Abstract
This paper comments on the notion of the speech act in the tradition of J.L. Austin (1962/1975) in an attempt to assess its relevance (sic!) in a relevance-theory-based research. Relevance theory (RT) since its introduction (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995) has consistently rejected much of speech act-theoretic thinking, explicitly questioning its having a central position in pragmatics. Using the notion of “the speech act”, RT seems to ignore most of speech act-theoretic apparatus. However, despite the superficial divergence between the two frameworks, the advancements within RT, as developed especially by Deirdre Wilson, and her co-researchers over the years, are convergent with selected thoughts in the Austinian thought. The paper comments on selected points which bring the two linguistics approaches together.
Publisher
Uniwersytet Lodzki (University of Lodz)
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
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