Performativity vs. Indexicality

Appealing to the Peircean/Jakobosian multifunctional semiotic model of communication, this entry explains indexicality in relation to the other two kinds of the relationship between the sign and its object, i.e. iconicity and symbolicity, and articulates the following three dimensions along which indexicality can be characterized: (i) presupposing vs. entailing indexicality; (ii) object‐level indexicality (pragmatics) vs. second‐order indexicality (metapragmatics); and (iii) referential vs. non‐referential indexicality. Then it identifies the broad sense of “performativity” with entailing indexicality, and the narrow, Austin's prototypical sense of the term with the specific subcategory of entailing indexicality which also shows referential explicitness and metapragmatic reflexivity, as is found in the use of (explicit) “performatives” in nomically calibrated ritual settings. The nature of rituals, in turn, is described in terms of the poetic function, metapragmatics, entailing indexicality, and entextualization

Epistemology · Iconicity · Indexicality · Linguistics · Performativity · Semiotics · Sociology · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Media, Communication, and Education · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

• Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function

  Open Access•Michael Silverstein•Reflexive Language•1993

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