Spór o podstawy teorii czynności mowy (The Dispute over the Foundations of Speech Act Theory). Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego 2011, s. 466.

Abstract

This monograph addresses the foundational dispute within contemporary speech act theory concerning the nature of linguistic action and the relation between semantics and pragmatics. Although speech act theory is often presented as a relatively recent and unified research programme originating with Austin, the book situates it against a broader historical and theoretical background and argues that its contemporary form is shaped by two intersecting controversies. The first concerns the ontological status of speech acts and opposes convention-based (Austinian) accounts to intention-based (Gricean) approaches. The second concerns the epistemological and cognitive relation between semantic competence and pragmatic competence, crystallized in the debate between literalism and contextualism. The book critically reconstructs both disputes, focusing not on the history of particular authors but on the underlying problem situations that structure current theoretical options. It shows that neither a purely conventionalist nor a purely intention-based account can adequately explain the full range of linguistic actions, and that neither strict literalism nor radical contextualism offers a satisfactory account of meaning determination. In response, the monograph develops an alternative framework grounded in Ruth Millikan’s biological model of language and a theory of complete linguistic signs. This framework allows for a non-reductive reconciliation of convention and intention, as well as a principled division of explanatory labour between semantic and pragmatic factors, thereby offering a unified account of speech acts and linguistic understanding.