Proxy social-speech acts: A particular case of plural agency

Publication date: March 2020Source: Language & Communication, Volume 71Author(s): Francesca De VecchiAbstractI focus on proxy acts' plural agency and argue that it is a particular case of plural agency, irreducible to that of collective agency. I start from Reinach's phenomenological account of proxy acts, according to which they are an eidetic modification of social-speech acts. I point out that as social-speech acts, proxy acts are also spontaneous acts and at least second-degree position-takings; but I argue that, unlike social-speech acts, their agency is modified. Such modification involves different agents at different times, different degrees of authorship, and different extensions of efficacy. I conclude that proxy acts' plural agency is constituted by several layers of agency that are bound together in the temporally expanded unity of the proxy act as a whole.
Source: Language and Communication - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research