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An explicit performative is one in which the utterance inscription contains an expression that makes explicit what kind of act is being performed (Lyons, 1981: 175). An explicit performative includes a performative verb and mainly therefore, as Thomas (1995: 47) claims, it can be seen to be a mechanism which allows the speaker to remove any possibility of misunderstanding the force behind an utterance.
2. a. I order you to leave.
b. Will you leave?
In the first example, the speaker utters a sentence with an imperative proposition and with the purpose to make the hearer leave. The speaker uses a performative verb and thus completely avoids any possible misunderstanding. The message is clear here.
The second utterance (2b) is rather ambiguous without an appropriate context. It can be understood in two different ways: it can be either taken literally, as a yes/no question, or non-literally as an indirect request or even command to leave. The hearer can become confused and he does not always have to decode the speaker’s intention successfully. (2b) is an implicit or primary performative. Working on Lyon’s assumption, this is non-explicit, in terms of the definition given above, in that there is no expression in the utterance-inscription itself which makes explicit the fact that this is to be taken as a request rather than a yes/no question (Lyons, 1981: 176).
Shiffrin (1994: 51), commenting on Austin’s observations, adds: “The circumstances allowing an act are varied: they include the existence of ‘an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect’, the presence of ‘particular persons and circumstances’, ‘the correct and complete execution of a procedure’, and (when appropriate to the act) ‘certain thoughts, feelings, or intentions’.” These circumstances are more often called felicity conditions.
Felicity conditions. Basic aspects (facets) of Speech Act
A truth conditional sentence requires a sentence to fit into the world; however, it cannot be applied pragmatically in a daily conversation, consequently, non-truth conditional sentence is applied. In pragmatics filed, an utterance needs to be felicitous, thus it has to meet the felicity condition. Felicity condition underlies that in order to be felicitous an utterance must meet the felicity condition that includes general condition, content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition and essential condition. By using felicity condition, speakers can mean what they say and say what they mean.
Since the ultimate goal of felicity conditions is to achieve felicitous speech acts, speakers and hearers should confirm that their performative utterances are adapted to these conditions. It must be recalled here that the main concern of felicity conditions is to provide the appropriate circumstances for happy speech acts to take place. Additionally, the application of these felicitous speech acts cannot be achieved if these actions are infected by some problems or what Austin (1962) calls ‘infelicities’.
The Austinian examination of felicitous speech acts divides the felicity conditions into two parts. The first part is devoted to solve the problem of the external infelicities or ‘ misfires’, while the second one serves to overcome the shortcomings of the internal infelicities or ‘ abuses’. It is worth mentioning that for Austin (1962), misfires’ actions are not achieved at all. However, in the case of ‘abuses’ these actions are achieved, but they miss the appropriate feelings, thoughts and intentions.
Misfires: here a speech act of a certain kind is attempted, but no such act occurs. The toddler may attempt to promise to pay $100, but does not succeed in performing that illocution. So too, A may utter, in front of the Eiffel Tower, “I bequeath this monument to my grandchildren,” but because the monument is not his to give, A has bequeathed nothing. Here again one observes a locutionary but no illocutionary act. Equivalently, one may say that in a misfire, an act of speech but no speech act occurs. Misfires also can occur in speech acts that require uptake. It is only possible to bet with someone if that person accepts the proffered bet. (Machines act as proxies for the people who own or design them.) As a result, “I bet you my umbrella that it will rain today,” only amounts to a bet if the addressee accepts the wager; otherwise the speaker has tried but failed to bet.
Abuses: here a speech act of the attempted kind occurs, but is still defective in some significant way. If A answers the creditor’s question with, “Yes, the check is in the mail,” when he knows that he has not sent the check, A has still asserted that he has paid the outstanding bill. An utterance of, “I promise to do soandso” may still be a promise even if the speaker has no intention of keeping it. One central area of potential abuse, then, is failure of sincerity. Many speech acts mandate of their users that they be in a certain psychological state (believing that a certain proposition is true, intending to carry out a course of action, etc.), and they are abused when performed by speakers who are not in such states. Although Austin did not discuss such cases under the rubric of abuses, in may also be illuminating to consider speech acts made in inadequate evidential conditions. If A confidently and sincerely assures B that this mushroom is edible when A is no mycological authority, B would have cause to blame A for abusing the practice of assertion if B falls ill after ingesting it.
The Searlean examination of felicitous speech acts involves four types of felicity conditions: propositional content, preparatory, sincerity and essential conditions.
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