語言哲學視角下的意義用法研究

Abstract：the study of meaning is generally called semantics， which has become a hot topic in the human scholarship. There are many discussions of meaning and use from different aspects. The relationship between meaning and use also can be studied from different points of view and using various approaches， such as a phonetic approach， a logical approach， a semiotic approach and so on. This paper mainly from the philosophy aspect to analyze the meaning and use of language.

摘要：對語言意義的研究成為語義學，如今已成為學術界研究的熱點課題。對意義的研究多種多樣，與此相關的，意義和用法之間的關系的談論也隨處可見。有許多學者從不同的視角對意義和用法進行過研究，比如從音位學方面，邏輯學方面，符號學方面等等。本文將主要從語言哲學的視角對言語意義和用法關系之間進行分析。

Key words: meaning；use；implicature

關鍵詞：意義；用法；會話含義

作者簡介：談建宏，女（1987-），漢，重慶忠縣，重慶師范大學外國語學院2010級碩士研究生，專業：英語語言文學，研究方向：英語語言學。

[中圖分類號]：H31 [文獻標識碼]：A

[文章編號]：1002-2139(2012)-11-0157-02

Meaning is the center topic of the philosophy of language， because the philosophers think that the study of meaning is the key to know oneself and the objective world. Meaning is in everywhere and refers to many aspects of language， such as the tone， the form of a word and the structure of a sentence， and even the same word can have different meanings in different contexts. Meaning of a word relates to its use.

1、To say something is to do something

In the latter part of How To Do Things With Words， Austin made a fresh start on the problem and considered it again that in what sense to say something is to do something. In his opinion， there are three senses in which saying something may be understood as doing something. They are the locutionary act、 illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is， an ordinary one， what is said the form of utterance， the act of saying something， for example: if someone says “Open the door!” the locutionary act is the realization of the speaker’s utterance. The illocutionary act is what is done in uttering the word， the function of the word， the specific purpose that speaker’s have in mind， for example: the utterance “I promise to give it back tomorrow” is used to perform the illocutionary act of promising. The perlocutionary act is what is done by uttering the word. It is the effect on listener or the listener’s reaction， for example: the utterance “There is something in your back!” may cause the listener to panic and to look back his back. The perlocutionary of that utterance is to cause these emotion and action. One knows the force of an utterance if one knows what point the speaker had in making the utterance， and that is a matter of knowing something about what the speaker did or what she was up to. It is obvious that the use of a sentence would be specified when both the meaning of the words produced were specified and the force attaching to those words were specified. When one learns about the distinction between meaning and force， it seems like that a sentence’s meaning is one thing and the force is another thing. This opinion is also the center matter that many philosophers think about.

2、What words do by saying what speakers do

William P. Alston thinks that a sentence’s having a certain meaning consists in its being usable to play a certain role in communication， and that a sentence’s having such a role is a matter of the illocutionary acts that could be performed in using the sentence (Alston: 2000). There is a certain conviction that somehow the concept of the meaning of a linguistic expression is to be elucidated in terms of the use of that expression， in terms of the way it is employed by the users of the language. It is possible for somebody to tell you that two expressions have the same use (or the same meaning) without thereby telling you what either them means. There is an example， someone， who is a native speaker of Japanese， might tell you that two expressions in that language have the same use without telling you what either of them means. Similarly you could know that two expressions have the same use without knowing what either of them means. It seems that when one tells someone what an expression means， he is in effect telling him that two expressions have the same use; but he uses the meaning formulation only when he supposes that his hears already know how to use the second expression(Alston:72). Speech act theory is the first major of pragmatics which is a comparatively young branch of linguistic. There are three conditions: firstly， it is the utterance of the perlocutionary not the illocutionary act has a certain sort of result. Secondly， a perlocutionary act can be performed without the use of language， or any other conventional device. Thirdly， illocutionary acts are more fundamental than perlocutionary acts in the means-end hierarchy. The examples given above shows that sameness of meaning cannot hang on sameness of perlocutionary act but hang on the illocutionary act.

3、Implicature between meaning and use:

Besides the above two statements about the meaning and use， there are another theory which can well reflect the relationship between meaning and use. It is the theory of implicature.

In our daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but to imply them. Look at the following example: when A asks B about their mutual friend C， who is now working in a bank， that how is C getting on， B might answer “Oh quite well， I think; he likes his colleagues， and he has not been to prison yet. ” Here B certainly implied something， though he did not say it explicitly. Here B’s words do answer A’s question. The answer is in a right place and in a right use. But the meaning of B’s answer is not the original meaning but something else. It depends on what the B want to imply to A. In order to avoid the logical use of “implication”， Grice coined the term implicature. Implicature is defined as either the act meaning， implying， and suggesting one thing by saying another， or as the object of that act. Implicature can be part of sentence meaning， and can be dependent on conversational context， and can be conventional or unconventional. Conversational implicatures have become one important subject of meaning and use.

There is an oversimplification that each expression has only one meaning and only one use， which is not exactly. A case in point is that “Can you reach the salt?” sometimes means please pass the salt， sometimes means are you able to reach as far as the salt? ， and perhaps sometimes means I challenge you to try to reach as far as the salt. It is rarely a case that two sentences are used alike in every context without changing their linguistic act potentials. Although these sentences can have the same use， they do not have the same meaning， because of each implies different contents.

Conclusion:

There is a common summary that meaning is use， which means words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate， nor by the mental representations one might associate with them， but by how they are used. Meaning and use are related but different. In different situations， both of them have a very important role respectively. Not only the tone， the form of a word 、the structure of a sentence and context can influence the meaning and use， but also the speech act theory、the force、the implicature and some cognitive aspects can influence the meaning and use.

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