MSP #? - Performative Verbs

Mar 17, 2008 at 5:06 PM
2 comments

I am intrigued by performative verbs. Could it be that these magical utterances actually perform their represented action in the very act of speaking them? If so, they are like the magic spells of yore. In the act of saying 'I vow to do my blog post' the 'vow' is done, even if the blog post is done. Who dare challenge this vow? Who dare say 'Nay, you've vowed nothing'? Bring me this knave and I promise you I shall visit many more performatives upon him. I swear I will compile a list of perfomative words (and...the swearing has already happened????!).

I declare this blog post nearly complete.
I warn myself to get some sleep.
I request and pray and beseech the semester will end soon.
I christen this keyboard a granfalloon.
Will I bless or will I curse?
I hereby decree this blog post is done: for better worse.

2 comments

Comments

Haha I enjoyed reading your post this week. You can say that performative verbs can't be challenged. The book used the example of promise and if someone says I promise to do this, someone can't be like no you don't. Would you be able to say "I vow to do my blog post" after it is already done and vox still be a performative verb? Aren't performative verbs in present tense and if you have already done your blog then it would be in past tense.

Performative verbs are the ones that you can always put "hereby" in front of right? So it works to say,

I hereby declare this blog post nearly complete.
I hereby warn myself to get some sleep.
I hereby request and pryay and beseech the semester will end soon. (HAHAHA, not me :))
I hereby christen this keyboard a granfalloon.
Will I hereby bless or will I hereby curse?

Isn't that how you decide? And then you can also use the active form versus passive form right???

I like this post. We should consider using it in our final project!

MSP #? - Performative Verbs

Comments

Post a comment

About Me

Neighborhood

Archives