Editing Performativity (section)

===J. L. Austin===
The term derives from the founding work in [[speech act]] theory by ordinary language philosopher [[J. L. Austin]]. In the 1950s, Austin gave the name [[performative utterances]] to situations where saying something was doing something, rather than simply reporting on or describing reality. The paradigmatic case here is speaking the words "I do".<ref>{{cite book|last=Austin|first=J L|title=How To Do Things With Words|url=https://archive.org/details/howtodothingswit0000aust|url-access=registration|year=1962|page=[https://archive.org/details/howtodothingswit0000aust/page/5 5]}}</ref> Austin did not use the word ''performativity''.

Breaking with [[analytic philosophy]], Austin argued in ''[[How to Do Things With Words]]'' that a "performative utterance" cannot be said to be either true or false as a constative utterance might be: it can only be judged either "happy" or "infelicitous" depending upon whether the conditions required for its success have been met. In this sense, performativity is a function of the [[pragmatics]] of language. Having shown that ''all'' utterances perform actions, even apparently constative ones, Austin famously discarded the distinction between "performative" and "constative" utterances halfway through the lecture series that became the book and replaced it with a three-level framework:

* ''locution'' (the actual words spoken, that which the linguists and linguistic philosophers of the day were mostly interested in analyzing) 
* ''illocutionary force'' (what the speaker is attempting to do ''in'' uttering the locution) 
* ''perlocutionary effect'' (the actual effect the speaker actually has on the interlocutor ''by'' uttering the locution)

For example, if a speech act is an attempt to distract someone, the illocutionary force is the attempt to distract and the perlocutionary effect is the actual distraction caused by the speech act in the interlocutor.

==== Influence of Austin ====
Austin's account of performativity has been subject to extensive discussion in philosophy, literature, and beyond. [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Shoshana Felman]], [[Judith Butler]], and [[Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick]] are among the scholars who have elaborated upon and contested aspects of Austin's account from the vantage point of [[deconstruction]], [[psychoanalysis]], [[feminism]], and [[queer theory]]. Particularly in the work of feminists and queer theorists, performativity has played an important role in discussions of [[social change]] (Oliver 2003).

The concept of performativity has also been used in [[science and technology studies]] and in [[economic sociology]]. [[Andrew Pickering]] has proposed to shift from a "representational idiom" to a "performative idiom" in the study of science. [[Michel Callon]] has proposed to study the performative aspects of [[economics]], i.e. the extent to which economic science plays an important role not only in describing markets and economies, but also in framing them. [[Karen Barad]] has argued that science and technology studies deemphasize the performativity of language in order to explore the performativity of matter (Barad 2003).

Other uses of the notion of performativity in the social sciences include the daily behavior (or performance) of individuals based on social norms or habits. Philosopher and feminist theorist [[Judith Butler]] has used the concept of performativity in their analysis of [[gender]] development, as well as in analysis of political speech. [[Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick]] describes [[Queer theory|queer]] performativity as an ongoing project for transforming the way we may define—and break—boundaries to identity. Through her suggestion that shame is a potentially performative and transformational emotion, Sedgwick has also linked queer performativity to [[affect theory]]. Also innovative in Sedgwick's discussion of the performative is what she calls ''periperformativity'' (2003: 67–91), which is effectively the group contribution to the success or failure of a [[speech act]].