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fali into two main genera, Bombus and Psytbirus, and are spelt ‘b-u-m-b-l-e-b-e-e’. Whereas the linguistic knowledge we have is likely to be essentially invariant from speaker to speaker, our encyclopaedic knowledge is much morę idiosyncratic: I am very fond of bumblebees and associate them with heather and holidays; someone with a bee Sting allergy is likely to have a different view.

[> What does the term ‘grammar’ cover in this text? Is it being used bere in the same sense as in Text 17?

t> How far do you think the ‘modules of grammar’ here cor-respond with the ‘snbfields’ of linguistic theory outlined in Text 18?

\> What do you think is the difference hetween linguistic and encyclopaedic knoiuledge? Do you think that the spelling of a word is a matter of encyclopaedic knowledge? Do you agree with the assertion that linguistic knowledge ‘is likely to be essentially invariant from speaker to speaker’?

Text 20

j. r.searle: Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press 1969, pages 17-18

Texts 20 and 21 deal with the relationship between the speech act, the sentence, and the utterance, and therefore with the distinction between semantics and pragmatics (see Chapter 7, pages 61-5). In this text, Searle argues that the study of the meanings of speech acts is not essentially different from the study o f sentence meaning, and is therefore part of semantics. And yet the meaning of a speech act is dependent too on its being performed in an appropriate (non-linguistic) context.

There are, therefore, not two irreducibly distinct semantic studies, one a study of the meanings of sentences and one a study of the performances of speech acts. For just as it is part of our notion of the meaning of a sentence that a literał utterance of that sentence with that meaning in a certain context would be the performance of a particular speech act, so it is part of our notion of a speech act that there is a possible sentence (or sentences) the utterance of which in a certain context would in virtue of its (or their) meaning constitute a performance of that speech act.

106 RE AD ING S

The speech act or acts performed in the utterance of a sentence are in generał a function of the meaning of the sentence. The meaning of a sentence does not in all cases uniąuely determine what speech act is performed in a given utterance of that sentence, for a speaker may mean morę than what he actually says, but it is always in principle possible for him to say exactly what he means. Therefore, it is in principle possible for every speech act one per-forms or could perform to be uniquely determined by a given sentence (or set of sentences), given the assumptions that the speaker is speaking literally and that the context is appropriate. And for these reasons a study of the meaning of sentences is not in principle distinct from a study of speech acts. Properly construed, they are the same study. Since every meaningful sentence in virtue of its meaning can be used to perform a particular speech act (or rangę of speech acts), and sińce every possible speech act: can in principle be given an exact formulation in a sentence <>i sentences (aśsuming an appropriate context of utterance), the study of the meanings of sentences and the study of speech acts are not lwi* independent studies but one study from two different points of view.

O Speech acts are referred to by Hymes in Text 12, where he associates them with rules of use. Is this consistent with the view of speech acts expressed by Searle in this text?

(> The writer says that sentence meaning can uniąuely determine speech act meaning given an appropriate context. In reference to Text 19, what kind of Information would we need to estab-lish the appropriateness of such contextual conditions? And, in reference to Text iS, would this fali within the scope of semantics or pragmatics?

Text 21 -

dianu blakemore: Undcrstanding Utterances: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Blackwell 1992, pages 39-40

The miler herc draws a elear distinction between semantics and prayjnatk s, and, in respect to the latter, acknowledges the relerame 0/ non linguistic knowledge (which would int ludi- ilu Inn arlrdye 0/ appropriate contexts for speech m ilu- mii u pi, i.iiuat n / utterances. An utterance can be

RF.ADINGS IO7