The Tragedy of the Japanese Response to the Potsdam Declaration, 'Mokusatsu,' Being Translated as 'Ignore' or 'Reject' by the U.S. - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-2)

Cover photo: From Potsdam Declaration (Famous Photo) - On This Day

This is the continuation (Part 5-2) of "The Tragedy of the Japanese Response to the Potsdam Declaration, 'Mokusatsu,' Being Translated as 'Ignore' or 'Reject' by the U.S. - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-1)".

An analysis from the perspective of linguistic communication theory: performative analysis

In the first place, a declaration is a type of performative sentence (performatives) proposed by linguistic philosopher J.L. Austin in "How to Do Things with Words". [1]

Performatives are sentences where the utterance is not merely a description or report ("do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything at all"), nor is it a matter of truth or falsehood ("are not ‘true’ or ‘false’"), but rather the utterance of the sentence is, or is a part of, an action itself.

The words spoken at a wedding ceremony, the groom's "I, ___, take thee, ____, to be my wedded wife," and the bride's "I, ___, take thee, ____, to be my wedded husband," are the act of marriage itself.

The words spoken at a ship launching ceremony, "I name this ship Queen Elizabeth," are the act of naming that ship itself.

These examples are all types of performative sentences called declarations. In President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 "President Franklin D. Roosevelt Declares War on Japan (Full Speech) | War Archives", the final sentence

"On Sunday, December 7, 1941, A state of war has existed between the United State and the Japanese empire." "On December 7, 1941, a state of war came to exist between the United States and Japan."

constituted the act of declaring war. This was not merely a description of the situation, but the performance of the act of declaring war by stating that one recognized this situation to exist. It is not just a story that can be judged as "true" or "false".

Characteristics of performative sentences

The syntactic structure of a performative sentence usually consists of an affirmative sentence in the first-person singular present active indicative, with a first-person subject 'I' and a performative verb (e.g., "declare," "bet," "name"). However, this is a general rule, and as seen in the declaration of war example above, there are cases where this is not the case.

John Searle's speech act theory

Influenced by Austin's theory, John Searle, who rephrased performatives as speech acts and developed them into speech act theory (Speech Acts Theory and Pragmatics) [2], lists examples in a paper titled "Indirect Speech Acts" (1975, in Syntax and Semantics Vol. 3, Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan eds. [2] pp.59-83) where sentences with syntactic structures such as second-person subjects, non-performative verbs, interrogative forms, and negative forms indirectly become performative sentences.

Speech Act Theory A free site called Speech Act Theory classifies Searle's speech acts as shown in the table below.

The PERFORMATIVE CATEGORIES ( Speech Act Theory )
Category Action Example
Representatives (Statements) Tell how things are Concluding Directives (Directives) Encourage action Requesting Commissives (Promises) Commit speaker to action Promising Expressives (Psychological expressions) Express psychological state Thanking Declarations (Declarations) Change the state of affairs Christening

It is studied in a wide range of fields, and there is a more detailed explanation in Speech Acts. It is essential for university students majoring in philosophy, linguistics, AI, political science, law, etc. As will be mentioned later, members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are literally called lawmakers, and they have likely all studied speech acts in law school. Laws are collections of speech acts regarding the permission, prohibition, and punishment of each nation-state.

The title of the doctoral dissertation I wrote at Georgetown University was A Generative Analysis of the English Modals, and it touched upon speech acts. I would be happy if interested readers would take a look. I also touch upon this in another article, "J. Searle's 'The Chinese Room' denies Strong AI... Consciousness Science: Hard Problem? Easy Problem? (5)."

Following "The tragedy caused by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Declaration, 'mokusatsu,' being translated as 'ignore' or 'reject' by the U.S. side - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-3)"

1] This is essential reading for AI (natural language processing) and neurology (language disorders). Readers hoping to study at an American graduate school should read it. [2] Same as above. [3 This collection of papers] Syntax and Semantics Vol. 3 collects important papers related to indirect speech acts. In particular, H.P. Grice's “Logic and Conversation” (pp.41-58) included in the book is a paper that readers considering studying at an American graduate school should definitely read. It is cited in many fields.