Page 74 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

51 What Is Universal Pragmatics?

1) “Tassert that...”

2) “I’m warning you that...”
equally express illocutionary acts.** But this has the interesting
consequence that the validity claim contained in constative speech
acts (truth/falsity) represents only a special case among the
validity claims that speakers, in speech acts, raise and offer for
vindication vis-a-vis hearers.

In general we may say this: with both statements (and, for example,
descriptions) and warnings, etc., the question of whether, granting
that you did warn and had the right to warn, did state or did advise,
you were right to state or to warn or advise, can arise—not in the sense
of whether it was opportune or expedient, but whether, on the facts
and your knowledge of the facts and the purpose for which you were
speaking, and so on, this was the proper thing to say.8+
In this passage Austin emphasizes the claims to be right, or
validity claims, that we raise with any (and not just with con-
stative) speech acts. But he distinguishes these only incidentally
from the conditions of the generalized context that typically must
be fulfilled if a speech act of the corresponding type is to succeed
(that is, from happiness/unhappiness conditions in general). It
is true of assertions, in the same way as it is of warnings, advis-
ings, promisings, and so forth, that they can succeed only if both
conditions are fulfilled: (a) to be in order, and (b) to be right.

But the real conclusion must surely be that we need ... to establish
with respect to each kind of illocutionary act—warnings, estimates,
verdicts, statements, and descriptions—what if any is the specific way
in which they are intended, first to be in order or not in order, and
second, to be “right” or “wrong”; what terms of appraisal and dis-
appraisal are used for each and what they mean. This is a wide field
and certainly will not lead to a simple distinction of true and false;
nor will it lead to a distinction of statements from the rest, for stating
is only one among very numerous speech acts of the illocutionary
class.85

Speech acts can be in order with respect to typically restricted
contexts (a); but they can be valid only with respect to the