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Harris on performatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Willis J. Edmondson
Willis J. Edmondson
Affiliation:
Ruhr-Universität, Bochum
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Extract

Harris (1978) argues against the ‘descriptive’ interpretation of performative utterances on the ground that on a particular occasion of its use I apologize may not constitute a ‘genuine instance of apologizing’, although the use of that utterance on that occasion may be ‘correctly described’ by using the verb APOLOGIZE non-performatively, as in (these are Harris's examples): (1) S apologized to the lamp-post, and even the police sergeant laughed. (2) S apologized on T's behalf, although T himself flatly refused to.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , September 1979 , pp. 331 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

REFERENCES

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