LANGUAGE THEORIES AND LINGUISTICS SPEECH ACT
UNDERSTANDING SPEAKER’S INTENTION (in Dutch: taalhandelingen) History and Orientation Speech act theory is built on the foundation laid by Wittgenstein and Austin. John Searle is most often associated with the theory. Ludwig Wittgenstein began a line of thought called ‘ordinary language philosophy’. He taught that the meaning of language depends on its actual use. Language, as used in ordinary life, is a language game because it consists of rules. In other words, people follow rules to do things with the language. Core Assumptions and Statements According to Searle, to understand language one must understand the speaker’s intention. Since language is intentional behavior, it should be treated like a form of action. Thus Searle refers to statements as speech acts. The speech act is the basic unit of language used to express meaning, an utterance that expresses an intention. Normally, the speech act is a sentence, but it can be a word or phrase as long as it follows the rules...
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