What is it for a sentence to have a certain meaning? This is the
question that William P. Alston, one of America's most
distinguished and prolific analytic philosophers, addresses in this
major contribution to the philosophy of language. His answer
focuses on the given sentence's potential to play the role that its
speaker had in mind -- what he terms the usability of the sentence
to perform the illocutionary act intended by its speaker.
Alston defines an illocutionary act as an act of saying
something with a certain "content". He develops his account of what
it is to perform such acts in terms of taking responsibility, in
uttering a sentence, for the existence of certain conditions. In
requesting someone to open a window, for example, the speaker takes
responsibility for its being the case that the window is closed and
that the speaker has an interest in its being opened.
In Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning, Alston expands upon
this concept, creating a framework of five categories of
illocutionary act and going on to argue that sentence meaning is
fundamentally a matter of illocutionary act potential; that is, for
a sentence to have a particular meaning is for it to be usable to
perform illocutionary acts of a certain type.
In providing detailed and explicit patterns of analysis for the
whole range of illocutionary acts, Alston makes a unique
contribution to the field of philosophy of language -- one that is
likely to generate debate for years to come.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
