Paul Ricoeur in his Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning criticises Ferdinand de Saussure's structuralism for dividing language into langue and parole, thus forgetting about discourse. If Ancient Greeks believed in the inseparability of language and thought (logos) and Aristotle stated that a noun and a verb (or onoma and rhema, as far as I can tell) could only together make an assertion, then there is no reason, says Ricoeur, why discourse should be left out. He suggests two categories of indivisible units: the sign and the sentence. The sign is potential in nature whereas the sentence is an actual event which cannot be simply reduced to a sum of its parts, be they syntactic, morphological, lexical or phonological. The analytical approach belongs to semiology and Ricoeur is not interested in that as a philosopher. What he focuses on instead is semantics understood as concerned with the meaning of discourse.
Discourse is both an event and (a) meaning. It occurs at a given moment (in particular a spoken utterance) and is therefore an event just like parole, which is the only realisation of the fully potential system of a given language. However, discourse is more than that since it can be understood again, repeated verbatim or by means of other words. The same or almost the same meaning can also be expressed in another language or translated. And yet a given discursive act retains its content. Hence discourse is also something resulting from the event-meaning relation.
Discourse is also assertion or predication. Every sentence needs to have a predicate and a predicate cannot be in opposition to other units of the same kind as is the case with phonemes, for instance. While phonemes or morphemes can be put in superordinate categories, the sentence and its predicate cannot be said to be part of anything larger. Besides, according to Benveniste the functions of predicates in language cannot be compared to those of predicates in logic. Finally, it can be stated that while a subject identifies something and thus singles something out, a predicate describes an action, state, event or relation and is universal in nature. Consequently, discourse cannot be treated as a set of subjects and predicates since it is not analytical. It can only be considered as synthetic in terms of structure since neither of its parts alone can function as a piece of discourse.
Discourse depends on the dialectic of event and meaning in a given sentence. An utterance is not to be treated predominantly as an event if a meaning analysis is undertaken. What we want to understand is the meaning of a sentence or text, something constant rather than transient but not the same as langue. Language is meinen, or intending, thanks to the act of self-deletion of a transient event (Aufhebung). In this way we can perceive an utterance as something said once and 'gone' (unless we consider audio or video recording) and yet something understood and recognised as part of our (native or otherwise well known) language. As far as recording goes, however, it is only in a given situation that Dasein, 'being there', is the same for both or all of the interlocutors. Recorded by whatever means, a given situational context can no longer put the viewer and/or listener back in time.
Ricoeur also writes about the self-reference of discourse, speech acts as well as sense and reference but I think that's too much to put in one post. If I have enough time I'll also write about Ricoeur's ideas concerning metaphors, which are different from what cognitive linguistics has to say on the issue and yet make perfect sense from the philosophical viewpoint.
Reference: Ricoeur, Paul. 1989. Język, tekst, interpretacja. Transl. by Piotr Graff and Katarzyna Rosner. Warsaw: PIW.
Discourse is also assertion or predication. Every sentence needs to have a predicate and a predicate cannot be in opposition to other units of the same kind as is the case with phonemes, for instance. While phonemes or morphemes can be put in superordinate categories, the sentence and its predicate cannot be said to be part of anything larger. Besides, according to Benveniste the functions of predicates in language cannot be compared to those of predicates in logic. Finally, it can be stated that while a subject identifies something and thus singles something out, a predicate describes an action, state, event or relation and is universal in nature. Consequently, discourse cannot be treated as a set of subjects and predicates since it is not analytical. It can only be considered as synthetic in terms of structure since neither of its parts alone can function as a piece of discourse.
Discourse depends on the dialectic of event and meaning in a given sentence. An utterance is not to be treated predominantly as an event if a meaning analysis is undertaken. What we want to understand is the meaning of a sentence or text, something constant rather than transient but not the same as langue. Language is meinen, or intending, thanks to the act of self-deletion of a transient event (Aufhebung). In this way we can perceive an utterance as something said once and 'gone' (unless we consider audio or video recording) and yet something understood and recognised as part of our (native or otherwise well known) language. As far as recording goes, however, it is only in a given situation that Dasein, 'being there', is the same for both or all of the interlocutors. Recorded by whatever means, a given situational context can no longer put the viewer and/or listener back in time.
Ricoeur also writes about the self-reference of discourse, speech acts as well as sense and reference but I think that's too much to put in one post. If I have enough time I'll also write about Ricoeur's ideas concerning metaphors, which are different from what cognitive linguistics has to say on the issue and yet make perfect sense from the philosophical viewpoint.
Reference: Ricoeur, Paul. 1989. Język, tekst, interpretacja. Transl. by Piotr Graff and Katarzyna Rosner. Warsaw: PIW.
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