SOURCE: Avni, Ora. “Speech Acts.” In The Resistance of Reference: Linguistics, Philosophy, and the Literary Text, pp. 175-229. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Avni applies speech act theory to the story “The Venus d'Ille.”

We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk so we need friction. Back to the rough ground.

—Wittgenstein

Speech Acts and the First Person

Of the various aspects of language that analytical philosophy has explored, speech acts have proved the most readily adopted and adapted by literature. While the average critic or student of literature still considers theories of reference rather exotic, he or she is probably familiar with at least the rudiments of theories of speech acts. Many have limited...