ordinary language analysis

ordinary language analysis, method of philosophical investigation concerned with how verbal expressions are used in a particular, nontechnical, everyday language. The basic source for this school of thought is the later writings of the Viennese-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, followed by the contributions of John Langshaw Austin, Gilbert Ryle, John Wisdom, G.E. Moore, and other British philosophers. In the posthumous Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wittgenstein advocated that, in solving philosophical problems, an understanding of how language is used is more important than its abstract meaning (i.e., the context in which a sentence is uttered may be more useful in determining its meaning than its innate semantic context). To this extent he parted from his earlier positivistic position, which viewed language in terms of a strict correspondence with reality.