John Searle's book, "Speech Acts," opened with the question, "How do words relate to the world?" This paper suggests a way of answering Searle's question by relying--in spirit if not in method--on Austin's linguistic phenomenology. The existential phenomenology approach is described in Austin's phrase as a "sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of phenomena." It is argued in this paper that a person's phenomenological existence generates communication at all semiotic levels and that this communication consitututes a living world. This contention is explained by orienting the analysis toward existential rather than transcendental phenomenology. Three modalities of encountering phenomenological existence in communication are examined, and several conclusions about the dialectic critique presented in this analysis are offered. (RB)