英语论文网

Performativity is the power of language to effect change in the world:languagedoes not simply describe the world but may instead(or also)function as a form of socialaction.The concept of performative language was first described by the philosopherJohn L.Austin who posited that there was a difference between constative language,which describes the world and can be evaluated as true or false,and performativelanguage,which indicates action in the world.For Austin,performative languageincludes speech acts such as promising,swearing,betting,and performing a marriageceremony.For instance,the utterance,“I do”—said under the right circumstances by theright speakers with the right intentions—transforms the utterer from being unmarried tobeing married.Austin posited a number of felicity conditions that must be met in order for such utterances to function performatively.These fundamental ideas have beenadopted by other academics to investigate the different effects that language can have inthe world.How to Do Things with Words(1962)is the foundational text on performativelanguage:here Austin introduces and elaborates on the differences between constativeor descriptive language and performative language and eventually moves to describe alllinguistic acts as belonging to three types:locutionary(language that describes),illocutionary(language that does things in the world),and perlocutionary(language thatis the effect of that doing).In other words,performative force,or the ability to“dothings with words”is expanded to cover a much broader range of linguistic activity thanthe discrete speech acts of promising,swearing,betting,etc.Authored by a student ofAustin’s,Searle developed these categories into what has been known as“speech acttheory”(1969);Benveniste similarly expounded upon speech act theory with a focus onefficacy and speaker roles(1971).

1.2 The Concept of Gender Performativity

Throughout the twentieth century,feminists questioned ideas of biologicaldeterminism or the belief that differences between men and women were biologicallyinherent.Instead,some feminists proposed that sex(understood as the biological body) was different from gender(the cultural expectations and meanings of that sexed body).This sex/gender division aimed to emphasize that the differences between men andwomen largely resulted not from biology but from societal structures that could bechanged,that gender was a construction.As Simone de Beauvoir writes in The SecondSex,“One is not born,but rather becomes,a woman(301)”.

In 1929,Virginia Woolf proposed the idea of androgyny in her feminist work ARoom of One’s Own.It aims to oppose patriarchal ideology,blur the gender distinctionbetween male and female,and achieve a harmonious binary relationship.This viewabout the possibility of gender construction has been interpreted or developed bydifferent voices in the course of feminism.Later,the post-structuralists stronglysupported their views in their discussions on the relation of sex,gender,knowledge,and power.Lacan argues against the notion that woman does not exist.In the History ofSexuality,Foucault argues that sex is not a本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。