A Study On J.Hillis Miller's Performative Theory

Miller's Performative theory and Performative criticism is the study object of this study.Performative theory is initiated by Austin's speech-act theory,which is developed and improved by Searle,Derrida etc.Performative theory emphasize the generous power of 'does things with words',which is initiated in the linguistic filed,and then be widely used in the filed of Literature and Literary study,even in the filed of social life and culture.During the construction and extension of Performative theory,J.Hillis Miller has made a great contribution.Miller bring the Performative power from the word itself to the author's writing behavior and the reader's reading behavior.Then he constructing his own Literary Performative theory,while reading theory whose core is ethics.Besides,He use Performative theory to analysis medium and image reading,which provides a new perspective for understanding medium and reading images.Rhetorical Reading as core of Miller's Performative criticism.By finding the iterabilities in the reading object,he construct the new rules,models and world.Then he use this new stuff into the social life,to construct the social reality.As the method of Performative reading,Rhetorical Reading could be widely used in Literature,medium and picture criticism,then it will effect people's life as a thinking mode.Language is the core of Miller's performative theory and criticism,which emphasize the interactive relationship of Literature,medium,images and the real world,and pay attention to the constructive character in reader's reading and criticism behavior.Therefore,the Performative theory shows a broad theoretical inclusiveness and great practicality,which worth of attention and research.This study hackle the history of Performative theory,which from linguistics to literary then to the political and social life,then analysis the deepen and evolution of the Performative theory.As a constructive theory,Performative theory not only has great difference with theory of reflection or imitation,also brought writer and reader into the theory when it analysis the relationship between works and the world.Therefore,this study analysis Miller's theory from there levers:the works,the writer and the reader,meanwhile highlight the construction methods and its theoretical significance.Most of Miller's theory come from the specific critic text,which has significant practicality.So while we interpret and study his theory,we also loot at to his text criticism.As well as analysis and exposition theoretical concepts,this study also observe his Performative theory from the methodology level.Hopes our study will offer some reference for literature,medium study,and even cultural criticism.This study includes five chaptets besides "Introduction" and "Conclusion"."Introduction" describe the origin of this study,the related research review and the methods.Miller's study focus has been through several transaction.Performative theory is an important part in his theoretical system and critic practice.His Performative study not only fulfill and development the Performative theory,but also present a new rules for literary critic practice.After concludes scholars study of his theory,we found that even Miller's works has been frequently appeared in their horizon,his contribution and position has been well known,there are still lack of systematic study.In this sense,there are great room for study Miller's theories,which is also extremely necessary.Chapter 1 hackle the development and evolution of the theory.Austin found words has the ability to do things in the everyday language,then he set several rules to define when and how it will work.Searle put the speaker's intentionality into the study,which providing the possibility of the theory extent from linguistics to literary fields.Derrida has completed the construction of literary Performative.He emphasized the iterability of performative utterance.Butler,Bourdieu and Habermas apply the convention to the field of gender research and sociology.The theoretical research of these scholars has become the theoretical resource of Miller's theory.The theories of Searle,Derrida and others directly influence the construction of Miller's literary performative theory;as a fusion of research paradigms,cross-border application of the thesis theory is used by Miller to reconsider literary events and The theoretical crisis of literary studies,which has objectively promoted the use of its theory in media and image criticism.Performative is the central concepts of speech-act theory,which emphasizing the ability of language to act and the behavior behind words.Therefore,compared with speech act theory in which language is the object of study,the performative theory has more extensive research objects.In addition,as the core of the theory of narration,literary performative construct the relationship between literary works and authors,readers and the world from the perspective of construction.The second Chapter presents Miller's literary performative theory.There three folds in his theory:first,the author's literary creation behaviors;second,the literary works themselves is performative;the third,the readers has performative powers through reading.Besides,the basic of literary performative is language perfotamtive in the works.Miller thinks that the iterabiliy 1 iterary language creates a fictional literary world through repetition,rhetoric,and other methods,and produces an unknown performative effect.Literary works not only construct a fictional world,but also construct a new self and others.In the process of performative behavior,emotion exists as a performative discourse and plays an important role in performative 1 behavior.The literary performative is ultimately achieved through reading,and rhetorical reading is the method of reading that Miller strives to advocate.Miller focuses on the ethical moments in reading.He believes that readers' reading,criticism,and teaching of the work do not convey knowledge,but use words to do things.Therefore,the construction of reading ethics is also an extension of performative concepts by Miller.The third chapter discusses the performative dimension of the medium of Miller's medium criticism.Miller proposes that the medium is the maker's assertion,he also reveals the change of the medium from the carrier to the subject.He believes that the medium can not only transmit information but also change the content of information.The performative modality in medium was telepathy.Telepathy constructs the relationship between people and objects.Miller emphasized that the materialized mode of literary works determines its performative power,and as the materialized mode of ideology,the medium also determines the performative power of the dissemination of content.This study thinks that based on the dimension of the mediaum,Miller's "End of Literature" which put forward in the rise of the digital media can be re-examined,meanwhile,we could review the challenges faced by the literature in the digital media era and look forward to the future development.The ultimate goal of Miller's medium criticism is to establish efficient and reasonable medium reading paths.Rhetorical reading not only applies to medium reading,but also helps to identify the authenticity of media information and expose its true purpose.The fourth chapter explains performative dimension of Miller's illustration reading.In addition to applying the performative theory to medium criticism.Miller also used the performative in image reading.His study began with the relationship between novels and illustrations,revealing the interactive dialogue between images and texts,and constructing symbiotic and heterogeneous graphic relationships.Miller thinks that although images and texts are very different in their expression methods and aesthetic communication,readers can pay attention to details and repetitions as they read texts,and construct new meaning through attention to details.Thus,Miller realized the use of rhetorical reading methods in the field of image reading,highlighting the dimension of image reading.In the turn of cultural studies,Miller also began to pay attention to cultural phenomena and proposed to use rhetorical reading to read all cultural phenomena.Although Miller did not establish the performative theory,this paper still believes that both the image itself and the image reading have their own performative characteristics.Miller extended the theory of performative to image reading,and also provided the possibility for the performative theory to go into image performative and cultural performative.The fifth chapter is mainly to examine Miller's performative theory in specific criticism and practice.Miller believes that the ultimate goal of the performative theory of is reading.After systematically expounding its theory,this article returns to Miller's practice of textual reading criticism.While,it deepens the performative theory of his writing,and on the other hand,he responds to the connotation of the performative theory.Miller thinks that critics record,publish,or disseminate their own reading experience is the responsibility and obligation of reading objects,and it is a response to the performative effectiveness of reading objects.Absalom,Absalom!Is the classic text of Miller's use of performative literary theory.Revealing the hypocritical content and truth of advertisements is an extended use of Miller's performative theory.This study specifically shows how Miller used rhetorical reading to analyze texts in order to construct rhetorical reading methodologies.In the conclusion part,the purpose of writing the whole article was traced back,and the theoretical value and practical significance of J.Hillis Miller's theory of speaking and commentary were again summarized and sublimated.The deficiencies and limitations of this study are also proposed,and the future research and application of Miller's theory are prospected.