How to Do Things without Words

Abstract

The impact of J.L. Austin’s Speech-Act Theory has resonated throughout the social sciences over the last three decades, not least in its catalysis of the so-called linguistic turn and the rise of cultural studies. Since this original shockwave, a great deal of innovation and progress in the study of ordinary language itself has emanated from these social sciences, not least among which is Harvey Sacks’ Conversation Analytic approach (see Sacks 1972, 1984, 1992a, 1992b). Pioneered by Sacks, and strongly influenced by¹ the methods of ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel (1967, 1996, 2007), Conversation Analysis (henceforth CA) has, over the last four decades, built on many of the foundational principles of Austin’s work in developing a working corpus of research addressing how ordinary conversation works in concrete, empirical situations. The flow of intellectual influence with respect to the understanding of how ‘ordinary language’ works has, however, been largely monodirectional; ideas have moved steadily from philosophy into the realms of the social sciences, with very little converse drift. In this chapter it is argued that, despite this historically-ingrained disciplinary tide, there is much that CA can ‘give back’ to Austin scholars — particularly in terms of how dialogue might be pragmatically conceptualized. As a thematic lynchpin, focus falls chiefly upon Sacks’ criticisms of the persistent employment of invented and ‘ideal’ cases of language-use endemic to the Speech-Act tradition.