Speech Act Theory
It is well known that speech act theory (SAT) developed from the work of the Oxford
philosopher J.L Austin, whose 1955 William James lectures at Harvard were published as
How to do things with words in 1962. The most obvious insight promulgated by Austin was
that language does things as well as says them, and he claimed initially that his own work
was ‘neither difficult nor contentious’, something that was challenged by a number of later
writers (Austin: 1962:1). Since this early stage, SAT has developed and been applied in a
number of directions and in a great many discourses. Its use in biblical interpretation has
been varied, depending on a range of philosophical insights, from Austin himself, his student
John Searle and other scholars such as Stanley Fish, H P Grice, Mary Louise Pratt and Sandy
Petrey, all of whom engaged in argument about the direction and usefulness of Austin’s
ideas. In this article I shall outline some of the major insights (and conflicts) within the field
of SAT and show how they have been applied within the Biblical Studies field.
1. Founders of Speech Act Theory
1.1. J L Austin ‘How to do things with words’
In his admirable introduction to SAT, Richard S Briggs notes that SAT is not a comprehensive
philosophy of language, and he criticises John Searle for trying to make it such (2001:9-10).
This is a useful observation as it leaves scope to understand it as a polyvalent approach
based on the Austinian basic claim: that language is performative in nature. Even this claim,
though, went through a number of developmental stages in Austin’s own work. His
fundamental project concerned describing and evaluating the two functions he detected in
spoken language, those of saying and doing. Austin was primarily interested in ordinary or
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oral language rather than written language, and thus his theory is not axiomatically suitable
for a text-based discourse such as biblical studies, but his view that ‘utterances made in a
specific context have a specific “force”, not necessarily related to the form of the utterance
but certainly distinguishable from it’ (Botha 1991:64) has potential for rhetorically attuned
scriptural texts.
To begin with, Austin used the term ‘performative’ for language that did something, that
performed an act, while ‘constative’ was reserved for language which said something, or
made a statement, and his initial formulations concerned these two groups, although the
terms became somewhat conflated as Austin’s thinking developed during his lectures.
While the constative statement allowed for judgements of true or false, the performative
could only be evaluated in terms of its success or the lack of it. Austin used terms such as
felicitous/infelicitous, happy/unhappy, effective/ineffective or appropriate/inappropriate to
mark and maintain this distinction. Further, he analysed the performative function of
natural language as encompassing three possible acts: those of locution, illocution and
perlocution. The locutionary act produces a coherent and acceptable grammatical
utterance. It will be noted that speech act theory deals in utterances rather than sentences,
which are understood as relating to the study of grammar and semantics rather than as
contextualised in particular situations and thus performing an act. The illocutionary act
produces an utterance with ‘illocutionary force’, a combination of language and social
practice as the speaker utters a particular locution in a certain context.
Austin writes:
For there are very numerous functions of or ways in which we use speech, and it
makes a great difference to our act in some sense…in which way and in what sense
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we were on this occasion ‘using’ it. It makes a great difference whether we were
advising, or merely suggesting, or actually ordering, whether we were strictly
promising or only announcing a vague intention, and so forth (1975: 99).
Austin goes on to distinguish a third category of performative function, that of the
perlocutionary act, one which concentrates on the ‘consequential effects upon the feelings,
thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be
done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them…’ (1975:99). The issue here
is that the speaker has performed an act which is only of oblique, if any, reference to the
performance of the locutionary or illocutionary act. The locutionary act, argued Austin in
summary, has a meaning, the illocutionary act has a certain force in saying something, and
the perlocutionary act is the achieving of certain effects by saying something (1975: 121).
This last act may be of particular interest in Biblical Studies, to those who would interpret
texts which have been accorded some level of authority by generations of communities who
come from quite different interpretive contexts.
These definitions, which are by no means absolute, form a basis for an understanding of
Austin’s SAT, which, it should be remembered, applies to ordinary or spoken language.
Austin went so far as to schematise some of the necessary conditions for the happy or
felicitous function of a performative act, and argues that a similar set of rules exists for nonverbal conventional acts, but he continued to claim that this scheme was tentative, a work
by no means complete. (1975: 14-15).
Austin’s work is usefully seen by Briggs as laying down a foundation which invited further
development (2001:43). It was thus left to Austin’s student John R. Searle to develop and
spread these ideas in ways which partly helped and partly hindered their application to
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literary texts in ways that could be creative for Biblical interpretation. Searle’s work
provides, without doubt, the most comprehensive account of SAT.
1.2 John R Searle
No one who engages with SAT can ignore the work of John R Searle, who, it can be argued,
is the major theorist in the development of SAT. Searle’s two major contributions to SAT are
Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969) and Expression and Meaning:
Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (1979), in both of which Searle sees his contribution as
forming something approaching a developed philosophy of mind. A major modification,
which would become a standard feature of later SAT, was to distinguish the illocutionary act
from the propositional act – that is, the act of expressing the proposition (a phrase that is
neutral as to illocutionary force) (Briggs 2001:46). Further, Searle challenges and criticises
several elements of Austin’s taxonomy, developing it further in ways which have rendered
his theories on the whole less attractive to biblical scholars than those developed from
Austin’s work by a number of scholars. There is no doubt, though, that Searle’s
categorisations have been as influential in understanding SAT as a philosophical idea as
those of any other scholar. He summarises his fundamental hypothesis thus:
I have said that the hypothesis of this book is that speaking a language is performing
acts according to rules. The form this hypothesis will take is that the semantic
structure of a language may be regarded as a conventional realization of a series of
sets of underlying constitutive rules, and that speech acts are acts characteristically
performed by uttering expressions in accordance with these sets of constituent rules
(1969:36-7).
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It can clearly be seen that Searle’s interest remains firmly in the area of spoken language
and he proceeds to categorise speech acts in careful and distinctive ways, refining the rather
over-complex categorisations Austin suggested towards the end of his work. Searle’s
taxonomy has become standard, even canonical, for speech act theorists, attempting to
show that there are five (or perhaps six) types of speech act, arranged around categories of
direction of fit between word and world (see Briggs: 2001:50-56). These types of act
include assertives or representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, declarations (and
possibly assertive declarations). As Sandy Petrey points out, ‘for students of literature, the
thorniest aspect of Speech Acts is its proclivity for the abstract notation of logical analysis –
Searle represents the general form of illocution not by discussing society and conventions,
but by writing “F(p),” for example – and for positing the simplified context on which this
notation depends (1990: 60). This tendency to abstract has certainly formed a barrier for
those who wish to use the very real insights of SAT in the understanding of real,
conventionally contextualised language, as many studying literary, let alone biblical texts,
which deal with situations not covered by logical theory, would want to do. Searle also
complicates matters by introducing an idea of fiction as pretence which makes things
difficult for those who want to apply these theories to literary texts. This insistence that
fiction operates with distinct and different sets of conventions apply from those operating in
the real world is unattractive to critics seeking to develop the theory in just these areas and
raises questions associated with genre, particularly with texts of mixed provenance and
complex manuscript traditions. His emphasis on the tenet that ‘speaking a language is a
rule-governed form of behaviour’ has been influential for critics who would use SAT in a
variety of ways.
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Further treatments of SAT as linguistic philosophy can be found in the various debates
between and among Austin, Searle, Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish. These very important
conversations should be acknowledged but they only been tangentially used in biblical
interpretation as far as I am aware.
2. SAT and Literary Theory
2.1. Mary Louise Pratt
Perhaps the most influential application of SAT to literary, and therefore biblical, texts has
been based on the work of Mary Louise Pratt and her 1977 work Toward a Speech Act
Theory of Literary Discourse, in which she argues robustly against making a firm, or any,
distinction between literature and ordinary or spoken language. Indeed, Pratt challenges the
whole formalist school of structuralist linguistics for making such a distinction, which she
sees as both unnecessary and destructive (1977:xii).
In a trenchant argument, she claims that all language can be considered under the general
umbrella of communication theory, arguing that ‘[u]nless we are foolish enough to claim
that people organize their anecdotes around patterns they learn from reading literature, we
are obliged to draw the more obvious conclusion that the formal similarities between
natural narrative and literary narrative derive from the fact that at some level of analysis
they are utterances of the same type’ (1977:69). She uses this insight as a point of departure
for the development of a ‘context-dependent theory of literature’ which allows her to
describe literary utterances in the same terms as other types of utterance and provides a
platform for a speech act theory and practice for written texts (1977:89; Gilfillan Upton
2006: 96-102).
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This context-dependence has proved informative for biblical interpretation in its emphasis
on the ‘intentions, attitudes and expectations of the participants, the relationships existing
between the participants, and, generally, the unspoken rules and conventions that are
understood to be in play when an utterance is made and received’ (1977:86). Pratt brings
into her theoretical framework the work of the pragmatist H P Grice who introduced his
idea of the Cooperative Principle in a series of lectures given in 1967, but not published until
1975. Grice, like Austin, concentrates on conversational language, and insists that the most
important element of language use is the success of an utterance. In his view,
communication is governed by
A rough general principle which participants will be expected to observe, viz., “Make
your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,
by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk-exchange in which you are engaged”
(1975:45).
Grice enlarges this Cooperative Principle by proposing four maxims or overall
appropriateness conditions which he assumes to be in force when any conversation takes
place. They are:
1. The maxim of Quantity which dictates that a contribution to an exchange should
be as informative as required, not more, not less. It can be summarised as ‘Be
economical’.
2. The maxim of Quality which states that a contribution should be true,
summarised as ‘Be sincere’.
3. The maxim of Relation. ‘Be relevant’.
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4. The maxim of Manner. ‘Be perspicuous or clear’. (Summary in Gilfillan Upton
2006: 98)
Other maxims have been suggested, including those of politeness or morality, and Kent
Bach and Robert Harness made the helpful underpinning suggestion of ‘Other things being
equal, construe the speakers’ remarks so as to violate as few maxims as possible (1979:68).
In neither the spoken nor the written word are all the maxims or appropriateness conditions
held at the same time. A helpful notion is that of implicature, which is a method of
reconstructing meaning when one or more of the maxims has been flouted. This aspect, of
the flouting or non-fulfilment of an appropriateness condition is particularly helpful when
dealing with literary texts rather than the spoken word. Botha points out, indeed, that it is
the only possible kind of non-fulfilment in a literary speech situation (1991:68). He and Pratt
both agree that ‘in literature it is always the flouting of a maxim that is relevant when there
is a failure to fulfil a maxim. i.e. whenever flouting has taken place in literature, it is the
intention, at the level of the communication between the implied author and the readers or
hearers, that the situation should be resolved by implicature’ (Gilfillan Upton 2006:99). This
interestingly reintroduces to SAT the concept of intentionality, which is central to Searle’s
understanding but is often rather overlooked in treatments that arise from narratology
rather than the philosophy of language. I argued then that the concept of implicature
justifies the inclusion of Gricean pragmatics into a basically Austinian model, and it still
seems to me to be the case.
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Pratt’s development of Grice’s model includes the introduction of a ‘display text’ with its
associated principles of ‘assertibility’ and ‘tellability’, referring to new and interesting
information respectively. She argues that display-producing relevance is characteristic of an
important subclass of assertive or representative speech acts that includes natural
narrative, much conversation and nearly all literary works. Tellable assertions represent
unusual states of affairs, which are problematic in some way. The speaker who makes such
an assertion is both reporting and displaying a certain state of affairs, ‘inviting his
addressee(s) to join him in contemplating it, evaluating it, and responding to it’ (Pratt
1977:136). In this way the hearer is invited into an imaginative and affective involvement in
this state of affairs and to evaluate it in some way, that is to enter into an interpretive
dialogue with the speaker or text. The point of the display text, then, is to offer the recipient
a text to observe, experience or contemplate. Botha observes that Pratt’s idea can be used
to refer to narrative texts which are thought to be problematic in some way (Botha 1991:73
– see further below).
In her 1981 work, Susan Lanser suggested the addition of a sixth (or perhaps seventh)
category to Searle’s taxonomy to account for the nature of fictional texts, which are typically
a mixture of fictional and non-fictional discourse. Her view is that a writer brings a
consistent hypothetical world into being, and commits him/herself to representing that
world with some consistency, bringing to bear the same conventions that would apply to
non-fictional texts (1981:290).
As became evident from the work of Austin, an illocutionary act cannot be evaluated as true
or false, but for effective communication to take place, the rules or conditions that apply to
the exchange need to be identified and adhered to. Some of these rules are general and
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others particular to a specific situation. Different illocutionary acts, then, have different
appropriateness or felicity conditions for communication to be achieved. What is important
here is the relationship between the speaker/writer and addressee. Pratt uses an account of
the appropriateness conditions for the illocutionary act of asking a question, part of the
category of directives, as an example:
1. The speaker does not know the answer
2. The speaker believes it is possible that the hearer knows the answer
3. It is not obvious that hearer will provide the answer at the time without being asked
4. The speaker wants to know the answer (Pratt: 1977:81-82)
If these conditions have not been met, the act of communication has not been felicitous or
appropriate.
Similar conditions can be suggested for other illocutionary acts. Such rule-bound behaviour
can be of great value when assessing effective communication in speech or text and acts as
a point of departure for a number of biblical speech act analyses.
2.2 Sandy Petrey
In his 1990 book Speech Acts and Literary Theory, Petrey further examines the implications
of the work of Austin’s theory, noting that its importance lies in shifting ‘attention from
what language is to what it does and sees a social process where other linguistic
philosophies see a formal structure (1990:3). The value of his book lies both in his
introduction to SAT itself, and in the value of the survey he provides of applications of the
theory to literary texts. His evaluation of the work of Pratt and other literary figures such as
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Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish has provided a useful point of departure for
many later studies.
2.3 Some counter-arguments
Before considering some examples of the application of SAT to biblical texts, it is worth
looking at some of the arguments of those who would challenge the very thought of such an
enterprise. In a 1979 article, Joseph Margolis challenged the whole project of applying a
speech act theory to literature, claiming both that ‘Grice’s maxims are extraordinarily vacant
or unqualified’, and that the absence of a settled scheme of speech acts renders the
attempts of Grice as well as Austin and Searle largely invalid. He also thinks that Pratt
‘conflates the matter of the difference between fiction and non-fiction with the fact that the
narrative may be either fictional or non-fictional’ (1979: 43, 49). He contends that fiction
and non-fiction are logically quite different but that the difference cannot be marked by
speech act models. He concludes that ‘the speech act theory appears to yield no special
advantage to the theory of literature or to the analysis of particular literary passages
(1979:50). This seems an unnecessarily negative assessment as Pratt draws a distinction
between fictional text and fictional discourse, the imaginatively constructed component of
that text, thus allowing for the treatment of texts of mixed genre or provenance. A more
trenchant critique is that offered by David Gorman (1999), who challenges the whole basis
of applying SAT to literary texts. He argues that most practitioners who attempt to do this
pick and choose from aspects of theory without a clear understanding of the analytical
philosophical foundations of the theory. To be fair, he brackets the work and influence of H
P Grice out of his argument, and thus cannot assess the work of Mary Louise Pratt, but he is
keen to engage the book by Sandy Petrey which has been used to a significant extent in
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biblical interpretation. His main critique of Petrey resides in his understanding that
‘acceptance of current buzzwords and preoccupations replace critical thought in much of
Petrey’s book (1999:116), something which indicates that his project is much wider than a
particular attack on literary SAT. He culminates his argument with the view that ‘[i]n effect,
literary theorists have yet to discover speech-act theory-although some of them have
discussed it a great deal’ (1999:117). Such criticisms should not be ignored; neither, though,
should those who seek to apply SAT to literary texts be blamed for not being analytical
philosophers in a manner which Gorman would approve.
3. Applications of Speech Act theory to biblical texts
This section will include a selection of studies which engage with the application of SAT to
biblical texts. It is neither detailed nor exhaustive, but should provide a number of jumping
off point for those who would take this aspect of hermeneutics further. I have concentrated
on book length studies here, but it should also be remembered that a number of articles on
specific texts have also used these methodologies. A useful summary of many aspects of
SAT and their implications for biblical scholarship can be found in Anthony Thiselton’s 1992
work New Horizons in Hermeneutics: the Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical
Reading.
3.1 Hugh C White
A foundational collection for the application of SAT to biblical texts was that edited by Hugh
C White in 1988 and published as Speech Act theory and Biblical Criticism (Semeia 41). This
volume contains an extensive introduction to SAT along with an outline of various
possibilities of its application, and a number of essays in which different aspects of SAT are
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explored. In the introduction, White summarises the basic features of SAT, based on
Austin’s philosophy which he sees as being most relevant to biblical studies. Usefully he
suggests that there are a number of approaches that might be open to such interpretation:
studies of texts that can themselves be understood as speech acts, studies which view
literature itself as a type of speech act, and those studies which concentrate on the
performative aspects of literature itself. His own essay, ‘The Value of Speech Act Theory for
Old Testament Hermeneutics’ (1988: 41-63) explores the third of these aspects, suggesting
that SAT might form a mediating discourse between the work of Jacques Derrida and that of
Roland Barthes. Other essays include a study of Genesis 2-3 by Susan Lanser which uses SAT
to engage with feminist readings of this controversial text by Phyllis Trible and Mieke Bal
(1988:67-84). Lanser is interested in the way in which Gricean implicature might be used to
acknowledge the dissonance between this material and that in Genesis 1, thus suggesting
that the tradition of genesis might already be representing a situation of tension within the
canonical text. A contribution by Daniel Patte (1988:85-101), well known for his structuralist
readings of biblical texts) seeks to develop a ‘speech act exegesis’ concerned with ‘religious
intentionality in an attempt to take the discourse further. These essays, among others, form
a basis for many later studies and are still of great value to those who would work with SAT
and to those who are interested in this aspect of the history of interpretation.
3.2 J Eugene Botha
An early full length treatment of SAT as an approach to New Testament texts is Jesus and
the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4:1-42 by J Eugene Botha(1991).
Botha sets out to use SAT for a very specific purpose, that of discovering something of the
style of the Fourth Gospel, and this combination of intentions becomes characteristic of a
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number of speech act readings of biblical texts. It is Botha’s contention that stylistics had
not at the time of writing been satisfactorily attended to in Johannine studies and that
aspects of speech act theory are ideally placed in combination with concepts of narratology,
reception theory, literary and linguistic analysis, to provide a fresh insight into the style of
the Fourth Gospel. Such combinations of methodologies have also become rather typical of
studies which utilise the insights of speech act theory. Interestingly, and in contradiction to
the comments of David Gorman (above) in relation to a lack of understanding of analytical
philosophy by those who choose to use SAT, Botha suggests that ‘New Testament scholars
need not be trained linguists in order to utilize this tool to supplement their study of the
New Testament’ (1991:63). Botha’s chosen path through SAT relies on the work of Pratt,
and therefore of Grice, for literary texts and is he comes to the conclusion that the theory
has much to offer in describing ‘the vitality and dynamics’ of the text (1991:199). This
concept of textual dynamics is important as it opens the way to perceive the reading of texts
as a form of communication.
3.3 Dietmar Neufeld
Dietmar Neufeld’s Reconceiving Texts as Speech Acts: an Analysis of 1 John appeared in
1994. In this work Neufeld engages with SAT with particular reference to the writing of
Austin, Donald Evans, who treats biblical language on creation by such means, and Derrida,
developing a new methodological approach which he applies to the Christological
confessions and ethical exhortations of 1 John. Neufeld is interested in the work of Evans for
his project at least partly because of his development of a new logic of self-involvement,
especially as it is applied to religious discourse. If religious language is self-involving rather
than propositional, such an approach is attractive to those who are engaged in a study of
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the confessional and exhortative language of scripture. This book provides an approach to
speech act theory that is more nuanced in the direction of theological hermeneutics than
the work of Botha, partly because of Neufeld’s chosen conversation partners, and partly
because of the texts he chooses to work with.
3.4 Richard S Briggs
Richard S Briggs’ Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (2001) is
arguably the most comprehensive introduction to SAT in terms of its philosophical
background and its application to texts of theological significance, including the confession
of sin, forgiveness and teaching. His work is notable for significant engagement with all the
main theorists of SAT, explicating and evaluating the various aspects in some detail before
moving on to examining the work of Donald Evans on a hermeneutic of self-involvement. He
offers a critique of Neufeld’s work, among others, arguing that a flaw in his work can be
found in trying to set up SAT as a way of getting around the problems caused by the
uncertainty of historical elements. Briggs suggests that these should not be seen as in
opposition to each other, but should suggest that the function of a particular passage can be
viewed in its historical context to good effect. This critique is worth mentioning as it shows
an early example of speech act theorists in dialogue with each other within the literature.
Briggs’ contention si that ‘the point of New Testament language as confessing, forgiving or
teaching may only be understood with reference to its self-involving nature’ (2001:181) and
he tries to follow Austin’s self-designation as a ‘linguistic phenomenologist’ as he proceeds
to explore biblical texts of self-involvement, demonstrating a pastoral as well as a linguistic
concern. This is a valuable work which builds on the insights of Brigg’s own teacher and
supervisor Anthony Thiselton.
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3.5 Bridget Gilfillan Upton and Derek Tovey
Hearing Mark’s Endings: listening to ancient popular texts through speech act theory (2006)
is a less specifically theological work, drawing on the insights of Pratt and Grice to offer SAT
as a method of reading texts which are written on the cusp of orality and writtenness.
Building on an analysis of some aspects of ancient rhetoric in an attempt to show that
Mark’s gospel was designed to be read aloud, and using Xenophon of Ephesus’ An Ephesian
Tale as a control text, speech act readings of various endings of the gospel are offered which
discover the material to be new and interesting, assertible and tellable, in a way that is
generated by the dynamics of engagement with the performative nature of the texts.
Derek Tovey’s Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (1997), as its title suggests, uses
SAT as one method in a narratological toolbox to illuminate his chosen texts, interestingly
once again from the Fourth Gospel. Overall his book centres on the concept of point of view,
but he uses SAT to some effect in making his case.
4. Evaluation and Overview
In this article I have attempted to outline some of the basic tenets of Speech Act Theory as
initiated by Austin, and to indicate some of the range of theories and applications that can
be found hidden inside a term that has become something of an umbrella for a number of
methodological approaches, ranging from analytical philosophical analyses, through the
work of Searle, through pragmatic insights using the work of Grice and Pratt, to
deconstructive readings suggested by Fish and Derrida and interpretations within the range
of reader response criticisms which in biblical hermeneutics typically draw on the work of
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Wolfgang Iser. Such a breadth of approach is part of the attraction of this type of reading
strategy or application of communication theory; it also contains the seeds of disillusion for
some, as is evidenced by the critiques of, among others, Margolis and Gorman. Perhaps
there are two major contributions and possibilities of further insight in these applications:
using these methodologies to apply to texts which are evidently performative in nature is
one way forward (Neufeld, Briggs), concentrating on material that is liturgical, prophetic,
ritual or rhetorical in genre; applying SAT as part of an interdisciplinary toolbox, including
narratology, reception theory, film and performance studies (Botha, Tovey, Gilfillan Upton)
is another possibility that could bear much fruit.
Bibliography
Austin, J L How To Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1962, 2nd ed
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1975) This short philosophical work lies at the
heart of all speech act applications, and most books and articles start with an exposition of
it. It is, however, worth reading in its own right as it is foundational for all that follows
Bach, Kent and Harnish, Robert Linguistic Communications and Speech Acts (Cambridge MA:
MIT Press 1979) A useful linguistic volume which adds to Grice’s maxims.
Botha, J Eugene Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: a Speech Act Reading of John 4:1-42
(Leiden: EJ Brill 1991) One of the earliest full length treatments of SAT as applied to New
Testament texts. Botha uses SAT to illuminate a study of the style of the Fourth Gospel,
mainly via the insights of Pratt and Grice.
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Briggs, Richard S Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (Edinburgh
and New York: T&T Clark 2001) This book provides probably the most comprehensive
introduction to the philosophical aspects of SAT and proceeds to apply the theory to
theological hermeneutics via the concept of self-involvement posited by Evans.
Cole, Peter and Morgan, Jerry L (eds) Syntax and Semantics Volume 3 Speech Acts(new York,
San Francisco, London: Academic Press 1975) A component of a major multi-volume work.
Introduces the work of H P Grice in published form
Evans, Donald D The Logic of Self-involvement: a Philosophical Study of Everyday language
with Special Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as Creator (London: SCM
Press 1963)
Fish, Stanley Is there a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities
(Cambridge MA, London: Harvard University Press 1980) A selection of sometimes
provocative essays which engages with SAT among other forms of linguistics.
‘How To Do things With Austin and Searle: Speech Act Theory and Literary Criticism’
in Fish 1980: 197-245
Gilfillan Upton, Bridget Hearing Mark’s Endings: listening to Ancient Popular texts through
Speech Act Theory (Leiden, Boston: Brill 2006) An attempt to engage with SAT as an
appropriate theory for texts received at the interface of orality and writtenness and usually
written to be read aloud. Engages with aspects of ancient rhetoric.
Gorman, David ‘The Use and Abuse of Speech-Act Theory in Criticism’ Poetics Today 20
(1999) 93-119 A trenchant argument against some of the ways in which SAT has been
applied to literary texts.
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Grice H P ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Cole and Morgan (eds) 1975: 41-58
Iser, Wolfgang The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan
to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1974)
The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press 1978) Reader response theories that interact with SAT at certain points, and
have been widely used in biblical interpretation.
Lanser, Susan Sniader The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction (Princeton NJ:
Princeton University Press 1981) Uses SAT to link the novel with its context.
‘(Feminist) Criticism in the Garden: Inferring Genesis 2-3’ in White (ed) 1988: 67-84
Margolis, Joseph ‘Literature and Speech Acts’ Philosophy and Literature 3 (1979) 39-52 A
critique of those who apply ordinary language philosophy to written texts.
Neufeld, Dietmar Reconceiving Texts as Speech Acts: an analysis of 1 John (Leiden, New
York, Köln: EJ Brill 1994) Like Briggs, Neufeld engages with the work of Evans because of his
interest in the logic of self- involvement in his selected texts. Rather unusual in biblical
interpretation for sustained employment of the insights of Derrida.
Patte, Daniel ‘Speech Act Theory and Biblical Exegesis’ in White (ed) 1988: 85-102
Petrey, Sandy Speech Acts and Literary Theory (New York and London: Routledge 1990) A
work which explores the implication of the work of Austin and other speech act theorists in
the work of later writers, including Derrida and Fish as well as Pratt and Grice. A useful
introduction to SAT and literary texts.
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Pratt, Mary Louise Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press 1977) One of the most widely used books by biblical scholars in this field.
Pratt introduces into SAT the work of the pragmatist H P Grice, integrating it into the
philosophy of J L Austin, and makes a sustained argument for the validity of using SAT for
literary texts.
Searle, John R Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1969) Austin’s student and the scholar who takes SAT into the realm of a
developed philosophy of mind. A major player in the field who cannot and should not be
ignored, notably for his development of a classification of speech acts which has attained
something approaching canonical status in the field.
Expression and meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1979)
Thiselton, Anthony C New Horizons in Hermeneutics: the Theory and Practice of
Transforming Biblical Reading (London: HarperCollins 1992) a comprehensive volume
summarising biblical and theological hermeneutic methodology. Valuable for its clarity and
scope.
Tovey, Derek Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic press
1997) A reading of the Fourth Gospel which uses SAT as a tool among more classically
narratological methods to illuminate the Fourth Gospel.
White, Hugh C (ed) Speech Act Theory and Biblical Criticism Semeia 41 (Decatur GA; Scholars
Press 1988) An early volume which contains a comprehensive introduction to SAT and a
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series of essays in which various aspects are tested on biblical texts. Retains it value for all
who would come to grips with SAT as used in biblical interpretation.
‘Introduction: Speech Act Theory and Literary Criticism’ In White (ed) 1988:1-24
‘The Value of Speech Act Theory for Old Testament Hermeneutics’ in White (ed)
1988: 41-63
Bridget Gilfillan Upton
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