SPEECH ACT THEORY AND THE PERFORMATIVE LANGUAGE OF LAMENT IN THE INDIVIDUAL PSALMS OF COMPLAINT

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive application of speech act theory, as developed by J. L. Austin and John Searle, to the analysis of the individual psalms of lament in the Hebrew Bible. Moving beyond traditional form-critical approaches that describe the structure of these psalms, it argues that lament psalms are not merely expressive or descriptive utterances of distress but are fundamentally performative; they perform distinct communicative actions through language. The analysis identifies two primary illocutionary acts: the act of complaint, which performs a covenantal accusation charging God with silence, absence, or inaction; and the act of praise, which performatively reconfigures the speaker’s covenantal relationship with God through a declarative reorientation. Drawing on and synthesising form-critical insights from Hermann Gunkel, Claus Westermann, Walter Brueggemann, and Craig Broyles, alongside speech-act applications in biblical studies by Kevin Vanhoozer and June Dickie, the article demonstrates that the renowned sudden shift of mood from lament to praise is best understood not as a psychological change or a narrative report of divine intervention, but as a performative transformation, a new reality enacted through the very utterance of trust and praise. Through detailed, verse-level analysis of Psalms 13, 22, and the anomalous Psalm 88, the study shows how the lamenter not only describes suffering but performatively renegotiates and recreates his relationship with God. The article concludes with significant implications for biblical hermeneutics and pastoral practice, paying particular attention to African and Nigerian appropriations of lament psalms in contexts of enduring suffering, oppression, and the search for liberation.