Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Philosophy of Language: Definitions, Disciplines, and Approaches
- Part I The Past, Present, and Future of Philosophy of Language
- Part II Some Foundational Issues
- Part III From Truth to Vagueness
- Part IV Issues in Semantics and Pragmatics
- 17 Entailment, Presupposition, Implicature
- 18 Speech Acts, Actions, and Events
- 19 Propositions, Predication, and Assertion
- 20 Events in Semantics
- 21 Semantics and Generative Grammar
- 22 Metasemantics: A Normative Perspective (and the Case of Mood)
- 23 The Normativity of Meaning and Content
- 24 The Semantics and Pragmatics of Value Judgments
- 25 Slurs: Semantic and Pragmatic Theories of Meaning
- Part V Philosophical Implications and Linguistic Theories
- Part VI Some Extensions
- References
- Index
18 - Speech Acts, Actions, and Events
from Part IV - Issues in Semantics and Pragmatics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2021
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Philosophy of Language: Definitions, Disciplines, and Approaches
- Part I The Past, Present, and Future of Philosophy of Language
- Part II Some Foundational Issues
- Part III From Truth to Vagueness
- Part IV Issues in Semantics and Pragmatics
- 17 Entailment, Presupposition, Implicature
- 18 Speech Acts, Actions, and Events
- 19 Propositions, Predication, and Assertion
- 20 Events in Semantics
- 21 Semantics and Generative Grammar
- 22 Metasemantics: A Normative Perspective (and the Case of Mood)
- 23 The Normativity of Meaning and Content
- 24 The Semantics and Pragmatics of Value Judgments
- 25 Slurs: Semantic and Pragmatic Theories of Meaning
- Part V Philosophical Implications and Linguistic Theories
- Part VI Some Extensions
- References
- Index
Summary
The study of speech acts began with Austin and was prefigured by Wittgenstein.1 While Frege and Russell focused primarily on the semantics of the expressions of the artificial, formal languages used in logic and mathematics (to articulate truth-apt statements and theories),2 Wittgenstein (in his later work) drew our attention to the variety of uses to which the expressions of ordinary, naturally occurring languages are put. One technique that he employed for doing so was to describe a number of different “language games” – i.e. “ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday language” (1969: 17).
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language , pp. 335 - 348Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021