Talk:Performative

Bah!
This article is in serious need for something!

Doubt
i'm not sure this is right. this is a reading of what sentences do out in the world of context and interpretation, but literally the performative, a term coined by Austin is when a sentence "i do" is doing something, as in performing an act. A performative is when the linguistic utterance (the locutionary act) accomplishes or DOES something. The performative utterance is the act. To say "I do" is to get married.

In favour of merging
(The performative "utterance" is not the act. In general, performative utterances are linguistic tokens rather than actions -- see Austin 1962, p. 1-5, and many other passages; note also that Austin seeks for grammatical criteria of "performatives": these he can hardly expect to find for actions, rather than linguistic devices.) There is no meaningful difference between "performative utterances" and "performatives"; in particular, Austin does not make one, and Kosofsky Sedgwick does not either. "Performative utterance" naturally leads to the question what an "utterance" (the bearer of being performative, that means) is. So, in order to provoke clarity and explicitness, in my opinion the stuff should be collected under "performative utterance".

This should definitely be merged with Performative utterance as the first sentence starts talking about performative utterances and continues the whole way through. Not to mention the performative utterance article is a lot cleaner and duplicates all the info on this page. Going ahead with merger. Cinzia, if you're out there, speak up now. -- DSGruss 20:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

against merging
I am researching 'performative spaces' and I found it usefull to be able to look up 'performative', as opposed to 'performative utterances'. Perhaps, this page could be expended to include a reference to Erika Fischer-Lichte's writing on 'performative spaces', i.e. "The Semiotics of Theater"

I have just started looking into this, so I am not the best suited person, but please take it on!

86.145.78.39 13:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC) Cinzia

Speech Act Theory following Austin vs. Gender/Queer/... Studies
It appears important to me to distinguish the notion(s) of "performative utterances" as introduced by J.L. Austin and developed in the philosophy of language, legal philosophy, linguistists, etc., from the notion of performativity applied in Gender Studies, Queer Studies, and other 'social analysis' ways of literary criticism. Austin starts using "performative" in the course of a philosophical/linguistic investigation concerning the semantics and pragmatics of 'statements' (declarative sentences), and then turns to a study of "illocutionary acts": these issues are not referred to by scholars of the second group. In turn, Austin never speaks about such things as 'performative spaces', and never uses "performative" for the subject matters Butler or Kosofsky Sedgwick refer to.

At the moment, both articles, "Performative" and "Performative Utterance", are clearly referring to the Austin/linguist/philosopher sense; perhaps "Performative" might be ascribed to the other sense; or the article might be splitted.

88.65.170.80 08:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)