This study reports an empirical and theoretical
investigation of everyday language. It discusses the
speech of teachers and pupils in a school classroom, from
a 'phenomenological' point of view.
In recent years, mutually contradictory phenomenological theories of language have been developed, based upon
the works of Schutz and Sartre, whose essentialist readings
of Husserl's explorations in consciousness have been trans¬
lated into theories for the description of everyday speech.
Garfinkel's 'ethnomethodology' follows Schutz in portraying
everyday speakers as sustaining in their talk the appearance
of a shared ' intersubjectivity' or social order, which he
and they presume to be real. On this "optimistic" view, a
social world shared with others is inescapable. Laing's
'existential psychiatry' follows Sartre in portraying
everyday speakers as sustaining in their talk the appearance
of a unique "subjectivity1 or psychological self, which he
and they presume to be real. On this 'pessimistic' view, a
social world shared with others is unattainable. In contrast, my approach follows Husserl's attempt to suspend
belief in any reality other than that which appears. I
aspire thereby to be 'realistic'.
My approach throws into relief relations between words
which are invisible when attention is focussed on the things
to which words refer. I analyse spoken utterances into
clauses or quasi-clausal units which I call 'pictures1.
Within the speech of a single individual, and more generally,
samenesses and differences can be established between pic¬
tures on the basis of grammatical structure (form), and
vocabulary (content). In the present study, personal pro¬
nouns have been especially important for this purpose. On
this basis 'realms' can be distinguished within everyday
speech 'inhabited' by specific personal pronouns, and
endowed with stable properties, which it is the task of
linguistic phenomenology to investigate
