On Covert Exercitives
On Covert Exercitives
Speech and the Social World
It is familiar from speech act theory how saying so can make it so. When the C.E.O. declares that no more overtime will be approved, for example, the C.E.O. thereby enacts a new company policy; her words effect an immediate change to the norms and policies operative in that company. Clearly, speech can enact facts about what is permissible and the familiar way for speech to do this is via an exercise of speaker authority. In this essay, though, I argue for a different way that speech enacts permissibility facts. Starting in the kinematics (i.e. the mechanics) of conversation, I first argue that conversational contributions routinely enact norms for the very conversation to which they contribute. I then argue that this phenomenon generalizes in a way that illuminates the crucial role of speech in enacting and perpetuating social hierarchy.
Keywords: permission, exercitive, speech acts, authority, conversation
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