2. Felicity Conditions
Felicity conditions are the conditions which must be fulfilled for a
speech act to be satisfactorily performed or realized.
For a speech act to work, as Austin argues, there are a number of
felicity conditions that must be met.
"a sentence must not only be grammatical to be correctly performed, it
must also be felicitous," or well-suited for the purpose.
1. There must be a generally accepted procedure for successfully
carrying out the speech act. Also, the circumstances must be
appropriate for the use of the speech act and the person who uses
the speech act must be the appropriate person to use it in the
particular context.
For example:
In a wedding ceremony a priest might say โI now declare you
husband and wifeโ.
In a launching of a ship the person who has been invited to launch
the ship might say โI hereby name this ship the Titanic.โ
3. Felicity Conditions
2. The procedure must be carried out correctly and completely.
Thus, the bride and groom should reply โI doโ (rather than โOkay, I
suppose soโ) and the marriage license must be signed.
3. The person must (in most circumstances) have the required thoughts,
feelings and intentions for the speech act to be felicitous. That is, the
communication must be carried out by the right person, in the right
place, at the right time and, normally, with a certain intention, or it
will not work.
If the first two of these conditions are not satisfied, the act will not be
achieved and will misfire.
If the third of these conditions does not hold, then the procedure will
be abused.
4. ๏ฎ "Have you ever asked yourself why the words 'I now pronounce you
husband and wife' do not create a legal marriage between two people
when uttered in the context of a film set?โ
๏ฎ Of course, the actors in the scene are not really legally married, even
if they both say "I do," before the thespian justice of the peace or
clergyperson recites these words.
๏ฎ The conditions are not in place and the criteria are not satisfied for
this speech act to achieve its purposeโnamely that the "bride" and
"groom" enter into a marriage that is legally binding.
๏ฎ And the person officiating has no legal authority to pronounce the two
husband and wife. Thus, the speech act in the movie marriage scene
is not felicitous.
5.
6.
7. Felicity Conditions
According to Searle, the felicity conditions of an utterance are
constitutive rules, because they are not just something that can go right
(or wrong) or be abused but something which make up and define the
act itself. That is, they are rules that need to be followed for the
utterance to work. Thus, they constitute the particular speech act.
Searle classifies felicity conditions into 3 types:
1.Preparatory conditions where the authority of the speaker and
the circumstances of the speech act are appropriate to its being
performed successfully
2.Propositional content conditions which requires participants
to understand language, not to act like actors.
.
3.Sincerity conditions that state the requisite beliefs, feelings,
and intentions of the speaker, as appropriate to each kind of
action. The speech act is being performed seriously and sincerely.
8. ๏ฎ Preparatory conditions
โI swear to take revenge for my brotherโs
assault.โ
Here the sentence isnโt a threat to anybody,
but a promise to the audience.
9. ๏ฎ Propositional content conditions
๏ฎ Grass is greenโ
๏ฎ Says that grass is green. In fact, as a
rough gloss, we can say that something
has a propositional content just in case it
has a content that can be expressed by a
sentence.
10. Sincerity conditions
1. I intend to do it.
2. I believe I can do it.
3. I will be running for presidential
elections this year and Iโm going to
win it!
12. 1-DECLARATIONS
Declarations are kinds of speech act that change the
world via utterances.
The speaker has to have a special institutional role,
in a specific context, in order to perform a
declaration appropriately.
Example:
a. Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
b. Referee: Youโre out.
c. Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty.
In using a declaration, the speaker changes the
world via words.
13. 2-REPRESENTATIVES
๏ฎ Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state
what the speaker believes to be the case or not. Statements
of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions are all
examples of the speaker representing the world as he or she
believes it is.
Example:
a. The earth is flat.
b. Chomsky didnโt write about peanuts.
c. It was a warm sunny day.
In using a representative, the speaker makes words fit the
world (of belief)
14. 3-EXPRESSIVES
๏ฎ Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what
the speaker feels. They express psychological states and can
be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow.
They can be caused by something the speaker does or the
hearer does, but they are about the speakerโs experience.
Example:
a. Iโm really sorry!
b. Congratulations!
c. Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahh!
In using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world
(of feeling).
15. 4-COMMISSIVES
๏ฎ Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers
use to commit themselves to some future action. They
express what the speaker intends. They are promises, threats,
refusals, pledges. They can be performed by the speaker
alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group.
Example:
a. Iโll be back.
b. Iโm going to get it right next time.
c. We will not do that.
In using a commissive, the speaker undertakes to make the
world fit words (via the speaker).
