禁忌语的“言有所为”刍议

On the Illocutionary Sense of Language Taboos

英国语言学家奥斯汀(John L.Austin,1911～1960)在他的言语行为理论中把施为句分成三种:以言指事、以言行事和以言成事。我们从奥斯汀的学说中受到启发:禁忌语之所以成为人们的禁忌,除了"言有所指"之外,"言有所为"也是一个重要原因。人们通过某种言语的使用而施行一种行为,这就是禁忌语"言有所为"的属性。

Austin,in his Speech Act Theory,classified performative sentences into three kinds： locutionary act,illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.Some language fragments are tabooed not only because they signify or refer to something,but also because the speaker,while speaking something,is doing something.Language taboos of this kind can be generally classified into two kinds： direct illocutionary act and indirect illocutionary act.The reason why these languages fragments are tabooed is because language users are doing something harmful directly or indirectly to the listeners.