DISCOURSE ANALYSIS TOPIC: J.L. AUSTIN AND PERFORMATIVES The Outline3I. INTRODUCTIONPeople use language principally as a tool for doing: To ask questions, request favors, make comments, report news… Through the language, people usually do things: propose marriage, swear to tell the truth, fire an employee and so on. These speech acts are part of speech events.This is possible if one uses a verb that names the very sort of act one is performing. Thus one can thank someone by saying `Thank you`, fire someone by saying `You`re fired`, and apologize by saying `I apologize`. These are examples of `explicit performative utterances`, statements in form but not in fact. To procedure an utterance is to engage in a certain kind of social interaction. It was J.L. Austin who created the term “speech act” which has aroused the widest interest in language study. We focus on one group, which Austin labels “performatives”. His idea is that by saying we often perform an act...