overemphasis on magic

[thompson at handel.jlc.net]

In response to Peter Fluegel's recent observations:

>It seems more productive
>to investigate the pragmatics of language usage in context without
>prejudicing the results by way of labels like 'magic'.Tambiah is
>certainly right in stressing that this task 'has still to be completed'.
>In fact - it has hardly begun. Unfortunately Tambiah himself never really
>investigated speech acts but confined himself to a few programmatic
>statements along the lines of Wittgensteinian linguistic philosophy.
>
>
While I agree in general...

[in fact I think that the point has already been made:

>>Often the theory is used rather vaguely to deal with such "theoretical"
>>constructs as "ritual" or "magic" or "mantras" [as J. Houben has already
>>suggested; I must add that I am somewhat sympathetic with Staal's
>>critique of the use of speech act theory in this way<<]

...I am not quite sure that we can avoid using the term 'magic.'  In the
case of a speech act like the Indic satyakriyA, the only way that I have
been able to distinguish this from other closely related speech acts, as I
have said, is to resort to Searle's category "supernatural declaration."  I
have preferred to adopt the term "magical performative" because it seems
more accurate, but I am willing to yield to a better description of the
satyakriyA and to a more precise characterization of its distinctive
features.  It is clearly different from the other speech acts with which it
has been compared.

George Thompson