Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed November 17, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-201).

This thesis examines the appeal to ordinary language as a distinctive methodological feature in the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the work of J. L. Austin. This appeal situates our language and concepts within the broader forms of life in which we use them, and seeks to ‘disenchant’ idealizations that extract our language and concepts from this broader context. A disenchanted philosophy recognizes our forms of life as manifestations of attunement: a shared common ground of understanding and behaviour that cannot itself be further explained or justified. By working through the consequences of seeing our forms of life as ultimately ungrounded in this way, the thesis illuminates the underlying importance of play to shared practices like language. The first two chapters consider the appeal to ordinary language as it features in the work of Austin and Wittgenstein, respectively. By placing each author in turn in dialogue with Jacques Derrida, the thesis draws out the importance of seeing our attunement as ungrounded, and the difficulty of doing so. Austin’s appeal to a ‘total context’ betrays the sort of idealization Austin himself opposes, whereas Wittgenstein and Derrida must remain self-reflexively vigilant in order to avoid the same pitfall. Chapter Three explores connections between the appeal to ordinary language and Martin Heidegger’s analysis of ‘average everydayness’ in Being and Time. Heidegger takes average everydayness to be a mark of inauthenticity. However, in acknowledging the ungroundedness of attunement, the appeal to ordinary language manifests a turn similar to Heidegger’s appeal to authenticity. Furthermore, Wittgenstein’s use of conceptual ‘pictures’ also allows him to avoid some of the confusions in Heidegger’s work. Chapter Four considers the nature of our ungrounded attunement, and argues that we both discover and create this attunement through play, which is unregulated activity that itself gives rise to regularity.

My dissertation applies narrative theory and ordinary language philosophy to two major works bookending medieval English literature: Beowulf and Le Morte Darthur. Capitalizing on the descriptive power of narrative theory's lexicon, I outline the aesthetics, rhetoric, and other effects on the reader when these medieval writers depict transgressive movements--theoretically termed metalepsis--across borders in the story world, and over boundaries separating that world from our own. I often find that spatial transgressions, as they are visualized in narrative terms, entail or simultaneously occur with a breakdown of the fourth wall separating fiction from its audience. Malory's Sir Lancelot crosses into a spiritual world in pursuit of the Holy Grail only to arrive at an awareness of his existence as narrated fiction. My dissertation argues that moments like this, first analyzed through narrative theory, challenge the reader to recognize the fictional character's force of life, and in so doing expand the imagination to reconsider those metaphysical distinctions that have long rendered the nonhuman inferior. Those distinctions are unnecessary and often senseless, I argue. The ethics of reading fiction that I propose seeks the acknowledgment of limits to knowledge, to what we can claim to know about literature, its characters, and, indeed, our fellow human beings. Given that they are constructed by our ordinary language use, fictional characters are the essence of the other. Fictions, then, and as Stanley Cavell would agree, serve as testing grounds for our capacities of acknowledgment. I argue that both the Beowulf poet and Malory fashioned fictional worlds that preserve a secular heroism from potentially hostile contexts. In the process, these medieval narratives show us that fictional characters move us as a matter of ordinary language--our ordinary interactions with narrative: they play a significant role in our lives that cannot be reduced to any particular theory. There is no need for recourse to ontological, or theological, frameworks to invest them with some unutterable or mysterious meaning. They matter as a matter of course.

Este trabalho utiliza os sete romances da escritora Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003), O Quinze (1930), JoÃo Miguel (1932), Caminhos de Pedra (1937), as TrÃs Marias (1939), O Galo de Ouro (1950), DÃra, Doralina (1975) e Memorial de Maria Moura (1992), e tem por objetivo identificar e descrever o lÃxico regional caracterÃstico do Nordeste brasileiro, de modo especial, o do CearÃ, terra natal da escritora. Tal objetivo à justificado a partir de diversas declaraÃÃes da escritora, para quem seus personagens, embora fictÃcios, sÃo representativos da cultura nordestina e tambÃm remetem a caracterÃsticas de pessoas da sua convivÃncia social. Estudar a obra de Rachel de Queiroz, numa perspectiva linguÃstica, à bastante significativo, pelo fato de a escritora cearense apresentar, em sua escritura, um conjunto de obras construÃdas, sobremaneira, com a linguagem popular do Nordeste. Essa linguagem nos à apresentada atravÃs de inÃmeros regionalismos, que vÃo desde vocÃbulos e expressÃes a provÃrbios. Toda essa riqueza dos modos de falar pode ser encontrada, principalmente, nos romances, pois foi exatamente nesse gÃnero literÃrio que Rachel de Queiroz expressou o drama do homem das terras secas e pobres do Nordeste. Na composiÃÃo de uma obra literÃria, o estudo do lÃxico assume um papel de suma importÃncia no sentido de nos proporcionar um acompanhamento do processo de avanÃo e de transformaÃÃo da lÃngua integrada na cultura de um povo. Por isso, este estudo serà desenvolvido à luz dos princÃpios teÃricos da Lexicologia e da Lexicografia, que serÃo utilizados conforme AragÃo (2006), Krieger et al (2006), Biderman (2001), Isquerdo (1998) e Barbosa (1991), para a elaboraÃÃo de um glossÃrio dos itens lexicais que constituem o regionalismo presente na obra romanesca de Rachel de Queiroz. Acreditamos que uma pesquisa, nestes moldes, està revestida de importÃncia para os estudos linguÃsticos, por tratar-se de uma pesquisa sÃcio e etnolinguÃstica, a qual investiga a variaÃÃo da linguagem em seu contexto social, mais precisamente, no que diz respeito ao processo linguÃstico e à cultura regional nordestina, anotados no glossÃrio a que nos propomos realizar, como forma de cooperar com algumas lacunas da Lexicologia e Lexicografia, mormente, a regional, para a fortuna crÃtica da obra de Rachel de Queiroz. / This study uses the seven novels, by the author Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003): O Quinze (1930), JoÃo Miguel (1932), Caminhos de Pedra (1937), as TrÃs Marias (1939), O Galo de Ouro (1950), DÃra, Doralina (1975), and Memorial de Maria Moura (1992) with the objective of identifying and describing the regional lexicon from the Brazilian Northeast, especially, from CearÃ, the state where she was born. Such objective was justified by the author's own words who said, in several occasions, that her characters, although they are fictional, they are representative of the Northeast culture, and that they also refer to characteristics of the people from her social life. The investigation of Rachel de Queiroz's work, in a linguistic perspective, is quite relevant due to the fact that this author presents in her writing a set of works composed greatly of ordinary language from the Northeast. This language is presented through countless regionalisms, which encompass words and expressions and proverbs. All this richness in ways of speaking may be found, mainly, in her novels, since it was exactly, through this literary genre, that Rachel de Queiroz expressed the dramatic situation of men in the dry and poor lands of the Northeast. In the composition of a literary work, the lexicon assumes an important role in the sense of that it provides us with a monitoring process of advance and transformation of language integrated in the culture of a people. For that, this research will be conducted in the prospect of theoretical principles of Lexicology and Lexicography, based on AragÃo (2006), Krieger et al (2006), Biderman (2001), Isquerdo (1998), and Barbosa (1991), in order to produce a glossary with lexical regional unities presented in Rachel de Queiroz's novels. We believe that this perspective of research is relevant to Linguistic studies, since it treats of a social and ethnolinguistic research, which investigates the linguistic variation in its social context, more particularly, concerning the linguistic process and the Northeastern regional culture, inserted in the glossary, as a way of giving contribution to some gaps in the area of Lexicology and Lexicography, specially, the regional one, and to Rachel de Queiroz's literary criticism.

The aim of the following master’s thesis is to analyze moral difficulties in and in relation to the French novel Grey Soulsby Philippe Claudel. Situated in the philosophic and literary tradition of Ordinary Language Criticism, the thesis applies and takes support from reasoning, ideas, and procedures from Niklas Forsberg, Stanley Cavell, Toril Moi and Nora Hämäläinen. A starting point is that the reader is vital for the novel’s moral impact. Through the analysis, sectioned into two parts, I study events, themes, and characters in the novel, before focusing on the anonymous narrator. By using the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge (Forsberg) and “best case of acknowledgement” (Cavell) I reach the conclusion that the narrator’s quest for objective knowledge is a diversion: it is subjective knowledge that he really seeks and needs to acknowledge. By applying Hämäläinen’s open-ended use and Forsberg’s mirroring, the thesis continuously puts emphasis on the role the reader holds in relation to the novel’s moral difficulties, arguing that the reader, too, needs to be subjectively engaged to grasp the novel’s difficulties and do it justice. / L’objectif du mémoire de master suivant est d’analyser les difficultés morales dedans et par rapport au roman français Les Âmes grises de Philippe Claudel. Situé dans la tradition philosophique et littéraire d’Ordinary Language Criticism, le mémoire applique et prend appui sur des raisonnements, des idées et des procédures de Niklas Forsberg, Stanley Cavell, Toril Moi et Nora Hämäläinen. Un point de départ est que le lecteur est essentiel pour l’impact moral du roman. À travers l’analyse, divisée en deux parties, j’étudie des événements, des thèmes et des personnages du roman, avant de me focaliser sur le narrateur anonyme. En utilisant la distinction entre connaissance subjective et objective (Forsberg) et le « best case of acknowledgement » (Cavell), j’arrive à la conclusion que la quête de connaissance objective du narrateur est une diversion : c’est la connaissance subjective qu’il recherche réellement et qu’il doit reconnaître. En appliquant la lecture ouverte de Hämäläinen et la mise en miroir de Forsberg, le mémoire met continuellement l’accent sur le rôle que joue le lecteur par rapport aux difficultés morales du roman, arguant que le lecteur aussi doit être engagé subjectivement pour saisir les difficultés du roman et le faire justice.

Nombre de travaux contemporains en philosophie de la perception s’inspirent de l’ouvrage Sense and Sensibilia du philosophe anglais John L. Austin (1911-1960). En examinant le langage ordinaire pour reconnaître la diversité des phénomènes perceptifs, Austin vise entre autres à démontrer l’impossibilité de les réduire aux catégories métaphysiques traditionnelles. Charles Travis est de ceux qui se sont risqués à réinvestir la phénoménologie linguistique d’Austin. Se réclamant ouvertement d’Austin qui soutenait que « nos sens sont muets », il développera la thèse du silence des sens selon laquelle la perception n’aurait pas un contenu représentationnel. Cette thèse aura une grande influence sur Jocelyn Benoist, qui reprendra à son compte l’idée selon laquelle la perception n’est pas intentionnelle. Travis et Benoist s’entendent donc pour dire qu’en tant que la perception est silencieuse — et donc non-conceptuelle — elle ne peut être intentionnelle. Or, il s’en suivrait alors que la phénoménologie serait fondamentalement incompatible avec la radicalité de leur critique réciproque contre le représentationnalisme, basée sur la thèse d’inspiration austinienne du silence des sens. L’intuition à l’origine de ce mémoire réside dans la perspective selon laquelle ces conclusions constitueraient en fait une radicalisation de la thèse véritablement défendue par Austin, le mutisme n’étant pas synonyme de silence. Si Austin a pu démontrer très efficacement l’autonomie de la perception par rapport au langage, la reprise de cette idée chez Travis et Benoist les a menés à une thèse plus radicale selon laquelle la perception ne serait pas une activité que l’on pourrait qualifier de normative. Partant de cette idée, j’interroge la portée et les limites de la thèse d’Austin et de ses héritiers en examinant le rôle de la normativité en jeu dans la perception. Dans ce mémoire, je soutiens que les conclusions que Travis et Benoist tirent de la thèse du silence des sens qu’ils attribuent à Austin constituent en fait une radicalisation de la position véritablement défendue par l’Oxonien. La thèse de Travis et Benoist doit être nuancée dans la mesure où d’autres types de normes jouent un rôle transcendantal pour la perception. Dès lors que l’on considère l’expérience sensible, non pas comme une activité exclusivement épistémique et cognitive, mais comme une pratique incarnée, la thèse du mutisme des sens devient compatible avec une conception normative de la perception. / Much contemporary work in philosophy of perception draws on the work Sense and Sensibilia by the English philosopher John L. Austin (1911-1960). By examining ordinary language to recognize the diversity of perceptual phenomena, Austin aims, among other things, to demonstrate the impossibility of reducing them to traditional metaphysical categories. Charles Travis is one of those who have ventured to reinvest Austin's linguistic phenomenology. Following in the footsteps of Austin, who maintained that "our senses are dumb", he developed the thesis of the silence of the senses, according to which perception has no representational content. This thesis had a major influence on Jocelyn Benoist, who took up the idea that perception is not intentional. Travis and Benoist agree that since perception is silent - and therefore non-conceptual - it cannot be intentional. It would then follow that phenomenology would be fundamentally incompatible with the radicalness of their reciprocal critique of representationalism based on Austin’s inspired thesis of the silence of the senses. The intuition behind this dissertation lies in the prospect that these conclusions might in fact constitute a radicalization of the thesis actually defended by Austin, since mutism is not synonymous with silence. If Austin demonstrated very effectively the autonomy of perception in relation to language, the revival of this idea by Travis and Benoist led them to a much more radical thesis, according to which perception would not be an activity that can be described as normative. Based on this idea, I question the scope and limits of the thesis of Austin and his heirs by examining the role of normativity at play in perception. In this dissertation, I argue that the conclusions Travis and Benoist draw from the silence of the senses thesis they attribute to Austin are in fact a radicalization of the position actually defended by the Oxonian. Travis and Benoist's thesis must be tempered insofar as other types of norms play a transcendental role for perception. As soon as we consider sensible experience not as an exclusively epistemic and cognitive activity, but as an embodied practice, the thesis of the mutism of the senses becomes compatible with a normative conception of perception.

This is a qualitative research that draws Gee‟s Discourse analysis to understand how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning in a multilingual classroom in South Africa. The study involved a Grade 11 class of 25 learners in a township school East of Johannesburg. The research method used was a case study. Data was collected using classroom observations, and document analysis. The study has shown that learners communicate their mathematics reasoning up to a certain level. The way learners communicated their mathematical reasoning depended on the activities that were given by the textbook being used in the classroom, and the questions which the teacher asked during the lessons. From the findings of the study, recommendations were made: the assessment of how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning should have a basis, say the curriculum. If the curriculum states the level of mathematical reasoning which the learners at Grade 11 must reach, then the teacher will have to probe the learners for higher reasoning; mathematics classroom textbooks should be designed to enable learners communicate their mathematical reasoning. The teacher should ask learners questions that require learners to communicate their mathematical reasoning.

This study claims that formally experimental novels written in the early twentieth century place urgent, if often implicit, demands for acknowledgment upon their readers. Scholars have long held that the economic and cultural upheavals of the early twentieth century led novelists to doubt language’s referential capacities. But, even as signal modernist works by E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and others move away from a view of language as a means of gaining knowledge, they also underscore its capacity to grant acknowledgment; they treat words as tools for recognizing and responding to the inner lives of others. Stanley Cavell finds such a vision of language in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1953), a work Cavell describes as “modernist.” This dissertation demonstrates that Wittgenstein’s interest in acknowledgment emerges via his negotiation of the same historical forces with which literary modernism grapples: industrialization, World War, cross-cultural encounter. I argue that modernist representations of consciousness offer readers a way of hearing what Wittgenstein calls “the silent soliloquy of others,” giving us words by which we might adopt an attitude of acknowledgment toward the otherwise unvoiced inner lives of socially marginalized figures. Chapter One considers the crisis of reason that convulses early twentieth-century Britain and demonstrates how Forster’s Howards End (1910) and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) critique excessive commitments to rationality as counterproductive to the acknowledgment of politically disenfranchised citizens. Chapter Two discusses Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier (1915), Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927), and Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929): three texts that, I show, cast traditional Victorian marriage as an unsatisfying form of intimacy and depict speakers hesitant to acknowledge their desires for alternative, same-sex modes of intimate relation. Chapter Three examines Faulkner’s portrayal of capitalist modernization in The Sound and the Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930), arguing that characters in these novels insist on the immitigable privacy of their experiences and struggle accordingly to gain acknowledgment from family members. Chapter Four reads Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945) and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) as two texts that represent the psychological experience of having one’s humanity go brutally unacknowledged under Jim Crow. / 2020-11-07T00:00:00Z

Comment penser la construction et la déconstruction du genre dans le langage ? Je montre que la philosophie du langage ordinaire — et notamment la théorie austinienne des actes de parole — peut soutenir une approche constructiviste et éclairer le rôle du langage dans la construction sociale du genre. La naturalisation du genre repose à la fois sur une représentation du langage — comme simple reflet du réel et comme « capacité » inégalement partagée — et sur des pratiques linguistiques ordinaires et scientifiques. Penser cela implique de dépasser la stricte dichotomie de l’idéologique et du matériel, pour analyser ensemble la construction et la représentation du genre dans des pratiques discursives et non-discursives. La théorie butlerienne de la « performativité du genre » permet de penser à la fois la construction du genre et sa contingence, sa possible déconstruction. Mais quel est notre pouvoir transformateur ? Si montrer qu’un phénomène n’est pas naturel ne suffit pas à le détruire, analyser sa force ne nous réduit-il pas à l’impuissance ? Pour répondre à ces questions, j’étudie des pratiques discursives de lutte. Je montre le pouvoir transformateur de pratiques de subversions et d’actes de parole insurrectionnels, qui font usage de la performativité du langage pour transformer les conditions sociales encadrant l’efficacité des discours. Je montre que ces pratiques déconstruisent le genre et produisent des collectifs de lutte, pour insister sur ce qu’une approche radicalement constructiviste du genre ouvre comme possibles pour le féminisme et l’action collective. / How is gender constructed and deconstructed in ordinary practices of language? First of all, I demonstrate that ordinary language philosophy – and more specifically the austinian theory of speech acts – can lay the ground for a constructivist approach and help to understand the role of language in the social construction of gender. I show that gender is naturalized both by our representation of language itself – as a mere reflect of reality and as an unequally shared “capacity” – and by ordinary and scientific practices of language. Understanding this idea involves going beyond the dichotomy of ideological and material, in order to analyze construction and representation of gender together in both discursive and non-discursive practices. Butler’s theory of gender performativity makes it possible to understand both construction and deconstruction, or the contingency of gender. But does not highlighting the strength of this construction lead to deny our power and agency? To answer this question, I study feminist discursive practices. I highlight transformative power of subversions and insurrectional speech acts. I analyze discursive practices of denaturalization that challenge both social and discursive orders, and practices that use language performativity to change the social conditions that give power to speech acts. These practices deconstruct gender and produce political and collective subjects: a radical constructivist approach to gender thus opens rich perspectives for feminism and collective activism.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished