Speech Act Theory

It is well known that speech act theory (SAT) developed from the work of the Oxford

philosopher J.L Austin, whose 1955 William James lectures at Harvard were published as

How to do things with words in 1962. The most obvious insight promulgated by Austin was

that language does things as well as says them, and he claimed initially that his own work

was ‘neither difficult nor contentious’, something that was challenged by a number of later

writers (Austin: 1962:1). Since this early stage, SAT has developed and been applied in a

number of directions and in a great many discourses. Its use in biblical interpretation has

been varied, depending on a range of philosophical insights, from Austin himself, his student

John Searle and other scholars such as Stanley Fish, H P Grice, Mary Louise Pratt and Sandy

Petrey, all of whom engaged in argument about the direction and usefulness of Austin’s

ideas. In this article I shall outline some of the major insights (and conflicts) within the field

of SAT and show how they have been applied within the Biblical Studies field.

1. Founders of Speech Act Theory

1.1. J L Austin ‘How to do things with words’

In his admirable introduction to SAT, Richard S Briggs notes that SAT is not a comprehensive

philosophy of language, and he criticises John Searle for trying to make it such (2001:9-10).

This is a useful observation as it leaves scope to understand it as a polyvalent approach

based on the Austinian basic claim: that language is performative in nature. Even this claim,

though, went through a number of developmental stages in Austin’s own work. His

fundamental project concerned describing and evaluating the two functions he detected in

spoken language, those of saying and doing. Austin was primarily interested in ordinary or

1

oral language rather than written language, and thus his theory is not axiomatically suitable

for a text-based discourse such as biblical studies, but his view that ‘utterances made in a

specific context have a specific “force”, not necessarily related to the form of the utterance

but certainly distinguishable from it’ (Botha 1991:64) has potential for rhetorically attuned

scriptural texts.

To begin with, Austin used the term ‘performative’ for language that did something, that

performed an act, while ‘constative’ was reserved for language which said something, or

made a statement, and his initial formulations concerned these two groups, although the

terms became somewhat conflated as Austin’s thinking developed during his lectures.

While the constative statement allowed for judgements of true or false, the performative

could only be evaluated in terms of its success or the lack of it. Austin used terms such as

felicitous/infelicitous, happy/unhappy, effective/ineffective or appropriate/inappropriate to

mark and maintain this distinction. Further, he analysed the performative function of

natural language as encompassing three possible acts: those of locution, illocution and

perlocution. The locutionary act produces a coherent and acceptable grammatical

utterance. It will be noted that speech act theory deals in utterances rather than sentences,

which are understood as relating to the study of grammar and semantics rather than as

contextualised in particular situations and thus performing an act. The illocutionary act

produces an utterance with ‘illocutionary force’, a combination of language and social

practice as the speaker utters a particular locution in a certain context.

Austin writes:

For there are very numerous functions of or ways in which we use speech, and it

makes a great difference to our act in some sense…in which way and in what sense

2

we were on this occasion ‘using’ it. It makes a great difference whether we were

advising, or merely suggesting, or actually ordering, whether we were strictly

promising or only announcing a vague intention, and so forth (1975: 99).

Austin goes on to distinguish a third category of performative function, that of the

perlocutionary act, one which concentrates on the ‘consequential effects upon the feelings,

thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be

done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them…’ (1975:99). The issue here

is that the speaker has performed an act which is only of oblique, if any, reference to the

performance of the locutionary or illocutionary act. The locutionary act, argued Austin in

summary, has a meaning, the illocutionary act has a certain force in saying something, and

the perlocutionary act is the achieving of certain effects by saying something (1975: 121).

This last act may be of particular interest in Biblical Studies, to those who would interpret

texts which have been accorded some level of authority by generations of communities who

come from quite different interpretive contexts.

These definitions, which are by no means absolute, form a basis for an understanding of

Austin’s SAT, which, it should be remembered, applies to ordinary or spoken language.

Austin went so far as to schematise some of the necessary conditions for the happy or

felicitous function of a performative act, and argues that a similar set of rules exists for non-

verbal conventional acts, but he continued to claim that this scheme was tentative, a work

by no means complete. (1975: 14-15).

Austin’s work is usefully seen by Briggs as laying down a foundation which invited further

development (2001:43). It was thus left to Austin’s student John R. Searle to develop and

spread these ideas in ways which partly helped and partly hindered their application to

3

literary texts in ways that could be creative for Biblical interpretation. Searle’s work

provides, without doubt, the most comprehensive account of SAT.

1.2 John R Searle

No one who engages with SAT can ignore the work of John R Searle, who, it can be argued,

is the major theorist in the development of SAT. Searle’s two major contributions to SAT are

Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969) and Expression and Meaning:

Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (1979), in both of which Searle sees his contribution as

forming something approaching a developed philosophy of mind. A major modification,

which would become a standard feature of later SAT, was to distinguish the illocutionary act

from the propositional act – that is, the act of expressing the proposition (a phrase that is

neutral as to illocutionary force) (Briggs 2001:46). Further, Searle challenges and criticises

several elements of Austin’s taxonomy, developing it further in ways which have rendered

his theories on the whole less attractive to biblical scholars than those developed from

Austin’s work by a number of scholars. There is no doubt, though, that Searle’s

categorisations have been as influential in understanding SAT as a philosophical idea as

those of any other scholar. He summarises his fundamental hypothesis thus:

I have said that the hypothesis of this book is that speaking a language is performing

acts according to rules. The form this hypothesis will take is that the semantic

structure of a language may be regarded as a conventional realization of a series of

sets of underlying constitutive rules, and that speech acts are acts characteristically

performed by uttering expressions in accordance with these sets of constituent rules

(1969:36-7).

4

It can clearly be seen that Searle’s interest remains firmly in the area of spoken language

and he proceeds to categorise speech acts in careful and distinctive ways, refining the rather

over-complex categorisations Austin suggested towards the end of his work. Searle’s

taxonomy has become standard, even canonical, for speech act theorists, attempting to

show that there are five (or perhaps six) types of speech act, arranged around categories of

direction of fit between word and world (see Briggs: 2001:50-56). These types of act

include assertives or representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, declarations (and

possibly assertive declarations). As Sandy Petrey points out, ‘for students of literature, the

thorniest aspect of Speech Acts is its proclivity for the abstract notation of logical analysis –

Searle represents the general form of illocution not by discussing society and conventions,

but by writing “F(p),” for example – and for positing the simplified context on which this

notation depends (1990: 60). This tendency to abstract has certainly formed a barrier for

those who wish to use the very real insights of SAT in the understanding of real,

conventionally contextualised language, as many studying literary, let alone biblical texts,

which deal with situations not covered by logical theory, would want to do. Searle also

complicates matters by introducing an idea of fiction as pretence which makes things

difficult for those who want to apply these theories to literary texts. This insistence that

fiction operates with distinct and different sets of conventions apply from those operating in

the real world is unattractive to critics seeking to develop the theory in just these areas and

raises questions associated with genre, particularly with texts of mixed provenance and

complex manuscript traditions. His emphasis on the tenet that ‘speaking a language is a

rule-governed form of behaviour’ has been influential for critics who would use SAT in a

variety of ways.

5

Further treatments of SAT as linguistic philosophy can be found in the various debates

between and among Austin, Searle, Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish. These very important

conversations should be acknowledged but they only been tangentially used in biblical

interpretation as far as I am aware.

2. SAT and Literary Theory

2.1. Mary Louise Pratt

Perhaps the most influential application of SAT to literary, and therefore biblical, texts has

been based on the work of Mary Louise Pratt and her 1977 work Toward a Speech Act

Theory of Literary Discourse, in which she argues robustly against making a firm, or any,

distinction between literature and ordinary or spoken language. Indeed, Pratt challenges the

whole formalist school of structuralist linguistics for making such a distinction, which she

sees as both unnecessary and destructive (1977:xii).

In a trenchant argument, she claims that all language can be considered under the general

umbrella of communication theory, arguing that ‘[u]nless we are foolish enough to claim

that people organize their anecdotes around patterns they learn from reading literature, we

are obliged to draw the more obvious conclusion that the formal similarities between

natural narrative and literary narrative derive from the fact that at some level of analysis

they are utterances of the same type’ (1977:69). She uses this insight as a point of departure

for the development of a ‘context-dependent theory of literature’ which allows her to

describe literary utterances in the same terms as other types of utterance and provides a

platform for a speech act theory and practice for written texts (1977:89; Gilfillan Upton

2006: 96-102).

6

This context-dependence has proved informative for biblical interpretation in its emphasis

on the ‘intentions, attitudes and expectations of the participants, the relationships existing

between the participants, and, generally, the unspoken rules and conventions that are

understood to be in play when an utterance is made and received’ (1977:86). Pratt brings

into her theoretical framework the work of the pragmatist H P Grice who introduced his

idea of the Cooperative Principle in a series of lectures given in 1967, but not published until

1975. Grice, like Austin, concentrates on conversational language, and insists that the most

important element of language use is the success of an utterance. In his view,

communication is governed by

A rough general principle which participants will be expected to observe, viz., “Make

your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,

by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk-exchange in which you are engaged”

(1975:45).

Grice enlarges this Cooperative Principle by proposing four maxims or overall

appropriateness conditions which he assumes to be in force when any conversation takes

place. They are:

1. The maxim of Quantity which dictates that a contribution to an exchange should

be as informative as required, not more, not less. It can be summarised as ‘Be

economical’.

2. The maxim of Quality which states that a contribution should be true,

summarised as ‘Be sincere’.

3. The maxim of Relation. ‘Be relevant’.

7

4. The maxim of Manner. ‘Be perspicuous or clear’. (Summary in Gilfillan Upton

2006: 98)

Other maxims have been suggested, including those of politeness or morality, and Kent

Bach and Robert Harness made the helpful underpinning suggestion of ‘Other things being

equal, construe the speakers’ remarks so as to violate as few maxims as possible (1979:68).

In neither the spoken nor the written word are all the maxims or appropriateness conditions

held at the same time. A helpful notion is that of implicature, which is a method of

reconstructing meaning when one or more of the maxims has been flouted. This aspect, of

the flouting or non-fulfilment of an appropriateness condition is particularly helpful when

dealing with literary texts rather than the spoken word. Botha points out, indeed, that it is

the only possible kind of non-fulfilment in a literary speech situation (1991:68). He and Pratt

both agree that ‘in literature it is always the flouting of a maxim that is relevant when there

is a failure to fulfil a maxim. i.e. whenever flouting has taken place in literature, it is the

intention, at the level of the communication between the implied author and the readers or

hearers, that the situation should be resolved by implicature’ (Gilfillan Upton 2006:99). This

interestingly reintroduces to SAT the concept of intentionality, which is central to Searle’s

understanding but is often rather overlooked in treatments that arise from narratology

rather than the philosophy of language. I argued then that the concept of implicature

justifies the inclusion of Gricean pragmatics into a basically Austinian model, and it still

seems to me to be the case.

8

Pratt’s development of Grice’s model includes the introduction of a ‘display text’ with its

associated principles of ‘assertibility’ and ‘tellability’, referring to new and interesting

information respectively. She argues that display-producing relevance is characteristic of an

important subclass of assertive or representative speech acts that includes natural narrative,

much conversation and nearly all literary works. Tellable assertions represent unusual states

of affairs, which are problematic in some way. The speaker who makes such an assertion is

both reporting and displaying a certain state of affairs, ‘inviting his addressee(s) to join him

in contemplating it, evaluating it, and responding to it’ (Pratt 1977:136). In this way the

hearer is invited into an imaginative and affective involvement in this state of affairs and to

evaluate it in some way, that is to enter into an interpretive dialogue with the speaker or

text. The point of the display text, then, is to offer the recipient a text to observe,

experience or contemplate. Botha observes that Pratt’s idea can be used to refer to

narrative texts which are thought to be problematic in some way (Botha 1991:73 – see

further below).

In her 1981 work, Susan Lanser suggested the addition of a sixth (or perhaps seventh)

category to Searle’s taxonomy to account for the nature of fictional texts, which are typically

a mixture of fictional and non-fictional discourse. Her view is that a writer brings a

consistent hypothetical world into being, and commits him/herself to representing that

world with some consistency, bringing to bear the same conventions that would apply to

non-fictional texts (1981:290).

As became evident from the work of Austin, an illocutionary act cannot be evaluated as true

or false, but for effective communication to take place, the rules or conditions that apply to

the exchange need to be identified and adhered to. Some of these rules are general and

9

others particular to a specific situation. Different illocutionary acts, then, have different

appropriateness or felicity conditions for communication to be achieved. What is important

here is the relationship between the speaker/writer and addressee. Pratt uses an account of

the appropriateness conditions for the illocutionary act of asking a question, part of the

category of directives, as an example:

1. The speaker does not know the answer

2. The speaker believes it is possible that the hearer knows the answer

3. It is not obvious that hearer will provide the answer at the time without being asked

4. The speaker wants to know the answer (Pratt: 1977:81-82)

If these conditions have not been met, the act of communication has not been felicitous or

appropriate.

Similar conditions can be suggested for other illocutionary acts. Such rule-bound behaviour

can be of great value when assessing effective communication in speech or text and acts as

a point of departure for a number of biblical speech act analyses.

2.2 Sandy Petrey

In his 1990 book Speech Acts and Literary Theory, Petrey further examines the implications

of the work of Austin’s theory, noting that its importance lies in shifting ‘attention from

what language is to what it does and sees a social process where other linguistic

philosophies see a formal structure (1990:3). The value of his book lies both in his

introduction to SAT itself, and in the value of the survey he provides of applications of the

theory to literary texts. His evaluation of the work of Pratt and other literary figures such as

10

Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish has provided a useful point of departure for

many later studies.

2.3 Some counter-arguments

Before considering some examples of the application of SAT to biblical texts, it is worth

looking at some of the arguments of those who would challenge the very thought of such an

enterprise. In a 1979 article, Joseph Margolis challenged the whole project of applying a

speech act theory to literature, claiming both that ‘Grice’s maxims are extraordinarily vacant

or unqualified’, and that the absence of a settled scheme of speech acts renders the

attempts of Grice as well as Austin and Searle largely invalid. He also thinks that Pratt

‘conflates the matter of the difference between fiction and non-fiction with the fact that the

narrative may be either fictional or non-fictional’ (1979: 43, 49). He contends that fiction

and non-fiction are logically quite different but that the difference cannot be marked by

speech act models. He concludes that ‘the speech act theory appears to yield no special

advantage to the theory of literature or to the analysis of particular literary passages

(1979:50). This seems an unnecessarily negative assessment as Pratt draws a distinction

between fictional text and fictional discourse, the imaginatively constructed component of

that text, thus allowing for the treatment of texts of mixed genre or provenance. A more

trenchant critique is that offered by David Gorman (1999), who challenges the whole basis

of applying SAT to literary texts. He argues that most practitioners who attempt to do this

pick and choose from aspects of theory without a clear understanding of the analytical

philosophical foundations of the theory. To be fair, he brackets the work and influence of H

P Grice out of his argument, and thus cannot assess the work of Mary Louise Pratt, but he is

keen to engage the book by Sandy Petrey which has been used to a significant extent in

11

biblical interpretation. His main critique of Petrey resides in his understanding that

‘acceptance of current buzzwords and preoccupations replace critical thought in much of

Petrey’s book (1999:116), something which indicates that his project is much wider than a

particular attack on literary SAT. He culminates his argument with the view that ‘[i]n effect,

literary theorists have yet to discover speech-act theory-although some of them have

discussed it a great deal’ (1999:117). Such criticisms should not be ignored; neither, though,

should those who seek to apply SAT to literary texts be blamed for not being analytical

philosophers in a manner which Gorman would approve.

3. Applications of Speech Act theory to biblical texts

This section will include a selection of studies which engage with the application of SAT to

biblical texts. It is neither detailed nor exhaustive, but should provide a number of jumping

off point for those who would take this aspect of hermeneutics further. I have concentrated

on book length studies here, but it should also be remembered that a number of articles on

specific texts have also used these methodologies. A useful summary of many aspects of

SAT and their implications for biblical scholarship can be found in Anthony Thiselton’s 1992

work New Horizons in Hermeneutics: the Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical

Reading.

3.1 Hugh C White

A foundational collection for the application of SAT to biblical texts was that edited by Hugh

C White in 1988 and published as Speech Act theory and Biblical Criticism (Semeia 41). This

volume contains an extensive introduction to SAT along with an outline of various

possibilities of its application, and a number of essays in which different aspects of SAT are

12

explored. In the introduction, White summarises the basic features of SAT, based on

Austin’s philosophy which he sees as being most relevant to biblical studies. Usefully he

suggests that there are a number of approaches that might be open to such interpretation:

studies of texts that can themselves be understood as speech acts, studies which view

literature itself as a type of speech act, and those studies which concentrate on the

performative aspects of literature itself. His own essay, ‘The Value of Speech Act Theory for

Old Testament Hermeneutics’ (1988: 41-63) explores the third of these aspects, suggesting

that SAT might form a mediating discourse between the work of Jacques Derrida and that of

Roland Barthes. Other essays include a study of Genesis 2-3 by Susan Lanser which uses SAT

to engage with feminist readings of this controversial text by Phyllis Trible and Mieke Bal

(1988:67-84). Lanser is interested in the way in which Gricean implicature might be used to

acknowledge the dissonance between this material and that in Genesis 1, thus suggesting

that the tradition of genesis might already be representing a situation of tension within the

canonical text. A contribution by Daniel Patte (1988:85-101), well known for his structuralist

readings of biblical texts) seeks to develop a ‘speech act exegesis’ concerned with ‘religious

intentionality in an attempt to take the discourse further. These essays, among others, form

a basis for many later studies and are still of great value to those who would work with SAT

and to those who are interested in this aspect of the history of interpretation.

3.2 J Eugene Botha

An early full length treatment of SAT as an approach to New Testament texts is Jesus and

the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4:1-42 by J Eugene Botha(1991).

Botha sets out to use SAT for a very specific purpose, that of discovering something of the

style of the Fourth Gospel, and this combination of intentions becomes characteristic of a

13

number of speech act readings of biblical texts. It is Botha’s contention that stylistics had

not at the time of writing been satisfactorily attended to in Johannine studies and that

aspects of speech act theory are ideally placed in combination with concepts of narratology,

reception theory, literary and linguistic analysis, to provide a fresh insight into the style of

the Fourth Gospel. Such combinations of methodologies have also become rather typical of

studies which utilise the insights of speech act theory. Interestingly, and in contradiction to

the comments of David Gorman (above) in relation to a lack of understanding of analytical

philosophy by those who choose to use SAT, Botha suggests that ‘New Testament scholars

need not be trained linguists in order to utilize this tool to supplement their study of the

New Testament’ (1991:63). Botha’s chosen path through SAT relies on the work of Pratt,

and therefore of Grice, for literary texts and is he comes to the conclusion that the theory

has much to offer in describing ‘the vitality and dynamics’ of the text (1991:199). This

concept of textual dynamics is important as it opens the way to perceive the reading of texts

as a form of communication.

3.3 Dietmar Neufeld

Dietmar Neufeld’s Reconceiving Texts as Speech Acts: an Analysis of 1 John appeared in

1994. In this work Neufeld engages with SAT with particular reference to the writing of

Austin, Donald Evans, who treats biblical language on creation by such means, and Derrida,

developing a new methodological approach which he applies to the Christological

confessions and ethical exhortations of 1 John. Neufeld is interested in the work of Evans for

his project at least partly because of his development of a new logic of self-involvement,

especially as it is applied to religious discourse. If religious language is self-involving rather

than propositional, such an approach is attractive to those who are engaged in a study of

14

the confessional and exhortative language of scripture. This book provides an approach to

speech act theory that is more nuanced in the direction of theological hermeneutics than

the work of Botha, partly because of Neufeld’s chosen conversation partners, and partly

because of the texts he chooses to work with.

3.4 Richard S Briggs

Richard S Briggs’ Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (2001) is

arguably the most comprehensive introduction to SAT in terms of its philosophical

background and its application to texts of theological significance, including the confession

of sin, forgiveness and teaching. His work is notable for significant engagement with all the

main theorists of SAT, explicating and evaluating the various aspects in some detail before

moving on to examining the work of Donald Evans on a hermeneutic of self-involvement. He

offers a critique of Neufeld’s work, among others, arguing that a flaw in his work can be

found in trying to set up SAT as a way of getting around the problems caused by the

uncertainty of historical elements. Briggs suggests that these should not be seen as in

opposition to each other, but should suggest that the function of a particular passage can be

viewed in its historical context to good effect. This critique is worth mentioning as it shows

an early example of speech act theorists in dialogue with each other within the literature.

Briggs’ contention si that ‘the point of New Testament language as confessing, forgiving or

teaching may only be understood with reference to its self-involving nature’ (2001:181) and

he tries to follow Austin’s self-designation as a ‘linguistic phenomenologist’ as he proceeds

to explore biblical texts of self-involvement, demonstrating a pastoral as well as a linguistic

concern. This is a valuable work which builds on the insights of Brigg’s own teacher and

supervisor Anthony Thiselton.

15

3.5 Bridget Gilfillan Upton and Derek Tovey

Hearing Mark’s Endings: listening to ancient popular texts through speech act theory (2006)

is a less specifically theological work, drawing on the insights of Pratt and Grice to offer SAT

as a method of reading texts which are written on the cusp of orality and writtenness.

Building on an analysis of some aspects of ancient rhetoric in an attempt to show that

Mark’s gospel was designed to be read aloud, and using Xenophon of Ephesus’ An Ephesian

Tale as a control text, speech act readings of various endings of the gospel are offered which

discover the material to be new and interesting, assertible and tellable, in a way that is

generated by the dynamics of engagement with the performative nature of the texts.

Derek Tovey’s Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (1997), as its title suggests, uses

SAT as one method in a narratological toolbox to illuminate his chosen texts, interestingly

once again from the Fourth Gospel. Overall his book centres on the concept of point of view,

but he uses SAT to some effect in making his case.

4. Evaluation and Overview

In this article I have attempted to outline some of the basic tenets of Speech Act Theory as

initiated by Austin, and to indicate some of the range of theories and applications that can

be found hidden inside a term that has become something of an umbrella for a number of

methodological approaches, ranging from analytical philosophical analyses, through the

work of Searle, through pragmatic insights using the work of Grice and Pratt, to

deconstructive readings suggested by Fish and Derrida and interpretations within the range

of reader response criticisms which in biblical hermeneutics typically draw on the work of

16

Wolfgang Iser. Such a breadth of approach is part of the attraction of this type of reading

strategy or application of communication theory; it also contains the seeds of disillusion for

some, as is evidenced by the critiques of, among others, Margolis and Gorman. Perhaps

there are two major contributions and possibilities of further insight in these applications:

using these methodologies to apply to texts which are evidently performative in nature is

one way forward (Neufeld, Briggs), concentrating on material that is liturgical, prophetic,

ritual or rhetorical in genre; applying SAT as part of an interdisciplinary toolbox, including

narratology, reception theory, film and performance studies (Botha, Tovey, Gilfillan Upton)

is another possibility that could bear much fruit.

Bibliography

Austin, J L How To Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1962, 2nd ed

Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1975) This short philosophical work lies at the

heart of all speech act applications, and most books and articles start with an exposition of

it. It is, however, worth reading in its own right as it is foundational for all that follows

Bach, Kent and Harnish, Robert Linguistic Communications and Speech Acts (Cambridge MA:

MIT Press 1979) A useful linguistic volume which adds to Grice’s maxims.

Botha, J Eugene Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: a Speech Act Reading of John 4:1-42

(Leiden: EJ Brill 1991) One of the earliest full length treatments of SAT as applied to New

Testament texts. Botha uses SAT to illuminate a study of the style of the Fourth Gospel,

mainly via the insights of Pratt and Grice.

17

Briggs, Richard S Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (Edinburgh

and New York: T&T Clark 2001) This book provides probably the most comprehensive

introduction to the philosophical aspects of SAT and proceeds to apply the theory to

theological hermeneutics via the concept of self-involvement posited by Evans.

Cole, Peter and Morgan, Jerry L (eds) Syntax and Semantics Volume 3 Speech Acts(new York,

San Francisco, London: Academic Press 1975) A component of a major multi-volume work.

Introduces the work of H P Grice in published form

Evans, Donald D The Logic of Self-involvement: a Philosophical Study of Everyday language

with Special Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as Creator (London: SCM

Press 1963)

Fish, Stanley Is there a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities

(Cambridge MA, London: Harvard University Press 1980) A selection of sometimes

provocative essays which engages with SAT among other forms of linguistics.

‘How To Do things With Austin and Searle: Speech Act Theory and Literary Criticism’

in Fish 1980: 197-245

Gilfillan Upton, Bridget Hearing Mark’s Endings: listening to Ancient Popular texts through

Speech Act Theory (Leiden, Boston: Brill 2006) An attempt to engage with SAT as an

appropriate theory for texts received at the interface of orality and writtenness and usually

written to be read aloud. Engages with aspects of ancient rhetoric.

Gorman, David ‘The Use and Abuse of Speech-Act Theory in Criticism’ Poetics Today 20

(1999) 93-119 A trenchant argument against some of the ways in which SAT has been

applied to literary texts.

18

Grice H P ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Cole and Morgan (eds) 1975: 41-58

Iser, Wolfgang The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan

to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1974)

The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press 1978) Reader response theories that interact with SAT at certain points, and

have been widely used in biblical interpretation.

Lanser, Susan Sniader The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction (Princeton NJ:

Princeton University Press 1981) Uses SAT to link the novel with its context.

‘(Feminist) Criticism in the Garden: Inferring Genesis 2-3’ in White (ed) 1988: 67-84

Margolis, Joseph ‘Literature and Speech Acts’ Philosophy and Literature 3 (1979) 39-52 A

critique of those who apply ordinary language philosophy to written texts.

Neufeld, Dietmar Reconceiving Texts as Speech Acts: an analysis of 1 John (Leiden, New

York, Köln: EJ Brill 1994) Like Briggs, Neufeld engages with the work of Evans because of his

interest in the logic of self- involvement in his selected texts. Rather unusual in biblical

interpretation for sustained employment of the insights of Derrida.

Patte, Daniel ‘Speech Act Theory and Biblical Exegesis’ in White (ed) 1988: 85-102

Petrey, Sandy Speech Acts and Literary Theory (New York and London: Routledge 1990) A

work which explores the implication of the work of Austin and other speech act theorists in

the work of later writers, including Derrida and Fish as well as Pratt and Grice. A useful

introduction to SAT and literary texts.

19

Pratt, Mary Louise Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press 1977) One of the most widely used books by biblical scholars in this field.

Pratt introduces into SAT the work of the pragmatist H P Grice, integrating it into the

philosophy of J L Austin, and makes a sustained argument for the validity of using SAT for

literary texts.

Searle, John R Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language(Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press 1969) Austin’s student and the scholar who takes SAT into the realm of a

developed philosophy of mind. A major player in the field who cannot and should not be

ignored, notably for his development of a classification of speech acts which has attained

something approaching canonical status in the field.

Expression and meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press 1979)

Thiselton, Anthony C New Horizons in Hermeneutics: the Theory and Practice of

Transforming Biblical Reading (London: HarperCollins 1992) a comprehensive volume

summarising biblical and theological hermeneutic methodology. Valuable for its clarity and

scope.

Tovey, Derek Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic press

1997) A reading of the Fourth Gospel which uses SAT as a tool among more classically

narratological methods to illuminate the Fourth Gospel.

White, Hugh C (ed) Speech Act Theory and Biblical Criticism Semeia 41 (Decatur GA; Scholars

Press 1988) An early volume which contains a comprehensive introduction to SAT and a

20

series of essays in which various aspects are tested on biblical texts. Retains it value for all

who would come to grips with SAT as used in biblical interpretation.

‘Introduction: Speech Act Theory and Literary Criticism’ In White (ed) 1988:1-24

‘The Value of Speech Act Theory for Old Testament Hermeneutics’ in White (ed)

1988: 41-63

Bridget Gilfillan Upton

21