Search results

1

Performative Utterances: Seven Puzzles

100%

Harnish R.

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

|

2007

|

vol. 3

|

issue -1

3-21

EN

It was John Austin who introduced the word "performative" (which he called "a new and ugly word") into the philosophy of language and linguistics. His original idea was that there are utterances which are more correctly characterized as doing something rather than stating something. Austin wrote: "when I say ‘I do’ (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife), I am not reporting on a marriage, I am indulging in it." As is well known, Austin went on to work out this notion of a performative utterance (and of a performative expression) in a number of directions, but in the end the attempt to isolate performatives (doings) from constatives (true or false) failed dramatically, and the idea of viewing language use in terms of the performative-constative dichotomy gave way to the study of speech acts: "The total speech act in the total speech situation is the only actual phenomena which, in the last resort, we are engaged in elucidating." But giving up the performative-constative distinction does not mean giving up theorizing about performatives, and there is a cottage industry in the theory of language devoted to them. We identify seven puzzles for theorizing about performatives. We consider how Austin might have dealt with some of them. Finding his answers problematic, we then survey recent theories of performatives and zoom in on the major contenders, identifying one theory in particular for scrutiny and seeing how it fares with the seven puzzles. The upshot is that there is still work to be done understanding performatives.

2

CHRZEŚCIJAŃSKIE SAKRAMENTY W UJĘCIU TEORII AKTÓW MOWY

86%

Pasek Z.

Studia Humanistyczne AGH

|

2012

|

vol. 11

|

issue 1

EN

The article deals with a problem of using the theory of a speech act in analysis of Christian sacraments in religious studies. Author finds the concept useful for many reasons. Mostly, religious studies are free of problem oftruth, because the theory tells only about felicity of creating beliefs or not. According to S. Tambiah, it lets us analyse the scale of magic in religious rituals, also Christian, like sacramental practice. In the article differentsacramental theologies, like Catholicism, Orthodox and different Protestant religions (Calvinism, Lutheranism) are looked at in terms of illocutionary power of words used during rituals and their effectiveness. It lets usillustrate the historical process of decreasing of the magical element in interpretation of basic Christian rituals.

3

Ideologia pustosłowia – dyskurs korporacyjny na przykładzie tak zwanych kodeksów etycznych firm.

86%

Marzęda W.

Nowa Krytyka

|

2015

|

vol. 35

191-208

EN

In the paper Ideology of canting talking – corporations discourse with regard to ethical codices author describes the phenomenon of canting performatives acts as a mechanism of moral usurpations in business ethics. The promises and declarations in ethical codices cannot turn out to be neither worthless nor significant, because there is no possibility of describing such a situation in which these declarations could be unequivocally called unkept promises. It does not mean that they are always true of course… Author shows that cant declarations of business ethics become to usurp the right to define workers morality. On the one hand it seems to be a beautiful bunch of declarations on the other the point is that corporation’s ethical declarations are designed for managing your thinking about morality.

4

Performatywy w prawie cywilnym

86%

Zajęcki M.

Kwartalnik Prawa Prywatnego

|

2013

|

vol. 22

|

issue 4

921 - 944

EN

In the article the author examines the concept of actions similar to legal actions in civil law proposed by Krzysztof Mularski. These are actions which are based on declaration of intent, but they are not legal actions in strict sense (e.g. forgiveness, consent to medical treatment etc.) Closer analysis shows that forgiveness can be interpreted in two ways: as a performative or as a sign of feelings. When one is willing to accept performative nature of forgiveness, a question may be asked if there are performatives in law, which are not defined in statutory law. The author argues that settling a quarrel involving a point of honor could be such a performative. Although traditional performative ways of settling quarrels (e.g. duels) are no longer approved by law, there are new institutions (colleague arbitration, mediation) which may result in shaping rights and duties in civil law. In conclusion the author shows that the concept proposed by K. Mularski has great potential, and could be used as a tool for integration of theory of Polish civil law with general theory of law and philosophy of language. This is a rare situation when cooperation between dogmatic discipline of law and theory is fruitful for both sides and genuinely fulfils the postulate of interdisciplinarity in jurisprudence.

5

Magičeskie performativy v zagovorach i kalendarnych pesnjach Vostočnych Slavjan

72%

Judin A. V.

Etnolingwistyka. Problemy Języka i Kultury

|

2001

|

vol. 13

139–148

PL

Dla człowieka religijnego czasowniki proszę, błagam są prośbą skierowaną do Boga lub świętych, nigdy zaś wyrazem woli mówiącego. Te same formy, użyte z wiarą w osiągnięcie rezultatu w tekstach zamówień, są magicznymi performatywami, z punktu widzenia bowiem wygłaszającego tekst dokonuje się realna zmiana w obiektywnym świecie rzeczy. Mówiąc obiecuję, proszę zamawiający zmienia nie obiektywne położenie rzeczy otaczającego świata, lecz swoje odniesienia z innymi ludźmi. Performatyw jawi się nie tylko jako słowo, lecz jako czynność. Zamówienia, kolędy, pieśni wołoczebne są tzw. magicznymi tekstami performatywnymi. Podstawą do takiego potraktowania jest funkcja całego tekstu. Zamówienie może nie zawierać czasowników typu zaklinam, szepczę, a kolęda – pozdrawiam, winszuje, a ciągle pozostanie magicznym tekstem performatywnym, jeśli zachowa swoją intencję i funkcję. W przypadku używania w funkcji zamówień tekstów cerkiewnych lub apokryficznych modlitw, niemożliwe staje się rozgraniczenie performatywnych tekstów magicznych od religijnych ze względu na nieznaną ukrytą intencję wygłaszającego: to, czy zwraca się do sił wyższych z modlitwą, która może pomóc, a może nie być usłyszaną, czy też jako mag, przekonany co do niewątpliwej efektywności swoich działań. W pierwszym wypadku zamówienie, które jest tekstem folkloru, okazuje się modlitwą, a obecne w nim performatywy – religijnymi; w wypadku drugim – zamówienie jawi się jako przykład werbalnej ludowej magii.

EN

For a religious person, the verbs proszę ‘I’m asking you for’, błagam ‘I’m begging you’ are requests addressed to God or the saints, never a manifestation of the speaker’s will. The same forms, used with a firm belief in their effectiveness in magic spells, serve as performatives: from the point of view of the speaker, the result is a real change in the objective world. By saying obiecuję ‘I promise’ or proszę ‘Pm asking you for’, the speaker does not change the objects of the world but his or her relationships to other people. A performative verbs is not only a word but an action. Magic spells, Christmas carols, spring ‘wishing’ songs (pieśni wółoczebne) are the so called magic performative texts, a term justified by the function of a particular text as a whole. A magic spell need not contain the verbs zaklinam ‘I cast a spell’ or szepczę ‘I am whispering’; similarly, a carol need not contain the verbs pozdrawiam ‘I am greeting (someone)’ or winszuję ‘I wish (someone something’, ‘I congratulate (someone)’. Yet, they remain performative texts if they preserve their intention and function. In the case of orthodox texts or apocryphal prayers used as magic spells, it is impossible to distinguish magic performative texts from religious texts. This is due to an unknown, hidden intention of the speaker: whether the text is a prayer, which may help but need not necessarily be heard, or whether the speaker is a sorcerer convinced that what is being done will be effective. In the former case, a magic spell, which is a text of folklore, proves to be a prayer, and the performatives which it contains are of religious type. In the latter case, a spell appears to be an example of verbal folk magic. The identification of the magic or religious intention of the speaker provides the basis for the recognition of two distinct groups of performative verbs and of whole texts with performative meaning: magic performatives and religious performatives. Both groups stand in opposition to all other verbs and texts because from the point of view of someone convinced of the effectiveness of magic or someone religious, use of words/texts leads to direct changes in the objective world, which depends on the will of the real or presupposed addressee of the utterance, should such an addressee exist.

6

Reading books and metaphysics

58%

Hołówka J., Hołówka J.

Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

|

2020

|

issue 4

Refine search results

1 Etnolingwistyka. Problemy Języka i Kultury

1 Kwartalnik Prawa Prywatnego

1 Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

1 Nowa Krytyka

1 Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

1 Studia Humanistyczne AGH

1 Harnish R.

1 Hołówka J.

1 Judin A. V.

1 Marzęda W.

1 Pasek Z.

1 Zajęcki M.

1 2020

1 2015

1 2013

1 2012