Literary Narrative And Speech Act

This dissertation aims at the narrative inner logic by speech-acts theory, introducing speech-acts theory to narrative study, regarding narrative as speech acts, discussing the constructing function of speech acts to the inner fiction worlds and the outer real worlds.The speech-acts theory, initiated by J.L.Austin and developed by Paul Grice and John Searle etc, turns the attention from the form property to the pragmatic property of language, standing out the action and construction function of language. Austin deemed that uttering is at the same time doing, words can do things. An uttering can do threethings meanwhile, such as locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary. Locutionary is the act of uttering itself, for example uttering "sorry"; illocutionary is the act in the discoure, for example, uttering "sorry" is doing appologize; perlocutionary is the act influencing on the audiences. He named the function of words doing things as performative. Speech acts are ruled by rules, Austin's felicity conditions, Searle's regulative rules and constitutive rules, Grice's cooperate principle, all are the rules of speech acts. Since the latter half of 20 century, speech-acts theory has strongly influenced on literature theories, also offering narrative turn a new horizon.Literary narrative is a kind of speech act, also has performative function. Then, what's narrative performative? Basing on the literary performative of J.Hillis.Miller, narrative performative also has several levels. First, literary narrative must have the action of narration, otherwise there is no narrative. Second, literary narrative constructs a fictional world at the same time of narration, namely, narration is also construction action. And thirdly, the reading of readers also a kind of speech act, he or she reconstucts the objects reading meanwhile, thereby, a new worlds come out. Besides, the narrative work has real influence on the readers. Classical narratology confines the study in the text, this corresponds to the illocutionary act, and post-classical narratologies break through the text confines, going into history and the readers, there is coherence with perlocutionary act. So, the narrative turn is embodied by illocutionary act turning to perlocutionary act.This dissertation includes six chapters besides"Introduction"and"Conclusion"." Introduction" presents the concepts of "speech act"and"narrative performative",and combs the review in the West and China on this topic.Chapter 1,"Speech-acts Theory and Narrative Turn",introduces the speech-acts theory of Austin,Searle and Grice, fetches out narrative turn. By discussing the semiotic system of Roland Barthes, fetches out the inner logic of narrative turn, and by discussing the relation between Barthes' semiotic system and speech-acts theory, fetches out the inner relation between speech-acts theory and narrative, establishing the basis of following discussings. Chapter 2, "the Narrative Dimension of Speech-acts Theoy",introduces the rules of speech-acts theory, dissertates its probilities wedding with narrative study. Speech act is a kind of act controling by rules, so is literary narrative. The general rule of literary narrative is fiction, meanwhile the fiction is also speech act. Illocutionary rules rule the text, and the perlocutioanary rules rule the reading of readers outside the text, thereby, the fictional world infiltrates through reality world. So, literary narrative both the cooperation between narrator and readers, and the intercommunion between fiction and reality.Chapter 3. "Speech Act and Narrative Discourse", discussing how the speech act constructs the fictional world. Narrative discourse is the speech act of author, at the same time, the discourse itself is composed of multiform speech acts. In this chapter, the discourse doesn't point to the world outside the story,but point to story itself. The function of narrative discourse is to construct story world by its force of utterance. We classify the dicourse forces as narration force, rhetoric force and discourse field force. The three forces construct the story world from different angles.Chapter 4, "Speech Act and Text Reading", dissertating literary narrative construction function to reality world, the reconstruction of reader to story world and the influence of reading to readers. The route of speech act should be double direction. To be performative, the discourse must be comprehended, and the comprehending of the audience actually reconstructs the discourse. So, the narrative reading is also the double direction route. Radically, reading always includes the reconstruction of the readers.In chapter 5, "Towards constructivism narrative study", the paper responds to the controversy about constructivism and essentialism of domestic academe. Speech-acts theory is the important origin of constructivism, while seldom mentioned in the controversy. On the speech-acts theory viewpoint, the constructivism is not general anti-essentialism, but anti-Platonism. The speech-acts theory may contribute to the constructivism as practice, openness and intersubjectivity." Conclusion"briefly dissertates the relation between speech-acts theory and the general theory turn of 20 century, and predicts the tendency of cultural performative.