Performative Utterance Essay

The culture of every individual is expressed not only in good breeding, in the way of dressing or level of intelligence quotient, but also in the manner we speak. The “Tu (singular you) – Vous (plural you)” distinction in speech helps to differentiate “familiar” and “polite” forms. In ancient times T/V symbolized class difference, now it is mostly used for asymmetrical relationship, to show solidarity.
Nowadays, the use of T/V also depends on the country and its traditions and norms of politeness. In general, “tu” is mostly used with close relatives, friends, while “vous” – with strangers and between interior and superior. If you are not sure what distinction to use, preferable wait until other person addresses you first. The recent investigations among French, Italian, German people proved the loss of importance of power in speech and tendency to symmetrical T/V …show more content…
Constative utterances are used for propositions and may be true or false. Performative utterance is the kind of utterance when a person is doing something, but not only saying it. Utterances that express speaker’s intent are called locutions. The act of using utterances is illocutionary act. It is important for illocutionary acts to express true conditions and utter with conventional meaning. We should also mind hearer’s reaction to the speech act and illocutionary force of the utterance, according to Searle.
Speech acts and utterances will not have force without cooperation between speakers. Grice called it cooperative principle. To engage a listener into the conversation the maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner should be taken into account. According to maxim of quantity the message should be informative, maxim of quality advices not to say false things, you should be relevant according to maxim of relation, brief and polite according to maxim of manner. The ideal conditions to follow the maxims are not always possible in