Performatives in Cypriot, Greek and Polish Texts of Normative Acts. A Comparative Study

The theory of speech acts, formulated by Austin and developed by Searle, is widely applied to analyse and classify various speech acts. In this paper it is assumed that legal texts, especially normative acts i.e. constitutions and statutes, are direct speech acts. Normative acts (statutory instruments) are linguistic entities and they do not exist outside the language, thus the theory of speech acts may be applied to examine them. They are also considered to be performative utterances according to Austin’s classification. In this paper the intention is to compare Cypriot, Greek and Polish normative acts on the basis of the so-called classical theory of speech acts and typology of performativity exponents. The author will compare various methods of expressing performativity in reference to the meaning conveyed by them. Furthermore, other exponents of performativity occurring in the analysed texts (the so-called extra textual methods of expressing performativity) shall also be compared. The results obtained while performing the analysis and comparison may be significant for scholars, lawyers and translators