Speech Acts and Performative Utterances. In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison discuss the philosophical and linguistic issues of speech acts and performative utterances. Many different kinds of speech acts can be found inside Star Trek, including taking oaths and granting promotions, saying wedding vows and pronouncing marriages, naming androids and christening starships, auto-destruct commands, replicator orders, and transfers of command, to name a few. Zachary and Mike discuss different examples of performative utterances in Star Trek and the role they play in a free society. In addition, Zachary and Mike consider objections to the concepts of speech acts and performative utterances from the philosophical standpoints of relativism and reductionism. Chapters Welcome to Episode 31 (00:01:23) What are Speech Acts and Performative Utterances? (00:02:25) Wedding Vows in Star Trek (00:12:32) Speech Acts and Cultural Relativism (00:25:25) Klingons and Ritual Storytelling (00:29:24) Promotions and Transfers of Command (00:32:35) Does Reductionism Undermine the Concept of Speech Acts? (00:35:30) The Importance of Speech Acts in a Free Society (00:43:42) Finding the Essentials in Promotions and Pageantry (00:47:32) Christening the Enterprise - The Strange Act of Naming (00:50:34) Oaths and Voting as Speech Acts (00:54:04) Auto-Destruct Commands (01:01:24) "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" - Creating Reality with Words (01:03:43) Final Thoughts (01:10:41) Hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison Production Mike Morrison (Editor and Producer) Norman C. Lao (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Charlynn Schmiedt (Executive Producer) Patrick Devlin (Associate Producer) Kay Elizabeth Janeway (Associate Producer) Will Nguyen (Content Manager) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Send us your feedback!Twitter: @trekfm Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact Visit the Trek.fm website at http://www.trek.fm/ Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm Support the Network!Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm