The Intentional Nature of Speech Acts in P. Grice’s Analytic Philosophy of Language

Abstract

Contemporary philosophy of language has shifted its research focus from understanding language as an autonomous system of signs toward an analysis of the communicative, cognitive, and pragmatic mechanisms through which meaning is constituted in the process of verbal interaction. In this context, we believe that analytic philosophy of language is of particular importance. This area of research became especially prominent in the second half of the twentieth century, when the focus of inquiry shifted from the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions to the study of the ways in which such expressions are used in specific communicative situations.

One of the most influential approaches underlying this transition was Paul Grice’s theory of meaning, based on the fundamental premise that the meaning of a speech utterance cannot be adequately explained solely in terms of its formal or lexical semantics. An essential component of meaning is the intentional structure of a speech act, that is, the speaker’s orientation toward achieving a particular communicative effect through the addressee’s recognition of that intention. For this reason, Grice’s theory occupies a distinctive place in the history of analytic philosophy of language, as it connects semantics, pragmatics, action theory, and the epistemology of communication.

Grice’s philosophical program developed within the context of the so-called linguistic philosophy that emerged in the English-speaking intellectual environment of the twentieth century. Early analytic philosophy was characterized by an attempt to investigate philosophical problems through the analysis of language. Gradually, however, it became evident that the meaning of an expression is determined not only by its logical form. An equally important question concerns what exactly a speaker is doing when uttering a particular statement. In this regard, the works of J.L. Austin and J.R. Searle should be noted, as they contributed to the development of speech act theory and treated utterances as forms of action. Thus, Austin argued that “...in speaking, a person not only describes a state of affairs but also performs certain actions: promising, warning, ordering, asserting, apologizing, and so forth”.