[OSList] : Speech acts

[Daniel Mezick]

When responding to Jenifer's thoughts earlier, I realized:

The slogan "Be Prepared to Be Surprised" is a most interesting one in OST.

It is actually an illocutionary speech act.... of type "*/Directive/*".

So, located here in OST, baked into it, we have a specific slogan that 
is attempting to *cause* the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. a 
request, *commands* and advice. A directive!

I wonder if the undeniably directive structure of "Be Prepared to Be 
Surprised" really aligned with the intention/spirit/philosophy of OST.

Dan


Background links:

What is a speech act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_acts
A /*speech act*/ in linguistics 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics> and the philosophy of 
language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_language> is an 
utterance that has performative function in language and communication.

What is an illocutionary act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act
*Illocutionary act* is a term in linguistics 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics> introduced by the philosopher 
John L. Austin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Austin> in his 
investigation of the various aspects of speech acts 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_acts>.

What is a Directive illocutionary act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act#Classes_of_illocutionary_acts
*directives* = speech acts that are to *cause the hearer to take a 
particular action*, e.g. requests, commands and advice

More than you asked for:
What is a Commissive speech act?
*commissives* = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, 
e.g. promises and oaths
















On 10/24/13 1:29 PM, Jenifer Toksvig wrote:
> Re: [OSList] The OST Game Dan wrote: >> Consider the man who loves a 
> certain woman, and waits for the current trend of her interest in him 
> to change. He is goal seeking without controlling. Likewise, 
> trend-following market traders do not attempt to create, control or 
> make trends. They simply identify & ride them, while seeking wealth. <<
>
> Waiting and seeking are still forms of controlling. Your loving man 
> has chosen to wait for his goal rather than (to coin a phrase) being 
> prepared to be surprised by another woman. He may not be trying to 
> control her, but he's still trying to control the situation in a way 
> that he thinks will allow him to achieve his goal.
>
> Those who seek wealth do likewise: they don't randomly ride the 
> trends, they identify them and make choices about how to ride them, in 
> order to obtain wealth. That is control.
>
> I don't think it's possible to be goal-oriented and try to exert some 
> kind of control over the process, unless your goal is... to have no 
> goal. Actually, even being prepared to be surprised is a goal. A sort 
> of wonderfully ridiculous one.
>
> Jen x
>
> *Jenifer Toksvig
> *www.acompletelossforwords.com
>
> *The Copenhagen Interpretation
> *www.thecopenhageninterpretation.co.uk
>
>
>
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