Happiness and unhappiness of performative acts: Acquisition of L2 and psychopathological behaviors

Abstract

In this paper I will discuss a key concept in philosophy of language, the one of performativity, which has evolved accordingly to the process of change that cognitive science went through over the last decades due to the influence of the embodied approaches to cognition. The discussion starts with a summary of the many definitions of performativity (Sect. 21.1) and goes on with the analysis of the consequences that such differences had on the characterization of “happiness” and “unhappiness” of performative acts (Sect. 21.2). Then I have tried to show how the performativity of a linguistic behavior might be “happy” in the context of a second language acquisition (Sects. 21.2.1, 21.2.2, 21.2.3 and 21.2.4) and, conversely, how dysfunctional performative acts can be “unhappy” and lead to psychopathological behaviors, such as eating disorders (Sects. 21.2.5, 21.2.6 and 21.2.7).