Scope note

Text

An instance of institutional fact is an ascription of a status function to an object by a community. The institutional fact is a concretization of a collective intentionality of the community in question towards a certain object over a certain period of time.

An instance of institutional fact is recognizable to a competent speaker/member of a symbolic community (native or learner with sufficient competence). It may not be perceived through a single sense impression but through multiple experiences and implicit reasonings (e.g.: embedded participation, behavioural observation, linguistic evidence and interview), yet typically such intermediate observations and inferences are not necessarily recorded or accessible. The historical statement is typically the assertion of the institutional fact, that such and such a fact was the case, and was in force for a given given community, at some time. The epistemic veridicality of the stated /reference instance of institutional fact is always open to contestation. The means of contestation involve analyzing the sources which support it.

Instances of institutional fact come into existence based on conventions establishing the conditions under which they come into effect. Typically, an instance of institutional fact will come into existence either because of the performance of its stipulated, initiating speech act (e.g.: state of being married via marriage) or as a result of events fulfilling existing norm prescriptions in the community (e.g.: state of being uncle as result of birth of child of sister).  An institutional fact comes to be through the agreed fiat of a community. It typically ceases to exist either because of a stipulated, nullifying speech act (e.g. divorce proceeding), because a community ceases to support the effective rule supporting its declaration (e.g.: ownership of people) or force majeure (e.g.: object ascribed function/status or community perceiving status is eliminated).

Language

en