ISBN-13: 9780415300360 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 272 str.
ISBN-13: 9780415300360 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 272 str.
J.L. Austin famously distinguished between constative utterances that convey information and performative utterances that perform actions. In this work, Douglas Robinson argues that Austin's distinction can be used to understand linguistic methodologies. Robinson uses Austin's model to introduce a new distinction between constative and performative linguistics. Constative linguistics, Robinson suggests, includes methodologies aimed at freezing language as an abstract sign system cut off from the use of language in actual speech situations. Performative linguistics, on the other hand, covers methodologies aimed at exploring how language gets used or performed in those speech situations. Robinson then tests his hypothesis on the act of translation. Constative linguists of translation always face the same problem: that the translator is always another utterer of the same utterance. In his book Robinson shows that this particular problem is solved when translation is seen as a performative utterance.