This week, Fred and I are both going for a visit to what I fondly call The Far West, the West of Flanders that is. Since per chance we both planned to leave by Sunday noon and to return on Monday evening, and since I was going to drive over there anyway, we’ll be carpooling, obviously. But today Fred sent me an e-mail in which he - and I quote - ‘demanded’ to give me gas money for the ride…
Now this reminded me of something which I have been meaning to bring up. When people say (or write) things, they can basically do two things. One is: make a statement. This constative language, like ‘It’s raining outside’. It’s a statement, it’s information. The other thing is: do something. This is performative language, like when you told your mom ‘I promise I won’t hit my brother again’. It’s not giving information, it’s doing something, namely making a promise. We call that a speech act, doing something through language. By saying ‘I promise’, you do what you say, you promise. To put it succinctly: in constative language we say what we say, in performative language we do what we say.
But if you look closely at language, there’s performance and speech acts everywhere. The same sentence ‘It’s raining outside’ which was purely constative when mentioned above, can also be performative. For instance, when you use this sentence as an answer to someone asking you how you are doing. In the dialogue ‘Fred: ‘How are you, Fred?’ - Fred: ‘It’s raining outside’ Fred is not really giving information in his answer. Instead he is performing a bluesy feeling. He is suggesting he’s feeling a bit down. This too, is a speech act.
Of course, I didn’t think of this myself. If I did, I wouldn’t be wondering once in a while what I’m going to do with my life - or better yet, how I’m going to afford my life - when I run out of a job in 2013. Instead it was the British philosopher J.L. Austin came up with it in his book How to Do Things with Words?
Now it’s fun and really interesting to consider the performative dimension of what we say or what people say to us, as it might clarify some puzzling situations. For instance, if you visit someone and they ask you if you’d like a cup of coffee, you might respond ‘Please don’t bother!’. In this case, you are saying no, but your speech act is rather different. Your speech act is actually saying you might like some coffee, but feel socially awkward that the person in question should have to go and brew a pot on your behalf. Most people, however, are intuitively aware of this performance in ‘Please don’t bother!’ and will insist ‘I was just going to make a pot anyway!’. The performance in their insistence tells you to get over your awkward feeling. Net result: a nice cup of coffee.
But make no mistake, the performative dimension of language can also be a big problem between people, even between best friends or married couples. For instance, when breaking up, people will say ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ - which most of the time isn’t true, but the speech act is: ‘I know I’m hurting you. Please try not to take it out on yourself’. However, most of the times, we do not hear this speech act. It gets lost in the communicational distrust that tends to arise when people hit a rough spot in their relationship.
And the queen of all problems in speech act theory can be summed up in the famous, but dreaded seven words ‘Does my ass look big in this?’ to which there is no answer no matter which speech act you take into consideration. Answering ‘No’ (considering a speech act of uncertainty) only gets you ‘You’re only saying that because you know that’s what I want to hear’. Answering ‘Yes’, even as a joke, or in pure performative desperation, is no option either. Obviously.
So when Fred sent me the e-mail with the demand to pay for the gas, I first felt a little bit annoyed. We’re good friends, I thought, it shouldn’t matter whether I drive or not. I’m not asking to pay when we’re having drinks at his place. Does that make me a bad person? And then it hit me: Fred’s insistence to pay for gas money, is actually a performance of his social awkwardness over the fact that I have a car and he should benefit from it. Of course, I’m fine with him coming along on the boring ride, and he probably knows it, but still he cannot help himself from saying ‘I insist I pay for gas’. But in a way, this a good thing because it means that his speech act is really his way to say thank you for the other times he rode with me.
So I’ll try to respond to your mail with your speech act in mind, Fred: ‘Sure, you can give me gas money. And no problem for all the other times. You’re welcome to ride with me any day!’.
Now this reminded me of something which I have been meaning to bring up. When people say (or write) things, they can basically do two things. One is: make a statement. This constative language, like ‘It’s raining outside’. It’s a statement, it’s information. The other thing is: do something. This is performative language, like when you told your mom ‘I promise I won’t hit my brother again’. It’s not giving information, it’s doing something, namely making a promise. We call that a speech act, doing something through language. By saying ‘I promise’, you do what you say, you promise. To put it succinctly: in constative language we say what we say, in performative language we do what we say.
But if you look closely at language, there’s performance and speech acts everywhere. The same sentence ‘It’s raining outside’ which was purely constative when mentioned above, can also be performative. For instance, when you use this sentence as an answer to someone asking you how you are doing. In the dialogue ‘Fred: ‘How are you, Fred?’ - Fred: ‘It’s raining outside’ Fred is not really giving information in his answer. Instead he is performing a bluesy feeling. He is suggesting he’s feeling a bit down. This too, is a speech act.
Of course, I didn’t think of this myself. If I did, I wouldn’t be wondering once in a while what I’m going to do with my life - or better yet, how I’m going to afford my life - when I run out of a job in 2013. Instead it was the British philosopher J.L. Austin came up with it in his book How to Do Things with Words?
Now it’s fun and really interesting to consider the performative dimension of what we say or what people say to us, as it might clarify some puzzling situations. For instance, if you visit someone and they ask you if you’d like a cup of coffee, you might respond ‘Please don’t bother!’. In this case, you are saying no, but your speech act is rather different. Your speech act is actually saying you might like some coffee, but feel socially awkward that the person in question should have to go and brew a pot on your behalf. Most people, however, are intuitively aware of this performance in ‘Please don’t bother!’ and will insist ‘I was just going to make a pot anyway!’. The performance in their insistence tells you to get over your awkward feeling. Net result: a nice cup of coffee.
But make no mistake, the performative dimension of language can also be a big problem between people, even between best friends or married couples. For instance, when breaking up, people will say ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ - which most of the time isn’t true, but the speech act is: ‘I know I’m hurting you. Please try not to take it out on yourself’. However, most of the times, we do not hear this speech act. It gets lost in the communicational distrust that tends to arise when people hit a rough spot in their relationship.
And the queen of all problems in speech act theory can be summed up in the famous, but dreaded seven words ‘Does my ass look big in this?’ to which there is no answer no matter which speech act you take into consideration. Answering ‘No’ (considering a speech act of uncertainty) only gets you ‘You’re only saying that because you know that’s what I want to hear’. Answering ‘Yes’, even as a joke, or in pure performative desperation, is no option either. Obviously.
So when Fred sent me the e-mail with the demand to pay for the gas, I first felt a little bit annoyed. We’re good friends, I thought, it shouldn’t matter whether I drive or not. I’m not asking to pay when we’re having drinks at his place. Does that make me a bad person? And then it hit me: Fred’s insistence to pay for gas money, is actually a performance of his social awkwardness over the fact that I have a car and he should benefit from it. Of course, I’m fine with him coming along on the boring ride, and he probably knows it, but still he cannot help himself from saying ‘I insist I pay for gas’. But in a way, this a good thing because it means that his speech act is really his way to say thank you for the other times he rode with me.
So I’ll try to respond to your mail with your speech act in mind, Fred: ‘Sure, you can give me gas money. And no problem for all the other times. You’re welcome to ride with me any day!’.
No comments:
Post a Comment