Procedural Acts as Double-Conventionalized Acts: Considerations on Conventional Acts Performed in a Courtroom Discourse

Abstract

AbstractThe subject of interest of this article is procedural acts considered as double-conventionalized acts. It is assumed in this article that in the case of procedural acts, one can distinguish two levels of conventionalization: (1) the level of a speech act and (2) the level of a procedural act. Both above-mentioned levels affect each other in various ways, what is discussed in the article. As assumed in the article, the analysis of acts characterized by this particular trait (double conventionalization) and with due account of this trait allows one to observe phenomena that can be hard or even impossible to notice in the process of analyzing acts that are deprived of this trait. Furthermore, it seems that the description of this type of acts may particularly enrich the current discussion on some properties of speech acts held on the grounds of philosophy of language or pragmalinguistics. The research material used in this article as an illustration consists of actual utterances of participants of Polish court proceedings used by them at a hearing.