Como se deu a reviravolta pragmática em J. L. Austin

Abstract

This dissertation aims to present and investigate John Langshaw Austin's lectures as compiled in How to do things with words. In the proposed approach, language in Austin is contrasted with tradition and, from this confrontation, we will follow its new way of analyzing language based on action, that is, language will be analyzed within a given social context, with the subject interacting with the social environment. What permeates this whole new horizon is no longer a semantic analysis absolutely centered on the concepts of meaning and reference, truth and falsehood. In addition, other elements are considered important: the subject, the speech, the conventions, the medium where the act of speech is employed. In this sense, the action appears as central element to understand the communication in the work of Austin. What has sometimes been presented as dichotomies between language and thought, idea and representation of the object, or truth and falsity, becomes something more complex. It is a new way of dealing with an old problem concerning, in the end, language and its relationship with the world. In this, the elements investigated begin to be analyzed within a given context, approaching the discourse locked by real actors and daily practice. In addition, the analysis of language is reoriented, going from something to be considered first abstractly and according to its formal properties, to something situated and to properties related to the capabilities of its users. It is, finally, an approach that explores and organizes the philosophy of language by remaining true to a perspective where language as action plays the leading role.