PODCAST: – In politics, as in life, what is said is done?
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It has long been assumed that an affirmation can only describe a state of affairs. Therefore, each word was true or false. in other words, there were only “constative” statements.
John Langshaw Austin shows in his book When saying does that some statements are themselves the act they denote. He christens them “performative sentence” or “performative statement”.
Through performative discourse, speech becomes action. Some sentences thus have the ability to perform the action they designate.
Performative discourse is especially used by institutions to produce law, so that a speech act can be equivalent to a legal act.
For example, the mayor seals the marriage by pronouncing the phrase “I pronounce you husband and wife.” Thus, it forces the couple to go from being engaged to being married. Reality has changed with a word.
But performative discourse is nevertheless subject to certain conditions. To fulfill these “conditions of bliss”, Austin considers that the speaker, the utterer of words, must first have a significant function; The mayor, for example, can declare you husband and wife. Not just any man dressed as Elvis. Well… except for Las Vegas. Without this quality, your marriage will not be recognized as valid.
The performative discourse must also respect the commitments made;
“In the case of a specific promise, as in the case of many other performances, it is relevant that the promisor has some intention (here, for example, to keep his word). It even seems that of all the accompanying elements, this one would be the most appropriate to effectively describe or record “I promise.” »
When you say I do, Austin
Austin then generalizes performance to all statements. The statement is then analyzed according to a three-part scheme.
– First, it is the verbal act. the sentence itself. words, their meaning.
– Speech act. what is there in the sentence besides the words: promise, threat, order…;
– And finally the phrase. what is prompted by the sentence: declaration of response or formalization of marriage…
Therefore, John Austin’s revolution in the philosophy of language consists in discovering the profoundly active nature of language. Now you will stick your tongue out of your mouth seven times before you speak…
Source: Le Figaro
