the usage conventions by which

two codes are categorized... have

conversational functions

that are equivalent to the

relationship of words and referents.

This implies that both message form

and message content play a role in

implicature... Basic referential

meanings are shared by all speakers

of a language... are stable over time

and can be preserved in dictionaries.

Code usage [though, is] subject to

change... so that sharing of basic

conventions cannot be taken for

granted. This accounts for the fact

that listeners in code switching

situations may understand the

literal meaning of an utterance but

differ in their interpretations of

communicative intent.

The parallel with translation is clear. We may equate the two codes with the two texts (SLT and TLT) and replace the phrase 'listeners in code switching situations' with 'readers acting as translators' and recognize in this an answer to the question of the universality of the speech act. There is, we now realize, a fundamental difference between the propositional content rules and the essential rules on the one hand and the preparatory and sincerity rules on the other.

Searle's propositional content

and essential rules express

the kind of information that

falls properly within the

grammar's representation of the

lexical meaning of performative

verbs and other syntactic devices

for indicating illocutionary

force, whereas his preparatory

and sincerity rules express

essentially different information,

that is, facts and guidelines

that speakers use in working out

utterance meanings on the basis

of assumptions about each other's

beliefs and intentions.

In other words, the first are concerned with context-free propositional structure - semantic sense - while the second are concerned with context-sensitive and language-specific communicative value. Grice even goes so far as to define meaning in terms of illocutionary force;

the effect that a sender intends

to produce on a receiver by means

of a message

There is, then, some hope for the universality of the speech act at the propositional level but not at the level of illocutionary force; a realization which helps to explain how the translator can often replicate the content of a text with ease but finds much greater difficulty in coping with grasping and re-presenting the writer's intentions.

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