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plays of Plautus contain a scene constructed around a single adjacency pair: the offer of peace, and a response to that offer.39 |
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We began by considering the interrelated concepts of speech-act, Sprachspiel, and genre. Testing Austin's theory of speech-acts in three scenes of Plautus, we find that there are indeed direct, formulaic ways of doing something with utterances, for instance, asking for forgiveness. But there are also other ways of doing the same thing that can only be understood in context. And in these scenes, asking for forgiveness performs another function, that of trying to make peace with a beloved. Yet the offer to make up need not be articulated as a request for forgiveness (e.g. Alcesimarchus' dire oath). Finally, phenomena observed by modern linguists in the analysis of real conversations occur in these represented conversations (e.g. adjacency pairs, insertion sequences, pre-requests, marked unpreferred responses, unmarked preferred responses). |
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The concept of a speech-act was originally meant to unthrone a dogma of logical positivism that held that a statement which is neither true nor false is meaningless. Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1922) was often cited to support this dogma, but he had meanwhile retracted, and the concept of Sprachspiel may be seen as a kind of atonement for his earlier sins. Both Wittgenstein (1953) and Austin insist, then, that we do many things with words other than make statements that can be judged true or false. But what are these things? How many of them are there? How do we isolate and identify them? Austin himself admitted that no grammatical or lexical criteria can necessarily determine the illocutionary force of an utterance, and later attempts to formalize such criteria have (predictably) failed. Wittgenstein foresaw this, though many linguists set spinning by speech-acts were slow |
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(footnote continued from previous page) |
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end lines. Cf. Asinaria 921ff.; Aulularia 739ff.; Bacchides 11645, 11856, 1199; Casina 1000ff.; Curculio 701; Epidicus 729ff.; Mercator 992, 996, 1012; Mostellaria 1129ff., 1155ff., 1162ff.; Persa 753ff.; Pseudolus 1329ff.; Stichus 729ff.; Trinummus 1164ff., 1184ff.; Truculentus 899ff. |
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39 We might also note that at the end of Terence's Phormio Demipho asks Nausistrata to forgive her husband (for having led a double life with another woman): verum iam, quando accusando fieri infectum non potest, / ignosce: orat confitetur purgat: quid vis amplius? ("But now, since recrimination cannot undo what's done, forgive him: he begs, he confesses, he's sorry: what more do you want?") This request (10341035) is answered by a refusal to answer (10431045), at least for the moment: immo ut meam iam scias sententiam, / neque ego ignosco neque promitto quicquam neque respondeo / priu' quam gnatum videro: eius iudicio permitto omnia: / quod is iubebit faciam. ("No, so you know what I intend to do: I neither forgive nor promise anything nor will I even respond / until I see my son: if he agrees, I'll let it all pass: / I'll do what he tells me to"). So that one of the six extant plays of Terence all but ends with the same adjacency pair. |
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