Page 31 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 31
ture II
December 10
In the course of the previous lecture, I set out the general objective of all
my work. The objective is to try to exclude the notion of informativity
from semantic description as much as possible and even, if possible, to do
away with it altogether. Indeed, I have the impression that nowhere in ut-
terance-meaning nor anywhere in linguistic meaning is there a description
of reality, so that for me the notions of true and false do not seem adequate
ones to describe linguistic facts. In saying that, I am, it seems to me, turning
away from the usual notion of meaning as conveyed in dictionaries, that is
to say I am trying to construct a notion of meaning which is different from
the notion of meaning built into language itself and linguistically imposed
upon us. What I am trying to do, if you like, is to see language differently
from the way language itself sees itself. That is my general objective: what
must now be attempted is an explanation of the way I am going to achieve
that objective. Two theories in particular can, I think, make one progress
towards that objective: the theory of polyphony, which I am going to speak
about today, and the theory of argumentation, which I will speak about in
the coming three lectures.
***
Well, I am going to start by developing the notion of polyphony, a no-
tion which my research is centered around. Traditional linguistics, it seems
to me, rests on a notion which it considers as clear and as free from any am-
biguity: the notion of speaker. I am going to try to show that the speak-
er, usually taken by everyone for a clear notion, is in fact an extremely con-
fused one and one which covers a number of wholly different ideas. When
December 10
In the course of the previous lecture, I set out the general objective of all
my work. The objective is to try to exclude the notion of informativity
from semantic description as much as possible and even, if possible, to do
away with it altogether. Indeed, I have the impression that nowhere in ut-
terance-meaning nor anywhere in linguistic meaning is there a description
of reality, so that for me the notions of true and false do not seem adequate
ones to describe linguistic facts. In saying that, I am, it seems to me, turning
away from the usual notion of meaning as conveyed in dictionaries, that is
to say I am trying to construct a notion of meaning which is different from
the notion of meaning built into language itself and linguistically imposed
upon us. What I am trying to do, if you like, is to see language differently
from the way language itself sees itself. That is my general objective: what
must now be attempted is an explanation of the way I am going to achieve
that objective. Two theories in particular can, I think, make one progress
towards that objective: the theory of polyphony, which I am going to speak
about today, and the theory of argumentation, which I will speak about in
the coming three lectures.
***
Well, I am going to start by developing the notion of polyphony, a no-
tion which my research is centered around. Traditional linguistics, it seems
to me, rests on a notion which it considers as clear and as free from any am-
biguity: the notion of speaker. I am going to try to show that the speak-
er, usually taken by everyone for a clear notion, is in fact an extremely con-
fused one and one which covers a number of wholly different ideas. When
