National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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| 3.2 Performative Verbs Performative verbs are verbs used to indicate that certain acts are meant to be performed by the utterance. For instance each of utterances 15.1 – 15.3 above has a performative verb – pronounce (15.1); sentence (15.2), and promise (15.3). There are several other verbs in English that can be considered as performative verbs. They include the following Appoint - I appoint you as the director of the institute. Thank - I thank you for you kind gestures. Warn - I warn you to desist from that act. Congratulate - I congratulate you on call to the Bar. Announce - We hereby announce the death of our grandfather. Guarantee - I guarantee you that the product will last. Request - I hereby request for my transcript Offer - I offer you the job on a monthly salary of Ni div 94 Looking at the structural pattern of these utterances, you can see that the performative verbs have a special place in the utterances fitting into the sentence frame like this I (hereby) verb you complement. Such utterance we have above are also referred to as performative utterances. 3.3 Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts Austin identifies three kinds of acts that are performed when a language is used. He made a distinction between locutionary act, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. Locutionary acts are considered as acts of speaking – acts involved in the construction of speech. They include using particular words in conformity with the particular rules of a language and with certain senses and references as determined by the rules of the language from which they are drawn. (Sadock, 2006:54). Illocutionary acts are acts done in speaking – acts that are the apparent purpose for using a performative utterance, such as promising, sentencing, guaranteeing, thanking, and so forth. Perlocutionary acts are the consequences or the byproduct of speaking. They produce some effect upon the thoughts, feelings and actions of the addressee and the speaker. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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