It is Hereby Performed...

This book deals with speech acts, especially performatives, that are regarded as ‘operative’ in legal discourse. After a detailed exposition of speech act theory in relation to legislative texts, the author discusses the legal document as a communicative act; potential speech acts and delegated legislation; wills, the marriage ceremony and statutes as reversible performatives; and the distinction between the deictic function of this and the anaphoric function of that in legal documents. The fina