‘We are not lucky in the diocese of B. We are subjected to the extravagant notions of a "quartet of young priests” who last year had the idea - before abolishing it altogether - of holding the solemn first communion in the Sports Centre [2}, even though we have two large and beautiful churches which had plenty of room for everyone' (p. 66).
'My mother was horrified by the chaplain at AC I. who wanted to celebrate mass over the dining room table [2f (p. 90).
* All these quotations (indicated by the page numbers in round brackets) refer to the work by R, P. Lelong. Le dossier noir de la communion solennelle (Paris: Mame, 1972), The figures in square brackets refer to errors in the liturgy noted by the faithful: |l| error of the person presiding; (2] error in place; [3| error in time; [4| error in tempo; [5| error in behaviour; [6| error in language; (7) error in dress; [8| error in sacraments.
thinks that he has found in discourse itself - in the specifically linguistic substance of speech, as it were - the key to the efficacy of speech. By trying to understand the power of linguistic manifestations linguistically, by looking in language for the principle underlying the logic and effectiveness of the language of institution, one forgets that authority comes to language from outside, a fact concretely exemplified by the skeptron that, in Homer, is passed to the orator who is about to speak.* Language at most represents this authority, manifests and symbolizes it. There is a rhetoric which characterizes all discourses of institution, that is to say, the official speech of the authorized spokesperson expressing himself in a solemn situation, with an authority whose limits are identical with the extent of delegation by the institution. The stylistic features which characterize the language of priests, teachers and, more generally, all institutions, like routinization, stereotyping and neutralization, all stem from the position occupied in a competitive field by these persons entrusted with delegated authority.
it is not enough to say, as people sometimes do, in order to avoid the difficulties inherent in a purely internalist approach to language, that the use made of language in a determinate situation by a determinate speaker, with his style, rhetoric and socially marked identity, provides words with ‘connotations’ that are tied to a particular context, introducing into discourse that surplus of meaning which gives it its ’illocutionary force'. In fact, the use of language, the manner as much as the substance of discourse, depends on the social position of the speaker, which governs the access he can have to the language of the institution, that is, to the official, orthodox and legitimate speech. It is the access to the legitimate instruments of expression, and therefore the participation in the authority of the institution, which makes all the difference -irreducible to discourse as such - between the straightforward imposture of masqueraders, who disguise a performative utterance as a descriptive or constalive statement.' and the authorized imposture of those who do the same thing with the authorization and the authority of an institution. The spokesperson is an impostor endowed with the skeptron.
If, as Austin observes, there are utterances whose role is not only to “describe a state of affairs or state some fact’, but also to ‘execute an action', this is because the power of words resides in the fact that they are not pronounced on behalf of the person who is only the 'carrier' of these words: the authorized spokesperson is only able to use words to act on other agents and. through their action, on things
'Tell me also what you think, Father, of a communion which, like in my parish, is performed in the morning (3] and followed by no other ceremony?' [5] 'We'll spend the day around the table, eating and drinking', a distressed mother told me (p. 72).
