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speech act theory
(redirected from speech act)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia 0.06 sec.

speech act theory

Theory of meaning that holds that the meaning of linguistic expressions can be explained in terms of the rules governing their use in performing various speech acts (e.g., admonishing, asserting, commanding, exclaiming, promising, questioning, requesting, warning). In contrast to theories that maintain that linguistic expressions have meaning in virtue of their contribution to the truth conditions of sentences where they occur, it explains linguistic meaning in terms of the use of words and sentences in the performance of speech acts. Some exponents claim that the meaning of a word is nothing but its contribution to the nature of the speech acts that can be performed by using it. Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin provided important stimuli for the theory's development.



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It is hard to see how he can quite mean this because he ordinarily treats lying as exclusively a speech act, and even says explicitly that it is.
This paper utilises speech act theory to help understand the function(s) of emotion-based online conversations.
This emphasis on saying as well as doing leads Sullivan to interpret "credit" as a speech act.
 
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