행위로서의 언어와 의미 -들뢰즈와 퍼스의 화행론

Language as Act and Meaning: Deleuze's and Peirce's Pragmatics

From the perspective of pragmatics, language is a mode of act that works in the order of motive and performs human purpose. The function of language is then primarily performative rather than informational or significative. Pragmatics, however, encounters a tough question: what is the relation of the linguistic act to meaning? Many language theories including pragmatic theories admit the autonomy of meaning while defining language as act. But in Deleuze and Peirce we find examples of maximalist pragmatics that denies the autonomy of meaning. However, Deleuze and Peirce are different in their view on the function of meaning. For Deleuze, language is the transmission of act, what he calls 'order-word.' He rejects meaning except as the minimal condition for the transmission. But his theory turns out to be contradictory in that meaning as the minimal condition is actually the function of constants that he denies for order-words that are always variables. On the contrary, Peirce's pragmatism as a radical pragmatics does not exclude meaning. For him, language is interpretative act serving the purpose of understanding reality, which is performed through the function of meaning and 'habit.' This shows that meaning is indispensable to language even in maximalist pragmatics.