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About 376 papers for “Performative utterance”

From Performative Act to Performative Utterance: An Ethological Perspective

Margaret Bullowa · Sign language studies · 1977

This paper deals with the early stages in human communicative development which are preparatory to accommodating its linguistic component. The focus is on human behavioral development from simple expression of physiological needs to social communication. Vocal language involves bodily functions linked to cognitive capacities through skilled use of the respiratory system. Vocal tract activity is linked to movement of other body parts in ways that contribute to communication. Gruber’s concept of “performative utterance” in child language (1967) was based on audio-visual recordings of one child. Earlier data from this child, of behavior leading to the performative utterances of the Gruber corpus, as well as data from another child, have been searched for the performative action that is described in this paper. Performatives at these early ages express desire and intention. For the two children studied and in the situations observed and recorded, important conditions for the emergence of language in the ontogeny of communication appear to be (1) interaction with caretaking adults, (2) shared focal attention, and (3) specificity of reference.

Cited by 13

Shattered Back Wall: Performative Utterance of A Doll's House

Branislav Jakovljević · Theatre Journal · 2002

In the last decades of the twentieth century, J. L. Austin's performative speech act theory emerged as one of the most passionately contested philosophical ideas. 1 There are many reasons for this. One of the most significant is that a performative speech act reintroduces the referent into linguistics: it brings language, so to speak, back to the body and to the stormy question of identity. The general performative speech act theory oversteps the disciplinary boundaries of analytical philosophy and enters the domains of poststructuralist theory, feminist theory, and, of course, performance theory, to name some. This is, in part, due to the brilliant clarity and simplicity of Austin's idea to "isolate" utterances "in which by saying something or in saying something we are doing something." 2 The other source of what seems to be the unending actuality of Austin's theory is the way in which, not so brilliantly, he excludes certain performative utterances: "a performative utterance will, for example, be in a peculiar way hollow or void if said by an actor or spoken in a soliloquy . . . Language in such circumstances is in a special way—intelligibly—used not seriously, but in ways parasitic upon its normal use—ways which fall under etiolations of language" (22, italics in the original). Paradoxically, this attempt to exclude literature from the theory of performative speech acts attracts literary critics, and rightfully so; the performative speech act theory not only introduces "plain speech" to philosophy but also establishes powerful connections between literature and its surroundings, between writer and reader, or writer and critic. That is, until we hit upon Austin's [End Page 431] emphatic exclusion of literary performatives from his theory. This adamant rejection of artistic uses of language points precisely toward the theatricality deeply imbedded in Austin's performative speech act theory. 3

Cited by 6

The illocutionary/ perlocutionary distinction: between the performative and the passionate utterance

Alexandru Cosmescu · Filologia modernă: realizări şi perspective în context european · 2024

This paper explores the distinction between illocution and perlocution in speech act theory, highlighting the complexity of interactions between these dimensions of the utterance. Building on a close reading of J. L. Austin’s analysis in “How to Do Things with Words” and Stanley Cavell’s article on the passionate utterance, the text argues that the conventional approach to speech acts, which focuses on illocution, overlooks the essential affective dimension of perlocution. Cavell proposes a reconceptualization of perlocution through the lens of passionate utterances, emphasizing the interdependence between affect, motivation, and the interlocutor’s response. The paper suggests the necessity of integrating these dimensions into the analysis of the total speech act, thus offering a more nuanced and holistic approach to language that encompasses both conventions and the affective and relational dimensions.

Cited by 0Open access

The Performative Utterance “I”: Theatricality and Subversion of Identity in the Works of Eyal Weiser

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi · TDR/The Drama Review · 2017

Israeli playwright and director Eyal Weiser challenges the language of performance by creating fictional performance artists who respond to real events in Israel. By reintroducing fiction and theatricality into the autobiographical mode of performance art, Weiser destabilizes a coherent sense of identity and underscores some of the complex issues of history and identity facing Israeli society.

Cited by 0

Context and form of utterance vs its credibility evaluation : relation between statement, sentence and performative negation

Józef Maciuszek, Maciej Sikorski · Homo Politicus (Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz) · 2011

The aim of the research was to check what infl uence on evaluation of probability that the negative information about other politician was truthful has the form of utterance (statement, performative negation, sentence negation) and context factor suggesting specifi c communication intention of the speaker.According to the fi ndings it was assumed that the form of utterance had a different infl uence on evaluation of probability of event, mentioned in the core of the statement, existence depending on the context.In political speaker-object competition context the evaluation of probability was similar regardless the form of utterance.There were differences between statement and sentence negation in the lack of competition context-control group evaluated the probability of the event existence according to the broadcast.There were no signifi cant differences in evaluations between statement and performative negation.Results are discussed in conversational inference and insinuating effect of performative negation context.

Cited by 0Open access

TUTURAN DAN TINDAKAN BAHASA MENURUT JOHN L. AUSTIN (SUATU ANALISIS MAKNA BAHASA SEHARI-HARI)

Purwo Husodo · 2009

In his research, Austin focused to daily language. Austin divided into two kinds of utterance: constative utterance and performative utterance. According to Austin, constative utterance is an utterance that can be proved by empirical observation, while performative utterance is an utterance that claimed uttering obligation to act conform to uttering expression. To differentiate two utterances, Austin proposed an analysis speech act approach. The speech act divided into three type: locution,  illocution and perlocution. Locution is a speech act that uttering could say something without obligation, illocution is an implement act from locution, whereas perlocution expected to listener could do something.

Cited by 0

“You’ll Become Part of Me”: Solo Performance

Reid Gilbert · Canadian Theatre Review · 1997

Speculations on whether solo performance is properly a species of theatre, or a variant of performance art, or an extension of the dramatic monologue, soliloquy, or aside go to the heart of what constitutes theatre and are problematic. They are, of course, further complicated by, but related to, contemporary discussions of the performative moment. Attempts to explore the performative - to separate the performative utterance from the constative utterance, for example - may provide a useful starting point for an attempt to explore what makes a solo turn theatrical rather than recitative.

Cited by 1

The meaning of sentence and the implied meaning. Communication-semantic aspects of comprehension of utterances with sentence negation and performative negation

Maciuszek, Józef · Psychology Archives · 2009

The study analyzed semantic relationships between sentence negation, performative negation and statements with reference to utterances described by the speech acts theory as representatives (asertives). The research showed that interpretation of utterance was dependent on form of the uterance (statements, negations), the affective mark, and contextual factors (expectations in regard to commented events and relationship between the speaker and the receiver). In Experiment 1 the interpretation of utterance in form of either statement or sentence negation was investigated. In Experiment 2 the performative verb was used and another form of utterance (performative negation) was included. The obtained results confirm assumption of the conversational inference model that interpretation of a message depends on the context. Additionally, the results demonstrated that there exist two meaning relations between statements, the sentence negation and the performative negation, which vary dependent on the affective meaning of the message and on the contextual factors.

Cited by 0Open access

Zur Semantik und Pragmatik explizit performativer Äußerungen : ein parenthetisches Experiment

Mayer, Verena M. · Publication Server of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Goethe University Frankfurt) · 2009

If we want to develop a semantic analysis for explicit performatives such as I promise you to free Willy, we are faced with the following puzzle: In order to account for the speech act expressed by the performative verb, one can assume that the so-called performative clause is purely performative and provides the illocutionary force of the speech act whose content is given by the semantic object denoted by the complement clause. Yet under this perspective, the performative clause that is, next to the performative verb, the indexicals I and you that refer to the speaker and to the addressee of the utterance context is semantically invisible and does not contribute compositionally its meaning to the meaning of the entire explicit performative sentence. Conversely, if we account for the truth conditional contribution of the performative clause and deny that the meaning of the performative verb is purely performative, then we have to find a way to account for the speech act expressed by the performative verb. Of course, there is already the widely accepted and very appealing indirectness account for explicit performative utterances developed by Bach & Harnish (1979). Roughly, Bach and Harnish solve this puzzle in deriving the performativity by means of a pragmatic inference process. According to them, the important speech act performed by means of the utterance of the explicit performative sentence is a kind of the conventionalized indirect speech act. However, the boundary between semantics and pragmatics can be drawn in many various ways. Therefore, I think there could be other perspectives regarding the interface between the truth-functional treatment of the declarative explicit performative sentences and the speech acts performed with their utterances and which are expressed by the performative verbs. Hence, this thesis consists in the experiment to develop a further analysis and to check out its consequences with respect to the semantics and pragmatics of explicit performative utterances and the new interface emerged. Briefly, the experiment runs as follows: First, I develop an analysis for explicit performative sentences framed by parenthetical structures such as in (1)(a). In a second step, this parenthetical analysis is applied to the proper Austinian explicit performative sentences in (1)(b). (1) a. Tomorrow, I promise you this, I will teach them Tyrolean songs. b. I promise you that I will teach them Tyrolean songs. To analyze at first explicit performatives framed by parenthetical structures bears the convenience that we are faced with two utterances of two main clauses. In (1)(a) there is the utterance of the host sentence Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs, and the utterance of the explicit parenthetical I promise you this, where the demonstrative this refers to the utterance of Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs. Since speakers perform speech acts with utterances of main clauses, I assume that the meaning of the explicit parenthetical I promise you this specifies that the actual illocutionary force of the utterance of Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs is the illocutionary force of a promise. Hence, instead of deriving an indirect illocutionary force by means of a pragmatic inference schema, we can deal with an ordinary direct speech act that is performed with the utterance of the host sentence. This kind of analysis stresses the particular discourse function of explicit performative utterances. Performative verbs are used whenever the contextual information is not sufficient to determine the illocutionary force of the corresponding implicit speech act. The resulting consequences of the parenthetical analysis are interesting since they cast a different light on performative verbs. Surprisingly, the performative verbs are not performative at all. They do not constitute the execution of a speech act, but are execution supporting. Instead of constituting the particular illocutionary force, they merely specify the illocutionary force of the utterance of the host sentence. For instance, the speaker utters the explicit parenthetical I promise you this for specifying what he is simultaneously doing. Hence the speaker does not succeed in performing the promise simply because he is uttering I promise you this. Rather, by means of the information conveyed by the utterance of I promise you this, the potential illocutionary forces of the utterance of the host sentence are disambiguated. Thus, it is not the case that explicit parentheticals are trivially true when uttered. Their function is more complex. Their self-verifying property (‘saying so makes it so’) is explained by means of disambiguation. Furthermore, according to the parenthetical analysis, instead of being purely performative, the performative verbs contribute compositionally their meanings to the truth conditions of the entire explicit performative sentence. Together with its consequences, this analysis is applied to the proper Austinian performatives, which display subordination. I assume that regardless of their structure, explicit performatives always semantically and pragmatically behave as the parenthetical analysis predicts.

Cited by 0Open access

Analysis of the theories of Searle and Austin speech acts: fundamental aspects of the meaning of a performative utterance.

François André da Silva Marques · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · 2018

In this work, we intend to discuss about extralinguistic aspects of meaning in a context of utterances, specifically, by means of the Speech Acts Theories of John L. Austin and John R. Searle. The first chapter consists in the introduction of the subject-matter with the contextualization of the problem under Austin’s conception, pointing out issues that form the base of his speech act theories, such as appropriate circumstances, presupositions, entails and implies. In the chapter about Searle, we will present essential extralinguistic aspects, which underpin and serve as a base for the functioning of his speech acts theory, such as Intentionality and Background. After that, we will present his speech acts theory as a means of demonstrating the fundamental aspects of meaning in a speech context and we will contrast Searle and Austin’s conception of speech acts and some recent developments as well. In this work we defend some theses, they are (i) the context is a crucial aspect for the speech acts theories, when we aim to understand the linguistic relations in a speech situation; (ii) supporting contextualism leads us to defending extralinguistic aspects which are also fundamental in understanding meaning within theories of speech acts; (iii) the analysis of language in the speech acts theories is essential for us to understand the functioning of linguistic practices.

Cited by 0Open access

The Discovery of Illocution

Marina Sbisà · 2024

Abstract This chapter argues that, while Austin is renowned for putting forward the notion of performative utterance, his real discovery is that of illocution. It provides an account of Austin’s view of performative utterances and argues (on the basis of manuscript notes of his) that he passed from the characterization of performative utterances to the outline of speech act theory in order to avoid the notion of performative utterance being used to reduce the meaning of philosophically relevant words to their performative function. It claims that How to Do Things with Words is structured as a proof by contradiction of the claim that all of our utterances perform actions of the same kind as those performed by performative utterances (i.e., illocutionary acts). Finally, it provides an account of Austin’s conception of illocution, from his invention of that word to the rules for the illocutionary act’s felicity, the role of the securing of uptake, and the bringing about of an illocutionary effect. It also clarifies that for Austin, even though the assessment of an utterance as felicitous or infelicitous is prior to its assessment as true or false (or otherwise correct or incorrect with respect to the world), the distinction of felicity vs truth holds.

Cited by 0

SPEECH ACTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS OF ENGLISH AT LP3I CILEGON

Amira Budianti, John Pahamzah, Akhmad Baihaqi · 2020

The aim of this research was to find out the kinds, forms, and taxonomies of speech acts occurred in the English teaching and learning process at LP3I Cilegon. This research was qualitative research with content analysis design. The data of this research were the English utterances performed by the English lecturer and students of LP3I Cilegon. The data were classified according to Austin theory of speech acts which was developed by Kreidler. The results showed that there were two kinds of speech acts occurred, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts with the total of 1120 utterances. There were two forms of speech acts,namely direct speech and indirect speech acts. There were seven taxonomies of speech acts,i.e illocutionary assertive utterance (31%), illocutionary performative utterance (0,75%),illocutionary verdictive utterance (8%), illocutionary expressive utterance (1,25%),illocutionary directive utterance (36%), perlocutionary directive utterance (3%),illocutionary commisive utterance (7,5%) and illocutionary phatic utterance (12,5%). The most dominant speech acts used was direct illocutionary directive utterance while the fewest was indirect illocutionary performative utterance. In conclusion, the used of directive speech acts made implication towards the improvement of the students’ communicative skills because many lecturer’s instructions increased the students to more active speaking and critical thinking

Cited by 0Open access