Module 9 : J.L.AUSTIN

Presentation - 24 to 27

 

On the view of Austin, all the indicative statements need not to be confirmed or unconfirmed with the state of affairs of the world. For him, broadly statements are of two types.1

  1. Constative
  2. Performative2

All other varieties of statements come under these two classes/categories. Thus, he strongly rejected the claim that statements mean only indicative statements. Before rebutting the claim he has analyzed some statements those cannot be judged as either true or false, are as follows.

  1. I do.
  2. I admit what he said.
  3. I apologize.
  4. I congratulate.
  5. I present a bouquet to her.

Out of these five statements, the first four do not describe the states of affairs of the world. So they cannot be judged as either true or false. But they can be judged as either 'happy' or 'unhappy'.3 Take another example, "I eat in the middle of night". It is a constative statement because it describes a fact, and to make the utterance, we do not need to perform certain action(s). Thus he said, constative statements are those which can be judged as either 'true' or 'false', and performative statements are those which can be judged as either 'happy' or 'unhappy'.

A performative statement is used in a variety of cognate ways, much as the imperative sentence. The name 'performative' is derived from the verb "perform" along with the noun "action". It indicates that issuance of an utterance means perform an action. But it should not be considered as just uttering something.


1  Please see the analysis of constative sentences in the page nos.6, 47, 148 of Austin, J.S. (2005).How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
2  Ibid, Please see the analysis of performative sentences in the page nos. 62, 67, 69 among others.
3  Ibid, Please see the discussion of the expressions 'happy' and 'unhappy' in the page nos. 42, 43, 67 among others.