In How to do things with words, Austin introduces several concepts to explain his view on how utterances that he names performatives affect actions in the world. His primary belief is that sentences with truth-values (meaning they can be true or false), although they exist, do not constitute the large range of utterances we encounter on a day-to-day basis. He gives many examples of utterances known as performatives that are neither true nor false (Ex. “I do”). The words “I do” indicate that we are doing something, namely marrying and that such an act is described by “saying certain words”. This is precisely what Austin means by performative utterance; these are utterances that are not meant to describe and thus, have no truth-value (cannot be true or false). They are rather deemed felicitous or infelicitous. Moreover, these utterances are not merely sentences that are spoken, but they serve to perform a particular kind of action. Like in the example cited above, the words “I do” are uttered not only as an “outward and audible sign” (166) but signify the act of marriage. Austin explains that when such acts go wrong or fails, like in the case of marriage or betting, the utterance is then not false but unhappy.

The idea of a performative quite simply put is that the things we say are often transformed into action. We make things happen by using words. When, for example, a man and a woman are declared husband and wife, the individual marrying them has used a particular utterance that is not simply descriptive but that performs an act by displacing the man and woman from simply being a couple to being a married couple. Thus, this utterance is a felicitous speech act since the couple has legitimately been married (the act is sincere and is conventionally accepted). Such an act can nonetheless in many instances be considered null or void. If as a joke, I pronounce my two friends as husband and wife since they are always acting like lovebirds, this is infelicitous; I have not actually married them. Although the act is achieved, it is considered a lie or is insincere so the act is void or without effect. According to Austin, all utterances are naturally performatives. In other words, by saying something, we are always doing something. Performatives are not merely utterances that create action but as Austin suggests, create social realities. But do these performatives truly create realities in all contexts? Is it only the speaker being considered? Who exactly establishes felicity?

Austin asks one among 3 interesting questions that I will address: “How widespread is infelicity?” He claims that infelicity is an “ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts: not indeed that every ritual is liable to every form of infelicity (but then nor is every performative utterance)” (168). It seems that the message that he is trying to convey is that performatives are prone to infelicity. We can deduce that when a performative is regarded as a conventional act or procedure, it will be deemed as improper or infelicitous. Nevertheless, Austin recognizes that not all performatives are prone to infelicity. I am nonetheless confused here. I thought that one of the conditions for felicity is that social conventions are followed. But given that we live in a society that adheres to a set of standard rules and conventions, would this mean that in applying the notion of performative within our social constructs, we are merely victims of an infelicitous existence? It also seems that the notion of an accepted conventional procedure is questionable since it is difficult to define what is accepted. For example, the utterance “I divorce you” said three times constitutes a divorce in certain Islamic practice; however, this is not unanimously accepted. It is thus interesting to posit that performatives can be socially contested thereby invalidating the performative act. As a result, Austin’s claim that all utterances are natural performatives suddenly becomes questionable in that they do not always seem to enact the subject into action. However, how does one classify the speech act “I divorce you”? Is it a felicitous or infelicitous act? Can the receiving side (the woman in this case) even determine the success of the performative act or is it only the man? Evidently, this is where things become problematic, which means this is a good place to stop … for now at least.