from that of the other possible (but often impermissible) forms, but the pragmatic meaning is vastly different. The performative J.L. Austin introduced the concept of the performative, contrasted in his writing with "constative" (i.e. descriptive) utterances. According to Austin's original formulation, a performative is a type of utterance characterized by two distinctive features: It is not truth-evaluable (i.e. it is neither true nor false) Its uttering performs an action rather than simply describing one Examples: "I hereby pronounce you man and wife." "I accept your apology." "This meeting is now adjourned." To be performative, an utterance must conform to various conditions involving what Austin calls felicity. These deal with things like appropriate context and the speaker's authority. For instance, when a couple has been arguing and the husband says to his wife that he accepts her apology even though she has offered nothing approaching an apology, his assertion is infelicitous: because she has made neither expression of regret nor request for forgiveness, there exists none to accept, and thus no act of accepting can possibly happen. Jakobson's six functions of language Roman Jakobson, expanding on the work of Karl Bühler, described six "constitutive factors" of a speech event, each of which represents the privileging of a corresponding function, and only one of which is the referential (which corresponds to the context of the speech event). The six constitutive factors and their corresponding functions are diagrammed below. The six constitutive factors of a speech event Context Message Addresser --------------------- Addressee Contact Code The six functions of language Referential Poetic Emotive ----------------------- Conative Phatic Metalingual The Referential Function corresponds to the factor of Context and describes a situation, object or mental state. The descriptive statements of the referential function can consist of both definite descriptions and deictic words, e.g. "The autumn leaves have all fallen now." The Expressive (alternatively called "emotive" or "affective") Function relates to the Addresser and is best exemplified by interjections and other sound changes that do not alter the denotative meaning of an utterance but do add information about the Addresser's (speaker's) internal state, e.g. "Wow, what a view!" The Conative Function engages the Addressee directly and is best illustrated by vocatives and imperatives, e.g. "Tom! Come inside and eat!" The Poetic Function focuses on "the message for its own sake" and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans. The Phatic Function is language for