奥斯汀的言语行为理论:诠释与批判

Austin's speech act theory: What it is and where it is wrong

英国分析哲学家约翰·兰肖·奥斯汀(1911—1960)在我国语言学界并不是一个陌生的名字。他的关于言语行为理论的开创性论著《如何以言词行事》(以下简称《行事》)于1980年由许国璋教授部分译介给我国读者。涂纪亮所著《分析哲学及其在美国的发展》也对之立章述说。本文着重诠释与评述奥斯汀言语行为理论的来源和方法。

This paper presents a synthesized account of J. L. Austin's speech act theory illustrated with Chinese data. It consists of six sections. The first three present the theory's philosophical origin, the method it uses in abstracting a series of acts out of the total speech act, and the way it recognizes and classifies illocutionary acts. Section 4 examines the relations between the rhetic act, the locutionary act and the illocutionary act. Section 5 reviews Austin's notion of convention and his criteria for illocutionary act classification. The last section argues that Austin's conception of the perlocutionary act is fatally undermined by the Act=Effect Fallacy and by the notion of causation.