Speech Acts: Austin, Searle, and Performativity

How to Do Things with Words

John Austin, in his lectures "How to Do Things with Words" (published posthumously, 1962), questioned the standard assumption of the philosophy of language: that the task of language is to describe facts.

Austin begins with performative utterances: "I swear," "I name this ship 'Queen Elizabeth'," "I promise," "I pronounce you husband and wife." These are not descriptions—they are actions. Saying them in the right context, the speaker does what they say. They are not true or false—they are "successful" or "unsuccessful," "appropriate" or "inappropriate."

A performative utterance "does not work" when the conditions of success are violated: a judge announcing a verdict must have authority; a witness under oath must give testimony voluntarily; baptism must take place in the correct ritual context.

The Three-Part Theory of Speech Act

Austin developed a more general theory: any utterance simultaneously performs three acts:

Locutionary act: utterance of a meaningful sentence. "Close the window" is a meaningful request/command in Russian.

Illocutionary act: the action performed by uttering. Request, order, assertion, question, warning, promise—these are illocutionary forces. The same sentence can have different illocutionary force depending on context.

Perlocutionary act: the effect produced on the listener. Persuasion, frightening, joy, irritation—these are perlocutionary effects. They are not guaranteed: the same warning can scare one listener and amuse another.

Searle: Systematic Theory of Speech Acts

John Searle, in "Speech Acts" (1969), systematized Austin's theory. The key concept: the felicity conditions of an illocutionary act consist of propositional content, preparatory conditions, sincerity condition, and essential condition.

For example, for a promise: propositional content—the speaker's future action; preparatory condition—the listener prefers the speaker to do this and the speaker knows it; sincerity condition—the speaker intends to do it; essential condition—uttering obliges the speaker to act.

Searle also developed the theory of intentionality: mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions) are "directed" at objects. Speech acts express intentions—but also create "institutional facts."

Performativity Beyond the Philosophy of Language

The concept of performativity (Austin → Butler) went beyond the philosophy of language and became key in gender studies. Judith Butler, in "Gender Trouble" (1990): gender is not a given—it is a performance, a repeated reproduction of norms through everyday practices (clothing, gestures, speech). "Femininity" is created not as an expression of natural givenness, but as a citation of norms.

This does not mean that gender is "just" a choice or a game: performance is coercive, socially sanctioned, reproduced through repetition. But understanding it as a performance, not as nature, opens the possibility of transformation through subversion of norms.