Fitting Words to Worlds

One of the categories of speech act theory is to ask whether the “direction of fit” in an utterance is “world to words” or “words to world”; that is, is the speaker trying to conform his words to some realities in the world or is he trying to conform some realities in the world to his words.

This is a useful analytical tool, but the realities are rather more complex and if pressed the distinctions begin to break down.

Assuming we don’t simply think in the words of our utterance, a speaker will almost always be trying to conform his words to something that’s going on in the world, in his brain: his thoughts.

One of the basic insights of speech act theory is that we are always doing things with our words. When we speak we are usually trying to do something in the world, else there would be no point in speaking. As soon as our words are out there (even if they are “only” seeking to say something truthful about the world) they become a new fact in the world and have changed the world.