Describe How Social Identities Achieved Performatively

Outline
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Outline
Our social identities are not given to us but are continually constructed as an illusion through gestures, the language that we use, and any other symbolic sign that we use in our daily lives. This is well explained in the speech theory through the illocutionary acts which are the speech acts that has consequences rather than just representing something (Austin, 1962). An example is when a judge or pastor says “I pronounce you man and wife” at any marriage ceremony. The statement has consequences by changing the status of two people and joining them into a family reality. The statement also creates a social identity to the one uttering it, the individual is of a high authority in the society. In the speech, a performative is the discursive acts that produces what it names.
These linguistic actions create social identities of people in the society through what they utter in their daily lives. By adopting the conventions of the social world, we enact them in the performative act of speech and we incorporate that identity by producing them but it remains a social construction. When we are uttering certain sentences, we associate ourselves with those fictions that are in our speeches and make them appear to be natural. By incorporating the conventions that are in our speeches we make them real but it does not make them not be artificial (Ochs, 1993).
Therefore, in any actual situation, people in those situations are actively constructing their social identities rather than living some of the culturally accepted social identities. Some people are actively construc...