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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