminology.
88
They explain their theory best: Relevance
theory is based on a definition of relevance and two principles of relevance: a Cognitive
Principle (that human cognition is geared to the maximisation of relevance), and a
Communicative Principle (that utterances create expectations of optimal relevance).
89

Sperber and Wilson begin by proposing that neither the code model (encoding/decoding
messages) nor the inferential model (recognizing speaker intention) of communication
sufficiently accounts for how communication works. Instead both work together, though in their
view the inferential model has precedence. The code and inferential modes of communication
can combine. People who are in a position to communicate with one another usually share a
language (and various minor codes)they are unlikely, then, to go to the trouble of
communicating inferentially without these powerful tools.
90



87
Nicholas Allott, Relevance theory, In Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy, Eds. A. Capone,
F. Lo Piparo and M. Carapezza, (New York: Springer, 2011), 1. Italics mine.

88
Compare these two quotes: The study of speech acts has become a thriving branch of the philosophy of
language and linguisticshowever, there have been few attempts to present formalized accounts of the logic of
speech actsThe aim of this book is to fill that gap by constructing a formalized theory of illocutionary acts using
the resources of modern logic. Searle and Vanderveken, ix. Also, The advent of cognitive pragmatics, specifically
of the relevance-theoretic approach, has brought a rather different orientation: pragmatics is a capacity of the mind,
a kind of information-processing system, a system for interpreting a particular phenomenon in the world, namely
human ostensive communicative behavior. Carston, 4.

89
Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, Relevance Theory, Boston University, http://people.bu.edu/bfraser/
Relevance%20Theory%20 Oriented/Sperber%20&%20Wilson%20-%20RT%20Revisited.pdf (accessed March 20,
2013). Italics mine.

90
S&W, Relevance, 27-8. They continue: The reduction of Grices analysis [the inferential model] to an
amendment of the code model destroys not just its originality, but also many of its empirical implications and
justifications. The elevation of the inferential model into a general theory of communication ignores the diversity of
forms of communication, and the psychological evidence that much decoding is non-inferential.
23


Relevance (of an input) can be defined as a trade-off between effort and effects
91
so
that a greater positive cognitive effect and less processing effort yields greater relevance, while a
less positive cognitive effect and greater processing effort results in less relevance.
92
Relevance,
then, is a measure; an input (whether utterance or stimulus) does not have to be relevant or not,
but has more or less relevance based on the cost of processing it, the cognitive effect it yields,
and its comparison (based on those two criteria) with other inputs competing for attention.
93

The first major principle of RT, the Cognitive Principle of Relevance says simply that
Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximisation of relevance.
94
This definition
hearkens back to the meaning of relevance as relating to cognitive effect and processing cost.
Wilson and Sperber define a positive cognitive effect as a worthwhile difference to the
individuals representation of the world,
95
which could be a new idea, a revision of an old idea,
a reorganization of thoughts, etc. Their definition of processing cost relates directly: processing
cost is the effort taken to represent the input, access contextual information and derive any
cognitive effects.
96
So, the less effort required to obtain information, the more relevant the input
is. More effort will be expended only when the cognitive benefit seems worthwhile.
97
Building


91
Allott, 3.

92
S&W, Relevance Theory, 4.

93
S&W, Relevance, 46-54; S&W, Relevance Theory, 251-253.

94
S&W, Relevance Theory, 255. Carston provides a more detailed discussion of the cognitive science
basis for this claim. Carston, 4-11. Basically, cognitive pragmatics, specifically the relevance-theoretic approach, is
to be characterized as a sub-personal-level explanatory account of a specific performance mechanism conducted at
the level of representations-and-procedures (11).

95
Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, Relevance theory, Pages 607-632 in Handbook of Pragmatics, Ed.
by L. R. Horn and G. L. Ward, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 608. Quoted in Allott, 6.

96
Deirdre Wilson, Relevance theory, Pages 393-399 in The Pragmatics Encyclopedia, Ed. by L.
Cummings, (London: Routledge, 2009), 394. Quoted in Allott, 7.

24


on this basis of relevance,
98
Sperber and Wilson propose that ostensive-inferential
communication occurs when both the communicative and informative intentions are conveyed,
99

or in other words, when a hearer recognizes that (ostensive) and what (inferential) the speaker is
attempting to communicate. Successful communication does not entail agreement with the
content, merely understanding.
Sperber and Wilson use their theory of ostensive-inferential communication to derive
their second major principle, the Communicative Principle of Relevance, which is that every
ostensive stimulus conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance.
100
Importantly, this
involves both the audiences judgment of relevance (is the ostensive stimulus worth processing?)
and the communicators competence and choices. For instance, if the communicator is a foreign-
language speaker, she may require more time and express herself less clearly (thus driving up the
processing cost) than a native speaker. If the communicator chooses to withhold information, his
statement, I drank half the glass, which most audiences would assume entailed only half the
glass could conceal the fact that he also drank the other half.


97
According to S&W, effort and effect are non-representational dimensions of mental processes,
meaning that a person is not actively aware of judgments on relevance. The judgments are intuitive and automatic.
Relevance Theory, 254.

98
And assuming a Fodorian theory of mind the Computational/Representational Theory of Mind and
a mental deductive device. Allott, 9-11; S&W, Relevance, 71-75; 83-108. Fodor says that each system of the
mind has its own way of computing and then representing; some are specialized (i.e. vision and auditory processing)
but a central system pulls together inputs from the specialized systems and uses them to conceptualize and infer. The
deductive device refers to a persons ability to deduct logically from an input and thus understand many more
implications than were actually stated. For instance, if Amidala asks Anakin, Have you ever created a droid? and
Anakin responds, Ive never even seen a droid! then she would be correct to deduce that Not seeing something
entails not creating it, C-3PO is a droid and thus Anakin has never seen (or created) C-3PO, and many more
along those lines.

99
S&W, Relevance Theory, 255.

100
Ibid., 256.

25



Comparison of Speech Act Theory and Relevance Theory at Selected Points

Selected points of comparison below highlight issues integral to one theory or another,
especially important to a theory of communication by language in general, or significant for a
theorys application and use by hermeneutists. SAT and RT share an Anglo American view of
pragmatics, but (as discussed above) the former approaches pragmatic issues from a
philosophical perspective and the latter from a cognitive-scientific perspective. This foundational
divide is either causative of or correlative to the fundamental differences between SAT and RT.
SA theorists focus on logical explanations, on language itself, and on truth and felicity; relevance
theorists focus on scientific explanations, on communication more generally, and on
comprehension. In the simplified definition of pragmatics as the study of language as it is used
for communication, SAT focuses on the first phrase and RT on the second. SAT thrives on
prescriptive categories, RT tends toward descriptive principles. Therefore they differ at their
most basic foundational unit of the illocutionary act or relevance in communication, the
former being a categorical scheme and the latter a controlling principle. In spite of this fact,
proponents of each interact with the other, both in critique and in cooperation.

Critical Interaction

Major Critiques of SAT

S&W critique SAT as primarily institutional rather than linguistic, a categorization
accepted by Searle, though he would hold that SAT gave correct information about linguistics as
well.
101
By institutional they mean that the classification system of SAT (the five types of

101
S&W, Relevance, 243. Searle says It is at this point [lack of rules for illocutionary acts] that what
might be called institutional theories of communication, like Austins, mine, and I think Wittgensteins, part
company with what might be called naturalistic theories of meaning, such as, e.g., those which rely on a stimulus-
response account of meaning. SA, 71.
26


illocutionary acts, illocutionary points, etc.) is conventionally rather than communicatively
based, and further, that these classifications do not constrain communication in the way that SA
theorists assert. Searles point which provides the spring-board for S&Ws critique is simple (but
overwhelmingly important for SAT): In the case of illocutionary acts we succeed in doing what
we are trying to do by getting our audience to recognize what we are trying to do.
102
The RT
response surfaces a gap between categorical intentionality and recognition of a certain type of
intentionality as necessary for communication. S&W distinguish between institutional SA such
as pronouncing marriage where recognition of the category is necessary, and other SA where (in
their view) understanding the category is at most one of the inputs involved in cognition of
meaning.
103
Which SA are institutional depends on the societal structure, so in English
promising, thanking, and bidding all require recognition for success but predicting, asserting, or
claiming do not. Other societal structures may have different divisions between institutional and
regular speech acts; for instance, some have provisions for divorcing merely by uttering the
words, making divorcing an institutional (and performative) SA in those cultures, unlike in
English.
The critique of the necessity of recognition for SA success may not be valid, as at least
one relevance theorist and many SA theorists have pointed out,
104
but it highlights a main


102
Searle, SA, 47.

103
A speaker who wants to achieve some particular effect should give whatever linguistic cues are needed
to ensure that the interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance is that one she intended to convey. Thus,
when an utterance is interpreted as an ordinary assertion, this is not a result of the operation of some maxim of
quality or convention or trughtuflness, but simply of an interaction between the form of the utterance, the hearer;s
accessible assumptions and the principle of relevance. S&W, Relevance, 249.

104
Steve Nicolle, Communicated and Non-Communicated Acts in Relevance Theory, Journal of
Pragmatics 10, no. 2 (2000), http://elanguage.net/journals/pragmatics/article/view/300/234 (accessed March 29,
2013), 242. Also Marc Dominicy and Nathalie Franken, Speech Acts and Relevance Theory, Pages 263-283 in
Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed., Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001),
283.
27


difference in the basis of SAT and RT and thus deserves consideration. On the other hand, the
blanket statement that a hearer must recognize an intention in order for an IA to be successful
suffers from a distinct lack of both proof and precision. Must the hearer recognize the specific
force (predicting, warning) or the category (assertive, declaration) or both? How would we know
that this logically precedent recognition is happening rather than, say, S&Ws communicative
intention being fulfilled? Must a speaker recognize both SA categorizations of an indirect SA to
understand it? Questions like these challenge Searles assumption of how the speakers meaning
is communicated.

Major Critiques of RT

Most of the SA theorists who critique RT point out some way in which RT ignores one of
the Gricean maxims, especially the overarching maxim of cooperation and the sub-maxim of
truthfulness (under Quality).
105
Since RT does not assume cooperation, and subsumes the other
conversational maxims under the primary maxim of relevance, the explanations which they give
often require flouting one or more of the other maxims. For instance, in S&Ws theory, relevance
trumps quality, so a speaker may intend to deceive (despite Grices sub-maxim of truthfulness as
a condition speakers are assumed to follow). So a student who tells a teacher I turned in my
paper already (which is truthful if he is referring to a paper due last week in a different class)
may be assumed to be referring to the paper he is supposed to be turning in for the teacher he is
speaking to. If the teacher knows that he has not turned in the paper for her class, then according


105
Dominicy and Franken question whether RT can explain uses of imperatives without operating under
the cooperative principle. Dominicy and Franken, 283.
28


to Grice, the teacher should assume that he is referring to a paper from another class, but
according to S&W, the teacher should assume that he is lying.
106

Another criticism of RT is that it may oversimplify Grices distinctions between various
types of implicature.
107
Grice distinguished between conversational implicature and conventional
implicature,
108
but RT uses implicature to refer to particularized conversational implicatures,
assigning Grices conventional implicatures as examples of explicature.
109
Haughs point here is
that the line between explicature and implicature is vague and suffers from confusion, especially
in other languages. Therefore when S&W limit the concept of implicature so drastically,
conventional implicatures (Grice)/explicatures (S&W) are taken by RT as much more certain
than they actually are. Additionally, implicature becomes somewhat of a catch-all term which,
by attempting to mean everything, means nothing.
110


Significant Areas of Disagreement

Philosophers of language have long attempted to solve the problems of metaphor and
irony. While many pragmatists feel that they have the answers long sought, they actually have
quite a few (differing) ones. As might be expected at this point, SAT and RT provide very


106
Lewis and Grice both see the maxim of truthfulness as trumping all the others (including relevance);
Wilson argues against this view. Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, Truthfulness and Relevance, UCL Working
Papers in Linguistics,http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/PUB/WPL/ 00papers/wilson_sperber.pdf (accessed March
30, 2013), 217.

107
Michael Haugh, The Intuitive Basis of Implicature: Relevance Theoretic Implicitness Versus Gricean
Implying, Journal of Pragmatics 12, no. 2 (2002), http://elanguage.net/journals/pragmatics/article/view/317/250
(accessed March 29, 2013), 117.

108
Grice, 14.

109
Haugh, 121.

110
Without the Gricean specifications that a range of different processes underlie the generation of
implicatures, and thus a variety of different categories of implicature are needed to analyse pragmatic phenomena
falling within the scope of the notion of implicature, implicature becomes too broad and indefinable. Haugh, 131.
29


different solutions to these problems. RT has what S&W term a deflationary account of
metaphor,
111
which basically means that they treat metaphor in much the same way as they do
all other language. The decoded senses of a word or other linguistic expression in an utterance
provide a point of departure for an inferential process of meaning construction.
112
A
communicator may actually mean something narrower, broader, or approximate to what they
have said, and the hearer understands which by (of course) the principle of relevance. For
instance, if Hans calls Luke a droid, he could mean that Luke has done something especially
smart or especially unemotional, depending on context. Hans is using the well-known properties
of a droid
113
to indicate something about Luke, a move which S&W would call extension (a
broader meaning), since he is applying a word with a relatively precise sense to a range of items
that clearly fall outside its linguistically specified denotation, but that share some contextually
relevant properties with items inside the denotation.
114

Searle proposes that metaphors should be interpreted by a series of steps. 1) If the
utterance does not make sense, look for a non-literal meaning. 2) Look for commonalities
between the two entities/ideas (say A and B) set in comparison (C). 3) Decide which of the
commonalities applies most readily to the A term.
115
He then gives nine principles which
describe the C way that A and B relate, such as when B necessarily implies C (Chewy is a giant
implies Chewy is big in size), B has well-known properties C (Chewy is a pig could mean


111
Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, A Deflationary Account of Metaphor, Pages 97-121 in Meaning and
Relevance, Ed., Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, (New York: Cambridge, 2012), 97.

112
Ibid., 105.

113
Wookiepedia, s.v. Droid, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Droid (accessed April 10, 2013).

114
S&W, Metaphor, 106.


30


Chewy is greedy and disgusting), B and A are most similar in a certain way C (Chewy is a clown
could imply Chewy is awkwardly funny) and so on.
116
Both these ways of understanding how
metaphors work make sense, but perhaps they are both missing an explanation of that certain
punch which a metaphor entails. As Craig Blomberg points out, metaphors can challenge an
audience to continue processing meaning and discovering connections they may not have noticed
at first hearing.
117

Irony is treated in the same ways as metaphor by Searle but in a very different way by
S&W. Searle says that a hearer can recognize irony by following two principles. 1) If the
utterance does not make sense, look for a non-literal meaning, and 2) If it is grossly
inappropriate, the opposite is most likely meant. Certain tones of voice and can also be a clue as
to the ironic nature of an utterance.
118
Vanderveken, agreeing with Searles point but expressing
it more exactly, defines indirect speech acts as those which flout Grices conversational maxims,
and says that irony specifically is an exploitation of the maxim of quality.
119
S&W explain irony
as an echoic use of language wherein the speaker expresses a mocking, skeptical, or critical
attitude toward an expectation which has not been met.
120
According to S&W, irony pertains

115
John R. Searle, Metaphor, Pages 76-116 in Expression and Meaning, Ed., John R. Searle, (New
York: Cambridge, 1979), 105-6.

116
Ibid., 107-12.

117
A speaker or writer who has a viewpoint he wishes his audience to accept that it does not currently hold
will seldom succeed by means of a straightforward explanation of his position. Rather he has to think of some
innocuous method of introducing the subject, while at the same time challenging his listeners to think of it in a new
way. A carefully constructed allegory may well accomplish what its nonmetaphorical, propositional counterpart
never could. Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 54.

118
Searle, Metaphor, 112-3.

119
Vanderveken, 57.

120
Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, Explaining Irony, Pages 123-44 in Meaning and Relevance, Ed.,
Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, (New York: Cambridge, 2012), 125. Both general and occasional expectations are
possible. An expectation that parties should be fun is rather generally-held, so a person leaving a boring or tragic
party might remark ironically, Well, that was fun. But in order for an expression like He sure is impolite to be
31


more to attitude than information, it has a normative bias (so that something is ironic when it
departs from the norm), and it nearly always involves a certain tone of voice. Interestingly, this
scheme makes irony a second-order metarepresentation (a thought about a thought), and tests
have shown that children of a certain age and people with disabilities have much more trouble
with irony with metaphors or literal speech.
121


Cooperative Interaction

Semantic/Pragmatic Debate

The aim of this paper does not involve solving the semantic/pragmatic debate, but suffice
it to say that while various speech act theorists and relevance theorists fall on both sides of the
semantic/pragmatic debate, as a general rule the former hold to semantic primacy while the latter
hold to pragmatic primacy. The twists and turns that accompany their explanations exemplify the
complexity of the debate and the impossibility to categorize a multifaceted theory regarding any
one point. (Making a judgment on this matter is similar to attempting to determine whether the
Star Wars character is Anakin or Darth Vader at any point in the series sometimes it is clear
and other times notor is he actually always both?) Searle indicates semantic primacy, as can
clearly be seen in his discussion of indirect speech acts and his claim that meaning is prior to
communication.
122
S&W certainly hold to inferential primacy. Since these theories disagree on
primacy, those attempting to solve it sometimes draw from both in their arguments.
123



understood as irony, the speaker and hearer must have had a specific reason for thinking He would be impolite
which did not turn out to be accurate. Normally a lack of politeness would be the unexpected problem deserving
ironic mention. Ibid., 125-7.

121
Ibid., 126-34.

122
Searle, Indirect SA, 33-34. Individual Intentionality, 144.

123
Bianchi, 4-9.
32


Focus on Speaker or the Speaker/Hearer Interaction

One major difference between SAT and RT is the basic location or source of meaning
and communication. In SAT, the source of meaning is the speaker,
124
and the location is the
illocutionary act, including the force (F) behind the referent and predication (RP).
Communication is successful when the hearer recognizes the force (F) with which the speaker
speaks and thus correctly understands what (P) about what (R) she means to say. In RT, the
source of the meaning is still the speaker, but its location is a more complex interaction
between speaker, hearer, and background contextual factors. Though the speaker may intend to
communicate something, his intention in interaction with the hearers processing (all dependent
upon shared physical and mental context) ultimately results in communication. These locations
are simplistic, but (I hope) basically correct. SAT pictures the illocutionary act as the location of
meaning, whereas RT pictures the entire interaction as necessary for meaning. This somewhat
mirrors the question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make
a sound? It also has huge implications for hermeneutics.

Extension to a Theory of Pragmatic Interpretation
SAT deals with individual utterances, and RT with (usually) small strings of
conversation. Neither one focuses on interpreting large discourses or entire texts. Moeschler has
written a brilliant article in which he combines insights from SAT and RT to form a pragmatic
theory of interpretation.
125
From SAT he takes the common sense argument that since SA are


124
I should say, ostensibly the speaker. Certainly SA theorists would agree with this, but some of their
arguments (specifically those addressing indirect SA, irony, etc.) rely on meaning being located in what is said, so
a case could be made for the location of meaning in the locution itself. One of the contributors to Vanderveken and
Kubos Essays in SAT says that SAT is basically a theory of literal meaning. Jacques Moeschler, Speech Acts
and Conversation, Pages 239-261 in Essays in SAT, Ed., Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, (Philadelphia:
John Benjamins, 2001), 260.

33


not actually isolated snippets but (in naturally occurring language) are part of larger
conversations, these conversations should also be doing something. Problems immediately
occur because SAT is not able to provide answers, in the normal scheme of discourse analysis,
for how sequencing and interpretation should occur.
126
The sequencing problem regards how to
achieve a well-formed conversation or discourse, and the interpretation problem can be stated
simply as: What should hearers do in order to understand what speakers intend to
communicate?
127
RT provides answers to both of those, (1) a well-formed conversation is one
in which each utterance is relevant to the one before, and (2) they should process the utterance in
relation to their accessible context and reply based on the assumption that their understanding is
correct. (2) does not guarantee accuracy, since RT is a descriptive and not prescriptive theory,
but it seems to fit how interpretation naturally happens. By using RT as the overarching
explanation for communication, SAT can be extended to apply to conversations in ways that it
could not be under a discourse analysis scheme.
128


Conclusion

The fundamental difference between SAT and RT is that SAT attempts to be a theory of
meaning and RT attempts to be a theory of communication. Of course, as we have seen from the
semantic/pragmatic debate, whether meaning is possible apart from communication is a
debatable topic itself. Searle does describe communication it happens when the speakers

125
Jacques Moeschler, Speech Acts and Conversation, Pages 239-61 in Essays in SAT, Ed., Daniel
Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001), 252.

126
In discourse analysis, units of discourse have certain functions. SAs do not correspond at all to units of
discourse in function or interpretation for example, questions should be followed by replies, but answer is not a
SA. Ibid., 240-1.

127
Ibid., 249-50.

128
Moeschler, 261.
34


intention is recognized but wants to focus more on meaning, which is not dependent at all on
anyone or anything besides the speaker and the institutional system of language. RT does
describe meaning, but as a concept which practically rests on the foundation of communication.
An institution-based code exists in every culture, and humans utilize but do not depend on that
code for communication (and thus meaning).
Do these communication theories have any direct connection to hermeneutical theories?
Though proving connections between any two would require another paper (if not a monograph),
I would like to note some tentative links based on seeming similarities. SAT certainly supports
the search for authorial intention which characterizes redaction criticism
129
and the code-
dependent nature of communication which underlies historical-critical exegesis.
130
Social-
scientific critics sound very similar to RT proponents when they discuss how to interpret texts.
131

Though these connections are tentative, the idea of basing hermeneutical theories on theories of
communication deserves more study.
Whether direct connections exist or not, indirect connections between hermeneutical and
communication theories abound. As seen in the introduction, several hermeneutists especially
those in the philosophical hermeneutics tradition and, more recently, the theological


129
Norman Perrin, What is Redaction Criticism?, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 2.

130
Code-dependent communication supposes the need for decoding and re-encoding in translation;
proponents of historical-critical exegesis (at least as it is most often taught at the undergrad and masters level)
assume this same type translation from original context to todays context as a method of hermeneutics. Goldinjay
says we need to move behind the concrete command to the principles that underlie it, not so as to stop there but so
as to turn these principles back into concrete commands applicable to our own situations. John Goldinjay, Models
for Interpretation of Scripture, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 92.

131
Social-science critics say that authors and audiences must share a horizon of expectations to
communicate, so to understand what they meant, a modern hermeneutist must immerse himself in the NT context so
that he can hear the NT with the fuller resonances it would have had for authors and addressees alike. 58. Malina,
Bruce J. and Richard Rohrbaugh. Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, 2nd ed, (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2003), x. David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture,
(Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 2000), 18.
35


interpretation camp incorporate communication theories in their own hermeneutical theorizing.
Insights from SAT and RT are invaluable in constructing a hermeneutical method. And the
primacy of meaning or communication is at the very heart of the goal of Biblical hermeneutics.
Should we attempt to recover Gods communication by searching for the meaning of the text, or
should we attempt to discover the meaning in the text by looking for Gods communication? Can
there be a meaning in the text divorced from its original communicative use? Should we study an
authors use of text (SAT) or be radical contextualists and examine people (RT) in the
interpretive process? Questions like these are raised but not necessarily answered by studying
communication theories. They can be helpfully seen with clarity and precision through the lens
of the semantic/pragmatic debate, and hopefully this detailed look will assist in arriving at an
answer.




36





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