What we are doing is using the language of the text, particularly its deictic features, as a means of reconstructing contextual events and circumstances; we have assembled from the language of the poem a speaking presence with a personal history and an identifiable set of concerns. This procedure can be classified under a heading which I have

already used, as linguisic functionalism. The words of the text or utterance are used as channels to the interpersonal and contextual situation which prompted them. Functionalism focuses less upon ‘What do the words mean?’ and more upon ‘What does the speaker mean by the words?’ Speech act theory is a philosophical branch of linguistic functionalism: the functions, intentions, goals and effects of the utterance are its principal focus.