Page 126 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 126
What Do We Know about the World?
Implicit redefinition: “Hostilities”
The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Lib-
ya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that
law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military oper-
ations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities” contemplated by the Reso-
lution’s 60 day termination provision. […] U.S. operations do not involve sus-
tained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they in-
volve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat
thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized
by those factors.
Here Obama is not performing any explicit act of defining, nor is
he rejecting or attacking the shared one. He is just taking such defini-
tion for granted (Macagno 2012). He presupposes that “hostility” means
only “active fighting by ground troops”, contrary to any accepted defini-
tion of the term under the US laws or military dictionaries.
Through his implicit act, Obama imposes a new meaning without
being committed to any stipulation or any definitional standpoint. His
tacit act binds the speaker and the audience to a specific commitment, i.e.,
that “hostility” meant only “active fighting by ground troops”. Searle and
Vanderveken provided a generic rule from indirect speech acts that can
be used to describe this kind of implicit speech act performed through
the use of the presupposed definition for classifying the bombings in
Libya (Searle and Vanderveken, 2005: 130). On their view, the asser-
ttiioonnso, fnaamclaeslysitfihcaattihoenb(eFl1i(epv1e))s commits the speaker to its sincerity condi-
the “hostility” has the proposed meaning.
However, the assertion is possible only if another act is performed (F(p)),
consisting in the stipulation of a new meaning of such a concept. The
classification commits the speaker to the illocutionary point of an im-
plicit act, imposing that “hostility only means active fighting by ground
troops”. We can represent the commitment structure of this implicit act
as follows.
Implicit redefinition: “Hostilities”
The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Lib-
ya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that
law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military oper-
ations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities” contemplated by the Reso-
lution’s 60 day termination provision. […] U.S. operations do not involve sus-
tained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they in-
volve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat
thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized
by those factors.
Here Obama is not performing any explicit act of defining, nor is
he rejecting or attacking the shared one. He is just taking such defini-
tion for granted (Macagno 2012). He presupposes that “hostility” means
only “active fighting by ground troops”, contrary to any accepted defini-
tion of the term under the US laws or military dictionaries.
Through his implicit act, Obama imposes a new meaning without
being committed to any stipulation or any definitional standpoint. His
tacit act binds the speaker and the audience to a specific commitment, i.e.,
that “hostility” meant only “active fighting by ground troops”. Searle and
Vanderveken provided a generic rule from indirect speech acts that can
be used to describe this kind of implicit speech act performed through
the use of the presupposed definition for classifying the bombings in
Libya (Searle and Vanderveken, 2005: 130). On their view, the asser-
ttiioonnso, fnaamclaeslysitfihcaattihoenb(eFl1i(epv1e))s commits the speaker to its sincerity condi-
the “hostility” has the proposed meaning.
However, the assertion is possible only if another act is performed (F(p)),
consisting in the stipulation of a new meaning of such a concept. The
classification commits the speaker to the illocutionary point of an im-
plicit act, imposing that “hostility only means active fighting by ground
troops”. We can represent the commitment structure of this implicit act
as follows.
