Varieties of Uptake

There is a lively debate in philosophy of language about the determination of the illocutionary force of speech acts. The debate revolves around the notion of uptake and the role played by the audience: many scholars consider the hearer’s recognition of the force of the locution a necessary condition for the performance of an illocution. A variety of theories has been put forward. According to Langton 1993, the hearer’s uptake determines whether a successful act has been performed. According to Kukla 2014, the hearer’s uptake constitutes the nature of the act performed. According to McDonald forth., the illocutionary force of a speech act is the result of a process of negotiation between hearer and speaker. Drawing on the theoretical tools provided by Marina Sbisà’s work, I will show how the theories giving the audience a central role in fixing the illocutionary force of a speech act fall short. The topic proves relevant not only for theoretical reasons, but also for social and political ones. In particular, it has a bearing on debates about pragmatic phenomena of illocutionary distortion such as discursive injustice and silencing, where marginalized speakers have trouble performing particular speech acts they are entitled to perform.