illocutionary disablement she is referring to the fact that there hasn’t been successful
uptake of the speaker’s intended illocutionary force (refusal). There has however been
uptake of the speaker’s illocutionary act (which is dictated by the hearer) thus placing
it within the constitutional theory.
2.3 Critiques of the constitutional theory of uptake.
The constitutional theory of uptake can be dismissed for three reasons. Firstly, it
does not reflect the common way in which we talk about speech (McDonald, 2020,
pp.3). For example, if the role of speech act theory is to accurately portray and
understand a speaker’s utterance, and how this leads to action, then it seems arbitrary
to side with a theory that does not endorse this. The constitutional theory does not
consider the speaker’s intentions wh ich can lead to the hearer misinterpreting the
speaker (McDonald, 2020, pp.9). With full information of the speaker’s intentions, it
is unlikely that the hearer would choose to maintain their previous acts. The hearer
would change their response considerin g full information about the speaker’s
intentions. McDonald (2020, pp.9) uses the example of a female manager who has
legitimate authority, ordering male staff at work to do tasks. She (McDonald, 2002,
pp.9) finds that due to the manager being a woman, and subsequently viewed by the
men as not having the capability to order, her utterances are taken as a request not
orders. However, in circumstances of full information, if it is explained to the men that
the women’s intention is to order not request, the he arers will carry out the order. A
theory, such as the constitutional theory, that does not take seriously speakers’
intuition is incomplete and therefore should be disregarded.
A second reason given by McDonald (2020) as to why the constitutional theory is
the weaker theory is because of the suggestion that it “entails … impossibility”
(McDonald 2020, pp. 13). By this, McDonald (2020, pp. 14) is referring to how the
theory suggests that an individual can unintentionally perform illocutionary
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