Austin on speech acts: a review
l“The uttering of the words is… far from being usually, even if it is ever, the sole thing necessary if the act is to be deemed to have been performed. Speaking generally, it is always necessary that the circumstances in which the words are uttered should be, in some way, or ways, appropriate, and it is very commonly necessary that either the speaker himself or other persons should also perform certain other actions, whether ‘physical’ or ‘mental’ actions or even acts of uttering further words. … Surely the words must be spoken ‘seriously’ and so as to be taken ‘seriously’... I must not be joking, for example, nor writing a poem.”
l(How to Do Things with Words, p. 8)