Page 80 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

57 What Is Universal Pragmatics?

fulness). But this proves to be unnecessary if in a given speech
action we distinguish among
a. The implicitly presupposed conditions of generalized context,
b. The specific meaning of an interpersonal relation to be estab-
lished, and
c. The implicitly raised, general validity claim.
Whereas (a) and (b) fix the distinct classes (different in differ-
ent languages) of standardized speech actions, (c) determines
the universal modes of communication, modes inherent in speech
in general.
Before going into (a) and (b), I would like at least to remark
that the Austinian starting point in the distinction between per-
formative and constative utterances provides an overly narrow
view; the validity spectrum of speech is not exhausted by the two
modes of communication I developed from this distinction. Nat-
urally there can be no mode of communication in which the
intelligibility of an utterance is thematically stressed; for every
speech act must fulfill the presupposition of comprehensibility
in the same way. If in some communication there is a breakdown
of intelligibility, the requirement of comprehensibility can be made
thematic only through passing over to a hermeneutic discourse,
and then in connection with the relevant linguistic system. The
truthfulness with which a speaker utters his intentions can, how-
ever, be stressed at the level of communicative action in the same
way as the truth of a proposition and the rightness (or appropri-
ateness) of an interpersonal relation. Truthfulness guarantees
the transparency of a subjectivity representing itself in language.
It is especially emphasized in the expressive use of language. The
paradigms are first-person sentences in which the speaker’s wishes,
feelings, intentions, etc. (which are expressed incidentally in
every speech act) become disclosed, that is, sentences such as:
3) “I long for you.”

4) “I wish that...”
It is unusual for such sentences to be explicitly embedded in an
illocutionary act as follows:
3’) “I hereby express to you that I long for you.”