Channels, Fall 2018

Channels • 2018 • Volume 3 • Number 1 Page 19 5. declaratives / exercitives : appointing, naming, consecrating, sentencing (in a court) The final category is called “declaratives” by Cruse (2011) and “exercitives” by Alston (2000). As a note, from here on I will use the term declarative as it is used more frequently and is more quickly understood. The act of naming, as shown above, is a declarative. Cruse points out that these are “said to bring about a change in reality” (p. 375), highlighted by the examples. Naming in Scripture, however, is often initiated by a command or a directive. This particular category of illocutionary acts Cruse defines as having “the intention of eliciting some sort of action on the part of the hearer” (p. 374). My study will mainly focus on the declarative act of naming but may include some aspects of directives as necessary. So how does an illocutionary act work? Simply stating the proper arrangement of words does not constitute an illocutionary act. Wolterstorff (1995) touches on this matter when he writes, “To institute an arrangement for the performance of speech actions is to institute a way of acquiring rights and responsibilities” (p. 84), which he considers to be moral ones. Korta and Perry (2011) instead emphasize the speaker’s plan or intentions as central to an act but mention the need for conditions. Alston (2000) recognizes the existence of intentions. But more similarly to Wolterstorff, he sees the particular conditions for which the speaker takes responsibility as being integral to an illocutionary act. Alston calls these conditions illocutionary rules, or I-rules, and spends a large portion of his book demonstrating and proving how they work using a particular model. As I will be using his model within my own study of naming, I will present the basic framework for a declarative here (Alston): (U stands for the utterer or speaker, S stands for the sentence, and R stands for taking responsibility.) EXER. U O’d in uttering S (where ‘O’ is a term for purporting to be producing a particular conventional effect, E) = df. In uttering S, U R’d that: 1. Conceptually necessary conditions for E. 2. U has the authority to produce E. 3. Conditions are appropriate for the exercise of that authority. 4. By uttering S, U is bringing about E. (2000, p. 93) To put this more clearly, a speaker intends to produce a conventional effect (a speech act) in uttering a sentence, when in uttering that sentence the speaker takes responsibility for certain things being true. This includes the conceptually necessary conditions for the effect being met, the speaker having the authority to produce the effect, the conditions being appropriate for the exercise of that authority, and that by uttering the sentence, the speaker brings about the effect (Alston, 2000). Further conditions contained in these I-rules can be categorized as follows: • preparatory conditions: the necessary context • sincerity conditions: dealing with the appropriate beliefs or feelings of the speaker • essential conditions: define the act and address the idea of speaker’s intentions • uptake: dealing with the hearer’s reception (Cruse, 2011). These rules and conditions are the infrastructure that allow illocutionary acts to work.