8/12/2019 How to Do Things With Words Discussion

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Working Definitions:behabitives - a kind of performative concerned roughly with reactions to behavior and withbehavior towards others and designed to exhibit attitudes and feelingsnot concerned with motive, concerned with (?)

expositives - expositional performatives ; the main body of the utterance has generally oroften the straightforward form of a statement, but there is an explicit performative verb at itshead

verdicitves: can be descriptive merely of a state of mind

Classes:1. Locution - act is the performance of an utterance, and hence of a speech act.

a. Phonetic Act - the act of making a sound, uttering certain noisesb. Phatic Act - uttering certain words or vocables, noises that belong to a certain

vocabulary

c. Rhetic Act - performing an act with the vocables with a certain more or lessdefinite sense and reference

2. Illocution - term created by Austin. informing, ordering, warning, undertaking3. Perlocution - a speech act that produces certain consequential effects upon the

feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience. What we bring about by sayingsomething ( such as convincing, persuading, deterring, surprising or misleading)

Pheme (unit of language) vs Rheme (unit of speech)

Discussion Questions1. does a not pure behabitives need emotions.. vs an explicit performative.. pg 83pg. 88Pure Explicit Performatives: Not Pure Explicit Performatives:1) I forecast, predict 1) I foresee, expect, anticipate2) I endorse, assent to 2) I agree with that opinion3) I question whether it is so 3) I wonder whether it is soWhat differences and variations did you notice between these performatives? Distinguishing

characteristics?

2. p. 97 Can we perform a rhetic act without referring or without naming ? does a rhetic actneed to contain both a phonetic and phatic act?3. p. 92 When we issue any utterance whatsoever, are not doing something? Certaintythe ways in which we talk about action are liable here, as elsewhere, to be confusing

8/12/2019 How to Do Things With Words Discussion

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4. p. 98 Rheme vs. pheme.A. Discuss the difference between speech and language?B. Which does IBMs Watson use in Jeopardy?C. Is one or the other used in intelligence speech?

5. Where does the distinction between illocution and perlocution occur?For example, if I were to warn someone of something, at what point does my illocution, myargument or speech, become a perlocution, that is, at what point would I have convincedthem? Since persuasion is so different for different people ( both the convincer and theperson to be convinced )What factors affect the distinction between perlocution and illocution?Since it is a spectrum, can it ever be programmed?