Every sentence we utter has a speech act, but this speech act is only understood due to social convention. (Searle 194) It is this duality that Searle uses to define his view of language. When thinking about those that have a barrier to language, lacking the ease to know and understand, such as those with autism, we have to consider Searle’s viewpoint. Searle’s definition of language, specifically the ideas of speech acts and social contract points to the argument that those on the autism spectrum do not posses language.
The concept of a speech act is fundamental to Searle’s understanding of language. He defines a speech act as an utterance with a certain purpose in language, such as statements, assertions, requests, and commands. (180) There are different types of speech acts based on their purpose: assertive speech acts show the state of the world, directive express desires, and commissive express intentions. (180) Yet, the speech act is only a part of his algorithm. Searle looks at language as a dual understanding of semantic meaning of an utterance and what is called the illocutionary force, or type of speech act discussed above. “We need to distinguish between those communicative acts that involve intentionally representing a state of affairs in the world and those that simply express an animal’s internal state.” (Searle 187) True language is not used to just define internal state; language users have the ability to use the dual component to describe minute details and specific feelings and states. This is our first clue that Searle might not look at those on the autism spectrum as having what he defines as language. It has been found by researchers that autistic children most commonly and successfully use language to ask for something and are at an “increased risk of communicative breakdowns due to impairments in joint attention and reliance on prelinguistic forms of communication that may be ambiguous and difficult to understand.” (Keen 15) They are unable to do more than ask and express more basic statements of language.
For spoken word to become communication, listeners must fully grasp the intention as well as the physical act. One must understand the nuanced meaning, not always is something said directly. We have elements such as sarcasm and idioms that allow us to express ourselves in an alternate way. Searle writes, “simple expressive speech acts, even when performed intentionally are not ‘linguistics’ in the sense…because, though they give vent to intentional or other states of the speaker, they do not represent.” (187) Bring it back to autism, those on the autism spectrum struggle with taking the speech act to the next level of understanding. “For children with autism, the development of intentional and symbolic communication can be a challenging process and some children remain at the prelinguistic stage of communicative development for extended periods.” (Keen 11) As autistic children develop, they have less of an interest to communicate as much as standard children do, so they have less of a chance to develop these language skills during their critical period. (Keen 11) Though autistic children come to understand speech acts: having the ability to ask for things they want or need, they miss the development of the element of language that is more than just stating.
The social contract of language is a combination of pre-linguistic intentionality and speech acts. Searle defines the social contract as influenced by the group as a whole. He writes, “Once a society has a common language, it already has a social construct.” (177) Looking at this definition, those that have the ability to impose meaning and create the norms of language have the power in a social contract. They are the ones controlling our language. This points to another reason Searle would define autistic individuals as not possessing language. Due to the lower attention span autistic individuals possess, they most often use language to meet an end goal and not otherwise. (Keen 13) Not only does Searle say they arguably do not have a language for other reasons, they also do not have the ability to control the social contract. Those with autism arguably cannot impose language upon others, as they still exist in a pre-linguistic system. Searle defines pre-linguistic consciousness as something that “lacks internal and controllable structures in its thought process.” (182) He provides the example that those with a pre-linguistic system struggle with the complex grammatical rules of the language. To fully be one with language, again one must grasp both the meaning and the syntax. The fact that our language exists in a tree-based syntactical system, not linearly, affects those with autism. They will struggle to grasp more complex language, such as inverted sentences, leading to frustration and follow up questions. (Keen 14) This will prevent them from ever fully joining a linguistic circle.
Because Searle ultimately defines language as hand in hand with meaning and intentionality, pragmatics becomes a vital part of his definition. Searle argues that we are born with something, the link between the propositional statement and intentionality that allows us to use language fully and completely to describe both ourselves and the world around us. Language is the base of society, and those on the autism spectrum lack the ability to fully grasp the dual elements Searle uses to describe language as well as control the social contract.
Bibliography
Keen, Deb. “Prelinguistic Communication.” Communication in Autism, by Joanne
Arciuli and Jon Brock. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014. Print.
Searle, John. What is Language? Some Preliminary Remarks. University of California,
- Print.