Editing Speech act (section)

==History==
For much of the history of the [[positivist]] philosophy of language, language was viewed primarily as a way of making factual [[Judgment (mathematical logic)|assertions]], and the other uses of language tended to be ignored, as Austin states at the beginning of Lecture 1, "It was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the business of a 'statement' can only be to 'describe' some state of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which it must do either truly or falsely."<ref name=":0"/>{{rp|1}} [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein]] came up with the idea of "don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use," showing language as a new vehicle for social activity.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bach |first=Kent |title=Speech Acts |encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=11 March 2024 |url=https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/speech-acts/v-1 |doi= 10.4324/9780415249126-U043-1 |date=1998 |publisher=Taylor and Francis|isbn=978-0-415-25069-6 }}</ref> Speech act theory hails from Wittgenstein's philosophical theories.  Wittgenstein believed meaning derives from pragmatic tradition, demonstrating the importance of how language is used to accomplish objectives within specific situations.  By following rules to accomplish a goal, communication becomes a set of [[Language game (philosophy)|language games]]. Thus, utterances do more than reflect a meaning, they are words designed to get things done.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |editor-last1=Littlejohn |editor-first1=S. |date=2009 |title=Speech act theory |editor-first2=K. |editor-last2=Foss |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of communication theory |pages=919–921 |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc. |volume=2 |doi=10.4135/9781412959384.n356 |isbn=978-1-4129-5937-7 |url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/communicationtheory/n356.xml |access-date=11 March 2024}}</ref> The work of [[J. L. Austin]], particularly his ''How to Do Things with Words'', led philosophers to pay more attention to the non-declarative uses of language. The terminology he introduced, especially the notions "[[locutionary act]]", "[[illocutionary act]]", and "[[perlocutionary act]]", occupied an important role in what was then to become the "study of speech acts". All of these three acts, but especially the "illocutionary act", are nowadays commonly classified as "speech acts".

Austin was by no means the first one to deal with what one could call "speech acts" in a wider sense. The term 'social act' and some of the theory of this type of linguistic action are to be found in the fifth of [[Thomas Reid]]'s ''Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind'' (1788, chapter VI, Of the Nature of a Contract).<ref>"A man may see, and hear, and remember, and judge, and reason; he may deliberate and form purposes, and execute them, without the intervention of any other intelligent being. They are solitary acts. But when he asks a question for information, when he testifies a fact, when he gives a command to his servant, when he makes a promise, or enters into a contract, these are social acts of mind, and can have no existence without the intervention of some other intelligent being, who acts a part in them. Between the operations of the mind, which, for want of a more proper name, I have called solitary, and those I have called social, there is this very remarkable distinction, that, in the solitary, the expression of them by words, or any other sensible sign, is accidental. They may exist, and be complete, without being expressed, without being known to any other person. But, in the social operations, the expression is essential. They cannot exist without being expressed by words or signs, and known to the other party." Cf. [[Kevin Mulligan|Mulligan, K.]] ''[http://mba.eci.ufmg.br/downloads/pos/SocialActs-Mulligan.pdf Promisings and other social acts – their constituents and structure].'' in Mulligan, K., editor ''Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology''. Nijhoff, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1987. Quote from Reid 1969, 437–438).</ref>

[[Adolf Reinach]] (1883–1917)<ref>Mulligan, K. ''Promisings and other social acts – their constituents and structure.'' in Mulligan, K., editor ''Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology''. Nijhoff, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1987.</ref> and [[Stanislav Škrabec]] (1844–1918)<ref>Matejka Grgic, Igor Z. Žagar, ''How to Do Things with Tense and Aspect: Performativity before Austin'', Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.</ref> have been both independently credited with a fairly comprehensive account of social acts as performative utterances dating to 1913, long before Austin and [[John R. Searle|Searle]].

The term "Speech Act" had also been already used by [[Karl Bühler]].<ref>"Die Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften”, ''Kant-Studien'' 38 (1933), 43, where he discusses a ''Theorie der Sprechhandlungen''</ref><ref>''Sprachtheorie'' (Jena: Fischer, 1934) where he uses "''Sprechhandlung''" and "''Theorie der Sprechakte''"</ref>

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) views speech as an act („[…] sprechen ist so nicht bloß sprechen, sondern handeln, indem ich  mich an die Vorstellung wende, und diese das Erzeugende einer Wirklichkeit ist, so bin ich das Erhaltende oder Zerstörende.“ – „[…] speaking thus is not merely speaking, but acting, in that I turn to the imagination, which is the generator of an actuality, so I am the sustainer or destroyer [of this actuality].“ (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right III, GW 26,3, p. 1467).