A Project on Pragmatics

Distinction between Constative and Performative

Submitted to:

Miss Sunila Aslam

Submitted by:

Ali Furqan Syed

M. Phil: Applied Linguistics (3rd Semester)

Faculty of English Language, Literature & Applied Linguistics LIFE

Institute, Lahore.

2014-2016

Distinction between Constative and Performative

Introduction

In his influential book, ‘How to do things with words’ (1962), Austin stated that one of

the age-old enigmas of philosophy - “how to bridge the gap between language and reality” -

arises only when description (or representation) is regarded as the sole function of language,

overlooking instances where language and reality actually collapse into one ‘deed’. Austin's

elementary distinction between performative and constative should be described as part and

parcel of a general "revolution in philosophy," but this is precisely what Austin tells us at the

beginning of his famous 1955 Harvard lectures, published in his book , ‘ How to Do Things with

Words’. Austin begins his lectures by politely remarking upon a "mistake" that a certain

traditional philosophical attitude toward language is guilty of. This mistake arises from the view

that language is preeminently the tool of constative assertion, that is, a tool primarily interested

in providing statements about the world, which are characterizable as either true or false. In

contrast to this rather limited view, which when actually compared to the full range of utterances

in the real world is forced to exclude most of them as simply nonsensical.

Austin proposes a second category of utterances that are not subject to the truth/falsity

conditions of propositional knowledge. Rather, these exist as acts in themselves, that is--as

Austin dubs them as performatives. The peculiarity of the performative utterance, in contrast to

the constative, is that it does not describe a state of affairs independent of itself, but that it is

itself the reality it describes. It is therefore a self-reflexive utterance. Austin' archetypal examples

of these are the acts of naming, marrying, bequeathing and betting. So the constative utterance

has the property of being true or false. The performative utterance, by contrast, can never be

either.In its very beginning, speech acts were classified into performatives and constatives.

Those two divisions began to disappear as the theory was in its way to become complete and

fulfilled. In fact, Austin approves this classification as a branch of his speech act theory. He also

disapproves this classification as the distinction between them is unclear.

Constatives

These are certain utterances which do not denote an action. They do not contain a

performative verb that would direct the other party to perform an action. As Austin says, these

constatives are used only in descriptions and assertions. It is supposed that the proposed felicity

conditions could not be applied to constatives. However, Austin realized that constatives might

be performatives.

For example, somebody may say that "the window is open". The utterance here might be

directive as the interlocutor wants the window to get closed. In that case, the constative utterance

is classified as implicit performative for the performative verb is not clear. From those examples,

it is found that the distinction between constatives and performatives is not that clear. They

might be overlapped. Thus, Austin shifts to another classification, as he differentiates between

locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary actions.

locutionary act illocutionary act perlocutionary act

phonetic act: making certain sounds

phatic act: uttering certain words

rhetic act: expressing a proposition (words

with meaning& reference)

saying something that has a certain force

saying something that has certaineffects

an act of saying something

in saying something, one ______s.

(promises, asks, urges, advises, orders, protests,

etc.)

by saying something, one ______s.

(annoys, angers, provokes, etc.)

Table 1

Functions of Constative Utterence

A constative utterance performs the following functions:

1. It conveys a message;

2. That message can be compared to the "real world" and declared true or false

3. A failed constative is false, unclear, or void of reference (that is, the thing it's talking about

doesn't exist).

Examples of successful constative utterances:

1. "Jennifer's hair is now a light ash blond called 'champagne.'" Sure enough, we can confirm that

the Jennifer’s hair is blond, and if we dig the dye box out of the garbage, it will be labeled

"champagne."

2. "Critics speculate that Nietzsche's madness resulted from brain damage characteristic of the

advanced stages of syphilis." We can't do an autopsy on Nietzsche, but we can confirm, by

reading, that his critics have so speculated. The statement is true, as far as it goes.

3. And even, "Jennifer's cat Tai is remarkably handsome," if clear criteria for handsomeness have

been established, and we confirm that Tai meets them.

Problem Constatives

1. "Jennifer? She's the redhead who's missing a tooth." Oops. She changed her hair color before

we made this statement; the facts render it false.

2. Unclear sentences, or ones that can't be properly confirmed: "I have forgotten my umbrella,"

when scrawled on the margins of a dead philosopher's notes; "That's unfair," when it's not clear

what "that" is, or why I object to it.

3. "The king of France is bald." The referent--the king of France--doesn't exist. "Twas brillig,

and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe." Huh? It's grammatically clear, but there's

no such thing as a "slithy tove."

Performatives

Austin argues that, instead of saying something a speaker may be doing something or be

performing an action is called a performative: give order or commands, get married, baptize,

excommunicate, appoint somebody in a certain social or professional position, make bets,

invitations, offers and promises, congratulate, warn, apologize, threaten, curse, protest, toast,

thank and bless.

Implicit Performatives v/s Explicit Performatives

One distinction Austin makes in relation to performatives, is that between implicit

performatives and explicit performatives. Thus, the intended illocutionary force of the imperative

‘Don’t say that!’, is implicit, as what the speaker has in mind by saying it is not specifically

indicated. Because of its implicitness, the sentence can be, depending on the paralinguistic or

kinetic cues given by the speaker, and on the power or status relationship between the speaker

and hearer, a warning, a command, a request or a piece of advice. For the speaker to make the

illocutionary force explicit, she/he has to indicate the speech act involved by inserting the

performative verb before the clause. If the clause is not declarative, this will involve its

grammatical conversion into a declarative clause: ‘I warn you not to say that’, ‘I order you not to

say that ‘, ‘I advise you not to say that’, and ‘I forbid you to say that’, etc.

An explicit performative clause contains a verb that names the illocutionary point of the

utterance. By saying:

“I promise I’ll send you a hand with your proofreading”. Speaker uses an explicit

performative verb to make a promise. Speaker could also have made the promise by merely

uttering:

“I’ll lend you a hand with your proofreading’, in which the promise is not explicitly

spelled out yet is easily inferable. As performatives are seldom uttered using the above

constructions, it does seem to be the case that most of the performatives we encounter in English

are implicit.

A short list of performative verbs may comprise:

–abolish, accept, acknowledge, acquit, admit, admonish, advise, affirm, agree to, announce,

answer, apologize, ascribe, ask, assert, assess, assume, authorize, baptize, beg, bet, bid, caution,

charge, christen, claim, classify, command, commiserate, compliment, concur, congratulate,

convict, counsel, declare, delegate, demand, deny, describe, diagnose, disagree, donate, dub,

excuse, exempt, fire, forbid, grant, guarantee, guess, hire, hypothesize, identify, implore, inform,

instruct, license, name, notify, offer, order, pardon, permit, plead, pray, predict, prohibit,

promise, query, question, rank, recommend, refuse, reject, renounce, report, request, require,

resign, sanction, say, sentence, state, submit, suggest, summon, suppose, swear, tell, testify,

thank, urge, volunteer, warn, withdraw.

Functions of Performative Utterance

A performative utterance performs the following functions:

1. Rather than conveying a message, it acts upon the world; it doesn't say something, it does

something.

2. Rather than being true, a successful performative is happy; rather than accurately stating that

something's the case, it makes it the case.

3. A failed performative is unhappy rather than simply false; under certain circumstances, it can

be unhappy and still have effects.

4. To be happy, a performative must fulfill certain conditions. The participants and

circumstances must be appropriate, and the performative must invoke a recognized convention

that pre exists the performative utterance. The convention may be more or less strictly defined,

and may only apply among certain groups of people. Therefore, a performative may be happy in

one context, and unhappy in another. So, for example, if two gay men marry, their friends and

family may recognize their vows as a happy and binding promise, but the state will not.

Happy Performatives

1. "I now pronounce you man and wife," when spoken by a clergyman or ship's captain, during a

wedding ceremony, to two people of different sexes who are not related and have signed (or are

about to sign) the appropriate paperwork.

2. "I sentence you to life in prison with no chance of parole," spoken by a judge to a prisoner

who has been found guilty by a judge or jury.

3. "I promise to come to your Halloween party," when spoken by someone who has been invited,

to the host of a scheduled party.

4. "Doo-wop, doo-wop," when sung in the context of a '50s love ballad.

Unhappy Performatives

1. "I now pronounce you man and wife," spoken by a defrocked clergyman, or to two raccoons,

or to two men in a state that prohibits gay marriage.

2. "I sentence you to life in prison with no chance of parole," when the prisoner has smuggled a

gun into the courtroom.

3. "I promise to come to your Halloween party," spoken to several hosts successively by a

mendacious invitee.

4. "Doo-wop, doo-wop," when belted out by a student in response to a question whose answer is

clearly not "doo-wop, doo-wop."

Note that in the first case, the pronouncement is simply void; the raccoons are not legally

married. In the second, the pronouncement is void in a special way; the prisoner refuses to accept

the sentence, and it must be imposed violently. In the next case, the guest intends to break her

promise. Her statement isn't so much false as it is deceptive, and her action is manipulative, not

mistaken. In the case of the singing student, "doo-wop" is not true or false, it's weird and

inappropriate. That inappropriateness is more striking than the fact that it's not a "true" answer to

the question.

Remember, too, that unhappy performatives do have consequences. The invitee is bound

to her promise whether or not she intends to come, and even if her car refuses to start. The

prisoner will be sent to jail if she can be subdued by bailiffs, even if she was framed and the jury

was mistaken. In Arizona at least, if one of two marriage partners simply believes that the

clergyman is qualified to perform the ceremony, the two are legally married whether or not he's

been defrocked. It's also possible to flub a ceremony and still have it be valid (think of the

stuttering priest in Four Weddings and a Funeral).The singing student will probably be

ostracized, if not referred to Student Health.

constatives performatives

describe or report something do not describe or report

are true or false are not true or false (rather, are felicitous or infelicitous)

uttering a constative is "just" saying something

uttering a performative is not "just" saying something (it is doingsomething)

Table 2

Conclusions

In conclusion, we can refer back to our initial suggestion that performatives are not simply the

polar opposite of constatives. As we have seen, Austin himself took care not to reduce the two

types of speech acts to a simple case of binary opposition. But Austin's hypothesis, I have

argued, is not radical enough. His performative-constative distinction is better explained along

genetic lines, where the performative is understood as the condition of possibility for more

specialized constative speech acts.

References

Austin. J.L. How to Do Things with Words. 1962. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1975.

http://lib.uin-malang.ac.id/files/thesis/fullchapter/05320113.pdf

YULE, G. (1996): Pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

ELENA LOPEZ ALVERZ: Performative Speech Act Verbs in Present Day English, Universidad

Complutense de Madrid.