Speech, Literature, and the Space between

Author(s): Richard Ohmann

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 4, No. 1, The Language of Literature (Autumn, 1972), pp.
47-63
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 Speech,Literature,and theSpace Between*

RichardOhmann

I
UR LIVES withwords,and surfeit
areglutted revulsion
prompts
fromtimeto time. Then people crydown wordsand demand
action instead. When Tom Hayden's sense of urgency
loweredhis tolerancefordemonstrations and ralliessome timeback, it
was typicalof him to expressimpatience (in a speech, at a rally) by
sayingthat he would probablynevermake anotherspeech. When the
time for guns is at hand, the time for words is past, we think. It is
perfectlynatural to draw this distinctionbetween talking and more
purelyphysicalaction. But doing so conceals the fact that speech is
also action,distortsour understandingof both, and thus leads to con-
fusionabout how the world runs.
A semiofficial newspaperlike The New York Times undertakesto
transform mereeventsinto history, by selectingthosethatare significant
enough-fit to print-to bear recordingin this instantarchive. It is
interesting to see how the Times exercisesits siftingtask,how many of
the front-pagestorieson a random day report"real" action and how
many reportspeech acts. In the Times of i o March 1972 (picked up
at the airport on my way to lecture about these matters-so runs
science), nine storieswere about verbal acts, and three about other
kinds of events. The proportionis customary.
First, considerthe three: (I) the dollar plunged furtheron the
internationalmarket,(2) Israeli jets renewedraids on Lebanon, and
(3) in a raid on a card game, Detroit police killed a sheriff'sdeputy
and wounded threeothers. Why are thesenews? The dollar's decline
(hardly a physicalhappening,by the way) on a given day has little
importanceby itself,but indexes the evolutionof the monetarycrisis.
Similarly,althoughthe bombingkilled people and wreckedhomes,its
news value is to tell the temperatureof the war, not to reportthese
* An earlier version of this paper was read at the Wesleyan Center for the
Humanities. Some of its ideas go back to The Logic and Rhetoric of Exposition
which the author wrote with Harold C. Martin and James H. Wheatley.

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48 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

sad events; death by violenceis commonplace,not in itselfhistorical.

Only the shootingin Detroiteven approximatesthe image many have
of news as floodsand hurricanes,"natural disasters,"physicalevents
that senselesslyjust happen. It is interesting,
further,that the Times
does not get fiftywords into any of these storiesbeforelinkingthe
nonverbal event to a verbal one. Specialists "predicted" that the
dollar's plunge was the beginningof "a new crisis of confidence";
Israeli militaryheadquarters "describes" the bomb raids as "a re-
sponse" to guerrillarocketattacks;the DetroitPolice Departmentand
the Sheriff'sOffice"called the shootingsa 'tragicmix-up.'" The non-
verbal eventsbegin to take on historicalmeaning as they are placed
under one or another concept, labeled and so characterizedby un-
named but qualifiedspokesmen. Similarly,as I write,the news about
bombingin NorthVietnam is not liveslost and dikesbroken,but what
Hanoi and Washington,Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, say is the
meaningof theseacts. And the bombingof South Vietnam and Laos,
historicallyunprecedentedin violence,is barelynews at all.
I'll quote now fromthe opening paragraphsof the nine storieson
Io March that reportedverbal action,puttingin italicsthe verbsthat
specifythenatureofthataction.
i CliffordIrving'snotorious"autobiography"of Howard R. Hughes
was officially discreditedyesterdayas the expatriateauthor . . . [was]
indictedhere. a New York Countygrandjury charged[Irvingand
accomplices] ....
with grand larceny,conspiracy,and possessionof forged
instruments .... allegationsof a bold schemeto sell McGraw-Hill,Inc.,
whatwas describedas a "bogusautobiography"....
2 The Price Commissionannouncedtodaynew regulationsproviding
relieffromprice controlsfor companiesincurringlossesor low profits.
Under the new rules,the . . . companieswithsales of $i-millionor more
a yearmay raiseprices.. . . Howeverthecommission ruledthatthe price
of any individualproductor servicecould be raised by no more than
8 percent....
3 PresidentNixon orderedall airlinestodayto adopt new and tighter
securitymeasuresimmediatelyto prevent the sabotage of American
commercialaircraft.
4 PremierEisaku Sato of Japan predictedtoday that China would
voluntarilylimither supportof the VietnameseCommunistsas a result
of PresidentNixon's discussionsin Peking.
5 Prince NorodomSihanouk . . . said today that PremierChou En
Lai of China had met NorthVietnameseleaderssince PresidentNixon's
visitand assuredthemof China'sfullsupport"untiltotalvictory."
6 Dita D. Beard, a Washingtonlobbyist, was quoted todayas having
said that formerAttorneyGeneral JohnN. Mitchellhad told her that

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SPEECH, LITERATURE. AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 49

PresidentNixon orderedhim to "make a reasonablesettlement" of three

antitrustcasesagainst[ITT].
7 Authoritative sourceshere say that althoughtheybelievetherewas
nothingimproperabout the agreement[betweenITT and San Diego
Republicans],the Republican National Committee. . .regards it as
prudentto break offthe controversial arrangement.
8 TWA announcedyesterdaythat therehad been no contact since
Tuesday nightwith the extortionists . . . and that "no ransomhas been
paid." The line's president. . . said: "TWA believesthat the bomb
threatthatcaused thissituationhas run its course."
9 The authenticity of a publishedmemoir. . . by a man claimingto
be aI oI-year-oldSioux chiefis being seriouslyquestionedby some of
the country'sleading authoritieson AmericanIndians, and challenged
in a lawsuitchargingplagiarism.

These acts performedwith words share some characteristicsthat

make them newsworthy.In each event,first,the speaker'sidentity-
especially his or her social and institutionalconnections-was im-
portant. Many had charged CliffordIrvingwithfraud,but the grand
jury's doing so had altogethergreater consequence for Irving's life,
and his implicationin the social network. The secret "sources" of
number 7 are "authoritative": that is, by a familiarconventionwe
are to know thatsomeonewith the rightinstitutional powersis behind
the statement.And notice that the ultimateissue in numbers I and
9 is whetherthe extendedspeech acts-Irving's manuscriptand Red
Fox's book-were issued with proper authority.A second featureof
theseacts is thatmostof themimplyfurtheraction by the participants;
theybind the futurein one way or another. The Price Commission's
rulingwill be enforced,changingthe futureacts of companies.Airlines
and governmentbureaucratswill findtheirconductdefinedby Nixon's
order. Third, most of the acts constitutedofficialor authoritative
shiftsin the web of our social arrangementsand
takings-of-positions,
our ties to one another. McGraw-Hill and Red Fox are in legal
jeopardy. TWA's potentialcustomershave officialreassurance. And
Nixon is indirectlyput under a cloud of accusation by Dita Beard.
Since an orderof thissortby the Presidentof the United States would
be a significantmisuseof power, the Times allows itselfto reportevi-
dence removedby threelayersof speech acts fromthe alleged critical
speech act itself-someone quoted Dita Beard as sayingthat Mitchell
told her that Nixon orderedhim. . . . Except forthe institutional
im-
pact, such gossip would hardlybe grantedthe dignityof printby the
Times.
To see why the verbal events reportedon Io March share these

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50 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

features,considerthe verbsthat name the acts,such verbsas charged,

described, predicted, ordered, assured, announced. These are all
commonnames forwhat J. L. Austincalled "illocutionaryacts": acts
performedin speaking.1Not the act ofspeakingone or anothersentence
(which Austincalled the locutionaryact), nor an act like frightening,
pleasing,or convincing,which is performedby means of utteringthe
sentence,and which Austin called a perlocutionaryact, but the act
performedin speakingthe sentence,provided that certain conditions
are met. Example:
Locutionaryact: sayingthe Englishsentence,"I orderyou to make a
reasonablesettlement."
Illocutionaryact: orderingthe hearerto make a reasonablesettlement.
Perlocutionary act: gettingthe hearerto make the settlement,pleasing
ITT, etc.

Now why should illocutionaryacts be preciselythosethat constitute

news, those that nudge historyalong in its course? The answer is
bound up in the kindsof conditions-rulesmightbe more accurate-
thatmustbe metin orderto performan illocutionaryact fullyand hap-
pily by speakinga given sentence. For our purposesthe criticalones
are these:
i. The circumstancesmustbe appropriate.
2. The personsmustbe therightones.
3. The speakermusthave the feelings,thoughts,and intentionsappro-
priateto hisact.
4. Both partiesmustbehaveappropriately
afterward.

The rulesforillocutionaryacts determinewhetherperformanceof a

given act is well-executed,in just the same way as grammaticalrules
determinewhetherthe product of a locutionaryact-a sentence-is
well-formed.Doing an illocutionaryact is actingby virtueof conven-
tions,sociallyestablishedand understoodrules. But whereas the rules
of a grammar concern the relationshipsamong sound, syntax,and
meaning,the rules forillocutionaryacts concern relationshipsamong
people. They depend, for instance,on the relativestatus of people
(command vs. request), on their institutionalconnections (ruling,
firing),on theirofficialroles (marrying),on acts previouslyperformed
(accepting), on relativeexperience (advising,telling), on the degree
of commitmentmade (promisevs. prediction),on the interestsof the
participants(promise vs. threat), on the psychologicalstates of the

SJ. L. Austin,How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).

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 ANDTHE SPACEBETWEEN
SPEECH,LITERATURE, 51

participants(stating vs. asking), on theirfutureinclinationstoward

one another (betting), on ethicaljudgments(praising,criticizing),on
people's past conduct to one another (apologize, thank), and many
othersuch.2 John Searle distinguishes between "brute facts" (e.g., a
stoneon the ground) and "institutional facts" (e.g., Mary and George
are married), and rightlysaysthatillocutionaryacts have to do deeply
withinstitutional facts.3To participatein discourseis to set in motion
one's whole awarenessof institutions, social ties,obligations,responsi-
bilities,manners,rituals,ceremonies.
Furthermore,illocutionaryacts all have a contractual character.
This is explicitin acts like hiringand firing,but true in a less legal
way for such acts as accepting,promising,and proposing,and even,
loosely,foracts like stating: when I tell you that yourtireis flatyou
have a rightto inferthat I believe it, and I have at least a vague
obligationto tell you if I findI was mistaken,so long as my mistake
makes any difference to you. As Austinsaid, illocutionaryacts are the
clearestproofthat our word is our bond. Much of the ethical nature
of human lifeis embeddedin and carriedby illocutionaryacts.
And, to returnto the startingpoint,illocutionaryacts also have the
power to change a friendshipor a society,to alter the institutional
structureout of which theyrise. The frontpage of the Times is ample
illustration.But recall too thatthe fabricof livesignoredby the Times
is patternedwith illocutionaryacts like inviting,agreeing,refusing,
proposing,denying,accusing,joining,forgiving, buying,asking,giving.

II
So farI have been referring to speech in what I mightcall the direct
mode. There is also an indirectmode of speech, apparently,in all
human cultures. We are homo ludensin our use ofwords; we joke, use
irony,tell fictions.I'll call thismode of speech literary,for reasons I
hope to make plausibleforthwith.
Austinremarkedthat philosophersof language were constantlyslip-
ping offto one side or the otherof illocutionaryacts-fixing eitheron
locutionaryacts, as with logicians,or on perlocutionaryacts, as with
studentsof ethics. The slippagewas to the detrimentof the subject; in
particular,in this centuryit encouraged an obsessionwith true and
false as categorieswhich,along with the categorymeaningless,should
2 For pertinentdiscussion,see Charles J. Fillmore, "Verbs de jugement; essai de
description s6mantique" and Zeno Vendler, "Les performatifsen perspective,"
Langages, 5 (March 1970), 56-72, 73-90.
3 See Speech Acts (Cambridge, 1969).

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52 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

neatlyembrace all utterances.Austin'swork helped show the poverty

of thisview of language.
Linguisticsitselfhas sufferedan impoverishment of the same sort,
concentrating almost exclusively on the rules for well-formedness of
sentences, and ignoring the rules governing the acts performed in the
speakingof sentences. Meanwhile, on the otherside of the watershed,
the studyof rhetorichas been preoccupiedwith the studyof perlocu-
tionaryacts, of how people are influencedby words. Chomskynotes
thisin a recentpaper,4and he, Fillmore,and othersin the generative
group are apparentlytryingto extend the domain of linguisticsto
illocutionaryacts.
The situationin literarytheoryis not dissimilar. Many theorists,
Jakobsonforemostamong them,have seen literatureas differing from
other discoursemainly in the high degree of structuringthat char-
acterizesit. This is to focuson the locutionaryacts of literature,and,
acceptingthe spatial metaphorthatseemsto come with all locutionary
analysis,to thinkofliteratureas consistingin verbalstructures. Another
of
way thinking is thatof Richards,who held thatliterature was special
for the peculiar effectsit had on people--a perlocutionarytheoryof
literature. Both are helpful but limited perspectives,to which the
illocutionaryshould be added. That it has not is the more surprising
in that practical criticismhas sometimesbeen keenlyaware of illocu-
tionaryacts. Examples are the last studyin Auerbach's Mimesis and
Booth'sThe RhetoricofFiction.
Austin provided some hints,in distinguishing serious uses of lan-
guage, with illocutionary forceintact, from special uses, as in poems.
An illocutionaryact in a poem is "in a peculiar way hollow or void,"
but intelligibly so, because the use of language in these circumstances
is "parasitic" upon its normal use (p. 22). Waiving the unfortunate
tone of the term,we can followthissuggestionwith profit.
As Austin says, the imperativesentence "Go and catch a falling
star," as writtenby Donne or recitedby anyone, does not convey a
command: the normal illocutionaryforce is suspended. Likewise
with the apparent command in "Call me Ishmael," or the apparent
statementin "That is no countryfor old men," or "In a sense, I am
Jacob Horner," or "BuffaloBill's defunct,"or "Whose woods theseare
I thinkI know," or the questionin "Oh what is that sound which so
thrillsthe ear," or forthatmatter,"There was thistravelingsalesman,"
or "Once upon a time.. . ." All of theseutterancesfail to executethe

4 "Deep Structure,Surface Structure,and Semantic Interpretation,"in Semantics:

An InterdisciplinaryReader in Philosophy, Linguistics, Anthropology and Psy-
chology,ed. L. A. Jakobovitsand P. Steinberg (Cambridge, 1971).

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SPEECH, LITERATURE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 53

acts thatin normalcircumstances theywould, and fora simplereason:

the rulesI listedearliercannotbe applied, or, ifwe wereto apply them
in the usual way, we would entirelymisconstruethe utterancesin ques-
tion.
Take "That is no countryfor old men," and try to determine
whetherthe statementcomes offsuccessfully-notwhetherit is true,
bear in mind, but whetherits saying is felicitous. Were the circum-
stances appropriate for making this statement? For instance, did
Yeats have reason to thinkhis heareror reader ignorantof its import?
And was Yeats the proper person to make the statement? If "that
country"is Ireland, had Yeats in fact left it? Did he have the ap-
propriatebeliefs? Did he afterwardconduct himselfin accordance
withthosebeliefs? To ponderthesequestionsis to see that theyare the
wrongones to ask. If Yeats's writingof the sentencecould meet these
conditions,he would not have been writinga poem, but perhaps an
autobiographicalnarrative. On the otherhand, the near certaintythat
the poem fails to meet the conditionsforillocutionaryacts in no way
impedes its functioningwell as a poem.
Writing (or speaking) a literarywork is evidentlyan illocutionary
performanceof a special type,logicallydifferent fromthe seemingacts
thatmake it up. The contractbetweenpoet and readeror hearerdoes
not put the poet behind the various statements,rejoinders,laments,
promises,or whatever,that he seeminglyvoices. His word is not his
bond, in just this way. Perhaps the only serious condition of good
faiththat holds forliteraryworksand theirauthorsis that the author
not give out as fact what is fiction. But that's a complicatedmatter,
as witnessall the novels which elaboratelypretendto be plain truth,
withouton that account "really" meaning to deceive the reader.
The main point here is that if we attend to illocutionaryacts, we
can identifya perfectlyclean cognitivebreak between literature-
poems, plays, novels,jokes, fairytales, fantasies,etc.-and discourses
that are not literature. Literaryworks are discourseswith the usual
illocutionaryrules suspended. If you like, they are acts withoutcon-
sequences of the usual sort,sayingsliberatedfromthe usual burden
Even small childrenquicklylearn this
of social bond and responsibility.
distinction-notthattheycan alwaystellwhen theyare in the presence
of a fiction,but theyknow to ask, and know how to respondonce they
are sure. It's as if "once upon a time" were a ghostlypresence at
the beginningof all literaryworks,to indicatethe contractthat obtains
betweenwriterand reader.
But it would be a great mistake,of course,to suppose that illocu-
tionaryacts play no role in literature. Saying, as Austin did, that
poems are parasiticon regularspeech acts is a long way fromsaying

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54 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

how thisworks. And the how is of interest.If, when a poet puts forth
a declarativesentence,he is not actually statingit, what then is he
doing? He is doing somethinglike puttingwords in anotherperson's
mouth,pretendingto be someoneelse. But neitherof thesedescriptions
quite fits,because the otherperson-the personaor speakeror narrator
-does not actuallyexist,and the pretenseis not intendedto deceive.
More exactly,the writerputs out imitationspeech acts, as iftheywere
being performedby someone. This is clearestin a play, or a dramatic
poem like Auden's "Oh what is that sound which so thrillsthe ear."
Here thereis an answer to each question, and obviouslyAuden has
createdtwo characters,bygivingthemspeechactsto performin alterna-
tion. Let me insiston the formulation: neitherhe nor a playwright
createscharactersand thengivesthemlines; rather,the assignmentof
speech acts is the means of creatingcharacters. The same holds true,
thoughless plainly,in a lyricpoem like "Sailing to Byzantium,"where
Yeats givesout a seriesof purportedspeech acts,all evidentlyperformed
by one character,and so creates the man who has sailed fromone
countryto another. In novels with omniscientnarratorsthis process
is least dramatic,yet we have long since learned that even in such
fictionsthe sayingof the storyis itselfpart of the story. The narrator
may not become a vividcharacter,but he is nonethelessentirelydistinct
fromthe author; the logical gap betweenthemopens up as soon as we
apply the usual conditionsfor illocutionaryacts.
I have been regardingthismatterfromthe author'spoint of view.
The importanceof illocutionaryacts is still greaterfor the reader/
hearer,who in the standard case has literallynothingto guide him
exceptthe purportedlocutionaryand illocutionaryacts of one or more
personae. From thoseacts the readermakesinferencesof manykinds:
who the speakeris, what roleshe plays,what kind of a societyhe lives
in, whetherhe is reliable, what relationshiphe intends to establish
betweenhimselfand his heareror reader,what nonverbalactionshe is
supposedlyinvolvedin, and so on. The reader makes thesejudgments
in large part by puttingto work his tacit knowledgeof the conditions
for performanceof illocutionaryacts. If a novel begins,"In a sense,
I am Jacob Horner" (Barth, The End of the Road), the reader is
immediatelyforcedintohypothesesabout the circumstances thatwould
make such a statementappropriate,about what personmightproperly
so identifyhimself,with the odd qualifier"in a sense," and most im-
portantly,about what beliefsand feelingswould legitimatehis state-
ment. As the reader proceeds,he will be abe to determinewhether
Jacob Horner conductshimselfappropriatelyafterward(i.e., whether
his narrativeis consistent),whetherhe is to be trusted,and whether
the storyhe tellsis to be taken at face value. In short,the readerworks

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 ANDTHE SPACEBETWEEN
SPEECH,LITERATURE, 55
fromthe familiarconventionsforillocutionaryacts to judgmentsabout
what acts are being performedwithinthe world of the novel, and how
successfully,and fromthereto an imaginativeconstruction of the world
ofthenovelitself,verbaland nonverbal.
It may seem odd to claim that illocutionaryacts play a part in our
constructing thefictionalworldof a novelwhichbegins"On an evening
in the latterpart of May a middle-agedman was walkinghomeward
fromShastonto the village of Marlott,in the adjoiningVale of Blake-
more or Blackmoor." The "facts" about thisplace and thisman seem
so directlyrendered. But of course the veryestimatethat they are to
be taken as facts,and held in mind as part of the fictionalworld, is
an estimateof illocutionaryforce. The reader begins to constructa
world around Shaston, Marlott, and the Vale of Blakemore only if
he judges that the statementis to be taken as felicitous,and that the
speaker does in fact have the properbeliefsto accompany it-includ-
ing the belief that these places exist.
We mightsay that the building of a fictionalworld to accompany
a novel, play, poem, or otherfictionalformis an exchange between
writerand reader throughthe medium of illocutionaryacts. In fact,
the imitationof realitythat takes place in literaturecan only happen
in thisway. It was unfortunateforliterarytheorythat Aristotlefixed
the termmimesiswith referenceto the performanceof a tragedy,since
dramatic performanceis a special kind of imitation,and to focus
on it is to missthe deepersimilarities
in mimesisthat connectall genres
and theirwrittenand spokenforms.5

III

Literarymimesisreversesthe usual directionof inferencefor the

reader. As we participatein ordinaryspeech we use what we know
of the speaker and of circumstancesto assess the felicityof the speech
acts. As we participatein mimesiswe assume the felicityof the hypo-
theticalacts,and infera world fromthe circumstancesrequiredforthis
felicity.Once thisis clear,some generalizationsabout literarydiscourse
become available. McLuhan says that "speech is a cool mediumof low
definition,because so littleis given and so much has to be filledin
by thelistener."6 As often,it is hard to tellwhat comparisonMcLuhan

5 This discussion of literarymimesis in part recapitulates the argument of my

"Speech Acts and the Definition of Literature," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 4
(Winter 1971), 1-19-
6 UnderstandingMedia (New York: Signet Books, 1964), P. 36. Page references
in the textare to this edition.

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56 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

has in mindin makingsuch a judgment,and in what senseboth speech

and, say, the telephonecould be media. But if ordinaryspeech is a
medium, then literaturecertainlyis one in just the same sense, and
the comparisonis interesting.Literature,of course,is a much cooler
medium than speech,because even less is directlygiven. Notably,the
speaker himselfis not present-even in a direct recitationor public
reading it's only the poet or the performerwho is visible, not the
persona who is supposedly responsiblefor the speech acts. In the
absence of the speaker, the reader misses gesture,intonation,facial
expression,the physicalsetting,physicalactionsthe speakeris perform-
ing, and manyotherkindsof information whichin regularspeech help
the hearer know how to take the words he hears. All this data the
readermustsupplyhimself,in additionto data about the social situa-
tion, historicalperiod, geography,and so on. Such, I have said, is
mimesis. This is one reason that literatureis harderto read well than
are newspaperstories.
McLuhan would probablysay that literatureis "high in participa-
tion." And indeed the reader's work,which I have just been describ-
ing,is participationof a demandingsort. But the conceptof participa-
tion is not so simple,nor its measurementso lineal, as McLuhan often
implies. For literaturesharplyreduces anotherkind of participation,
as compared to speech. To be criticized,invited, ordered, offered,
promised,threatened,praised, or any of the thousand othersis to be
drawn into the act. The hearerparticipatesin the illocutionaryact in
all the social and moral ways earlierdiscussed. His relationsto family,
friends,fellow citizens,employer,enemy, are fixed and altered by
illocutionaryacts. For him, words have consequences. Literaturelifts
these burdens and pleasuresfromthe reader. As he reads, he enters
a different dispensation,with consequencessuspended. He is neither
contractuallynor morallyimplicated,nor in any way bound by the act
in which he participates. His participationis entirelycognitiveand
imaginative,an act of the mind and heart. For thisreasonthe enemies
of literaturecall it escapist. And it is. Any defenseof poesy has to
meet this charge one way or another,for literatureexcuses us from
participation,in the basic sense outlinedhere.
My own defense,upon whichI won't dwellhere,would acknowledge
that readingliteratureis a formof play, and would stressthe fact that
the fictionalworlds we constructin this game constitutea judgment
on our own real world. Literaturepreservesthe functionof criticism,
as Matthew Arnold said, and activates our sense of possibility,of
alternatives-some of them better-to the way thingsare done here.
Furthermore,literatureis in a good way disinterested.The better

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SPEECH, LITERATURE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 57

works, anyhow, put forththeir commenton our world as a whole,

ratherthan advancingpettymoralsor special pleas.
Let me mentionone more aspect of literature,whose pertinencewill
appear soon. Althoughthe writeris in a way hidden,so that we meet
onlyhis surrogateand carryon no intercoursewiththe authorhimself,
throughour sharingof the act of mimesiswe do get at somethinglike
the world he meant to create, and in this way we move close to his
wishesand fears. Althoughhidden,he gives us access to his imagina-
tive worlds,and to that much of himself.

IV
I have been speakingof literatureand ordinarytalk in an idealized
way, imaginingthe contextsof acts as uncomplicated,and ignoring
effectsof the media of communication. What I have said is I hope
true, but it is not a full account of literatureand speech acts: the
distinctionsI have drawn would more nearly have exhausted the
domain in a preliteratesocietythan in our own. Now it is timeto draw
closer to the speech environmentmost of us actually inhabit, in a
countryliketheUnitedStates.
Even with the arrivalof printthe relationsI have outlinedbecame
blurred. The writerof a factual newspaper narrative-distinctlynot
a literarywork-does not concretelyknow who his audience is, nor
whethereveryone of themis an appropriatepartnerin the act of in-
forming. Moreover, he cannot give them warrantto believe him in
the usual ways, cannot stand personallybehind his words. And his
subsequent conduct will be hard to connect with the original act of
stating. Add to thishis frequentanonymity, and it is evidenthow thin
the tie between him and his readers has become. In these circum-
stances, language undergoes what Austin called an "etiolation," a
fading of its usual forcesand presuppositions.Not that a newspaper
storyis a cross betweenliteratureand ordinarytalk: it is still non-
literarydiscourse,forthe usual rules of illocutionaryaction all apply.
They simplyare harderto apply in detail, and the guessworkrequired
gives the reader a slightlyfictionalizedexperience.7
Much the same is true of another typical, though very different,

7 There are, of course, many illocutionaryacts that a newspaper reporterwould

not or could not performon his reader--e.g., welcoming,appointing. But inability
to perform all speech acts is a limitation on all speakers and all writers,not a
with writing.
special difficulty

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58 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

media experience,watching a public figureon television. Take an

ordinaryState of the Union message. In conveyingit the President
addressesmillionsof people who are strangersto him. And although
they "know" him, and are close indeed to his screen image, the
relationshipis entirelyone-sided: they have no way of responding,
no way of completingthe contract,no chance to follow up on his
challengesand requests. Their participationis cognitively high,socially
low. The experienceis not like that of reading a literarywork,but it
moves in that directionfromregularspeech.
The speech situationis even furthercomplicatedat such moments
by the fact that the Presidenthas a live audience of senatorsand con-
gressmen,and technicallyit is at them that he aims his illocutionary
acts. Yet in anothersense theyare not his targetaudience. He speaks
throughor around them,to the restof us. Our relationto his speech
is that of overhearingit, acting as a shadow audience. The social
relationshipthat existsbetween him and us has become attenuated,
weak, in spite of the veryseriousways our lives may be affectedby
what the Presidentsays.
But the loss of bearingsthat mass media have caused by such com-
plicationsare minorcomparedwithwhat happensto speech acts in the
mouth of commerce. Even the direct-sellcommercial,featuringone
speaker explicitlyaddressing"you" out there is a far cry from the
standardspeech act. The man on TV says "Now it's possibleto relieve
your tensionwithout using drugs or pills," and, looking me in the
eye,he goes on to explainthatI can keep up withsuchbracingdevelop-
ments by subscribingto the Reader's Digest. But of course all the
difficulties that beset illocutionaryacts broadcast throughthe media
affecthis explanation and advice, and some othersin addition. For
one thing,in speaking of "your" tensionhe makes a presupposition
that may invalidatethe act for many viewers. There is an oddityin
seemingto know what kind of personyou are addressingwhen in fact
your audience is unseen and no doubt polymorphous.But the gravest
issue of good faith arises when we ask whetherthe speaker believes
what he says, and whetherhe wants us to know it. For he is simply
voicing the sentences in a plausible-soundingway, and need not
actually endorse them at all. Is this commercial,then, a work of
literaturelike "Sailing to Byzantium"? No, because some measure of
accountabilitystillremains. If the commercialmisrepresents reality-
e.g., ifit is not possibleto relievetensionwithoutpillsor drugs,or if the
Reader's Digest containsno such article-the advertiseris culpable and
may be broughtto account in court. Plymouth's"We'll throwin the

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SPEECH, LITERATURE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 59

automatic transmissionfree" is a binding promise. Poets cannot be

held to blame for falsehoodsor broken promises.8
The complexitiesdeepen when the mode is not direct sell, but a
staged scene with a narrator-Danny Thomas with a row of women
behind him who, he says, have just tested Instant Maxwell House
coffeeagainst the leading freeze-dried;or an unseen narratorsaying
"You're about to see a man open a can of dog food with his bare
hands"; or the Contac commercialswhose narratordescribesthe rigors
of life in Alaska while theyare enacted beforeour eyes by fishermen
or a bush pilot and family. Commercialsin this mode have larger
tolerance for fiction. We do not require that the visible scene be
documentary(unless, of course,the narratorsays it is), and the nar-
rator'sclaims about the scene need not thereforebe true. But so-meof
what he says muststand reality-testing:forinstance,Danny Thomas'
claim that 45%foof people who compared coffeespreferredInstant
Maxwell House. That mustbe true,even if the women we see are not
really performingthe test. The viewer's illocutionaryrole in such
commercialsis puzzlingindeed.
Or take the pure dramaticsketch. Badgerman descendsfromabove
and says "Hey, what happened to myBadgermobile?" His interlocutor
explainsthat a Toyota Corolla has been substitutedforit and is, as a
matterof fact,superiorto the Badgermobile. No viewerwould think
he was eavesdroppingon a real conversation.The mimeticsituation
is that of a literarywork. Yet some vestigeof the regular rules for
speech remains,since claims made about the Toyota Corolla will be
subject to scrutinyfor misrepresentation, even though spoken by a
characterin a patent fiction. To add one more twist,some of the
dramaticsketcheshave as characterswell-knownpeople playingthem-
selves. A youngwoman's runawaygrocerycart is rescuedin the park-
ing lot by a man. She says "Say, you're George Kirby." He admitsit,
and goes on to administera briefencomiumto Ivoryliquid dishwash-
ing soap. The encounteris plainly fictional,but does George Kirby
have no responsibility forthe thingshe says about Ivory? What is his
bond withthe observer?Somewhereat about thispoint,the art of the
televisionad man meetsthat of Borges,Barthelme,and Beckettcoming
fromtheotherdirection.
There are many othergenreswithintelevisionalone, and the other
media have theirpeculiar ways of transferring speech acts. But thisis
to
enough permit some hypotheses about the environmentof speech
actsin whichwe now live.

8 On the contrary,they can be blamed for reportingthe insufficiently

varnished
truth,as in a libel suit.

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60 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

For all of human historyuntil the last few hundred years,speech

acts were face-to-faceencounters,mainly of people who knew each
otherand whose relativepositionswere clear. When brotherspeaks to
sister,parent to child, subject to ruler,apprenticeto master,judge to
prisoner,the contracts and entitlementsof their illocutionaryacts
take effectwithina communityalreadyestablished.Such communities
are likelyto be stable, and theirstructuresevidentto all. Relations
within them are concrete. Verbal meetingshave high social and
ethicalcontent.
Life among the media is different in a number of ways. For one
thing, as I hope my examples have shown,social connectionsundergo
severe dilation as illocutionaryacts stretch over media channels.
Through radio, television,print,and the rest we find ourselvescon-
stantlyin one-sideddiscoursewith people whose social linksto us are
obscure. There is a loss in social clarity,and in relatednessitself.This
observationruns directlycounterto a main point of McLuhan's. As
usual, I thinkhis view acute but limited. Many timeshe suggeststhat
the electricage will create a global village, a "single consciousness"
(p. 67). The electricmedia, he says, pour in on us "the concerns
of all othermen" (p. 156), so thatwe "wear all mankindas our skin"
(p. 56). But seeingthe pain of a Vietnamese or the desolationof an
East Pakistani village is not the same as being socially connectedto
these other people and theirconcerns; on the contrary,much in the
media conceals our relationto them.9 And an opposite tendencyto
the one McLuhan describesis stronglyat work. As long as you have
the televisionon, you relinquishthe bindingties to people you know,
and enterinstead a shadowycommunityof people whose words come
at you but act upon you in enigmaticways. That community'slike-
nessesto a village are fewerthan its differences.
The deterioration of communitycloselyparallelsa declinein authen-
ticity. Illocutionaryacts, on the my-word-is-my-bond principle,carry
much of the ethical contentof social life. When the performanceof
these acts is attenuated,when the participantswho join in them are
separated by unbridgeablephysical and social differences, when re-
for
sponsibility sincerity and follow-up is diffusedor even totallycon-
cealed-then the ethical force of speech is prettywell lost. For the

9 The favorite reasons for getting American troops out of Vietnam have been
to save American lives, to cut our losses in an unwinnable war, to redirect our
priorities,win the war on poverty,etc. Only among radical activists and peace
people have the sufferingsof the Vietnamese figuredas the main reason; and such
opponents of the war do not seem to have taken their line fromtelevision,by and
large.

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SPEECH, LITERATURE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 61

TV pitchman,authenticityreduces to having an honestface and an

unpretentious accent. I don't know how farthisprocesswould have to
go to be trulyperilous,but clearlyif the ruleswere never adhered to,
they would cease to be the rules. Speakers can break grammatical
rules many timeswithoutchangingthe grammar,but if no one ever
followeda particularrule it would drop fromthe language. Perhaps
thereis an appetiteforauthenticity in people such thatif theylose it in
one area of experiencetheywill compensatein another. Let us hope so.
A thirdconsequenceof thesegreatshiftsin the basis of speechis that
we spend less timeacting,lesstimeactivelyparticipatingin the transac-
tions of talk. As literatureis talk withoutconsequences (in the sense
I definedearlier), the movementtoward literatureof talk channeled
throughtelevisionlessens our involvementin it. They act upon us;
we can scoff,or turn offthe set, but we can't act back upon them.
The barrierfallsbetweendoing and being done to, as well as between
the illocution and the perlocution. McLuhan says that the electric
implosion of the culture is making us aware of our "total inter-
dependencewiththe restof human society" (p. 59). Maybe, but to a
disquietingdegree thisinterdependencehas the savor of mutual help-
lessness. Marcuse is closer to the mark, I think,in writingof the
intimidating, hypnoticcharacterof language in the media. If thereis
truthin my analysis,it supportshis, and helps explain it. The repres-
sive effectof public language is enforcedby the remotenessof those
who speak to us, by our consequentloss of the power to act, and by
the attendant convictionthat "everythingis being taken care of."
Whose is the "single consciousness"in which McLuhan says we all
join? The ordinaryperson'sremarkablefaithin our society'smanagers
has somethingto do with acceptingnecessity;and this attitudefinds
its sophisticatedparallel in the value set on detachment,disinterested-
ness, by liberals and intellectuals. But these are perhaps general
characteristics of bourgeoisculture,not causallytied to the diminishing
of our powerto act.
Finally, and most vaguely,speech acts in the media, as theyhave
taken on some of the characteristicsof literature,have helped us to
fictionalizethe realityin which people live. To much of what we hear
and read,we are relatedalmostas to a poem or story.It is notsurprising
that some people confusethe two orders-perceive themselvesas more
intimatelyrelatedto a disc jockey or a politician,forinstance,than to
people theycan see and speak to. Conversely,recall that a significant
numberof Americans,afterthe firstmoon landingwas done as a TV
spectacular, did not believe that those events were real. Moreover,

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62 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

while literatureitselfcompensatesthe reader for loss of active par-

ticipationby affordinghim a criticismof life and a visionof alternate
reality,commercialsand ads tryto pin him to a diminishedreality
whereall problemsresolvethemselvesin a timelypurchase.

Postscript: To bright people like McLuhan, the media offera

splendid intellectualplayground. It is not at all evident that they
representsuch a lark for most of technologicalsociety. Given the
changeswroughtin illocutionaryacts by the media, the growingplace
of mass media in our lives, and the fact that the media are paid for
directlyby corporationsand government, and indirectly by our willing-
ness to consume thingswe don't need, it is no surpriseif people-in-
generalsuffercertainlossesin freedomthroughexpansionof the media,
along with undeniablegains. McLuhan is apposite:
Once we have surrendered our sensesand nervoussystems to the private
manipulationof thosewho wouldtryto benefitfromtakinga lease on our
eyesand ears and nerves,we don'treallyhave any rightsleft. Leasingour
eyesand ears and nervesto commercialinterests is like handingover the
commonspeechto a privatecorporation, or likegivingtheearth'satmos-
phereto a companyas a monopoly.
(p.73)
He need onlyhave added, to his listof what we have surrendered,our
rolein speechacts and our stakein literature,and he would have ended
up close to where I am ending. Literature,like talk itself,has been
appropriatedby commercialinterestsfor gain, and the reductionin
human size that accompanies that appropriationis told well enough
by a book like Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders.
For reasonsthat are hard to accept, McLuhan rejectsthe implica-
tions of the passage I have just quoted. He believesthat the electric
technologywill, if it hasn't already, reversethe movementof older,
mechanical technologytoward ruthless competition,individualism,
privacy,and consumingas an end in itself. But these wretchedtraits
of our culturedid not originateonlyin technology,and will not vanish
with a newer technology. They follow in part, I believe, on the
economic premises of this society: private propertyand the free
market. Competition,individualism,privacy,and irrationalconsump-
tion are rooted in our social systemand in bourgeois consciousness;

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SPEECH, LITERATURE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN 63

and since all the media are dominatedby bourgeoisinterests,I think

it unlikelythat a shiftfrommechanical to electrictechnology,or a
serendipitousgreeningof America, will save literature,speech, and
societyformerepeople. To do thatit willbe necessaryto reuniteword
and deed, to reclaimforourselvesthe media of speech and action and
level the great heightsof power that block the speech of equals.

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

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