Beyond Speech Act Theory - Hancher Review of Pratt

Beyond a Speech-Act Theory of Literary Discourse Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse by Mary Louise Pratt Review
by: Michael Hancher MLN, Vol. 92, No. 5, Compartive Literature (Dec., 1977), pp. 1081-1098 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2906897 . Accessed: 23/06/2013 19:23
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LITERARY HANCHER
}EYOND
DISCOURSE )
A SPEECH-ACTTHEORY OF
m
MICHAEL
Mary Louise Pratt, Toward a Speech Act Theoryof Literary Discourse (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 236 pages. It is now fifteen yearssince Harvard University Press publishedJ. L. Austin'sWilliamJames Lectures for 1955, How todo Things with Words. Austin'sanalysisof language use had long been an important influence on other philosophers of language, and publication greatly extended thatinfluence, especiallyon the neighboring fields of linguistics and social anthropology.(Much of the philosophical and linguisticliteraturehas been listed by Eaton [1974] and Verschueren [1976]. For sociologicaland anthropologicalperspectives see Turner [1974] and Hymes [1971, 1972]). Recentlydevelopmental psychologists have gained fromAustin'sinsights, and theyin turn have begun to gatherevidence corroborating manyof the concepts basic to speech-acttheory(Bates [1976]; Bruner [1975, 1976]; Garvey [1975]). Some interesting applicationshave been made in legal theory(Twiningand Miers[1976]), and even in theology(Martinich [1975]). Now, laterperhaps than mighthave been expected,thereis the first book-lengthstudyof the implications of Austin'sideas for literary criticism, a Speech Toward ofLiterary Discourse, byMaryLouise Pratt(Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1977). During the last decade many scatteredessays have appeared on thissubject,several of whichPratttakes into account. And she does not restrict herselfto Austin'sspeech-acttheory, even as refinedby Searle (1969), but draws upon the results of recent research in sociolinguistics (e.g., Labov [1972]), and makes use of othermodels in the philosophyof language, especiallyGrice's[1967]. Still,Austin is the originalifnot the onlybegetterof thisline of inquiry, and the phrase "speech-acttheory" is peculiarly associatedwithhisworkand Searle's. It seems fair,then,to address thisbook as the first substanMLN 92 (1977) 1081-1098 ? 1977 by The Johns Hopkins University Copyright Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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tial result in literarystudy of a philosophy of language that has already proven to be a powerfulexplanatorydevice in other fields. By its verytitlethisbook arouses great expectations. They are bound to be disappointed. Part of the blame forthisis Pratt's,for she so dilutes the Austin-Searletheorythatmuch of its power is lost. But probably a more rigorous application of the theorywould also disappoint,because of a mismatchbetweenwhat the theorycan do and what literarycriticsrequire. Even so, this book deserves a large audience and careful attention.It is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. Many of Pratt'sargumentsare persuasive,and otherscall forthe reconsiderationof old and basic issues in literary theory.They are worthreviewingin some detail. Pratt begins by confrontingand rejecting the traditional formalistclaim that there is some difference in kind between the language of literatureand the language of the practicalworld. After showing how the consequent divorce of poetics from linguistics improverished both (as othershave shownbefore;e.g., Fish [1973]), she turnsto a more promisingmodel. That model is the "narrative syntax"that William Labov found underlyingthe many personalexperience narratives told to himand to his collaboratorsbyvarious Harlem informants (Labov [1972]). Labov found thatthese "real-life" narratives all followeda consistent patternor "syntax"comprisingsuch elements (some of them optional) as abstract, orientation, complicating action,evaluation, result or resolution, and coda, all shaped according to the speaker's dynamicsense of the contextin whichhe must engage (and evade) his audience's attention.Pratt notes that most of these rhetorical featuresof "natural narrative"have counterpartsin "literary" fiction. From this she draws two conclusions: (1) The structureof "literature" generallyhas a lot more in common withthe structure of ordinary discourse than formalismallows us to notice. (2) We should followLabov's example, and pay more attentionto the deroles of addresser, addressee, and context-despite our termining highlydeveloped inhibitions against recognizingthe operations of "intention, perception,and value" in human discourse. "The overriding tendencyto disguise" such notions by projectingthem directlyonto the text itself, she says, has a conspicuous effect on almostall formalist stylistic and structuralistt writings. They are a grammarian's of agentless goldmine
She means butherremarks earlystructuralist; can be given a wider application.
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passives, statives, reflexives, and attributives, all with conspicuously nonhuman subjects.... theviewof poeticlanguageimplied by[the is as impoverished style] as theviewof ordinary languagelying behind[it].... The poetic text, which "forms itself" and "orients itself" toitsownintentions bitas mechanistic, according and values, is every as divorced from thereality of humancommunication, as the"ordithat"transmits merely information aboutthe outnarv"utterance side world." (74-5) With a strengthenedrespect for the real world of language, which includes, in contexts,speakers and audiences, writersand readers,Prattturnsin her thirdchapterto a sophisticatedmodel of thatworld,the Austin-Searletheoryof speech acts. The outline of that theorywhich followshere emphasizes some aspects that Pratt neglectsin her own account. Austin,reactingagainst the early modern philosophical habit of or verifiabilputtinghard sentenceslike (1) to testsfortruth-value ity,proposed thatsome sentencesthatseem to failthe test,like (2), should not simplybe labelled "nonsense." (1) God is everywhere. (2) I bid threespades. He furtherproposed that it was not a sentence qua sentence that was interesting, not some timelessunchanging Platonic type,but rather its use in certain situations; for example, (2) as uttered at bridge, by a player whose turn it is to bid. These two proposals taken togetheryielded a tentativedistinction between utterancesthat made statements,"constativeutterances," responsiveto some kind of truthtest,and other utterances that did not assert anythingabout a state of affairs,but rather brought a new state of affairsinto being. For example: (3) (4) (5) (6) Welcome. Shutthedoor. Elizabeth. I namethisshiptheQueen I promise to write.
This kind Austin called "performative utterances,"because in uttering them in an appropriate context a speaker would actually accomplish something. Though not directlyresponsive to truth tests(how would one verify the bare truthof [2], or [4]?) performativeutterancesare subjectto otherkindsof conditionsiftheyare to "make sense" and do the work that theyare supposed to do. For example, there would be something odd about my uttering(2) during a poker game.
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Austin listed six generalizations(plus some others, even more general) that must hold if a performativeutterance is to avoid being "unhappy" or "infelicitous";these have since been dubbed conditions." "felicity A.1. There mustexista conventional, situated linguistic procedure forthecorrect performance of theperformative in utterance question. A.2. "The particular ina given persons and circumstances casemust be appropriate fortheinvocation of theparticular procedure invoked." B. 1. "The procedure must be executed byall participants correctly," and ... B.2.... "completely." F.1. If thesincerity of anyparticipant matters to thekindof actin he mustbe sincere. question, mustbehaveappropriately after thefact. F.2. The participants A failure in any of the firstfour cases will void the attempted A failurein eitherof the last twocases willrender the performative. utterancedefective,but not fatally;it willamount to performative an abuse of the procedure. Gradually Austin came to recognize that the constative/performativedistinction was not absolute. For one thing,any happy perabout the contextof formative utterancewillimplytrue statements the utterance.If I reallydo bid three spades that implies that it is true that it is then my turn to bid. Conversely(though Austin does not make quite so much of this conditions of point) constativesare themselvessubject to felicity sorts. There would be somethingodd about my asserting,in the absence of any specificevidence,thatBert Lance is runninga fever of 102.30 F., or is thinkingof the Taj Mahal. The "circumstances" would be "inappropriate"for me to make such an assertion-even if,by some luckycoincidence, itjust happened to be true. To acknowledgethissimilarity betweenconstative and performative speech acts, Austinjoined them both in the notion of an illocutionary act; that is, an act performedin the properly situated utteringof a given locution. The act of utteringthe locution he called a locutionary effects he act,and the act of inducingcontingent act. These acts are essentiallysimultaneous; called a perlocutionary theyamount to threeaspects of the same action. The centralaspect is the illocutionary act-which displaces the "sentence" as the center of philosophical interest.
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Austinestimatedthatthere were thousands of different kindsof illocutionaryacts, and he made a firsteffortat classifying them. RecentlySearle (1975a, 1975b) has published a more rigorousclassification, which Prattsummarizes: 1. representatives: illocutionary actsthatundertake to represent a stateof affairs, whether or hypothetical; past,present, future, e.g., stating, claiming, hypothesizing, describing, predicting, telling, inor swearing thatsomething sisting, suggesting, is thecase. actsdesigned to gettheaddressee 2. directives: to do illocutionary darsomething; e.g., requesting, commanding, pleading, inviting, ing. 3. commissives: thespeaker to doing illocutionary actsthat commit something; e.g.,promising, threatening, vowing. 4. expressives: illocutionary acts thatexpressonly the speaker's conpsychological state;e.g., congratulating, thanking, deploring, doling, welcoming. 5. declarations: illocutionary actsthatbringaboutthestateof affairs refer they to; e.g.,blessing, firing, baptizing, bidding, passing sentence. (80-81) Note that the firstclass, representatives, amounts to the old and troublesomeclass, constatives. In SpeechActs(1969) Searle refined Austin's account of felicity conditions,and characterized them by drawing a distinctionbetweentwo kindsof rules governinghuman behavior,regulative rules and constitutive activrules."Regulativerules regulate a pre-existing ity, an activity whose existenceis logically independentof the rules." The rule that the bride's familysits on the left and the groom's on the right is a rule of this type; they could rest their feet as effectively, and the couple would be married just as effectively, whetherthey observed the rule or not. But the rule that neither bride nor groom can be marriedalready (still),is a different kindof rule. If it be broken,the second "marriage"is void, no marriageat the all. "Constitutive rules constitute (and also regulate) an activity existence of which is logically dependent on the rules" (Searle [1969], 34). Now the Austin-Searlefelicity actsare conditionson illocutionary versionthey constitutive rules,not regulativerules. In Searle's strict are both "necessaryand sufficient" to the actual performanceof the illocutionary act (Searle [1965], 231; [1969], 54). But Pratttreats themas if theywere merelyregulative.This allows her to associate themwithvariousgenre "rules"of literature, whichbyand large are What she gains in breadth she loses in regulative,not constitutive. precision,at the point in the theorywhere it most matters.
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or feliciare correctly "Speech acts," she says, "likeall behavior, tously performedonly if certain conditionsobtain" (81; my emphasis). But the point is thatspeech acts are not"like all behavior"; by the rules under whichtheyare theyare onlylike acts constituted performed. This is more than a casual slip. For Pratt next introduces the term "appropriateness condition" as a synonymand replacement condition." And in her hands the notion of "approfor "felicity of the classicalnotionof "decorum." priateness"has all the elasticity cases, but only in a regulativeway.2 It covers many interesting Much like the ancient rhetoricians,Pratt hopes to distinguish "appropriatenesscondigenresof discoursein termsof contrasting tions." For example, she would distinguishthe rules of natural narrativeby connarrativefromthe rules of courtroom-testimony trasting the different "appropriateness conditions" governing case it is appropriate forthe narratorto comment each: in the first evaluativelyon what he reports; in the second case it is not. But eithercan be broken without neitherof these rules is constitutive; necessarilyvoiding the narrativeact. (A judge mighthave such a commentstrickenfrom the trial record, but not necessarily.)It is both customaryand appropriate to wear dark clothes to funerals and lightclotheson the tenniscourt,but neithercustomis essential social events and language games that take place to the different there. All such rules of decorum are beyond the limited competence (in both senses) of speech-acttheory. Another instance: but events and objects allowforsupernatural Fairytalesand fables may events ofsupernatural strict rulesaboutwhatkinds haverather thatthese occur and how theymaycome about. It is verylikely conditions. as appropriateness too,can be formulated conventions, (86)
2 fromTraugott condition Prattseems to take the termand concept appropriateness (1973); she in turn seems to be influencedby Hymes (1971), who applies the term conditions of to much more than the necessary-and-sufficient appropriateness speech-act theory. in a technical Grice ([1967], 1) uses the phrase applicabilitylappropriateness-condition conditions.Grice goes on to criticize sense that overlaps certainof Austin's felicity some, though not all, philosophical explanationsthatdepend upon the notion. (See below.) And of course Austin's second felicity condition requires that "appropriate perBut the appropriatenessinvolvedthere sons" be in the "appropriatecircumstances." is constitutive, not regulative.
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If "appropriateness conditions" involve only "rather strictrules," conditions"of the theyfallfarshortof the "necessaryand sufficient Austin-Searlemodel for the descriptionof speech acts. is not beyond critidistinction Perhaps the constitutive/regulative cism (see, forexample, Stampe [1975], Hirsch [1976]). But it needs to be dealt with,one way or another, not simplyignored.3 Prattdilutes the theoryto enlarge its scope in another way. The acts tend to be onlyone sentencelong (Searle factthatillocutionary claustrophobia. critic [1969], 25) is probablybound to give a literary Austin([1962], 36) The fewclear exceptionsare not veryliberating. (betting, twoor more participants impliesthatspeech acts involving sentences. more two or will involve generally) marrying-contracts Garvey (1975) reports that in conversationthe "domain" of one act may extend over several sentences,as the particiillocutionary pants clarifythe nature and rightnessof the speech act being criticshunt bigger game. Therefore Pratt negotiated. But literary would have "appropriatenessconditions"apply "at the level of discourse" to "multisentenceutterances that have a single point or purpose" (85). condifelicity Now theremaybe some special cases in whichstrict tions do govern at the level of discourse. For example, extensive if "utlegal directives(e.g., wills,statutes)willbe void for infelicity tered" by an inappropriate person or in inappropriate circonditions that cumstances. But I can't imagine any strictfelicity willdefine generic discourse as simple as a letterto the editor or a genres that Pratt newspaper editorial,let alone the more "literary" to specifythe try to enough has in mind. And yet she is bold treacherous and most the largest "appropriatenessconditions"on itself. of "literature" genre the all, of genre literary She recognizes that Ohmann (1971a) has already made such an works are composed of "mimetic"or effort:he holds thatliterary make-believe speech acts, not real ones with real illocutionary force.(So Beardsley[(1970), 61] proposed thata poemis "thecomplex act"; and Smith[(1971), 271] of a compound illocutionary imitation that a poem is "a fictiveutterance"-"the speaking, addressing, expressing and alluding" that seem to take place in a poem "are fictive verbal acts.") The flawin thiscommon maneuver themselves
3 Fish ([1976], 1003-4, 1008) faults both Iser (1975) and Ohmann (1971b) for simidistinction. lar collapsingsof the constitutive/regulative
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to the single (or poetry) is the reduction of the categoryliterature Another and broader approach is needed. categoryoffiction. So Prattdirectsour attentionto a broad view of literatureas a In a fascinating sectionon the penalties of "being social institution. reader of a published text, an Audience," she notes thatthe solitary collectiveaudience of oral like a memberof any voluntary precisely discourse,takes on the role of a member of the Audience at some cost. That is, he gives up the rightto speak; a rightthat he has been accustomed to value and to exercise in the ordinaryconversation of everydaylife,where it has the protectionof all kindsof tacit He naturallyexpects to get somerules governing turn-taking.4 thing valuable in return for temporarilyrelinquising that right. member of any Audience will thereforesit in judgAny voluntary ment on the proceedings, monitoringpersonal profit and loss. makes a demanding criticout of everymember of the Self-interest Audience-including everyreader of a work of literature. Pratt argues that the reader's demands and expectations are further heightenedby his knowledge of other aspects of the social text contextof literature.He knowsthatby conventionthe literary has been both carefully "pre-pared" by the author, and "precollege professors,and the like, selected" by publishers,reviewers, to maximize the chances that it won't be a waste of the reader's This means, among otherthings,thatthe concept timeand rights.5 of literatureis necessarily"honorific,"and not value-free(122-3). But Prattherselfnotes thatthe conventionsof pre-parationand selection do not uniquely define "literature";somethingmore is needed to exclude published worksthatpass these testsbut stillare not particularly "literary" (120). (Like her own book, for example,
4 Note thatthe rules governingturn-taking Pratt are regulative,not constitutive. calls them "appropriatenessconditions"(1 13). 5 Sometimes the word is "pre-paration,"sometimes simply "preparation." This difference,apparently unmotivated,seems to invite deconstruction.The system includes (to keep to Englishalone) PREPARE, PARE, PARADE, PARRY, and PARENT. is special because pre-selectedamounts to a radical Pratt'snotion that literature revision of an old distinctionbetween literatureand folklore drawn by Roman Jakobson and Peter Bogatyrev([1931], 91):
A folkloreworkis onlythatwhichas been sanctionedand adopted by a givencommuni-
forthe existence of a is a prerequisite by thecommunity censorship ty.Preliminary which ofindividual are deniedsocialization folklore work. Allthoseproducts creativity toobliteration. arecondemned do notbecome facts offolklore: they bythecommunity toexist and continue On theother works notadopted bythecommunity hand,literary generations .... bysucceeding maybe sanctioned
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or thisreview.)Later she adds another requirement,derived from or remarkableness(152). But her book, if not Labov: "tellability," thisreview,is "tellable"in itsway; it holds and rewardsone's attention; but it is not exactly a "literarywork"; so the notion is not sufficient to close out the concept of "literature."And Pratt hints that"tellability" criterioneither(136). In the end, is not a necessary anyone hoping that the "appropriateness conditions" associated of the conlike a definition withliterature willamount to anything cept, is bound to be disappointed. As before, this is an inevitable result of the fact that the "conditions" and "conventional procedures" (120) thatPratttakes into account are loose, merelyregulative and customary.Contrast Searle's analysis of the constitutive conditionson promising,whichdoesamount to a definition felicity of the concept(Searle [1969],57-64).(An additionalproblemexistsif "open" and thereforeelumost of the major genres are essentially definition.) sive concepts,not at all subject to strict Prattnext turnsto Paul Grice's WilliamJames lectures,Logicand workof influential whichhave proved an increasingly Conversation, ordinary-languagephilosophy,though so far mostlyunpublished (Grice [1967, 1975]). She applies his argumentto make some very interpretation. interesting suggestionsabout fictionand literary Grice triesto outlinea general theoryof conversationallanguage use, meant to be part of an even more general account of "rational behavior," so as to block the common assumption that the formal devices of logical theorydifferin meaning from their ordinaryetc.)-a difference language counterparts(not,and, or,if . . . then, usually counted against the latter.He would also have his general explanationdisplace particularaccountsof the semanticfeaturesof some crucialwords and phrases,such as "voluntarily," "good," "itis true that p." The dubious accounts all specify "applicability/appropriatenessconditions"for proper use of the word or phrase, a interesting. procedure Grice feelsis too ad hocto be philosophically Among potential victims of this housecleaning are the Austinconditions on asserting,and Grice implies that his Searle felicity conditionson direcscheme can be extended to replace the felicity tives as well. But he is explicitlynoncommital on the question rules on such whether he can displace the standard constitutive speech acts as "promising, swearing, accepting in marriage" (I.27)-evidently hard-core performatives.Ordinary representativesare at thecenterof his argument;whichis whyitcan be applied so well, as Prattshows,to the theoryof fiction.
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Grice formulatesa set of assumptionsthat he thinksall competent speakers bring to their conversationalencounters with other behavior thateach participant people; standardsforconversational assumes to be in force unless there is contraryevidence. At the most general level these standards are summarized by what Grice calls the "Cooperative Principle" (abbreviated CP): "Make your conversational contributionsuch as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or directionof the talkexchange in whichyou are engaged." This general principlecomprises the followingrules or "maxims": ofQuantity I. Maxims (forthe as is required as informative contribution 1. Makeyour of theexchange). purposes current thanis more informative 2. Do not make yourcontribution required. ofQuality II. Maxims one thatis true. Makeyourcontribution Supermaxim: 1. Do notsaywhatyoubelieveto be false. youlackadequateevidence. 2. Do notsaythatforwhich ofRelation III. Maxim Be relevant. IV. Maxims ofManner Be perspicuous. Supermaxim: of expression. 1. Avoidobscurity 2. Avoidambiguity. prolixity). (avoidunnecessary 3. Be brief (130) 4. Be orderly. It should be noted thatthese rules are all regulative,not constitutive; theyare as apt to be honored in the breach as in the obserinterestedin how and why theymight vance. Grice is particularly be breached deliberately: so as to mislead. a maxim, violate secretly 1. A speakermight at all (likeGordon tocooperate refuse or openly 2. He might out, opt Liddy). and (e.g.,a clashofthefirst ofmaxims 3. He maybe facedbya clash of Quality). secondmaxims it. failto fulfill a maxim;thatis,blatantly 4. He mayflout Grice[1975],49) (adaptedfrom threeof these violationswillthreatenthe CooperaAny of the first with can be consistent tive Principle(CP); but the fourth,flouting, observing the CP. Therefore if an auditor who has no reason to doubt thatthe CP is in forceshould hear the speaker say something
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that flouts a maxim of conversation,he can conclude that the speaker meant somethingother than what he said. In the happy to the thing-meant case the speaker willhave related the thing-said his way from work inferentially can hearer the way that in such a the exploited will have is, that The speaker, other. the the one to his meaning in an act of maxim by floutingit, so as to implicate are genericterms and implicature (Implicate implicature. conversational indisuggest, thatGrice coins to cover such specificnotionsas imply, [Grice(1967), 11.4,V. 12].) insinuate hint, meanand [presumably] cate, maxim of An example of flouting-in thiscase floutingthe first Quantity: about a pupil who is a candidatefor a testimonial A is writing "Dear Sir,Mr. X's readsas follows: a philosophy job, and his letter has at tutorials and hisattendance is excellent, of English command Yours,etc." been regular. tobe uncooperative, ifhe wished out,since Gloss:A can'tbe opting tosaymore, ignorance, through write at all?He can'tbe unable, why he knows thatmoreinformasincethismanis his pupil;moreover, to impart be wishing therefore, tionthanthisis wanted.He must, is down.This supposition to write he is reluctant which information thatMr.X is no good he thinks that onlyon theassumption tenable is whathe is implicating. This,then, at philosophy. (160-61;Grice[1975],52) Grice blocksout the workingof implicaturein some detail,and a critic: fewof his sub-topicshave an obvious interestforthe literary metaphor, meiosis, hyperbole (all floutingthe firstmaxim irony,6 obscurity(floutingmaxims of Manner). of Quality); ambiguity, involvingas speech situation," It is Pratt'sbeliefthat"the literary it does both "pre-paration" and "pre-selection,"tends to protect (merelyincompetent)violation worksagainstunintentional literary of the CP and itsassociated maxims.(This maybe puttingtoo much faith in the system.)And since authors seek out Audiences, the reader can safely take it for granted that the author intends to both of these premisesmean thatin honor the CP. Taken together, ofthat bean exploitation willmost likely ofa maxim anyviolation literature (True or not, thisdoes nicely implicature. ofsome in the service maxim, make explicitthe reasoning of generationsof neo-Coleridgean organicistcritics,who despite all appearances have presumed their and theirText a seamless whole.) Author to be infallible,
6 For a detailed see of Searleand Grice, from theperspectives of irony analysis Brown (forthcoming).
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Althoughtheremaybe doubts about some of Pratt'sassumptions here, mostreaders willbe impressedby the way she builds on them implicature, theoryof literary an elaborate but tightly-constructed for the novel. It is easier to recommend than to sumparticularly marize her intricateargument. Citing examples from European, American and Latin American fiction,Pratt recognizes and illustratesall kinds of implicatureby the implied author, variouslyin harmonywithand at deliberatecross-purposeswitha fullrange of implicaturesby the narrator. It also embraces the "linguisticsubwhichexploitsthe CP in extraordiof modern fiction, versiveness" ways.These concluding sectionsare among the best narilydifficult in the book. In the space remaining I want to compare an uncontroversial withsome proposals put forward aspect of Pratt'saccount of fiction Status of Fictional Discourse" Logical "The by John Searle in thatPratthas overlooked.This work important (Searle [1975c])-an so it may seem beside the to her argument, central not is aspect point to single it out. But the assumptionsinvolved are shared by and theymay be misleading. And they most other literarycritics, withsome of Pratt'sother assumptions,nor aren't reallyconsistent withthe Gricean framework. In the course of her analysis of the possible relations between Prattconsidersthe simplest, and authorialimplicatures, narratorial "unmarked"case, in whichthe author endorses ratherthan undercuts the implicaturesmade by the narrator.The verysimplestversion (and there are others) of thissimplestcase involvesa narrator or fictionalspeaker who is simply"the fictionalcounterpart(persona) of the author" (208). That is, even in the simplestcase Pratt will "distinguishbetween the fictionalspeaker of a work of literature and its real-worldspeaker, the author" (173).7 This is not an unusual maneuver; these days it is the normal one. Wayne Booth, whom Prattignores, confirmedits proprietysome years ago; and this year happens to be the centenaryof Edward Dowden's sharp distinctionbetween the real author of George Eliot's novels and the "second-self" voice that speaks in them be (Booth [1961], 71). Although the proposition must constantly repeated, it has long been agreed that "The one whospeaks(in the (in real life)and the one whowrites narrative)is not theone whowrites is not the one whois" (Barthes [1966], 261).
7 The same distinction is preserved by Brown (1974) and Brown and Steinmann theory. in theirown applications of Searle and Grice to literary (forthcoming)
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Of course thishas not alwaysbeen recognized. Mrs. Barbauld, a naif in many ways,was inclined to thinkthat the narratorin Tom Joneswas Henry Fielding, not (as Booth has it) "Henry Fielding" (Barbauld [1804]). HenryJames,not usuallya naive reader,thought thatthe narratorin AnthonyTrollope's novels was AnthonyTrollope himself.In fact,he was greatly"discouraged" by Trollope's constantintrusions, in whichhe flauntedhis personal and arbitrary control, as novelistover what-happens-next (James [1972], 30-1, 175). By example and preceptJames encouraged modern authors to resort to personaeof various kinds, but he evidentlydid not assume a personato be the axiomaticbase of any theoryof narrative. Nor did E.M. Forster,who could easilyidentify the narrativevoice with"the writer"(Forster [1927], 123-4, 127-8). John Searle, though a modern reader, has not been schooled in modern criticism; he evidentlytakes it for granted that sometimes the author of a novel can speak in his own, unmediated voice. In "The Logic of Fictional Discourse" he contraststwo brief prose passages, one written by Eileen Shanahan in a news reportforThe New YorkTimes,the other writtenby Iris Murdoch to open her novel The Red and theGreen.Both passages consist of declarative sentences;Searle's point is thatonly Shanahan uses her sentenceto performthe illocutionary act of asserting:Murdoch uttersher sentence (and he takes it that it is she who speaks) only to pretend to performan assertion,only to imitate the act of asserting.Shanahan intendsher utteranceto count as an assertion,and she intendsto be held to account under the various constitutive rules on assertions (that she believe what she asserts, that she be "in a position to provide evidence or reasons for the truthof the expressed proposition,"etc.). Though Murdoch "utters"her sentence,she intends her utteranceto count not as an assertionbut as an imitation of an assertion;and she does not intend to be held to account under the rules on assertions. Her utterance is without real illocutionary force. This argumentat first glance resemblesthatof Ohmann (197 la) regarding "literature."But there are two differences:Searle sets the term "literature"to one side, as being essentiallyindefinable, unlike the category "fiction";and Ohmann makes the usual assumptionthatthe speaker in the unmarked case willbe an "imaginary speaker" (14), not the author himself. Searle goes on to suggestthatnot all the speech acts in a workof fictionneed be fictional(pretended, mimetic) in this way. From time to time the author, if he does speak himself,may refer to
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aspectsof the real world (such as the geographyof London) in ways disciplined by the speech-act rules on referenceand predication; he may also make assertionsabout life forwhichhe is willingto be held to account. (This is different fromimplicating such assertions throughthe devices of indirectnarration,which,as Prattshows,is willnot be all of In such a case the workof fiction also a possibility.) a piece: some representative speech acts willbe real, othersfictional (pretended); and the reader willbe expected to count themas they come. StanleyFish noted in thisjournal a year ago that Searle thereby gives up the effortto define a genre "fiction,"even as he earlier declined to tryto define "literature" (Fish [1976], 1015-16). What Searle offersis not a theoryof fictionaldiscourse, but a theoryof who usudiscretefictional acts. That will not satisfy literary critics, ally want a good gestalt. Thus two main differencesdistinguishSearle's speech-act account of fiction from Pratt's: (1) Searle leaves open the oldfashionedpossibility thatthe author may on occasion be tellingthe whereas Prattmakes the more usual assumptionthat storyhimself, the narrator will always be a fictionhimself,at the very least a personadoubling for the author. (2) Therefore for Searle it is conceptuallypossible for the narrativeto be a patchworkof fictional and non-fictional utterances;whereas for Prattthe whole narrative will necessarilybe one fiction. Pratt's(standard) assumption is attractive because it guarantees the unityof the text. But it carries a stronga prioriflavor,and it does not followfromher interestin the affinities between natural discourseand literary narrative.To adapt one of her own examples (which she borrowsfrom Labov [1972]), the conventionsof ritual insults("sounding") among black adolescents involve an overt suspension of illocutionary force,but not (evidently)the fictionalization of the speaker. It is not the sounder but the sound that is fictional;not the speaker but the speech act. The same can be true when an adult makes up a storyand tellsit to a child. Even when he writes it down.8 What Trollope was up to may often have been much like that. Notthatwe everhear "theman speakingto us withhisreal voice . . . a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns," or
8
For a different view, of the case of A.A. Milne, see Window (1963).
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Trollope, or whomever. (Thus MatthewArnold [1880] in one of Of course in all "sincerity.") his less guarded moments,glorifying are selfour encounters we wear a disguise; all self-presentations And of course we compound thatdisguise when we improvements. is not the one who is." But since this write."The one who writes factoris universal,it can for the moment be factoredout. Which leaves us with two competing speech-act models for fictional discourse. Because Searle's model presupposes less than Pratt's,it is more comprehensive,and less likelyto distortthe comparison of any two texts.9 are ever well advised to tellthe However, whetherfiction-writers in theirown voice (or whatmustpass fortheirown voice after story question, mentioned above), remains a different the factoring-out and a question of taste. One last point: Prattholds that in her simplestunmarked case the speaker willbe understood to observe the CP and itsassociated maxims.But thereis one maxim thatomniscientnarratorsseem to violate all the time,the second maxim of Quality: "Do not say that forwhichyou lack adequate evidence." (This has itscounterpartin one of Searle's preparatoryconditionson assertions.)Wheneveran therewill omniscient narratortellsus whatsome characterthought, be the obvious question, "How does he know that?" If, as Smith ([1971], 273), has suggested,third-person-narrative or imitation chronicles biographies, novelsare to be counted as imitation there are two possible answers: either (1) the fictionalchronicler/ biographer is supposed within the fiction to have access to an evidence about the characters'states unusual fund of retrospective of mind (e.g., interviews, diaries), or else (2) he is supposed to be fudging wildly,fakingit all-an equally real but equally unusual possibility.By the same token, no narrator of what Pratt calls "real-worldnarrativedisplay texts"would readilybe thoughtto be keeping the second maxim of Quality if his narrative included much detailed assertion about largely inaccessable material,e.g., the consciousnessof another person. (As in the Bert-Lance-TajMahal example cited earlier.) Which is one of the reasons that many people gave for disbelievingmuch of the colorfuldetail "re9 Consider, comic"Novel" as contrasted forexample, CalvinTrillin's Runestruck, in TheNewYorker. It is easyto serialized with his comicsocialcriticism regularly ofthespeech-act Trillin bothstories, inthefirst caseundera waiver believe that tells ruleson assertions.
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ported"byWoodward and Bernsteinin TheFinal Days,and whichis why more scrupulous chroniclersand biographerswind up hedging: "Jonesmust have thoughtthatp ... no doubt he looked forward to x withpleasure." Some novels may in fact imitatechroniclesand biographies, as in so openly Smithsuggests.But omniscient are different, narratives In when an omnidisregardingthe second maxim of Quality. fact, scientnarrator, whetherauthoror persona, seems to make an unevidenced assertion,the reader can usuallyconclude thathe is (among other things)exploiting thesecondmaxim of Qualityin the service of some implicature. And what will be the standard contentof such an implicature? That the assertionsare not real but pretended; that(as Trollope so loudly insistedfor his own part) the narratorand reader "are only 'making believe' " (James [1972], 30).
University ofMinnesota
REFERENCES
Arnold, Matthew.1880. "General Introduction"to TheEnglishPoets,1, ed. ArT.H. Ward. Rpt. 235-260 as "The Study of Poetry"in: Matthew nold'sEssaysin Criticism. London: Dent, 1964. Austin, J.L. 1962. How toDo Things with Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. Rpt. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965. Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. 1804. Excerpt from"A Biographical Account of Samuel Richardson" in The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 1; on theNovel, ed. Miriam Allott. London: Rout258-60 in: Novelists ledge, 1959. Barthes, Roland. 1966. "Introduction a lPanalysestructuraledes recits." 8. Tr. by Lionel Duisit: "An Introduction to the Communications, Structural Analysis of Narrative." New Literary History,6 (1975), 237-272. Bates, Elizabeth. 1976. Language and Context: The Acquisition ofPragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Beardsley, Monroe C. 1970. The Possibility of Criticism. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press. Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric ofFiction.Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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Brown, Robert L., Jr. 1974. "Intentionsand the Contextsof Poetry."Centrum, 2, 56-66. (forthcoming). "The Pragmaticsof Verbal Irony." and MartinSteinmann,Jr. (forthcoming). "Native Readers of Fiction:A Speech-Actand Genre Approach to DefiningLiterature." In: What Is Literature?, ed. Paul Hernadi. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. Bruner,Jerome. 1975. "The Ontogenesis of Speech Acts."Journal ofChild Language 2, 1-19. . 1976. "Psychology and the Image of Man." Times Literary Supplement, 17 December, 1589-91. Cole, Peter,and J.L. Morgan, eds. 1975. SpeechActs(Syntax and Semantics, 3). New York: Academic Press. Eaton, Marcia. 1974. "Speech Acts: A Bibliography."Centrum, 2, 57-72. Fish,StanleyE. 1973. "How Ordinaryis OrdinaryLanguage?" NewLiterary History, 5, 41-54. Theory and LiteraryCriticism." MLN, 91, 983-1025. Forster,E.M. 1927. Aspects of theNovel. New York: Harcourt. Garvey,Catherine. 1975. "Requests and Responses in Children's Speech." Journalof ChildLanguage, 2, 41-63. Grice, H. Paul. 1967. Logic and Conversation. Typescript (seven lectures; only lecture II published: Grice 1975). Hirsch, David H. 1976. "Speech Acts or Fluid Language." JournalofLiterarySemantics, 5, 15-30. Hymes,Dell. 1971. "Competence and Performancein LinguisticTheory." 3-28 in: LanguageAcquisition: Modelsand Methods, ed. Renira Huxley and Elisabeth Ingram. London: Academic Press. . 1972. "Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Life." 35-71 in: Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. JohnJ. Gumperz and Dell Hymes. New York: Holt. Iser, Wolfgang. 1975. "The Realityof Fiction:A Functionalist Approach to Literature."New Literary History, 7, 7-38. Jakobson,Roman, and Peter Bogatyrev.1931. "On the Boundary Between Studies of Folklore and Literature," tr. Herbert Eagle. 91-93 in: Readingsin RussianPoetics: Formalist and Structuralist ed. LadisViews, lav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska. Cambridge,Mass.: M I T Press, 1971. James, Henry. 1972. Theory of Fiction,ed. James E. Miller,Jr. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press. Labov, William. 1972. Language in the InnerCity: in the Studies BlackEnglish Vernacular. Philadelphia: Univ. of PennsylvaniaPress. A.P. 1975. "Sacramentsand Speech Acts."HeythropJournal, Martinich, 16, 289-303, 405-17.
. 1975. "Logic and Conversation." 41-58 in: Cole and Morgan. . 1976. "How to Do Things with Austin and Searle: Speech Act
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Ohmann, Richard. 197 la. "Speech Acts and the Definitionof Literature." 4, 1-19. and Rhetoric, Philosophy ed. Seymor Chatman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Symposium, in Searle, John R. 1965. "What is a Speech Act?" 221-39 in: Philosophy ed. Max Black. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. America, bridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press. 5, 1-23. Society,
. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophyof Language. Cam. 1975a. "A Classification of Illocutionary Acts." Language and . 1975b. "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts." 344-69 in: LanStyle:A . 197 lb. "Speech, Action, and Style." 241-254 in: Literary
in thePhilosophy ofSciStudies (Minnesota guage,Mind, and Knowledge ence, 7), ed. Keith Gunderson. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. 6, 319-32. aryHistory, History, Smith,Barbara Herrnstein.1971. "Poetryas Fiction."New Literary 2, 259-81. Stampe, Dennis W. 1975. "Meaning and Truth in the Theory of Speech Acts." 1-39 in: Cole and Morgan. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1973. "Generative Semantics and the Concept of 2, 5-22. Semantics, LiteraryDiscourse."JournalofLiterary Turner, Roy. 1974. "Words, Utterances and Activities." 197-215 in: Ethnomethodology:Selected Readings, ed. Roy Turner. HarEng.: Penguin. mondsworth, Twining, William, and David Miers. 1976. How to Do ThingsWithRules. London: Weidenfeld. Verschueren, Jef. 1976. Speech Act Theory:A Provisional Bibliography. Indiana Univ. LinguisticsClub. Window, Harvey C. 1963. "Paradoxical Persona: The Hierarchy of 3-12 in: The Pooh Perplex:A Freshman Heroism in Winnie-the-Pooh." by FrederickC. Crews. New York: Dutton. Casebook,
. 1975c. "The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse." New Liter-

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Beyond a Speech-Act Theory of Literary Discourse Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse by Mary Louise Pratt Review

A folkloreworkis onlythatwhichas been sanctionedand adopted by a givencommuni-

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