Austin had the idea the words have a "performative" function, in other words, they don't simply signify (as we saw in Locke) but they also "do" something. Austin uses the example "I declare war" to show this function. While the individual words "I", "Declare" , and "War" each signify for an Idea as Locke said, together they intiate the fighting, the war.

An inquiry in class was about how Austin, a structuralist, would arrive at a theory such as this. I think that this theory very much fits within a structuralist way of thinking. Austin says that the function of words is linked to the action they signify. He writes, "the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action- it is not normally thought of as just saying something" (683). To me, this implies that action word/s does is governed by the manifestation of that thought. Structuralists look for the "grammar" or rules of a text, and I think Austin's theory says that the rules are that manifestations determine what a words are able to do or mean. Back to "I declare war", that phrase is able to initiate the war because the war activities are about to begin. The phrase "Give me a bowl please" is able to indicate to the audience/party/person that you'd like a bowl because in the past that's the phrase used to obtain a bowl.

I think that Locke and Austin oppose just a little bit. Both would probably describe words as symbols, but I don't think that Locke would say they serve functions beyond "recording" of thought, and communication. Austin certainly expands on what words are able to do.