Speech Act and Liturgy
Writing as an Evangelical, David Hilborn argues that:
… speech act theory has considerable potential for the analysis of liturgy. Its stress on language as a means to action; its sensitivity to performance, ritual and local ‘rules’ as components of linguistic meaning; its acceptance on these premises of ‘empirically unverifiable’ statements – these commend it for the study of religious discourse in general and sacral discourse in particular.[66]
Some attempts have been made to apply speech act theory to the study of liturgy[67].
Ladriere sets out such a view:
It [liturgical language] is characterized in that it is a certain form of action; it puts something into practice: in short, it possesses an “operativity”. It is not merely a verbal commentary on an action external to itself; in and of itself, it is action…. The enunciation of the sentence is a veritable action. In order, therefore, to express the operative (non-descriptive) nature of liturgical language, we may use the term “performativity”, as proposed by Austin.[68]
A speech act analysis of liturgical texts (e.g. such as the absolution) may aid clear thinking about exactly who is doing what to whom in the speech acts of the service.
Ladriere argues that liturgical language not only expresses certain attitudes but also acts as an “existential inductor” affecting and bringing them about. Thus verbs such as “to ask”, “to pray” and “to give thanks”:
express illocutionary acts presupposing certain attitudes: trust, veneration, gratitude, submission, contrition, and so on. These attitudes come into effect at the very moment when, by virtue of the enunciation of the sentence, the corresponding act takes place. The performative verb is not a description of the attitude which its enunciation presupposes; its function is not to indicate the existence of this attitude, but is, so to speak, the attitude itself: it makes it exist in an effective manner by virtue of the illocutionary act underlying its enunciation.[69]
Ladriere also argues that liturgical language performs the speech act function of “instituting” the church:
The participants meet in a kind of objective space determined by their speech acts. The community is initiated in this meeting. Here one may speak of an induction effect. Language is not the expression of a community constituted before it and apart from it and is not the description of what the community would be, but the locution in which and the instrument by means of which the community is constituted. In so far as it gives to all participants – as co-locutors – the chance to take on the same acts, it establishes between them that operative reciprocity which constitutes the reality of a community.[70]
Even if there may be overstatement here, and though the Reformed will want to insist that the church is constituted by faith[71]in Christ and that entry to the visible church is marked by baptism, there is truth in what Ladriere says: the Lord’s Day liturgy may be seen as an actualisation or manifestation of the local congregation. By their participation in the liturgy, the members of the church make their unity and fellowship apparent and strengthen them.
Similarly, Briggs comments that the New Testament confession that Jesus is Lord (Rm 10:9; Phil 2:11) and creeds in the church today are performative speech acts which creates (or recreate, sustain, or modify) “the world in which the speaker stands under the lordship of Christ.”[72]
Some speech act accounts of liturgy have focused especially on the Lord’s Supper[73]and these are discussed further in chapter 4 which considers the Lord’s Supper in the light of the Scriptures, since speech act theory is primarily a linguistic approach.