Let's Call This THE PERFORMATIVE!!!

"We shall take, then, for our first examples some utterances which can fall into no hitherto recognized grammatical category save that of .'statement', which are not nonsense, and which contain none of those verbal danger-signals which philosophers have by now detected or think they have detected (curious words like 'good' or 'all', suspect auxiliaries like 'ought' or 'can', and dubious constructions like the hypothetical): all will have, as it happens, humdrum verbs in the first person singular present indicative active. I Utterances can be found, satisfying these conditions, yet such that

A. they do not 'describe' or 'report' or constate anything at all, are not 'true or false'; and

B. the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of an action, which again would not normally be described as, or as 'just', saying something.

This is far from being as paradoxical as it may sound or as I have meanly been trying to make it sound: indeed, the examples now to be given will be disappointing.

Examples:

(E. a) 'I do (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)'-as uttered in the course of the marriage ceremony.

(E. b) 'I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth'-as uttered when smashing the  bottle against the stem.

(E. c) 'I give and bequeath my watch to my brother' -as occurring in a will.

(E. d) 'I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.'

In these examples it seems clear that to utter the sentence (in, of course, the appropriate circumstances) is not to describe my doing of what I should be said in so uttering to be doingI or to state that I am doing it: it is to do it. None of the utterances cited is either true or false: I assert this as obvious and do not argue it. It needs argument no more than that 'damn' is not true or false: it may be that the utterance 'serves to inform
you'-but that is quite different. To name the ship is to say (in the appropriate circumstances) the words 'I name, &c.'. When I say, before the registrar or altar, &c., 'I do', I am not reporting on a marriage: I am indulging in it.

What are we to call a sentence or an utterance of this type? I propose to call it a performative sentence or a performative utterance, or, for short, 'a performative'. The term 'performative' will be used ina variety of cognate ways and constructions, much as the term 'imperative' is. The name is derived, of course, from 'perform', the usual verb with the noun 'action': it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action -it is not normally thought of as just saying something.

A number of other terms may suggest themselves, each of which would suitably cover this or that wider or
narrower class of performatives: for example, many performatives are contractual ('I bet') or declaratory ('I declare war') utterances. But no term in current use that I know of is nearly wide enough to cover them all. One technical term that comes nearest to what we need is perhaps 'operative', as it is used strictly by lawyers in referring to that part, i.e. those clauses, of an instrument which serves to effect the transaction (conveyance or what not) which is its main object, whereas the rest of the document merely 'recites' the circumstances in which the transaction is to be effected. I But 'operative' has other meanings, and indeed is often used nowadays to mean little more than 'important'. 1 have preferred a new word, to which, though its etymology is not irrelevant, we shall perhaps not be so ready to attach some preconceived meaning" (Austin 1975:4-7).

Austin, J.L., 1955[1975]. How to do things with words. 2nd ed., Oxford:Oxford University Press.