Jane Austen's Speech Acts and Language-Based Societies

This essay investigates the ways in which speech-act theory can illuminate the worlds internal to the novels of Jane Austen. Examining the origins and reworkings of speech-act theory, as well as different categories of performative speech, it argues that the events in Austen's works are not only caused by language, but also that language in itself is an event—an act. Such language-based societies are then explored, with particular attention to issues of intention and context, and to the implications of such an analysis for the further study of Austen's novels.