Speech as Action: The Restoration of Voice in The Kitchen God’s Wife

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dc.contributor.authorWade, Kerry
dc.date.accessioned2014-05-05T21:00:42Z
dc.date.available2014-05-05T21:00:42Z
dc.date.issued2014-04-14
dc.description.abstractLike her internationally acclaimed novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan’s second novel, The Kitchen God’s Wife uses oral narration to address the intergenerational and intercultural struggles of Chinese-American mothers and daughters. Instead of viewing the goal of Winnie’s narration as creating a union with her daughter, I would like to concentrate on the act of speaking itself as a means of reclaiming identity. It is through her speech that Winnie acts to reclaim her personhood that had been silenced by male and cultural oppression. The Speech Act Theory, championed by John L. Austin and further developed by John R. Searle, uses the concept of illocutionary acts to show how speech is active not passive. This theory recognizes the ability of language to do more than simply describe reality and recount events. "It was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the business of a ‘statement’ can only be to ‘describe’ some state of affairs, or to ‘state some fact’, which it must do either truly or falsely. (…) It has come to be commonly held that many utterances which look like statements are either not intended at all, or only intended in part, to record or impart straight forward information about the facts" (Austin). Austin offered a new insight that language is action and can, and does, result in action. Language does not only describe and bring understanding, but it can also have a performative function. The Speech Act Theory, specifically the concept of successful illocutionary speech acts, expands on the idea of speech as an action that has the ability to change reality.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipSpring Arbor University Jack Baker Kimberly Rupert Brent Cline Kimberly Moore-Jumonvilleen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11210/29
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.subjectAmy Tanen_US
dc.subjectThe Kitchen God’s Wifeen_US
dc.subjectSpeech Act Theoryen_US
dc.subjectResearch Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGIONen_US
dc.titleSpeech as Action: The Restoration of Voice in The Kitchen God’s Wifeen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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