When we think of someone promising, asking, or asserting something, the image which comes most naturally to mind is that of someone using her mouth and tongue and vocal cords to make the sounds of some language, or using her hands to inscribe the characters of some language. So much are we in the grip of this as the paradigm for discourse that, as noted in our first chapter, a good many theologians, upon hearing talk of God speaking, have concluded immediately that this is metaphor if not nonsense, on the ground that God has neither mouth nor tongue, vocal cords nor hands. Whether the attribution of speech to God is in fact either metaphor or nonsense is a topic I will address in a subsequent chapter. As preliminary for that, I propose to reflect here on the many modes of discourse. There are many ways of saying things other than by making sounds with one's vocal apparatus or inscribing marks with one's limbs.

A terminological point is worth emphasizing: by “saying” and “speaking” and “discoursing,” I will never have in mind what Austin called locutionary actions, that is, actions of uttering or inscribing words, but only such actions as can be what he called illocutionary actions – commanding, promising, asserting, and so on. I say: “such actions as can be illocutionary actions.”