Page 436 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory
Thisentryexaminesthecharacteristicsofexplicitper- formative clauses within the theory of speech acts. The discussion which follows is restricted to English performative clauses; but most of the characteristics identified are to be found in other languages, too.
A speech act is created when speaker/writer Smakes an utterance U to hearer/reader H in context C. The S who utters (1) is usingan explicit performative clause (underlined) to make a promise:
C2. Themainverbintheperformativeclausemust be a performative verb which spells out the illo- cutionary point of U, cf. 'I charge you' in (3-4). Here is a short list of such verbs:
abjure, abolish, accept, acknowledge, acquit, admit, admonish, advise, affirm, agree to, announce, answer, apologize, ascribe, ask, assent, assert, assess, assume, authorize, baptize, beg, bet, bid, call upon, caution, charge, christen, claim, classify, command, commiserate, compliment, concur, congratulate, conjecture, convict, counsel, declare, declare out, delegate, demand, demur, deny, describe, diagnose, disagree, dispute, donate, dub, excuse, exempt, fire, forbid, give notice, grant, guarantee, guess, hire, hypothesize, identify, implore, inform, instruct, license, name, notify, offer, order, pardon, permit, plead, pray, predict, prohibit, promise, proscribe, query, question, rank, recommend, refuse, reject, renounce, report, request, require, rescind, resign, sanc- tion, say, sentence, state, submit, suggest, summon, sup- pose, swear, tell, testify, thank, urge, volunteer, vouch for, warn, withdraw.
These verbs can be used as explicit performatives only when formal conditions C1-C6 are satisfied, otherwise the illocutionary point of U is not described by the meaning of the 'performative' verb and the so-called performative verb is used nonperformatively.
C3. The performative verb must be in the present (nonpast, nonfuture, nonperfect) tense, because the illocutionary act is defined on the moment of utter- ance.
Contrast performative (6) with nonperformative (7):
I promise to take Max to a movie tomorrow. (6) I promised to take Max to a movie tomorrow. (7a) I have promised to take Max to a movie tomorrow. (7b)
Saying 'I promise' in (6), S makes a promise; but the words 'I promised' and 'I have promised' in (7) do not constitute the making of a promise; instead, they report that a promise was made. Thus the illo- cutionary point of (6) is a promise, whereas the illo- cutionary point of either utterance in (7) is to make an assertion or to inform H of a fact.
C4. A performative clause must be 'realis,' i.e., denote an actualization of the illocutionary act. There- fore (a) a performative verb can only co-occur with 'realis,' and not with 'irrealis' modal auxiliaries; and (b) a performative clause must be in the indicative mood. If Max says to his aged aunt:
I will hereby promise to visit you next time I'm in town. (8)
promise to call Jo tomorrow.
(1)
(For the sake of discussion assume all felicity con- ditions are satisfied.) S could have made the same illocutionary point by uttering (2) in which the prom- ise is not explicitly spelled out in the semantics of the verb:
I' 11 call Jo tomorrow. (2)
(1) uses an explicit performative clause whereas (2) does not.
Austin (1975:57) notes that the legalistic-sounding adverb 'hereby' can be inserted into a performative clause, and will mark the verb as performative pro- vided that 'hereby' is used with the meaning 'in utter- ing this performative.' Thus, (3) can be glossed as (4):
I hereby charge you with attempting to bribe a policeman. (3)
1
In uttering the words 'I charge you, 1 charge you with
attempting to bribe a policeman. (4)
Contrast the explicitly performative (3) with the non- performative (5) in which 'hereby' means 'using this' and refers to something in the context, namely the bribe:
I could hereby charge you with attempting to bribe a policeman. (5)
In (3), where the illocutionary point is described explicitly in the performative clause, S actually charges H with attempting to bribe a policeman—such that H will subsequently have to appear before a court. But in (5), S only threatens to charge H with this offence; so the illocutionary point of (5) is a threat.
The presence of 'hereby' meaning 'in uttering this performative' is a sufficient, but not necessary, con- dition on an explicit performative clause. The fol- lowing conditions C1-C6 are necessary characteristics of explicit performative clauses.
Cl. The clause complies with the normal rules of English grammar.
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Performative Clauses K.Allan