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organism to the world through such mental states as belief and desire, and especially
through action and perception." Therefore, Searle (1983) believes any account of
speech and language should include an account ofhow the mind relates the organism to
reality.
Subsequently, according to Searle (1983"vii), sentences, which may be said or
written down, are syntactical objects and they are considered as objects just like any
other object. Therefore they do not have an intrinsic capacity to represent: the capacity
is "derived from the Intentionality ofthe mind." On the other hand, the intentionality of
mental states is intrinsic to the states themselves and not derived from some more prior
forms i.e. when a sentence is used to make a statement or ask a question, it is not a
matter of using beliefs or desires: they are there already in the person making the
utterance. Although beliefs and desires may be and are expressed in sentences, they are
not syntactical objects.
"Language is essentially a social phenomenon and ... the forms ofIntentionality
underlying language are social forms." (Searle 1983: viii)
Moreover, (Searle 1983: ix) believes in the biological foundation of mental
phenomena, which are "both caused by the operations of the brain and realised in the
structure ofthe brain." The brains have subjective mental states and mental features and
the mental phenomena must not be denied but their biological nature must be
appreciated.
The propositional content of an utterance is, generally speaking, its meaning.
When an utterance is used to achieve a certain goal, it is called a speech act. This means
that an utterance has two facets of meaning: the propositional content and the aim and
the function ofthe utterance. (Combrink 1982: xviii)
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