Page 49 - Critical and Cultural Theory

LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION
in tantalizing ways to audiences averse to plain words and fond of
riddles.
Both Classical and Renaissance approaches to rhetoric indicate
that rhetorical language is an important aspect of human beha-
viour because it defines and affects people's actions. Recent devel-
opments in philosophy of language have sought to show that
speech is indeed a species of action. Moving from the study of
performative utterances (namely, utterances that coincide with
something being 'done' rather than merely 'stated'), J. L. Austin
(1911-60) 3 has argued that in any use of language, a speaker
performs several acts. For example, if I say 'It's five o'clock', I
may be performing the following acts: (1) stating the time of day;
(2) reminding Louise that her favourite TV programme will be
starting soon; (3) warning Barney that he may be late for work.
There are three main types of speech act. A locutionary act is the
act of saying something. An illocutionary act is an act done in
saying something. A perlocutionary act is an act done by saying
something. In the example presented above, (1) (stating) is a locu-
tionary act; (2) (reminding) is an illocutionary act; and (3)
(warning) is a perlocutionary act (Austin 1962).
Shifting approaches to the relationship between speech and
action show that even as the lessons and models of rhetoric are
carried over from one culture to another, their persistence depends
on their adaptability to different ideological contexts. Rhetoric's
rubber resilience cannot, however, be explained simply as a conco-
mitant of its invaluable ideological function. In fact, it has to do
with the fact that rhetoric inhabits language in all its manifesta-
tions and that, insofar as language constructs reality, without
rhetoric there may be no reality for us to speak or write about.
Language, as we have seen, displaces reality by substituting disem-
bodied and conventional signs for concrete objects. Rhetoric
throws this process of displacement into relief by overtly capitaliz-
ing on tropes', strategies which (as indicated by the etymology of
this word) turn something into something else. Two important
aspects of rhetoric can be cited to illustrate this point: irony and
allegory. Both are devices that produce meaning by unsettling
conventional assumptions about the relationship between a sign
and the concept it is supposed to stand for. 'Irony' derives from

3 1*" This philosopher is also discussed in Part I, Chapter 1, 'Meaning'.

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