Antje Schlottmann, Frankfurt am Main: Wie aus Worten Orte werden – Gehalt und Grenzen

sprechakttheoretischer Sozialgeographie

How words become places – potential and limitations of speech act theory in

social geography

In the context of contemporary “non-representational” approaches in human geography, this paper explores the potential and limitations of language-pragmatics for research into the everyday location of culture. Using a very popular German pop song about Greek migrant workers as well as the concept of “Heimat” as examples, the author outlines how John Searle’s speech act theory can contribute to exploring the relationship between language use, space and society. It is argued that linguistic references to space are closely involved in the constitution of places as stable realities as they constitute essential truth claims about their locational qualities. Such spatial speech acts structure our expectations and experiences and give places an emotional charge, which in turn reproduces the idea of spatially fixed cultural realities “in their places”, facilitating a useful reduction of complexity while at the same making extremist misuse possible. The paper also discusses some weaknesses of speech act theory, especially with regard to its context insensitivity and political arbitrariness. Discourse analysis is proposed as a potential theoretical complement to speech act theory. The final section concludes that speech acts are a rewarding starting point for socio-geographical enquiry, that such a representational approach is far from being solely text-centred and indeed provides tools for the inclusion of material realities by focusing on everyday references to a truth which is independent of the observer.

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