Summary of Part I

The most important goal of the empirical investigation was to map the theoretical predictions in my discussion of Searlean conception of the illocutionary act of assertion onto examples taken with their conversational situation. The empirical approach permitted to determine the following directions for further investigation:

A. Illocutionary acts:

The illocutionary acts in the corpus were assigned force intuitively. The task for a sound theory of speech act is to find out what it is that allows us to assign force to an utterance. It is, therefore, important to separate the production end or the performance from whatever it is that allows the hearer to interpret or grasp the illocutionary force of the utterance. Concentrating on the performance means defining what a performance of an illocutionary act is; concentrating on the understanding or the grasping of the illocutionary act helps check the definition obtained. The non-existent definition of the notion of illocutionary act in Searle’s writings makes it a difficult task to distinguish acts between them, or even deciding whether an occurrence is an illocutionary act and what kind of illocutionary act. The recursive definition of the notion of illocutionary force cannot be corroborated by empirical data in that various components seem ad hoc and not necessary for a large number of act types. What is more, Searle’s theory of illocutionary acts is ambiguous as to the focus of the program undertaken, which hovers between different kinds of meaning (utterance meaning, speaker meaning, semantic meaning) and communicative success, reducing the term of illocutionary act to a nostalgic tribute to its founder. A return to Austin’s original ideas is needed, in order to see whether a reconstruction of the concept of illocutionary act is possible, which could provide a basis for further investigation.

B. Assertion:

113 _{As I already argued, in expressives, the illocutionary point, which is to express psychological states, actually}

coincides with the sincerity condition; so the degree of strength of the point will also coincide with the degree of strength of the sincerity condition; Searle and Vanderveken give the example in the former condition – “If I express regret for having done something my utterance has a lesser degree of strength than if I humbly apologize for having done it”, that is, it is the degree to which a psychological state is expressed is emphasized; but again for pairs of acts only.

What assertion amounts to is a question that is unresolved by Searlean framework. The conditions are too vague and too permissive to yield an operative definition of the act. The common element between the different descriptions of the act of assertion in Searle’s writings is the proposition that p, which seems to tie the performance of the act to the declarative sentence. The criteria we are provided with by Searle’s theory are checked in a default manner against the examples of the corpus: the only possibility to apply those is assume by default that a declarative sentence is used assertively, then look for differences in degree of strength of the commitment, mode of achievement or special preparatory conditions in a completely arbitrary fashion. For a vast majority of acts of the assertive kind differences are only spelled out in terms of differences of the propositional content, thus emphasizing the permissive embrace-all nature of the description of assertion. Of course, the possibility is still open that assertion may just be a primitive non-illocutionary act that is transparent in every assertive act (even in commissives and expressives). In order to be able to answer definitively this question, we need to have at least some minimum requirements for counting an occurrence as an illocutionary act performance of a certain type. We do not have such requirements in Searle’s framework.

C. Gaps in the discussion:

There are features in the production setting of illocutionary acts that help the hearer grasp the force of the utterance: it is important to define them and incorporate them formally in a sound theory of illocutionary acts114. The vague reference to context in Searle’s exposition glosses over features of the conversational setting that must be analyzed in order to get an accurate picture of act performance. One important step is to define uptake and the taking of effect of the acts. Another is to define context and features that are relevant to production and uptake. Defining context falls largely outside the scope of this study; nevertheless, some steps will be taken towards understanding the relevant features in the speech situation that help grasp the illocutionary force of the utterance. In Searle’s theory, as far as the speaker is concerned, the illocutionary act is defined for her uniquely by the intention specific for every particular illocutionary act. Thus, the intention to get the hearer to do A is sufficient to define a directive act for the speaker; the intention to make the hearer aware of p is enough to define informing. The hearer’s task in a speech situation is to understand that intention. This leads to neglecting the role of the hearer.

114

It is certainly not part of the goals of the present investigation to formulate a fully-fledged theory of illocutionary acts.

D. The neglected participant:

The requirement of a hearer who should be recognizing intentions is suspended for the possibility of illocutionary acts (Searle and Vanderveken 1985). Only in communicating does the speaker direct yet another intention to a hearer, namely the intention to communicate the illocutionary act. Assertion does not get to benefit from this requirement, though, as for adopting a certain stance towards a propositional content p the act does not need to be directed at anybody. Even so, it is an empirical fact about communication that hearers do not always grasp the intended force of utterances and that negotiation takes place as to reach an agreement concerning the act being performed. A careful examination of the role of the hearer is needed. Part II takes up on these issues.