Performatives and Felicity Conditions

Performative utterances perform acts rather than report them, and they succeed or fail by satisfying felicity conditions rather than by being true or false.

Definition

A performative is an utterance whose production constitutes the performance of an act; felicity conditions are the conditions that must be met for such an act to be carried off successfully and appropriately.

Scope

This topic covers Austin's notion of the performative utterance (e.g. 'I promise', 'I name this ship'), the contrast between explicit and implicit performatives, and the felicity conditions whose violation leads to various kinds of infelicity (misfires and abuses). It also covers Searle's reconstruction of these conditions as propositional, preparatory, sincerity, and essential conditions for particular illocutionary acts.

Core questions

• What distinguishes performative utterances from descriptive ones?
• What are felicity conditions, and how can they be violated?
• How do explicit and implicit performatives differ?
• How does Searle's analysis specify felicity conditions for particular acts?

Key concepts

• explicit vs. implicit performative
• felicity conditions
• misfires and abuses
• propositional, preparatory, sincerity, essential conditions
• performative verb

Key theories

Performatives and infelicities (Austin)

Performative utterances do not state truths but perform acts, and instead of being true or false they can be infelicitous in various ways (misfires, where the act fails to come off, and abuses, where it is carried out insincerely).

Conditions for illocutionary acts (Searle)

Searle decomposes felicity conditions into propositional content, preparatory, sincerity, and essential conditions, specifying for each act type what must hold for its successful performance.

History

Austin began How to Do Things with Words by isolating performatives as utterances that do rather than describe, and classified the ways they can go wrong as infelicities. Although he later subsumed performatives under the general theory of illocutionary acts, Searle preserved and refined the felicity-condition analysis, giving systematic conditions for acts such as promising.

Debates

Are explicit performatives self-verifying statements or sui generis?

Whether explicit performatives such as 'I promise' are a special kind of statement that is true by being uttered, or a distinct category of act-constituting utterance that is neither true nor false.

Key figures

• J. L. Austin
• John Searle

Seminal works

• austin1962
• searle1969

Frequently asked questions

What is a felicity condition?

It is a condition that must be satisfied for a speech act to succeed, such as having the authority to perform it or being sincere; if a condition is violated the act misfires or is abused rather than being simply false.