(3)  Speech Acts

The philosopher J L Austin put forward the view that it is as important what we mean by and through   speaker (or writing) as is the content of what we say.   The Devil can quote scripture, and what he says may be virtuous, but why does he say it at that point to that person?   If we think of poems as speech acts one of the questions that arises is What other point is there than drawing attention on the act of speech itself, and/or to language sounds and structures themselves?   After all psychologists and linguists do this. 

Again every poem has a two (at least) tier structure of speech acts.  There's the generic one -  My speech act is that of saying a poem, but the poem itself will involve speech acts such as wooing, lamenting,  evoking, protesting.     A poem is a speech act which - among other things - is, or is an imitation of,  a 'real life' speech act.  

This is the area too of suggested or implied meanings.    The poem may be about a real badger defending itself and seem like no more, but once we know it's a poem we are aware that more may be left unsaid.  Part of the code of reading is that we are ready to look for this.   So the badger is not just a badger, it's an embattled John Clare, and that implied meaning is the main point of the poem.  It's like a speech act, because it's what he means by what he says,  not just what he refers to.

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