2014 FREE DOWNLOAD


Performative Linguistics: Speaking and Translating as Doing Things with Words

Douglas Robinson 2014


E-Book: 246 English pages

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Price: FREE

Download: Performative Linguistics: Speaking and Translating as Doing Things with Words (Robinson 2014)

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In this book, Douglas Robinson introduces a new distinction between ‘constative’ and ‘performative’ linguistics, arguing that Austin’s distinction can be used to understand linguistic methodologies. Constative linguistics, Robinson suggests, includes methodologies aimed at ‘freezing’ language as an abstract sign system, while performative linguistics explores how language is used or ‘performed’ in those speech situations. Robinson then tests his hypothesis on the act of translation.
Drawing on a range of language scholars and theorists, Performative Linguistics consolidates the many disparate action-approaches to language into a new paradigm for the study of language.


Review

…this is a very engaging book…Robinson does it creatively…Robinson seems to have a knack of putting his ideas across, taking the reader along with him, and finally winning the reader over in a particularly convincing way.
— Wang Shaoxiang, Linguist List October 2003.


About the Author

Douglas Robinson is Professor of English at the University of Mississippi, USA.