Election Vows and the Perfomative Speech Act

[Enterprise]

Folks,

I was duped yesterday by an alleged error in John L. Austin’s seminal How to Do Things With Words, his introduction to speech-act theory. In it, Austin offers the following example for a performative (paraphrased, because the book is at work):

At a wedding, the priest asks you the famous question, and you say “I will” – this is the crucial bit – and have, by saying that you wed, actually wed. The allegation, however, was that Austin, not having been married himself, was confused: you actually say “I do,” which would make a bit better sense in that the future-tense “I will” does not actually work as a performative – more as a promise of performance in the future.
I objected that the wedding vow the priest reads out says “will you love and honor…” etc., so that the correct answer can indeed be “I will”.
But I’ve never been married in English, so there – what is correct, or rather, was Austin plain wrong in suggesting that you can answer “I will” at a wedding ceremony and still have it count as a performative?

[Jonathan_Chance]

Well, the classic, made-for-TV, wedding vows in the US begin with

‘Do you, yournamehere, promise to…’

So ‘I do’ is proper. ‘I will’, I think, does not answer the question as asked.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I’m more interested that the OP titled this “election vows.” At first I thought it must be some non-US phrasing I’m not familiar with, but since a Google search turned up no other hits I’m guessing it was a weird Freudian slip.

I’ve never heard of Austin, but according to Wiki:

Illocutionary act is a term in linguistics introduced by John L. Austin in investigations concerning what he calls ‘performative’ and ‘constative utterances’: an utterance is “performative” just in case it is issued in the course of the “doing of an action” (1975, 5), by which, again, Austin means the performance of an illocutionary act (Austin 1975, 6 n2, 133). According to Austin’s original exposition in How to Do Things With Words, an illocutionary act is an act (1) for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that the act is performed (Austin speaks of the ‘securing of uptake’), and (2) the performance of which involves the production of what Austin calls ‘conventional consequences’ as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations (Austin 1975, 116f., 121, 139). Thus, for example, in order to successfully perform a promise I must make clear to my audience that the act I am performing is a promise, and in the performance of the act I will be undertaking an obligation to do the promised thing: so promising is an illocutionary act in the present sense.

So any wording affirming the marriage would seem to be a performance of an illocutionary act.

Marriages in the U.S. do require a ceremony presided over by someone legitimized by the state to conduct marriages, a legality that is extremely loosely applied. There are no requirements for wording of vows. No question even needs to be asked. If you Google wedding vows, they all seem to be statements made by the bride and groom (or bride/bride groom/groom in certain states) to one another without a third party involved.

[Tom_Tildrum]

My recollection is that I said “I will” and “I do” at different points in the service.