七十年代以来,转换生成学派逐渐失去其在语言学理论上的支配地位。从此,语言学内部产生了剧烈的转向,即从“语言能力”转向“语言运用”(Leech,1983:3—4)。在促成这种转化的诸多因素中,社会语言学研究的发展也许是最重要的。在这期间,言语行为理论异军突起,越来越受到语言学家的重视。英国哲学家 J.L.奥斯汀在五十年代后期奠定了言语行为理论的基础。1955年在哈佛大学的系列演讲中,奥斯汀首先提出了 Since the seventies, the conversion-generating school gradually lost its dominant position in linguistic theory. Since then, dramatic changes have taken place in linguistics, from “language ability” to “language use” (Leech 1983: 3-4). Perhaps the most important of these are the developments in sociolinguistics that have contributed to this transformation. During this period, the theory of speech acts suddenly emerged and attracted more and more attention by linguists. J.L. Austin, the British philosopher, laid the groundwork for the theory of speech act in the late fifties. In a series of speeches at Harvard University in 1955, Austin first proposed