PRAGMATICS 4 - SPEECH ACTS
Speech act theory, though foreshadowed by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
views about language-games, is usually attributed to the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin.
These lectures were finally published posthumously as How to do things with words in 1962.
Simply stated, the central tenet of speech act theory is that the uttering of a sentence is, or is
part of, an action within the framework of social institutions and conventions.
4.1. Performatives versus constatives
4.1.1. The performative/constative dichotomy
In the 1930s, a very influential school of thought in philosophy was logical
positivism, developed by a group of philosophers and mathematicians principally in Vienna.
One of the central doctrines of logical positivism is what is now called the descriptive fallacy,
namely, the view that the only philosophically interesting function of language is that of
making true or false statements.
Verificationist thesis of meaning, namely, the idea that ‘unless a sentence can, at least in
principle, be verifieed (i.e., tested for its truth or falsity), it was strictly speaking
meaningless’. On such a view, sentences like those in (4.1) are simply
meaningless, because they are not used to make verifiable or falsifiable propositions. Instead
they express subjective judgments.
(4.1)
a. Shouting and screaming at your children is wrong.
b. Elizabeth is more beautiful than Mary.
c. Getting married and having children is better than having children and getting married.
Some ordinary language sentences such as those in (4.2) are not employed to make a
statement, and as such they cannot be said to be true or false.
(4.2)
a. Good morning!
b. Is she a vegetarian?
c. Put the car in the garage, please.
Austin observed that there are ordinary language declarative sentences that resist a truth-
conditional analysis in a similar fashion. The point of uttering such sentences is not just to say
things, but also actively to do things. In other words, such utterances have both a descriptive
and an effective aspect. Accordingly, Austin called them performatives, and he distinguished
them from assertions, or statement making utterances, which he called constatives.
Performatives are utterances that are used to do things or perform acts, as in (4.3). By
contrast, constatives are utterances that are employed to make assertions or statements, as in
(4.4).
(4.3)
a. I christen/name this ship the Princess Elizabeth.
b. I now pronounce you man/husband and wife.
c. I sentence you to ten years in prison.
d. I promise to come to your talk tomorrow afternoon.
e. I command you to surrender immediately.
f. I apologize for being late.
(4.4)
