Speech-Act Theoretical Perspectives on Fiction
Speech-Act Theoretical Perspectives on Fiction

Summary/Abstract: This paper constitutes part of a wider attempt at defining fiction. Some of the notorious difficulty of doing so derives from the fact that the concept of fiction is often mistakenly superimposed on that of literary narrative, as a mode of representation. Having considered that aspect in another paper, the present one examines fiction as a discursive mode. More specifically, it outlines some of the most illustrative scholarly positions, inspired by speech-act theory, on the extent to which fictional communication, or fictional storytelling, consists of types of utterances that are, at the same time, formally identical to explicit and serious assertions and departing from them as “pretended” utterances whose performance, based on a different set of communicative rules, results in the very particular form of deception we call “fiction-making”.

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