Your host E. Aminudin Aziz

Austin’s observation on (many or even most) acts realised through speech  People do things with words  The idea sharply contrasts with truth conditions semantics which relies on logical relations of sentences and the truthfulness (or availability) of references in the real (as well as imaginary) world  Austin’s claim about Ordinary Language Philosophers

 In his early work on speech acts, the philosopher Austin drew a distinction between constative utterances, like The cat sat on the mat, which had a purely descriptive (statement- making) function and which could be treated in terms of truth and falsehood, and performative utterences, like I promise it will never happen again, which he claimed were neither true nor false but felicitous or infelicitous.

 A performative verb is one which designates a specific speech act and which, if used appropriately, counts as the performance of the speech act.  In his later work, Austin dropped this distinction in favour of a distinction between explicit performatives (like I promise it will never happen again ) and primary or implicit performatives (like It will never happen again, functioning as promise).  A performative verb in a performative use can typically be accompanied by h ereby (cf. IFIDs)

“the conditions that must be satisfied for a speech act to be properly performed” (aka “happiness conditions”) a) preparatory condition [P]: it defines an appropriate setting for the act, including the speaker’s intentions and qualifications; b) sincerity condition [S]: it requires the speaker to be sincere; c) essential condition or illocutionary intention [I]: it defines the essential nature of the speech act.

E.g.: a promise can be defined as  [P] S genuinely believes that S can do A  [S] S willingly intends to do A of his own volition  [I] S reflexively-intends that U be a reason to believe that S willingly undertakes the obligation to do A and intends to do A.

a refusal can be defined as an utterance in which  [P] S is unable and/or unwilling to do A  [I] S intends that U be a reason for H to believe that S is unable or unwilling to do A  [I] S reflexively-intends that H take U to be a reason to believe that S is unable or unwilling to do A

 A locution has to do with the actual utterances produced by a speaker. It can be in the forms of declarative, imperative, or interrogative sentences. E.g. a) I order you to leave immediately : declarative b) Go away! : imperative c) Out! : declarative d) Won’t you stay here? : neg. interrogative

 An illocutionis the force or intention behind words. The illocution is the property of the utterance.  Notice the IFID order in the example a) above. The use of the performative verb order explicitly states the illocutionary point of the utterance, i.e. a command.  The imperative in b) is a conventionalised way for Speaker S to tell Hearer H to do something, and one that leaves no room for doubt when spoken with appropriate prosody ).  To have the illocutionary force of a command, c) must be spoken with appropriate prosody and in an appropriate context (cf. the same utterance uttered by an umpire in a game of tennis)   Illocutionary acts as the “central interest” of Austin’s speech act theory)

 A perlocution is the effect of the utterance on Hearer H.  Suppose Speaker S says There is a spider on your lap. In saying this, S is making a statement about the location of a spider; i.e. the utterance has the illocution of a statement.  It may also the case that by uttering the utterance, Speaker S  frightens H  alerts H by warning him/her  persuades H to an opinion by stating supporting facts  intimidates H by threatening him/her  gets H to do something by means of a request or command.  etc

1. Searle (1976): performative verbs as the basis i. Representatives: asserting, concluding ii. Directives: requesting, questioning iii. Commissives: promising, threatening, offering iv. Expressives: thanking, apologising, welcoming, congratulating v. Declarations: declaring war, christening, firing from employment

2. Allan (1986; 1994; 1998) i. Interpersonal Acts defined on the basis of two felicity conditions: a preparatory condition [P] which invokes the value, and a sincerity condition [S]. The third element in the definition is the illocutionary intention [I], which represents S’s reflexive- intention that H should recognise that in uttering U, S intends to have H recognise his/her particular illocution. The preparatory condition is presupposed by the sincerity condition. 1.Constatives (truth values) 2.Predictives (probable-truth values) 3.Commissives (genuinness values) 4.Acknowledgements (appropriacy values) 5.Directives (compliance values) 6.Authoritatives (authority values)

ii. Declaratory Acts (authority values) is typically broadcast within a social group; and the act relies for its success on S being sanctioned by the group, or by a community, institution, committee, or even a single person within the group, to perform such acts under stipulated conditions, which are unnecessary for interpersonal acts, including: i. an executive condition of the speaker [Es] ii. an executive condition on the utterance [Eu] iii. an executive condition on the context in which U is uttered by S [Ec]  Effectives (bring about states of affairs such as baptism, marriage, knighting, etc.)  Verdictives (express decisions on states of affairs, often through S declaring a choice between competing possibilities)