6.4.1 The Performativity of Language: Speaking as Action

Consider the following pairs of sentences. What are the differences between the two sentences in each case?

1. Boris and Natasha are married.
2. Boris and Natasha, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

1. Natasha: Boris lost his job.
2. Natasha: Boris, you’re fired!

1. Boris: Natasha, I ate the last pickle.
2. Boris: Natasha, I apologize for eating the last pickle.

In all the above pairs, the first sentence is a report about an event. The second sentence makes an event happen. In the sentences about the pickle, the second sentence does not make the pickle disappear, but it does create an apology for that action, hopefully altering the consequences of the pickle-eating. In the previous section, we explored how we use language to think and reason about the world around us. This is an essential function of language, but it is not the only one. We also use language to do things—that is, to perform actions in the world.

Way back in the 1930s, Bronislaw Malinowski explored how people use language in culturally specific ways to play an active part in their societies (Duranti 2012). Malinowski described how the people of the Trobriand Islands used magical language to compel the growth of yams, bananas, taro, and palms in their carefully cultivated gardens. Magical spells, like all ritual language, aim at making something happen through the special manipulation of public speech. We see the same use of language in other ritual settings like marriages and naming ceremonies. The plot of many a Hollywood romantic comedy hinges on the moment the partners say “I do” and the officiant pronounces them married. In American marriage ceremonies, it is clear that ritual language is the tool that marries people—not the rings, or the pageantry, or the blessings of family and friends, or any other aspect of the ritual.

In his influential book How to Do Things with Words (1962), philosopher of language J.L. Austin coined a term for action-oriented language: performatives. The most obvious performatives use phrases like “I pronounce,” “I order,” “I promise,” “I warn,” or “I appoint.” Sentences that begin with these phrases are explicitly uttered with the intention of doing something through the act of speaking. As he dug deeper into the performative function of language, however, Austin realized that performatives are not so much a separate category of utterances but an aspect of most of the things we say. Even when people are making a simple descriptive statement, they are saying it for a reason. The power of speech to make things happen is called performativity. Consider the following sentences:

The exam is next week.
The dog is pawing on the door.

The above sentences are statements about an event or situation. However, if a professor announces to the class, “The exam is next week,” this is not merely an observation, but a warning—a cue to students to study in preparation for the upcoming exam. And if someone tells their roommate, “The dog is pawing on the door,” they are essentially telling that person to let the dog out.

Like metaphor, performativity is one of those aspects of language that permeates everyday speech. Once you learn about it, you recognize performativity in just about everything you say. Spend a few hours paying attention to each utterance as you go about your activities. You’ll find that you rarely use language to merely describe what’s going on. You speak in order to generate a response or result, even when you just say “Hi.”