PHIL 481 - Special Topics: Speech Acts

Institution:

University of Massachusetts-Boston

Subject:

Description:

3 Credits People use language to accomplish myriad tasks: we report, we promise, we praise, we blame, we apologize, we question, we warn, we threaten, we implore, we lament, we express our feelings, and sometimes we just play with our words. Language is the medium within which we live; so often it is transparent to us but sometimes we do notice it, and ask how it is that we can do so many things with this versatile tool. Some 20th century philosophers developed an influential set of views, which came to be known as "speech act theory". Instead of looking at language as a formal system, of the sort one finds in mathematics, built into computer programs, and in science, speech act theorists tended to start with ordinary language used in ordinary settings by ordinary people. This approach, pioneered by Wittgenstein, Austin, Grice, and Searle, sets the stage for our inquiry this semester.The central types of speech act we will address are promising, apology, hate speech, and pornography. In the last decade, legal and political activism has led to the development of speech codes on college campuses, within workplaces, and in communities across the world, particularly in Europe and the USA. The focus of these speech codes has been on "hate speech," which is usually construed as the face-to-face hurling of a racist epithet. In the paradigm case the hurler is a member of the racial power majority, and the target is a member of a racially subordinate group. This course will look at speech act theory as developed in the 20th century and ask how it can help us to understand how hate speech functions. We will also explore the extension of such hate speech analysis beyond the paradigm of racial contexts to pornography, sexist epithets, and other subordinating or potentially subordinating practices. Such an exploration will take us through issues such as the role of individual intentions in the meaning of a speech act, the power of community norms to create, shape, limit or enhance individual meaning, the question of authority--its grounding and its scope, and many issues of the relation between linguistic practices with non-linguistic collateral norms and practices. This inquiry will take us into large social questions about the relation between language and politics, and it will also take us to questions about language and individual identity formation. We are social beings, and the fabric of our social lives is woven through and through with the many-layered hues and tones of our discourse. How do our linguistic practices, the speech acts we sanction and those we forbid, make some forms of life possible, while rendering other forms difficult or even impossible

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.umb.edu

Phone Number:

(617) 287-5000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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