On Austin’s The Speech Act Theory

Austin is a famous British philosopher, Oxford school of daily language representatives. He founded the speech act theory, change the original view of language, the practice of contact in the language and change the world. Promoted the development of the philosophy of language, and has played a fundamental role in the field of pragmatics. After Austin, Sale inherited and modified the speech act theory of Austin, more mature system. As a ground-breaking research on speech acts, his theory is clear and profound, have high research value.Austin’s speech act theory is a valuable asset of the school of daily language. Throughout his life, published only seven papers, including “other minds” marks the speech act theory to created. This paper discusses the founder of Austin’s speech acttheory’s background, as well as the creation process, distinguished constative andperformative, and distinction the locutionary act、the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act. Then introduced the Sale’s founding in Austin’s speech act theory, further modification and development and academic Cohen as the representative questioned. The final evaluation of simple words of Austin’s enormous contribution andtheoretical deficiencies of the philosophy of language.The Chapter I is about Background on Austin’s speech act analysis. At the time, philosophy threaten by pragmatism and psychologism, is about to face the danger of no research areas. The development of mathematical logic let philosophers to seethe hope and began the study of logic and language, bringing the famous “linguisticturn”. In this background, a large number of philosophers study on the nature of language, meaning and referential, truth and other issues. Philosophers first to thought the different usage of language, Frege, Wittgenstein are relatively careful consideration. Austin is proposed at this time his speech act theory, At that time the authority of the school of daily language of Oxford, his theory made a great contribution in this philosophical change.Chapters II and III illustrates the process of development and content of the speechact theory. Austin as the founder of the theory of speech acts, first to think of theperformative, and turned in the development process will classified from the Takahashi to one-third said. The last two chapters of the repercussions of Austin’s speechact theory, Sale as Austin students is his biggest supporter. Cohen as opposed to Austin, tried to deny the theory of speech acts. The whole speech act theory of Austin, though there are some short comings, but his enormous contribution can not be ignored, until now Austin’s theory is still the basic theory of the philosophy of language, and no one can go beyond him.By Austin’s speech act theory, we find that the language as people understand theworld of tools but also means to change the world. Analysis of the language not an d can not be confined to the mode of true and false judgment, but should explore the language of the various uses. Incorporated the school of daily language into language of philosophy, analyzed in the broader context of language, can get closer to the nature of it.