Speech Acts, the Handicap Principle and the Expression of Psychological States

TLDR

Speech acts are often described as expressive, with assertions conveying belief, apologies conveying regret, and promises conveying intention, and expressive acts are essentially a form of showing the speaker’s state. The study asks how a speech act can show a speaker’s state of thought or feeling. The authors examine three types of showing, identify the one most relevant for revealing psychological states, and draw on evolutionary biology of communication to explain how speech acts enable such expression.

Abstract

Abstract: One oft‐cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker’s state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one of them is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state.