Page 63 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

40 Communication and Evolution of Society

language community P who means x, then it is possible that there
be an expression in the language spoken by P which is an exact
expression of x.” ™ For our purposes, we can weaken this postu-
late to require that in a given language, for every interpersonal
relation that a speaker wants to take up explicitly with another
member of his language community, a suitable performative ex-
pression is either available or, if necessary, can be introduced
through a specification of available expressions. With this modifi-
cation, we can take into account reservations that have been ex-
pressed concerning Searle’s principle.’? In any case the heuristic
meaning is clear—if the postulate of expressibility is valid, analy-
sis can be limited to institutionally unbound, explicit speech ac-
tions in standard form.
The diagram sums up the viewpoints from which I have de-
limited the class of speech acts basic for analysis.

Derivation of the Analytic Units of the Theory of Speech Acts

Instrumental Actions ——————~ Social Actions

Symbolic Actions Communicative Actions Strategic Actions

Not Propositionally Propositionally
Differentiated Differentiated

Nonverbal Verbal Nonverbal Verbal
(illocutionarily
abbreviated
speech actions)

Institutionally — Institutionally
Bound Unbound

Implicit Explicit

Context- Context-
dependent independent

A
Analytic Units