Rebecca E. Harrison

Speech acts—promises, apologies, refusals, orders, threats, compliments—are actions we perform with words. Within speech act theory, it is standardly assumed that speech acts are performed in a moment. A speaker who says, “I apologize,” in saying so, apologizes in that very moment. Drawing on apologies as a central case study, I argue that this Momentary View is ill-equipped to explain important elements of performing an apology which occur after the moment of utterance, such as: (1) the addressee’s acceptance or rejection of an apology, and (2) the speaker’s follow-through on their commitments to forbearance and making amends. As examples, I consider Joseph Biden’s attempted apology to Anita Hill and the Australian “national apology” to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children. As an alternative, I propose a novel theory of speech acts as a kind of temporally extended process. Apologies, I argue, are best understood as actions which unfold over time, like building a house or baking bread.

What role does audience uptake play in determining whether a speaker refuses or consents to sex? Proponents of constitution theories of uptake argue that which speech act a speaker performs is largely determined by their addressee's uptake. However, this appears to entail a troubling result: a speaker might be made to perform a speech act of consent against her will. In response, we develop a Social Constitution Theory of uptake. We argue that addressee uptake can constitute a speaker's utterance of ‘no’ as a speech act of consent under some conditions, but that this does not prevent us from judging that an addressee committed rape. Second, we claim that addressee uptake is not the only form of uptake that matters—the uptake of other members of the discursive community matters too, and can override the addressee's uptake, constituting the speaker's utterance as the speech act it was intended to be.

Speech acts—promises, apologies, jokes, orders, threats, compliments—are actions we perform with words. This dissertation challenges us to move away from an individualistic theory of speech acts, where the focus is on the speaker and the moment of speech, and towards a more fully social theory of speech acts—a theory of how we perform actions with words over time with others. I call this a Social Contestation Theory of speech acts. Within the philosophy of language, established theories of speech acts present speech acts as actions a speaker performs intentionally in the moment of speaking, requiring either no audience response or only a minimal form of audience uptake (i.e. interpretation of what kind of speech act an utterance is). My dissertation calls this standard picture into question and reconceptualizes what it means to perform a speech act—I argue that performing a speech act is a temporally extended process, which goes beyond the moment of utterance, and within which audience responses play a crucial ongoing role. The Social Contestation Theory of speech acts I develop illuminates the ways that the speech acts we perform are not wholly within our control—speakers can perform some speech acts (such as threats, urgings, and orders) without intending to do so. It also builds on efforts to identify and counter forms of speech-based injustice, highlighting the way power shapes which speech acts we perform and the ethical and political conflicts which can arise within a speaker’s audience.

What role does audience uptake play in determining whether a speaker refuses or consents to sex? Proponents of constitution theories of uptake argue that which speech act someone performs is largely determined by their addressee’s uptake. However, this appears to entail a troubling result: a speaker might be made to perform a speech act of sexual consent against her will. In response, we develop a social constitution theory of uptake. We argue that addressee uptake can constitute a speaker’s utterance of ‘no’ as a speech act of consent under some conditions, but that this does not prevent us from judging that an addressee committed rape. Second, we claim that addressee uptake is not the only form of uptake that matters—the uptake of other members of the discursive community matters too, and can override the addressee’s uptake, constituting the speaker’s utterance as the speech act it was intended to be.