From: "Eric  Salstrand" <eric_and_mary-AT-email.msn.com>
Subject: Chapter 3 - The Method: Language Games
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 06:14:25 -0600


The Method: Language Games

       Language Games –What (Wittgenstein) means by this term is that each
of the various categories of utterance can be defined in terms of rules
specifying their properties and the uses to which they can be put – in
exactly the same way as the game of chess is defined by a set of rules
determining the properties of each of the pieces, in other words, the proper
way to move them.

Lyotard lists three statements as examples that illustrate different kinds
of language games.

1. Denotative utterance (description) – The university is sick
2. Performative utterance – The university is open (as spoken by a dean at a
convocation)
3. Prescriptive utterance – Give money to me

These different statements represent different kinds of language games.  In
each there is a pragmatics that operates according to each one’s underlying
structure.  The components of this structure are as follows:
1. Sender – the one who utters the statement
2. Addressee – the person who receives it
3. Referent – what the statement deals with

According to the nature of the statement (language game), these positions
take on various meanings.  In denotative utterances, for example, the sender
takes on the role of a knower.  With performative and prescriptive
utterances, the sender takes on the role of authority.  In the case of
performative, this authority is one of power.  In the case of the
prescriptive, the authority may be one of a weakness which nonetheless
obligates me.  (Of course, if it is God or the state uttering the
prescriptive utterances, another dynamic enters into play.)

A similar analysis could be made of the addressee and referent roles as
well.

Lyotard makes three additional observations concerning language games.

1. The rules of the game do not carry within them their own legitimation,
but are the object of a contract.
2. If there are no rules, there is no game.
3. Every utterance should be thought of as a “move” in a game.

Finally, he states two principles:

This last observation (3) brings us to the first principle underlying our
method as a whole: to speak is to fight, in the sense of playing and speech
acts fall into the domain of a general agonistics.  This does not
necessarily mean that one plays to win.  A move can be made for the sheer
pleasure of its invention.

The second principle is that the observable social bond is composed of
language “moves.”