Actually Dan – it is and always has been a serious joke, with (I think)
a wonderful internal contradiction. If you were really prepared to be
surprised, you couldn’t be surprised... or could you J
ho
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*From:*oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Daniel
Mezick
*Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 9:18 AM
*To:* oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
*Subject:* [OSList] : Speech acts
When responding to Jenifer's thoughts earlier, I realized:
The slogan "Be Prepared to Be Surprised" is a most interesting one in
OST.
It is actually an illocutionary speech act.... of type "*/Directive/*".
So, located here in OST, baked into it, we have a specific slogan that
is attempting to *cause* the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. a
request, *commands* and advice. A directive!
I wonder if the undeniably directive structure of "Be Prepared to Be
Surprised" really aligned with the intention/spirit/philosophy of OST.
Dan
Background links:
What is a speech act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_acts
A */speech act/* in linguistics
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics> and the philosophy of
language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_language> is an
utterance that has performative function in language and communication.
What is an illocutionary act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act
*Illocutionary act* is a term in linguistics
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics> introduced by the philosopher
John L. Austin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Austin> in his
investigation of the various aspects of speech acts
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_acts>.
What is a Directive illocutionary act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illocutionary_act#Classes_of_illocutionary_acts
*directives* = speech acts that are to *cause the hearer to take a
particular action*, e.g. requests, commands and advice
More than you asked for:
What is a Commissive speech act?
*commissives* = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action,
e.g. promises and oaths
On 10/24/13 1:29 PM, Jenifer Toksvig wrote:
Dan wrote: >> Consider the man who loves a certain woman, and waits
for the current trend of her interest in him to change. He is goal
seeking without controlling. Likewise, trend-following market
traders do not attempt to create, control or make trends. They
simply identify & ride them, while seeking wealth. <<
Waiting and seeking are still forms of controlling. Your loving man
has chosen to wait for his goal rather than (to coin a phrase) being
prepared to be surprised by another woman. He may not be trying to
control her, but he’s still trying to control the situation in a way
that he thinks will allow him to achieve his goal.
Those who seek wealth do likewise: they don’t randomly ride the
trends, they identify them and make choices about how to ride them,
in order to obtain wealth. That is control.
I don’t think it’s possible to be goal-oriented and try to exert
some kind of control over the process, unless your goal is… to have
no goal. Actually, even being prepared to be surprised is a goal. A
sort of wonderfully ridiculous one.
Jen x
*Jenifer Toksvig
*www.acompletelossforwords.com
<http://www.acompletelossforwords.com>
*The Copenhagen Interpretation
*www.thecopenhageninterpretation.co.uk
<http://www.thecopenhageninterpretation.co.uk>
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