Sign-In
Cart
Speech Acts in Literature
Paperback
Series: Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics
ISBN13: 9780804742160
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: Aug 1 2002
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.66 Width: 5.76 Depth: 8.46
Language: English
This book demonstrates the presence of literature within speech act theory and the utility of speech act theory in reading literary works. Though the founding text of speech act theory, J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words, repeatedly expels literature from the domain of felicitous speech acts, literature is an indispensable presence within Austin's book. It contains many literary references but also uses as essential tools literary devices of its own: imaginary stories that serve as examples and imaginary dialogues that forestall potential objections. How to Do Things with Words is not the triumphant establishment of a fully elaborated theory of speech acts, but the story of a failure to do that, the story of what Austin calls a bogging down.
After an introductory chapter that explores Austin's book in detail, the two following chapters show how Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man in different ways challenge Austin's speech act theory generally and his expulsion of literature specifically. Derrida shows that literature cannot be expelled from speech acts--rather that what he calls iterability means that any speech act may be literature. De Man asserts that speech act theory involves a radical dissociation between the cognitive and positing dimensions of language, what Austin calls language's constative and performative aspects. Both Derrida and de Man elaborate new speech act theories that form the basis of new notions of responsible and effective politico-ethical decision and action.
The fourth chapter explores the role of strong emotion in effective speech acts through a discussion of passages in Derrida, Wittgenstein, and Austin. The final chapter demonstrates, through close readings of three passages in Proust, the way speech act theory can be employed in an illuminating way in the accurate reading of literary works.
1 different editions
Also available
Also in
Philosophy
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Annas, Julia
Barnes, Jonathan
Julia, Annas
Paperback
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Hanselman, Stephen
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
The Courage to Be Ordinary: Discover Your Surprising Superpower for a Thriving Life
Kishimi, Ichiro
Paperback
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
My Big TOE Awakening Discovery Inner Workings: The Complete My Big TOE Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics
Campbell, Thomas
Hardcover
Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga
Evola, Julius
Hardcover
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Hardy, Janet W.
Easton, Dossie
Paperback
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover