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The descriptivist and performatives (again)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Willis J. Edmondson
Affiliation:
Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Extract

Taylor and Wolf (1981) seek to show that Edmondson (1979) makes the position of the descriptivist ‘if anything, worse’, and that the dilemma for the descriptivist posed by Harris (1978) is ‘inescapable’. The authors seek to facilitate discussion by analysing my theory ‘rather more clearly’ than I managed to myself, and in doing so establish that its claims are ‘either contradictory or absurd’ (329).

Type
Notes and Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

REFERENCES

Edmondson, W. J. (1979). Harris on performatives. JL 15. 331334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmondson, W. J. (1981a). Illocutionary verbs, illocutionary acts, and conversational behaviour. In Eikmeyer, H.-J. & Rieser, H. (eds.), Words, worlds and contexs. Berlin: de Gruyter. 485499.Google Scholar
Edmondson, W. J. (1981b). Spoken discourse. A model for analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1978). The descriptive interpretation of performative utterances. JL 14. 309310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, T. J. & Wolf, G. (1981). Performatives and the descriptivist's dilemmas. JL 17. 329332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar