Select any extract from any literary text and analyze it using the performative text approach. KOMUGISHA PERUTH, NAKKAZI DIANA, NYAFWONO ELIZA PATRICIA, NAFUNA EVELYN DINAH AND MUSUBIKA ELIZABETH

The origin of the term performativity can be traced back to J.L.Austins book, “How to do things with words”. In which Austin objecting to the logical positivists focus on the verifiability of statements, introduced the performative as a new category of utterance that has no truth value since it does not describe the world, but acts upon it-a way of “doing things with words” for example, the classic constative “snow is white” is descriptively true or false, but statements such as “I now pronounce you husband and wife” are something their successful outcome depending on a number of conditions (felicity condition) that cannot be evaluated in terms of truth. By the end of his book, Austin clearly argues that all utterances are performative even those that appear merely to describe a state of affairs since such utterances do the act of informing. This is a revolutionary conclusion for utterances must be viewed as actions. With Austin’s exposition, the broader area of speech act theory emerged within anthropology. Austin work had its most immediate impact on the paradigm of ethnography of speaking, and in particular on the study if ritual and performance. The performative theory involves three steps of reading and interpreting of literacy texts, which are; locutional level where by readers look at the mere statement of the author without attaching any meaning, the illocutional level in which readers look at intension of the author in making a certain utterance in a literary text, and lastly the perlocutional level where readers’ feeling and attitude towards a certain utterance in other words, the effect that a certain utterance achieves. The selected text is a poem by Frank Chipasula entitled, “A love poem for my country” and the analyzed part of the poem is stanza one which is written below; A LOVE POEM FOR MY COUNTRY. I have nothing to give you, but my anger. And the filaments of my hatred Reach across the boarder You, you have sold many and me to exile. Now shorn of precious minds you rely on What hands can grow to build Your crumbling image? According to the performative text approach, in locutional level, the author in this poem merely utters out his feelings towards his own country According to illocutional level, we look at the effective of the utterance which shows how the speaker is disappointed, disillusioned and betrayed his leaders. According to perlocutional level where we look at the reader’s attitude towards the utterance which is even portrayed in the title of the poem. “A love poem for my country”, it is not that the speaker is happy or loves his country but he is disgusted and betrayed this causes the speaker too to feel disgusted and irritated towards the ambiance that the speaker sheds in the poem.