Channels, Fall 2018

Page 20 Yost • Speech Act of Naming In my research, Ward (2002) presents Wolterstorff (1995) as disagreeing with the existence of the five categories of illocutionary acts. This was not evident in Wolterstorff’s writing, at least when he addresses and defines speech. However, in revealing rather than speaking, he believes that not all the same actions can be performed. Perhaps one might think he is in disagreement as Wolterstorff does not see rules as constituting speech acts. However, Wolterstorff also recognizes the existence of contextual conditions necessary for the categorizations. Even in the case that he does disagree, the category framework seems to be the more legitimate and widely held theoretical framework, which I will use in my study. Names As mentioned earlier, the concept of names is typically addressed in a study of reference having to do “with designating entities in the world by linguistic means” (Cruse, 2011, p. 381). As names designate people, they are most appropriately addressed here. Cruse, like Searle (1999), would further say reference is a speech act itself, but I will not expand on that idea. The topic of reference in dealing with the nature of reality is one of controversy, and the subject of names within the topic does not escape controversy either. Most often, there are two main views of names. The first is that they are ultimately meaningless, nothing more than an assigned label. However, we clearly associate particular qualities with names in order to identify and conceptualize (Cruse, 2011). The other view of names is that they “function as abbreviated descriptions” (Cruse, 2011, p. 394), with meaning coming through association. However, one might object that a person’s name does not change when the understanding of that same person does (Cruse, 2011). Schneider (2009) also addresses two similar views of names, though from a more philosophical and somewhat sociological perspective. Here, names are either viewed as carriers of identity or arbitrary labels. I will explain this more later. Bardis (1972), citing Hertzler, views names more in light of their various functions, writing: First, they identify, signify, or denote something; second, they assign the named entity to a meaningful classification; third, they become part of a person in all cultures; and fourth, they facilitate the named entity’s manipulation, since the entity is no longer secret or fugitive. (p. 101) While it is easy to identify that important role names serve in communication, they are much more difficult to analyze and classify. Names are then, as Korta and Perry (2011) coined, “nambiguous.” Cruse (2011) points out that in order for a name to be used, it “must be associated with a set of properties” (p. 396), but at the same time they are “liable to modification at any time” (p. 396). Additionally, a particular name does not refer to the same individual in each instance that it is used (Korta & Perry, 2011). Even so, we do not seem to have difficulty with this reality as we might with other words. Korta and Perry put forth a possible solution to this puzzling phenomenon with what they call a name-notion network . A network is formed when multiple people co-refer to the same individual at different instances with a particular name. Other people later conditionally co-refer (or coco-refer) to that individual in