Performativity
Performativity is a term used in speech act theory and describes a special connection between speaking and acting.
The normal relationship between speech and action is as a speech act referred to - is thus clear that "speaking" is an intentional act. The speech act is performative when it is carried out or concretized (examples: doing what you say or naming a specific point in time for a decision). Performativity describes the execution or concretization of the spoken word.
prolog
The term performativity was coined by John Langshaw Austin and is given different interpretations in different contexts.
Philosophical approach
According to Austin, performative utterances are sentences with which illocutionary acts are carried out. This is discussed in detail by Austin in his lecture series on speech act theory How to Do Things with Words (publ. 1962).
Examples:
- "I hereby declare you husband and wife" (uttered by a registrar to marry two people, 'explicit' performativum);
- “I command you to close the door!” (Uttered to command something, 'explicit' performative);
- “I warn you, the bull is coming!” (Uttered to warn someone, 'explicit' performative);
- “The bull is coming!” (Uttered to warn someone);
- “Get out of here!” (Uttered to invite someone to leave).
In the first lectures, Austin argued for a fundamental opposition between “constative” and “performative” utterances. The former are true or false and are limited to 'saying something', the latter are neither true nor false and only these are used to do something (which goes beyond mere saying). In the course of the lectures, however, due to a number of doubts, he came to the conclusion that this classification of utterances could ultimately not be justified and therefore not maintained. Finally, only “the entire speech act in the entire speech situation” (lecture 12) should be considered, which is why the following relationship is at the end: “The doctrine of the distinction between performative and constative utterances relates to the doctrine of locutionary and illocutionary acts in the speech act like the special to the general theory ”(ibid.). Determinations are just one of many classes of illocutionary speech acts, just like warning, judging, describing, and much more. Ultimately, according to Austin, the investigation of illocutionary acts is relevant, i.e. that aspect of (almost every) utterance that turns them into an action.
Austin's theory of illocutionary acts was taken up by John Searle in his speech act theory and modified with the claim to improvement.
There are also connections to the functional language models of Karl Bühler and Roman Jakobson .
Literary approach
In literature , the term is used as a counter-term to the so-called écriture , the writing. Performativity is bound to a body while the écriture is incorporeal. Performatively, it is closely related to the literary theme of “crossing out the subject”, or more specifically the death of the author in Roland Barthes' work .
Approach to cultural and historical studies
Jan Assmann sees a third category of performative truth between narrative and historical truth. So, in his opinion, z. For example, the figure of Moses and the event of the Exodus in the Torah are fictitious according to today's scientific consensus. Nonetheless, they created reality to the extent that they helped the Israelites to establish their cultural identity and to maintain it in a mythomotor way.
Gender theory and identity formation
Judith Butler uses Austin's term in her own socio-theoretical discourse: This identity is marked as female or male through signs and speech acts . “The midwife's exclamation A girl! is therefore to be understood not only as a constative statement, but also as a directive speech act: Become a girl! The performativity of the sexes thus results from the interplay of political performatives and theatrical performances. "
Theater studies approach
In the theater studies discourse on performativity, as developed by Erika Fischer-Lichte , the media specificity of performances is explained by the simultaneous physical presence of actors and spectators, in which the performance is mutually influenced on an equal footing.
Others
In his extensive work Language and Consciousness , the philosopher of language Bruno Liebrucks points out that whoever speaks to another is always speaking to himself. Speaking to others can thus not only have a performative effect on them, but also on the speaker himself. This can happen, for example, that the speaker internalizes the discourse through the reception of the discourse (through his choice of words) and makes it his own. The occasional philosopher Günther Anders coined the sentence in his heresies : As you speak, so you become.
This performativity has been known in the literature for decades. An example is the novel Stiller by Max Frisch , in which the main character refuses to say I in order not to identify with the role that other people are trying to impose on him through their behavior and calls.
See also
literature
- Austin, John L. (1962): How to Do Things with Words (Ger. On the theory of speech acts , Stuttgart 1972).
- Bachmann-Medick, Doris (2009): Performative Turn , in: DB-M .: Cultural Turns . New orientations in cultural studies , 3rd revised. Reinbek: Rowohlt, pp. 104–143.
- Butler, Judith (1997): Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (Eng. Hatred speaks. On the Politics of the Performative , Berlin 1998).
- Derrida, Jacques (1988): Signature Event Context , in: Engelmann, Peter (Ed.): Randgang der Philosophie , Vienna 1988.
- Dörge, Friedrich Christoph (2013): Performative Utterances , in: Sbisà, Marina, Ken Turner (Ed.): Pragmatics of Speech Actions , Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 203–256.
- Fischer-Lichte, Erika / Wulf, Christoph (Ed., 2001): Theories of the Performative (Paragrana Vol. 10/1).
- Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2004): Aesthetics of the Performative , Frankfurt / M .: Suhrkamp.
- Fischer-Lichte, Erika / Wulf, Christoph (eds., 2004): Practices of the Performative (Paragrana Vol. 13/1).
- Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2012): Performativity. An introduction , Bielefeld: transcript. ISBN 978-3-8376-1178-6 .
- Hempfer, Klaus / Volbers, Jörg (Ed., 2011): Theories of the Performative. Language - knowledge - practice. A critical inventory. Bielefeld: transcript.
- Rolf, Eckard: The other Austin: On the reconstruction / deconstruction of performative utterances - from Searle to Derrida to Cavell and beyond (paperback), Bielefeld: transcript, 2009, ISBN 3837611639 .
- Schulze, Detlef Georgia / Sabine Berghahn / Frieder Otto Wolf (eds.) (2006), Politicization and depoliticization as a performative practice (StaR P. New Analyzes on State, Law and Politics. Series A. Vol. 1), Westphalian Steamboat : Munster.
- Volbers, Jörg (2014): Performative Culture. An introduction. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
- Wirth, Uwe (ed., 2002): Performance. Between philosophy of language and cultural studies , Frankfurt am Main 2002.
Web links
- http://differenzen.univie.ac.at/glossar.php?sp=4 - Performativity
- Gender Studies Glossary
- Homepage of the Collaborative Research Center "Cultures of the Performative"
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ssprechhandlung
- ↑ Jan Assmann: Exodus: The Revolution of the Old World . 1st edition. CH Beck, 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67430-3 , pp. 389 f .