Ordinary language philosophy and new formalism

Ordinary language philosophy asks what language does in ordinary life rather than treating grammar as a detached system. Austin, Wittgenstein and Cavell direct attention to use, implication, intention and the circumstances in which words acquire meaning. For literary studies, this makes the encounter between text and reader a central formal event, not an afterthought added after analysis of structure.

New formalism renews close attention to pattern, genre, rhythm, syntax and narrative arrangement, but ordinary language philosophy complicates any account of form as self-contained. A formal choice both shapes a text and performs an action: it may invite trust, withhold certainty, imitate authority or make another person’s response possible. Formal description consequently becomes a way of studying language in social life.

The influence of ordinary language philosophy is not a simple transfer of method into criticism. Wittgenstein’s language games, Austin’s performative utterances and Cavell’s readings of ordinary language ask how literary texts stage claims, commitments and forms of address. They encourage criticism that stays close to wording while remaining alert to convention, context and the ethics of interpretation.

For Australian readers, these questions meet a distinctive mix of academic prose, public speech and material literary culture. The exchange benefits from local examples, since universal claims about language gain force when tested against Australian English, local institutions, reading communities and the ways published writing travels.

Language before system

New formalism often begins with a formal feature: repetition, metre, focalisation, syntax or the distribution of information. Ordinary language philosophy adds a question about what the feature does in a situation. A pause can be rhythmical and imply hesitation; a first-person address can organise a poem while seeking agreement. Interpretation links description with use.

Close reading becomes relational when it asks what kind of utterance a device permits, what assumptions it carries and how it positions a reader. This opens a path from poetic analysis to courts, campaigns, classrooms and public services, while preserving textual density rather than reducing literature to an illustration of communication.

Cavell, Wittgenstein and literary utterance

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy makes ordinary usage difficult to summarise with one grammatical rule. Literary form can exceed a definition of what a sentence is “for”: recurring images and broken utterances are understood through practices in which they appear. The critic attends to rules, exceptions and contexts without pretending context supplies a hidden code.

Cavell adds ethical pressure. His accounts of ordinary language show that saying something involves sincerity, entitlement and response, not merely information transfer. Literature makes these standards palpable through voice, irony and the gap between what a speaker says and what they seem to mean. A formal reading can thus register an ethical demand, while a reader’s participation becomes part of meaning.

From Austin to contemporary form

Austin shifts attention from whether a sentence is true to what happens when someone utters it. Promises, warnings and names depend on institutional conditions. Literary texts work similarly: a wedding vow, command or testimonial can make a reader recognise a practice while exposing its limits.

New formalist criticism can connect technique with genre. Repetition in a speech, ballad or legal drama establishes a convention and may disturb it; the break becomes an event rather than a measurable deviation. Attention to speech act, implicature and address describes how form creates obligations and revisions of meaning. Form is dynamic here: patterns are practices, and devices are ways of acting within a world.

Australian settings and speech

Australian English offers a useful reminder that ordinary language is situated. In Melbourne, “not bad” may be modest praise; in Brisbane, “arvo” can signal shared understanding; in Sydney, formality or familiarity can manage social distance; in Canberra, official language may sound procedural even when it addresses everyday participation. These examples do not define a national voice, but show how register, place and relationship alter meaning.

The Australian literary market makes that situatedness material. AustLit links writers, works, publishers and scholarship; public universities, university presses and journals provide routes for criticism. Readings in Melbourne, independent bookshops, Dymocks and state libraries influence discovery, while Brisbane Writers Festival and Sydney Writers Festival turn textual questions into public conversation. An Australian reader can move between a scholarly article, a bookstore display and an event, making “the audience” plural rather than universal.

Paths through the literature

For readers entering the field, a Cavellian route connects philosophical argument to close attention to speech. Begin with primary texts, then use literary examples to test their concepts.

A Cavell and ordinary-language sequence:

• Read Austin’s How to Do Things with Words on promises, threats and institutional conditions.
• Pair Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations with passages on language games and rule-following.
• Move to Cavell’s ordinary-language essays and trace how sincerity changes interpretation.

A second route places formal technique beside contemporary critical vocabularies. It suits readers working across narratology, stylistics, pragmatics and ethics.

A form-and-language route:

• Compare a poem’s syntax with the address of a short story.
• Track repetition, omission and focalisation across two Australian works.
• Follow the site archive and AustLit records for related criticism.

Reading, teaching and public scholarship

The exchange is productive in teaching because students can analyse a formal feature and test its consequences in speech. A seminar might compare a line of Australian poetry with a university announcement, sporting comment or parliamentary exchange, asking how each manages authority and address. The comparison keeps literary interpretation grounded in textual evidence while showing that linguistic form has public uses.

The archive, bibliographies and materials on Cavell and Wittgenstein offer a route from first reading to sustained research. Follow conference listings, calls for papers, lectures and reviews, then contribute relevant Australian scholarship or event news. Read the archive, follow the blog’s essays and listings, and contribute a relevant Australian text, review or event to the OLP & Literary Studies Online community.