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Performative Speech Act Verbs in Present Day English PERFORMATIVE SPEECH ACT VERBS IN PRESENT DAY ENGLISH ELENA LÓPEZ ÁLVAREZ Universidad Complutense de Madrid RESUMEN. En esta contribución se estudian los actos performativos y su influencia en el inglés de hoy en día. A partir de las teorías de J. L. Austin, entre otros autores, se desarrolla un panorama de esta orientación de la filosofía del lenguaje de Austin. PALABRAS CLAVE. Actos performativos, enunciado performativo, inglés. ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on performative speech act verbs in present day English. Reading the theories of J. L. Austin, among others,. With the basis of authors as J. L. Austin, this paper develops a brief landscape about this orientation of Austin’s linguistic philosophy. KEY WORDS. Performative speech act verbs, performative utterance, English. 1. INTRODUCCIÓN 1.1. HISTORICAL THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1.1. The beginnings: J.L. Austin The origin of performative speech acts as we know them today dates back to the William James Lectures, the linguistic-philosophical theories devised and delivered by J.L. Austin at Harvard University in 1955, and collected into a series of lectures entitled How to do things with words, posthumously published in 1962. Austin was one of the most influential philosophers of his time. In these lectures, he provided a thorough exploration of performative speech acts, which was an extremely innovative area of study in those days. In the following pages, Austin’s main ideas (together with some comments by other authors) will be presented. 1.1.1.1. Constative – performative distinction In these lectures, Austin begins by making a clear distinction between constative and performative utterances. Constative utterances are basically presented by him as statements which describe the world, or that report or constate some fact. They are subject to truth- INTERLINGÜÍSTICA. ISSN 1134-8941. 16 (2), 2005, pp. 685-702. 686 ELENA LÓPEZ ÁLVAREZ conditional verification. On the other hand, performative utterances cannot undergo these conditions, since this type of utterances does not describe, constate or report anything. Austin compares the statement or constative utterance and the performative utterance, taking into account the main difference between them, i.e., that the former can be true or false, and the latter can be happy or unhappy. The truth of a statement such as: «‘He is running’» (Austin 1962: 46), relies on the fact that he is running; while it is the happiness of the performative ‘I apologize’ which makes it the fact that I am apologizing: and my success in apologizing depends on the happiness of the performative utterance ‘I apologize’. This is what Austin (1962: 47) calls the «‘performative-constative’» distinction, which is a doing – saying distinction. Austin established that: «(1) the performative should be doing something as opposed to just saying something; and (2) the performative is happy or unhappy as opposed to true or false» (Austin 1962: 133). 1.1.1.2. Description of the performative utterance In performative utterances, some kind of action is being done at the moment of uttering by the person who utters. Austin gives the following characteristics of performative utterances: - they are utterances which belong to the grammatical category of ‘statement’. - grammatically, they occur in the first person singular present indicative active. - they are utterances which do not ‘describe’, ‘report’ or constate anything; and which cannot undergo a ‘true or false’ categorization. - the uttering of the ‘statement’ carries out the act named by the verb, that is, it implies something more than just saying some words. A number of expressions for the type of utterance that he is trying to describe, i.e., the performative utterance, are proposed by AUSTIN (1962: 6): «performative sentence», «performative utterance» or «for short, ‘a performative’». He names this type of utterance in yet another way: «performatories» (Austin 1962: 12); and provides an explanation for these terms: The name is derived, of course, from ‘perform’, the usual verb with the noun ‘action’: it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action – it is not normally thought of as just saying something. (AUSTIN 1962: 6-7). 1.1.1.3. Conditions on Performative Speech Acts Austin claims that in order to perform an act: - the uttering of certain words (and not others) is necessary - the circumstances must be appropriate - the speaker or some other person(s) should also perform other ‘physical’ of ‘mental’ actions accompanying the utterance of the specific words which lead to the performance of the act. 1.1.1.4. Felicity conditions INTERLINGÜÍSTICA. ISSN 1134-8941. 16 (2), 2005, pp. 685-702. PERFORMATIVE SPEECH ACT VERBS IN PRESENT DAY ENGLISH 687 There are a number of necessary conditions for «the ‘happy’ functioning of a performative», AUSTIN (1962: 14); and AUSTIN (1962: 14) formulates them thus: (A.1). There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances, and further, (A.2) the particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked. (B.1) The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly and (B.2) completely. (!.1) Where, as often, the procedure is designed for use by persons having certain thoughts or feelings, or for the inauguration of certain consequential conduct on the part of any participant, then a person participating in and so invoking the procedure must in fact have those thoughts or feelings, and the participants must intend so to conduct themselves, and further (!.2) must actually so conduct themselves subsequently. (AUSTIN 1962: 14-15). I would like to make a brief comment on the symbol ! used by Austin for the last two types of conditions which have been previously presented. Austin used this symbol and expressly mentioned that he did so in order to make a big difference between the A and B categories as opposed to the ! categories. This symbol corresponds to the letter ‘C’ belonging to the Greek alphabet. This nomenclature is not followed by other authors such as Levinson or Thomas, who use the Roman letter ‘C’ instead when referring to this type of infelicities. Going back to the necessary conditions for the ‘happy’ functioning of a performative, it should be noticed that the unobservance of any of these necessary conditions will result in an unhappy performative utterance. 1.1.1.5. Types of infelicities Austin classified the different kinds of infelicities by giving them different names. He called infelicities of types A and B misfires. Austin explains that when an utterance is a misfire, we say that the procedure is disallowed or botched, and that the act is void or without effect. If the act is void, then the purported act is not done, but other things may have been done through this act. If the act is without effect, that does not mean that it is «without consequences, results or effects» (AUSTIN 1962: 17). Austin continues expounding that we may speak of the act as being a purported act or an attempt, and that we may say that «we […] ‘went through some form of marriage’ by contrast with ‘married’» (AUSTIN 1962: 16). In the case of an offence against any of the A and B rules (i.e., uttering the words incorrectly, or not being the person appointed for the carrying out of a certain act, or not being in possession of the necessary conditions to perform that act), then the act «is not successfully performed at all, does not come off, is not achieved» (AUSTIN 1962: 16). Infelicities of type A receive the name of misinvocations. Within misinvocations, Austin distinguished two types of infelicity: infelicities of type A.1, which he called non-plays at an early stage, and later rejected that name; and infelicities of type A.2, which Austin called either misapplications or misplays. Regarding the infelicities of type A.2, which he called misapplications, he illustrates the point by saying that «‘I appoint you’» (AUSTIN 1962: 34) will result in a misapplication if uttered when that person (or someone else) has already been appointed, or when the person who appoints is not the one designed to do so, etc. Infelicities of INTERLINGÜÍSTICA. ISSN 1134-8941. 16 (2), 2005, pp. 685-702. 688 ELENA LÓPEZ ÁLVAREZ type B are called misexecutions or miscarriages. Within these, Austin called infelicities of type B.1 flaws or misexecutions; and with specific reference to flaws (i.e., B.1 infelicities), Austin claims that the procedure is appropriate to persons and circumstances, but it is not executed correctly. On the other hand, he called infelicities of type B.2 hitches or non-executions. In the case of hitches, there is an attempt to execute the procedure, but the act is not completed. For example, in «‘I bet you sixpence’» (Austin 1962: 36), if there is no uptake such as ‘You’re on’ then the bet is «abortive» (AUSTIN 1962: 37). Regarding the infelicities of type !, they receive the name of abuses or disrespects. With respect to the infringement of the ! rules, the act can be ‘professed’ or ‘hollow’, i.e., an act which is not implemented or not consummated. There are two kinds of infelicities of type !, viz. those of type !.1, called insincerities or dissimulations; and those of type !.2, which Austin did not have a name for, but which at some point he called non-fulfilments, disloyalties, infractions, indisciplines or breaches. It is worth noticing that the !.1 and !.2 infelicities go through an unhappy performance, but they are not void. For example, if the person uttering the performative does not have the “requisite feelings” (AUSTIN 1962: 40), the act is not void because it is performed, though insincerely.
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