Spór między internalizmem i eksternalizmem w teorii czynności mowy (The Dispute between Internalism and Externalism in Speech Act Theory). In: P. Stalmaszczyk (red.), Metodologie językoznawstwa. Ewolucja języka, ewolucja teorii językoznawczych, Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 2013, 161-177 (Łódzkie Studia z Językoznawstwa Angielskiego i Ogólnego, 1).

Abstract

In this chapter, I present the dispute between internalist and externalist accounts of illocutionary interaction and then argue that the externalist approach makes it possible to explain several discursive phenomena that cannot be accounted for within an internalist framework. The chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part, I compare semantic externalism, understood as a position concerning the content of a speech act, with pragmatic externalism, understood as a position concerning the illocutionary force of an act. In the second part, I distinguish two varieties of pragmatic externalism discussed in the literature—externalism about felicity conditions and externalism about illocutionary agency—and show that the latter is a specific variant of the former. In the third part, I consider arguments in favor of accepting externalism about illocutionary agency. In particular, I observe that this position allows us to explain discursive phenomena that, from an internalist perspective, are either unrecognizable or dismissed as insignificant anomalies: namely, unintended yet binding illocutions, the spontaneous emergence of ritualized forms of discourse, and the indirect shaping of the normative structure of society.