different between performative vs constative

English

Etymology

perform +? -ative

Adjective

performative (comparative more performative, superlative most performative)

1. (philosophy, linguistics) Being enacted as it is said.
2. Being done as a performance in order to create an impression.
   • 2013, Martha McCaughey, Michael D. Ayers, Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice (page 200)

     With the danger of science becoming purely “performative” (Lyotard 1984), not seeking any pretense of “truth” but simply performing a service for those in charge while still occupying its decision-making role in a technocratically dominated political sphere […]

Synonyms

• performatory
• workly

Derived terms

Noun

performative (plural performatives)

1. A performative utterance.
   • 2011, Phyllis Kaburise, Speech Act Theory and Communication: A Univen Study (page 77)

     The distinction between constatives and performatives is one of the distinctions that he starts questioning.

Further reading

• performative utterance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• performativity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• preformative

French

Adjective

performative

1. feminine singular of performatif

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

performative

1. inflection of performativ:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Adjective

performative

1. feminine plural of performativo

English

Etymology

Coined to translate the German konstatierend, using c?nst?t-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Latin verb c?nst? (“I agree, correspond, or fit; I am certain, decided, or consistent”), suffixed with the English -ive, suggesting a hypothetical Latin etymon of the form *c?nst?t?vus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?nst?t?v/, /k?n?ste?t?v/
• Rhymes: -?nst?t?v, -e?t?v
• Rhymes: -e?t?v

Adjective

constative (not comparable)

1. (linguistics) Pertaining to an utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.

   Statements are constative utterances.

   • 1962, J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (OUP paperback edition, page 72)

     One thing, however, that it will be more dangerous to do, and that we are very prone to do, is to take it that we somehow know that the primary or primitive use of sentences must be, because it ought to be, statemental or constative, in the philosophers' preferred sense of simply uttering something whose sole pretension is to be true or false and which is not liable to criticism in any other dimension.

Derived terms

• constate

Related terms

• performative

Noun

constative (plural constatives)

1. (linguistics) An utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.
   • 2011, Phyllis Kaburise, Speech Act Theory and Communication: A Univen Study (page 77)

     The distinction between constatives and performatives is one of the distinctions that he starts questioning.