Speech Acts and Space(s): Language Pragmatics and the Discursive Constitution of the Social

Abstract

By referring to language-pragmatic versions of action theory, I attempt in this paper to introduce a perspective which overcomes a series of modernistic legacies of earlier action theories in human geography. Such a development allows a nonessentialist stance while preserving the conceptual richness and consistency of action theory. The concept of speech acts will be interpreted as a blueprint for the analysis of interactions in general—not only human communications but also those involving nonhuman entities and physical conditions—and is a perspective that is particularly attractive for human geography. However, one of the consequences is that the notion of space and its role for the identity of the discipline need to be reconsidered.

A Neural Turn? On the Ontology of the Geographical Subject

“…Wolfgang Zierhofer (2002) has shown that this conception of a "nonessentialist", language-pragmatic action theory resonates with lines of thought in feminism and poststructuralism as it similarly rejects the transcendental a priori and conceptions of an external guarantee of truth. Zierhofer (2002Zierhofer ( , page 1357 suggests that Habermas's language pragmatics offers a "sophisticated account of the discursive constitution of entities, and in this sense constitutes (as he says himself) a profoundly 'nonmetaphysical model of thinking' (Habermas 1988)." This allows, Zierhofer argues, to adopt a nonessentialist position while continuing to draw on the concepts of action theory developed since Max Weber.…”

“…A significantly different perspective emerges when we resort to the continental tradition of a post-metaphysical, language-pragmatic action theory (Ernste 2004, Werlen 1993, Zierhofer 2002). Wolfgang Zierhofer (2002) has shown that this conception of a "nonessentialist", language-pragmatic action theory resonates with lines of thought in feminism and poststructuralism as it similarly rejects the transcendental a priori and conceptions of an external guarantee of truth.…”

Rationality and Discursive Articulation in Place-Making

“…For lack of a better word, Reckwitz, writing about theories of practice, describes this poststructuralist endeavor as textualism . In contrast to Benno Werlen, with his subjective mentalist approach of geographical action theory, and to Zierhofer ( 2002 ), who advocated the language-pragmatics approach in geography, poststructuralist thinkers do not tend to place structures inside the mind or in pragmatic procedures of interaction but rather "outside" it-in chains of signs, in symbols, discourse, or text. The subject is thereby decentered even further, that is, into discourses about sign systems.…”

“…"In speech acts, the agents refer to a non-subjective realm of semantic propositions and of pragmatic rules concerning the use of signs" (Reckwitz, 2002 , p. 249). For geography, this language-pragmatics approach was detailed by Zierhofer ( 2002 ) and Schlottmann ( 2007 ). This approach can be seen as a critique of the pure mentalist program but does not reject it entirely, for there are still interacting agents endowed with minds (Reckwitz, 2002 , p. 249).…”

A régió mint diszkurzív termék

“…Megközelítésében értelmetlen a "végs ő" igazság, a fix jelentés keresése: a jelentések mindig ideiglenesek és az adott kontextustól függenek, az egyes szöve-gek mindig őket megel őző reinterpretációi (Pratt 1991, 260). A nyelvi kifejezések nála változó kontextus függvényében megváltoztatják jelentésüket, a nyelv sajátos-sága éppen az, hogy kijelentések egyes kontextusokból átültethet ők másikba (bő-vebben lásd : Habermas 1998, 162;Zierhofer 2002).…”