Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T09:38:16.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory in philosophy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Michelle Z. Rosaldo
Michelle Z. Rosaldo
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I begin by introducing the Ilongots and some of their attitudes toward speech. Whereas most modem theorists think of language as a tool designed primarily to “express” or to “refer,” Ilongots think of language first in terms of action. They see commands as the exemplary act of speech, displaying less concern for the subjective meanings that an utterance conveys than for the social contexts in which utterances are heard. An ethnographic sketch thus outlines how Ilongots think of words and how their thought relates to aspects of their practice – providing an external foil for theorists found closer to home. Speech Act Theory is discussed and questioned first on internal grounds, as an approach that recognizes but slights important situational and cultural constraints on forms of language use. A consideration of the application of Searle's taxonomy of acts of speech to Ilongot categories of language use then leads to a clarification of the individualistic and relatively asocial biases of his essentially intra-cultural account. Last, I return to Ilongot directives. A partial analysis of Ilongot acts of speech provides the basis for a statement of the ways in which indigenous categodes are related to the forms that actions take, as both of these, in turn, reflect the sociocultural ordering of local worlds. (Speech acts, philosophy and ethnography, ethnography of speaking, Ilongot [Philippines].)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , August 1982 , pp. 203 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ahern, E. M. (1979). The problem of efficacy: Strong and weak illocutionary acts. Man 14(1). 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy. New York: Monthly Review.Google Scholar
Asad, T. (1979). Anthropology and the analysis of ideology. Man 14(4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Urmson, J. O. (ed). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1963). Performative-constative. In Caton, C. (ed.), Philosophy and ordinary language. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Reprinted inGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (ed.), The philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bach, K., & Hamish, R. (1979). Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bauman, R., & Sherzer, J.Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E. (ed), Questions and politeness. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Cole, P., & Morgan, J. (eds.) (1975). Syntax and semantics, vol. III: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Collier, J., & Rosaldo, M. (in press). Sex & politics in simple societies. In Ortner, S. & Whitehead, H. (eds.), Sexual meanings. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, J. (1977). Signature, event, context. Glvph I. 172–97.Google Scholar
Dore, J. (1979). Conversational acts and the acquisition of language. In Keenan, E. & Schieffelin, B. (eds.), Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 339–62.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1976). Is Sybil there? The structure of American English directives. Language in Society 5(l). 25–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnegan, R. (1969). How to do things with words: Performative utterances among the Limba of Sierra Leone. Man 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fish, S. (1979). Normal circumstance, literal language, direct speech acts, the ordinary, the everyday, the obvious, what goes without saying and other special cases. In Rabinow, P. & Sullivan, W. (eds.), Interpretive social science: A reader. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foster, M. (1974). When words become deeds: An analysis of three Iroquois Longhouse speech events. In Bauman & Sherzer. 345–67.Google Scholar
Fraser, B. (1975). Hedged performatives. In Cole & Morgan. 187–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, P. (1979). Language, context and the imagination. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1976). New rules of sociological method. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, E. (1978a). Introduction. In Goody, E. (ed.). Questions and politeness. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goody, E. (1978b). Towards a theory of questions. In Goody, E. (ed), Questions and politeness. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, D., & Lakoff, G. (1971). Conversational postulates. Papers of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Department of Linguistics. University of Chicago. 63–84.Google Scholar
Graham, K. (1977). J. L. Austin: A critique of ordinary language philosophy. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole & Morgan. 41–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimes, J. E. (1975). The thread of discourse. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, J. (in press). The sociolinguistic basis of speech act theory. In Boyd, J. & Ferrara, S. (eds.), Speech act ten years after. Milan: Versus.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J., & Hymes, D. (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. (Originally published in Germany 1976.) Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. (1975). Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancher, M. (1979). The classification of cooperative illocutionary acts. Language in Society 8(1). 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holdcroft, D. (1978). Words and deeds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1964). Introduction: Toward ethnographies of communication. American Anthropologist 66(6), part 2. 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, D. (1972). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In Gumperz, J. & Hymes, D. (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Revised fromGoogle Scholar
Journal of Social Issues 23(2): 8–28, 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, J. (1977). Propositional structure and illocurionary force: A study of the contribution of sentence meaning to speech acts. New York: Crowell.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. O. (1976). On the universality of conversational implicatures. Language in Society 5(1). 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W., & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lavandera, B. (1977). Inferencia y referencia en la teoria del lenguaje. UICUS Cuadernos. Lingūística I. 117–38.Google Scholar
Lavandera, B. (1978). Analysis of semantic variation: The Spanish moods. NWAVE VII Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Longacre, R. E. (1976). An anatomy of speech notions. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, J. (1975). Some interactions of syntax and pragmatics. In Cole & Morgan. 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pateman, C. (1979). The problem of political obligation. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Philips, S. U. (1976). Some sources of cultural variability in the regulation of talk. Language in Society 5(1). 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, M. (1978). Towards a speech act theory of literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. (1971). The model of the text: Meaningful action considered as text. Social Research 38 (3).Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1972). Metaphor and folk classification. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 28(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1973). I have nothing to hide: The language of Ilongot oratory. Language in Society 2(2). 193–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1974). Review of J. Searle, Speech acts. American Anthropologist 76(1).Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1975). It's all uphill: The creative metaphors of Ilongot magical spells. In Sanches, M. & Blount, B. (eds.), Sociocultural dimensions of language use. New York: Seminar Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1980). Knowledge and passion: Ilongot notions of self and social life. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (n.d.a) Words that are moving. Paper presented Spring 1978, SSRC conference on Southeast Asian Aesthetics.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (n.d.b). The shame of headhunters and the autonomy of the self. Paper presented December 1980, Meetings of the American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M., & Atkinson, J. (1975). Man the hunter and woman. In Willis, R. (ed.), The interpretation of symbolism. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, R. (1980). Ilongot headhunting, 1883–1974: A study in history and society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, J. R. (1970). On declarative sentences. In Jacobs, R. A. & Rosenbaum, P. S. (eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn. 222–72.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1972) On the analyzability of stories by children. In Gumperz, J. & Hymes, D. (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1973a). Lectures at Summer Linguistic Institute. Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1973b). Tout le monde dolt mentir. Communications 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saddock, J. (1974). Toward a linguistic theory of speech acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sapir, D. (1979). Review of Basso, K. & Selby, H. (eds.), Meaning in anthropology. Language in Society 8(2). 245–70.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, B. B. (n.d.). A sociolinguistic analysis of a relationship. Paper presented November 1978, Meetings of the American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1965). “What is a speech act?” In Black, M. (ed), Philosophy in America. London: Allen and Unwin. Reprinted inGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (ed), The philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Cole & Morgan. 58–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1976). The classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5(1). 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1977). Reiterating the differences: A reply to Derrida. Glyph I. 198–208.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1979a). Expression and meaning. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1979b). Indirect speech acts. In Searle, J., Expression and meaning.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1979c). Literal meaning. In Searle, J., Expression and meaning.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1979d). The logical status of fictional discourse. In Searle, J., Expression and meaning.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1979e). Speech acts and recent linguistics. In Searle, J., Expression and meaning.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1979f). A taxonomy of illocutionary acts. In Searle, J., Expression and meaning.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R., & Vanderveken, D. (n.d.). Foundations of illocutionary logic. Ms.Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifter, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In Basso, K. & Selby, H. (eds.), Meaning in anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In Clyne, P., Hanks, W. F., & Hotbauer, C. L. (eds.), The elements: A parasession on linguistic units and levels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Stampe, D. W. (1975). Meaning and truth in the theory of speech acts. In Cole & Morgan. 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tambiah, S. J. (1973). Form and meaning in magical acts: A point of view. In Horton, R. & Finnegan, R. (eds.), Modes of thought: Essays on thinking in Western and non-Western societies. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1978). The poverty of theory and other essays. New York: Monthly Review.Google Scholar
Tyler, S. A. (1978). The said and the unsaid. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, N. Y.: Comell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voloshinov, V. N. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. Translated by Ladislav, Matejka & Titunik, I. R.. New York: Seminar Press. Originally published in Russia, 1930.Google Scholar