how to do things with words by jl austin

However, there are also 'implicit', 'primitive', or 'inexplicit' performatives.

'I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow' (Austin 1962, 5)Īs Austin later notices himself, these examples belong (more or less strikingly) to what Austin calls, explicit performatives to utter an 'explicit' performative sentence is to make explicit what act one is performing.

'I give and bequeath my watch to my brother' – as occurring in a will.

'I name this ship the 'Queen Elizabeth''.

take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)' – as uttered in the course of a marriage ceremony. The initial examples of performative sentences Austin gives are these:

The uttering of a performative is, or is part of, the doing of a certain kind of action (Austin later deals with them under the name illocutionary acts), the performance of which, again, would not normally be described as simply 'saying' or 'describing' something (cf.

Performative utterances are not true or false, that is, not truth-evaluable instead when something is wrong with them then they are 'unhappy', while if nothing is wrong they are 'happy'.

In contrast to them, Austin defines 'performatives' as follows: In order to define performatives, Austin refers to those sentences which conform to the old prejudice in that they are used to describe or constate something, and which thus are true or false and he calls such sentences 'constatives'. After mentioning several examples of sentences which are not so used, and not truth-evaluable (among them nonsensical sentences, interrogatives, directives and 'ethical' propositions), he introduces 'performative' sentences or illocutionary act as another instance. Austin argued against a positivist philosophical claim that the utterances always 'describe' or 'constate' something and are thus always true or false.

In a 1955 lecture series, later published as How to Do Things with Words, J.

In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing. For the broader philosophical and critical applications of the concept, see Performativity.

How to do things with words by jl austin