2. Taking Liberties? Free Speech, Multiculturalism and the Ethics of Satire

This distinction between “illocutionary” statements and “perlocutionary” statements occurs within the category that Austin calls “performative” statements. Performative statements are distinct from “constative” statements insofar as the latter simply describe a referential object, whereas performative statements do some “work” by performing an action. The very act of speaking has effects in the world. In illocutionary statements, this action inheres in the speech itself at the moment of its utterance—Austin’s famous example is of the launching of a ship by breaking a champagne bottle against it accompanied by the statement, “I hereby declare this ship ready to sail”, in which the declaration itself performs the action required to enable the ship to sail. The effect of a perlocutionary statement—for example, an act of persuasion—is contingent upon the object of the utterance. Any form of mediated speech, for example a representational work, is therefore perlocutionary in its effects.