An Anatomy of Opinions

Author(s): Jean Atelsek

Source: Language in Society, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Aug., 1981), pp. 217-225
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4167214
Accessed: 23-08-2016 13:54 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Language in Society

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Lang. Soc. 10, 21 7-225. Printed in the United States of America

An anatomy of opinions

JEAN ATELSEK

Oberlin College

Opinions assume a paradoxical character in many speech events. The speaker, by

sincerely presenting his views on a topic, is expressing his belief in a proposition,
and this belief must be regarded as indisputable. If a speaker says that marijuana
should be legalized, one cannot deny the speaker's belief in this proposition. He
has expressed an opinion. The proposition, however, may itself be the topic of
dispute. Another speaker may disagree by expressing his belief that mafijuana
should remain illegal, and a dispute regarding the validity of each of these
propositions may ensue. Neither of these propositions is subject to proof or
disproof, but the speakers may attempt to support them in order to add to the
validity of the propositions and substantiate their beliefs.
Opinions as speech acts obviously play a substantial role in many speech
events. For example, a political debate may be seen as the expression and support
of conflicting opinions regarding certain issues. Many arguments, also, involve
disagreeing parties exchanging support for their opinions. In addition, the opin-
ion of a judge or a jury concerning a court case may carry the weight of a
decision. Despite the importance of opinions as speech acts, they have not earned
a place in classifications of speech acts, most notably Searle's ( 1976) taxonomy
of illocutionary acts. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, by describing
several of their salient characteristics, the need for any such taxonomy to account
for opinions.
J. L. Austin (1962) is credited with first having identified the notions of the
illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act that are achieved in the utterance of a
meaningful set of words. In short, the illocutionary act is identified as what is
done in the saying of the utterance, and the perlocutionary act is what may be
done by the saying of the utterance. So, for example, if a speaker says "Take out
the garbage!'" then he may have performed the act of ordering the hearer to take
out the garbage, and this (the act of ordering) would be the illocutionary act. The
perlocutionary act, if the hearer does take out the garbage, would be the act of
getting the hearer to take out the garbage.
Austin himself proposed a classification of illocutionary acts in an attempt to
account for all such types of acts that could be performed. Others (e.g., Fraser
1974, Searle 1976, Hancher 1979) have proposed or expanded upon alternative
classifications, yet Searle's (1976) taxonomy of illocutionary acts is currently
considered that which most adequately encompasses the various kinds of il-
locutionary acts that can be performed. It is Searle's classification, therefore, that
will be addressed here.

0047-4045/81/020217-09 $2.50 ?) 1981 Cambridge University Press

217

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 JEAN ATELSEK

Searle ( 1976) has proposed a classification of illocutionary acts according to

the point or purpose of the speech act, the direction of fit between the words and
the world, and the psychological state expressed by the utterance. Of his five
main types of illocutionary act, representatives and expressives both have charac-
teristics that can be used to describe opinions.
The point of a representative, according to Searle, is to commit the speaker to
something's being the case, to the truth of the expressed proposition. The
simplest test of a representative is whether it can be literally characterized as true
of false. Symbolically, Searle illustrates the representative class thus:

K |B(p)
Where - denotes the illocutionary point common to all representatives, I repre-
sents the direction of fit as being words-to-world (that is, an attempt is made to
get the words to match the world), and the psychological state expressed is Belief
(that p). Examples of verbs that may denote representatives are "state,'"
"swear," "insist,'' "hypothesize,'" and "deduce.'" In his discussion of the
syntactical aspects of the types, Searle notes that representatives take the form "I
verb (that) + S" (where S indicates the proposition which the speaker is repre-
senting as true).
The illocutionary point of expressives, according to Searle, is to express a
psychological state about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content.
Expressives are symbolized as

E 0 (P)(S/H + property)

where E indicates the illocutionary point common to all expressives, 0 denotes

that there is no direction of fit between the words and the world, P represents the
psychological state expressed, and the propositional content ascribes some prop-
erty to either S or H. Examples of expressive verbs include "apologize," '"con-
gratulate,'" and "thank." A salient characteristic of the syntactical structure of
expressives is that they will not take that clauses.
Now, consider the following opinions:

(i) (I think [that]) this room should be painted blue.

(2) (I think [that]) this art exhibit is lousy.
the speaker having said either of these remarks as an idle comment to a friend.
(For this discussion, it is necessary to provide the constraint that neither the
speaker nor the hearer is involved in the painting of the room or the condition of
the art exhibit.) Before going further, we may identify two types of opinions: (i)
is of the type in which the proposition addresses a possible state of affairs (that
is, the room's being blue), while (2) addresses an actual state of affairs (that is,
the art exhibit's being lousy).
Though (i) and (2) may seem to fit into Searle's representative class, we must
question whether these utterances have the illocutionary point and the direction
of fit that Searle has identified as the defining characteristics of the class. Is the

218

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 AN ANATOMY OF OPINIONS

speaker of (i) or (2) committing himself to the truth of the expressed proposition'?
It seems that this is impossible, as the propositions cannot be literally charac-
tenzed as true or false, and, therefore, there is no truth in the propositions to
which to be committed. The awkwardness of assessing (i) and (2) on a true-false
dimension is borne out if we place Searle's exemplary representative verbs in
place of "think" in (i) and (2). For example, it seems inappropriate to say:

*1 swear that this room should be painted blue.

or

*1 hypothesize that this art exhibit is lousy.

Even in the more straightforward:

I state that this art exhibit is lousy.

though the verb "state " is compatible, it seems not to be a statement of fact.
One can have a statement of opinion as well. It should be noted that the use of the
performative verb "state" with both opinions and representatives is redundant,
being used in a sense synonymous with "say." The "saying" or uttering of the
words is a fact of the locutionary, not the illocutionary, act. Besides merely
saying the words, however, the speaker of (i) and (2) is doing just what he's
saying; he thinks that the room should be painted blue or that the art exhibit is
lousy.
Is the speaker of (I) or (2) trying to make his words match the world? First,
Searle's identification of such sentences as "I predict he will come" and "I state
that it is raining" as exemplary representatives strongly suggests that the world to
which representatives profess to match words is the objective world and that
representatives can be objectively verified as true or dismissed as false. The
opinion:

(i) (I think [that]) this room should be painted blue.

does not tell us anything about the room itself. Nor does the opinion:
(2) (I think [that]) this art exhibit is lousy.

tell us anything about the art exhibit. Rather, (I) tells us what the speaker thinks
is a desirable, possible condition of the room, and (2) tells us what the speaker
thinks of the art exhibit. In the opinions (I) and (2) there is a match brought about
between the words and the subjective world, but not the objective world which
Searle implies is the world to which representative words attempt to bring about a
fit.
Second, the direction of fit in (i) is that the world should fit the words, not the
reverse; this is often the case with opinions of this type. In (2) the opinion may be
one of fitting words to the world, either a subjective world or a social world, as
when a place-man or a dependent fits his words to the world as defined by an
employer. We shall see later that in this case the opinion is insincere since it
violates the sincerity condition for opinions. (Given certain social relationships

219

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 JEAN ATELSEK

of power and penalty, opinions may have the force of declaratives for those
subject to the power and capacity to punish: "If you say so." Again, however,
these expressions are insincere opinions.) There may indeed be sincere opinions
for which there is no reasonable direction of fit, as perhaps is the case with:

(3) (I think [thati) you're right.

Hence, opinions as a class are not characterizable in English by a single direction

of fit.
Therefore, (i) and (2) have failed as representatives on two counts: They have
neither the illocutionary point nor the direction of fit which Searle posits for
representatives.
The psychological state expressed in the opinions does seem to be belief (that
p). It is not inappropriate to express belief concerning a proposition which is not
assessable on a true-false dimension. People hold personal beliefs about war,
religion, political systems, and many other things - indeed, these beliefs are the
basis of many opinions, and of many arguments as well. Furthermore, if the
speaker of (i), for example, does not believe that the room should be painted
blue, then the opinion is insincere. Belief, then, is the sincerity condition for
opinions.
Do opinions fit Searle's expressive class? Recall that the illocutuionary point
of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity
condition concerning a state of affairs expressed in the proposition. In his discus-
sion on the members of this class, Searle implies that the psychological state
must be uttered in the locution. So, for example, when a person thanks someone,
he must utter the word "thank." This is not the case for opinions. Though the
speaker must believe (that p) to express an opinion sincerely, he need not ex-
plicitly say "I believe (or think) that p." On this count, opinions fail as expres-
sives. Further, they will take that clauses. Thus, "You should be congratulated"
is analogous to an expressive, "I congratulate you" but is not an expressive
in Searle's terms, since it can be formulated as "(I think [that]) you should be
congratulated. "
Opinions do have something in common with expressives in that there is no
direction of fit between the words and the objective world, and also in that the
nature of the propositional content is similar in both types of speech act. Recall
that the propositional content in expressives ascribes some property to either S or
H. The inherent subjectivity of opinions is a result of the speaker having made a
judgment (that p). For example, the speaker of (I) has judged the room's being
blue as a desirable, possible condition of the room. The speaker of (2) has judged
that the art exhibit is lousy. The propositional content of opinions, therefore,
ascribes this judgment (that p) to the speaker.
In short, some opinions may be considered representatives, if the fit of words
to the world is to a subjective world, and if the speaker's commitment need not
be assessable as true or false. Opinions may be considered expressives, if, unlike

220

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 AN ANATOMY OF OPINIONS

Searles's typical examples, the psychological state need not be uttered, and that
clauses can be taken. A consideration of opinions thus indicates that Searle's
classification is not as neat nor as consistent as it at first appears (cf. Hancher
1 979). It does seem possible to propose that opinions are an additional class, one
that can be characterized along the same lines as Searle's own five classes.
What is the illocutionary point or purpose of opinions? The purpose of this
type of speech act is to ascribe a judgment (that p) having to do with desirability
or undesirability rather than truth or falsity. What is done in the utterance of (i)
and (2) is not to be found in a performative verb. To say "I think that p" is not to
perform the act of thinking - "think" is clearly not a performative verb. Rather,
it is the subjective character of the proposition that "performs" by attributing a
judgment to the speaker.
Taking (i) and (2), then, as typical opinions, this type of speech act may be
symbolized as:

0 0 (B)(S + J(p))

where 0 represents the illocutionary point common to all opinions, 0 indicates

that there is no single direction of fit between the words and the world, B denotes
the speaker's psychological state of belief (the sincerity condition), and S + J(p)
indicates that the speaker is ascribing to himself the judgment expressed in the
proposition.
Analysis of data from a talk show' suggests that disagreement with expressed
opinions may take three forms. First, someone may negate the judgment ex-
pressed in the original opinion. For example, in response to (2), a hearer may
disagree by saying

(4) 1 don't think this art exhibit is so bad.

Second, one might express a different judgment on the same dimension (here, a
good-bad dimension), as in

(5) I think this exhibit is great.

Or, third, one may use the performative verb, merely saying

(6) I disagree.

Agreement may commonly assume two forms. Someone may, first, express the
same or similar judgment expressed in the original opinion or, second, he may use
the performative verb for agreement, saying

(7) I agree.

It should be noted, however, that agreements and disagreements differ from

opinions only in their relation to the rest of the discourse. While agreements and
disagreements must be expressed in relation to an opinion, an opinion itself need
not be related to the context of the discourse. Otherwise, however, opinions,
agreements, and disagreements are the same kind of speech act, each involving
the evaluation of a situation and the expression of a personal judgment.

221

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 JEAN ATELSEK

The perlocutionary act of an expression of opinion may, in many contexts, be

an attempt to stimulate the hearers to evaluate and, perhaps, to make their own
judgments concerning the topic. The achievement of the perlocutionary effect
may then be communicated to the original speaker by the hearer in the form of
agreement, disagreement, a request for information concerning the topic, or a
request for support of the opinion. For example, if a speaker opines:

(8) Marijuana should be legalized;

a hearer may respond with agreement,

(9) Really. That would make so much sense;

with disagreement,

(io) No. Decriminalized, maybe, but not legalized;

with a request for information concerning the topic,

(i i) Have they found anything wrong with it yet?;

or with a request for support of the opinion,

(12) Why do you say that?

having evaluated the topic, and, in (g) and (i o), having made judgments concern-
ing the topic.
Qualifiers may be added to an expression of opinion of the first type (that
which addresses a possible state of affairs) in order to denote that there are
conditions under which the expressed proposition is or is not desirable to the
speaker. For example, the speaker of (i) may add a qualifier to this opinion in the
form of a conditional clause.

(13) This room should be painted blue if the baby's a boy.

In (O3), the speaker has specified a condition under which his opinion holds.
Qualifying words or phrases, such as "probably" or "in most cases" in an
expression of opinion indicate that the speaker believes there are or may be some
unspecified conditions under which the opinion does not hold.
As already noted, the speaker expressing an opinion has made a judgment
based upon his assessment of an actual or possible state of affairs. When the basis
or possible basis for this judgment is explicated, the speaker may be said to be
supporting his opinion. It is often true that making judgments is much easier than
describing the basis for those judgments, but there are at least five ways in which
opinions may receive support, described as follows.

i. Further opinions. The expression of further opinions in support of an

opinion may reinforce the personal, reflexive nature of the original opinion. The
speaker of (i) may opine

(14) Blue walls would look best with this furniture, don't you think?

222

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 AN ANATOMY OF OPINIONS

thereby specifying a personal reason for his selection of the color blue as a
desirable color for the room. As support for (2), the speaker might say

(x5) It's dull.

2. Selective presentation o facts. This method of supporting opinions is

especially salient in debates and propaganda speeches. Facts may be presented to
empirically support the desirability of a proposition. The speaker of (i) may
consider blue as the color that is economically desirable, saying

(i6) Blue latex is on sale at Sears this week.

or that it is aesthetically desirable, saying

(17) Blue could cover up those awful stains.

Or, to support (2), the speaker may utter a descriptive statement such as:
(i 8) The paintings are just canvasses, each with a different color. You call that
art?

The opinions expressed by others may also enter into this category, as in

(i g) The interior decorator said so.

a response to (i) in which the speaker is citing an opinion expressed by a
professional who is trained to make judgments concerning the desirable color for
rooms.

3. Appeal to or rejection of norms and normative opinions. This may be a

method of supporting opinions with topics about which cultural and social norms
have a say. It is probable, also, that these norms are in the realm of shared
knowledge of the speaker and hearer. So, for example, if both the speaker and
hearer of (i) know that the room in question is going to be the dwelling of a baby
boy, the speaker may support his opinion by explicitly referring to a norm:
(20) People always paint boys' rooms blue.

or by a more implicit appeal to this norm

(21) The baby's a boy.

Expressions of opinion that are disparate with cultural norms concerning the
topic are generally felt to be more in need of support than those that are conso-
nant with cultural norms, since these are already supported by the culture. Opin-
ions disparate with norms necessarily imply criticism of the norms themselves,
and, therefore, the defense for such a dissident opinion may involve support for
the opinion that the norms do not dictate desirable conditions regarding the topic.
For example, in response to (20) or (2 i), a speaker may disagree by expressing a
further opinion such as:

(22) It's ridiculous that the baby's sex is supposed to determine the color of his
room.

223

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 JEAN ATELSEK

concerning the norm. Further support of such an opinion may be achieved by

noting the departure of behavior from the norm, as in, for example, a response to
(20) such as:

(23) People never pay any attention to that sex-color coordination business
anymore.

in which the speaker has attempted to show the weakness of the empirical support
for the normative opinion. Or, the speaker may, in response to (20), flatly reject
the norm:

(24) 1 don't care what people do.

thereby noting the departure of his opinion from a normative opinion.

This type of support is not as viable for opinions of the second type, since these
are typically "'matters of taste" concerning topics which norms often don't
address. But we can imagine that an art exhibit challenges the dominant forms of
art in the popular culture. So, a support for (2) such as

(25) You call this art?

may be seen as a reference to the current cultural norm of what is "art."

4. Reliance on special qualifications of the speaker. This may be a fourth

type of support for an opinion. If the speaker of (i) is an interior decorator, for
example, then it may be assumed that he is drawing on a specialized background
knowledge regarding desirable colors for rooms, and his opinion is supported by
virtue of this specialized knowledge. This may also, for some, be the case if, say,
the speaker of (2) is an art critic. It should be noted that this type of support is not
viable for opinions concerning moral issues, such as whether or not there should
be a death penalty or whether or not abortion should remain legal, since the often
volatile expressions concerning desirable situations in these cases are made on
the basis of personal ethics, regardless of empirical knowledge.

5. Dogmatismn. Dogmatic beliefs are those opinions that have acquired the
status of objective fact for an individual. Consider the case of a speaker opining
(26) Communism is a bad system.

Now, the speaker may regard this statement as "true," and dismiss any opposing
opinions on the basis that those who hold them are "ignorant" and have not seen
the "'truth.'" The critical hearer, however, whether he agrees with (26) or not,
will recognize this statement as a personal judgment and may give support for his
agreement or disagreement, whereas the dogmatic speaker would consider (26)
the bottom line, so to speak. Opinions and arguments regarding personal ethics
often resort to this form of support.
Having identified some salient characteristics of the expression and support of
opinions as a speech act, we must now ask if opinions are actually part of a wider
category of speech acts for which Searle has not accounted. Consider, for exam-

224

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 AN ANATOMY OF OPINIONS

ple, cases where a speaker uses the verbs "hope" and "wish" in a performative
manner, hoping and wishing for things that the hearer cannot bring about. This
type of speech act serves an autobiographical purpose, as do opinions, in letting
the hearer know the speaker's desire for a possible state of affairs. It seems that
Searle and other speech-act theorists have neglected consideration of speech acts
which address possible states of affairs that are beyond the control of the speaker
and hearer. The acts of wishing and hoping could be included in a category
whose acts would express evaluations of possible states of affairs. This neglect
may be symptomatic of an attitude that only performative verbs can "perform"
illocutionary acts. Consider again, for example, Searle's representative "I state
that it is raining." Doesn't the utterance "It's raining" accomplish the same
illocutionary act? The paradigm "I verb (that) + S" as the syntactical form of
representatives seems to be missing from the bulk of the actual utterances that are
described by this class. As mentioned earlier, the verb "state" in this case seems
to be synonymous with "say" which is a fact of the locutionary act and therefore
seems redundant. Once again, as in (i) or (2), it is not a performative verb that
performs, but, rather, the nature of the proposition itself. Perhaps the performa-
tive value of these types of speech acts should be considered more thoroughly.

NOTES

The author thanks Dr. Ronald Casson for his comments on this and the earlier versions of this paper.
I. An earlier version of this paper (May 1979) discussed examples of opinions taken from a
transcript of segments extracted from a late-aftemoon radio talk show (called Psychological grab
bag") aired in Washington, D. C. The host, a psychologist, encouraged members of the audience
to call in and discuss any psychological issue of concern to them.

RE FERENCES

Austin, J. L. ([962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Fraser, B. (1974). An analysis of vernacular performative verbs. In R. W. Shuy and C.-J. N. Bailey
(eds.), Toward Tomorrow's Linguistics. Washington: Georgetown University Press. 139-58.
. (1975). Hedged performatives. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds.), Speech acts. (Synta.r
and Semantics 3.) New York: Academic Press. 187-2 10.
Hancher, M. (1979). The classification of cooperative illocutionary acts. Laniguage in Society 8:1-
14.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophY of language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
.(1976). A classification of illocutionary acts. Lainguage in Socierv 5:1-23.

225

This content downloaded from 200.24.17.12 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 13:54:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms