Page 32 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 32
Slovenian Lectures
the Port-Royal grammarians speak of modus and when Searle speaks of il-
locutionary force, they always refer back to the idea of the speaker: the
modus is the speaker’s attitude towards the dictum; Searle’s illocutionary
force, which can be an affirmation, promise, order, and so on, is the type of
act that the speaker accomplishes in producing an utterance. I am going to
try to show that in fact, that notion of the speaker, which is at the root of
the modus-dictum or illocutionary force-propositional content distinction,
is for several reasons ambiguous. (I think I am going to need some more
chalk. I am a great chalk-eater, really!) It seems to me that when one speaks
of the speaker, one understands three different things which must be distin-
guished. Those three ideas which are confused in the notion of the speaker
are the notions of what I call the producer (le producteur empirique), the loc-
utor (le locuteur) and the enunciator (l’énonciateur)1.
What do I mean by the producer of an utterance? The producer of an ut-
terance is the one whose activity results in the production of an utterance.
The producer is the one who carries out the phonetic activity, also the in-
tellectual activity necessary for the production of the utterance. Whenev-
er there is an utterance, there is obviously a social actor who must carry out
a certain activity for that utterance to be produced. I would like you to re-
alize immediately how uncertain that notion of a producer is, and it is that
uncertainty which is going to lead me to distinguish the notions of locu-
tor and enunciator, which, to me, seem clearer. Given any particular utter-
ance, it is extremely difficult, it seems to me, to say who exactly is its produc-
er. Who is the psychological or social actor behind a given utterance? At
first, it seems a very simple question to answer but when one starts thinking
about it, one realizes that it is, in fact, a very difficult one.
Suppose my son is a pupil: the school organizes, let us say, a walk in the
country, and for my son to be able to go on that outing, I must give my per-
mission. The school staff therefore give my son a form for me to sign. So
my son brings me the printed form, or at least a typed form, saying some-
thing like “I allow my son to take part in the school outing”. At the bottom
of the form, there is the word “signature”, and what I must do is put my per-
sonal signature under the word “signature”. Well, who is the producer of
that form saying “I allow my son to take part in the outing”? Is it I, I who
have signed? No, certainly not. I have done very little. I have merely put my
name at the bottom of the form. Is it the school secretary who has typed
1 Translator’s note. The terminology is no doubt unusual in English but it has seemed prefera-
ble to stick as closely as possible to the French here, as the theory of polyphony radically departs
from current theories on the speaker.
the Port-Royal grammarians speak of modus and when Searle speaks of il-
locutionary force, they always refer back to the idea of the speaker: the
modus is the speaker’s attitude towards the dictum; Searle’s illocutionary
force, which can be an affirmation, promise, order, and so on, is the type of
act that the speaker accomplishes in producing an utterance. I am going to
try to show that in fact, that notion of the speaker, which is at the root of
the modus-dictum or illocutionary force-propositional content distinction,
is for several reasons ambiguous. (I think I am going to need some more
chalk. I am a great chalk-eater, really!) It seems to me that when one speaks
of the speaker, one understands three different things which must be distin-
guished. Those three ideas which are confused in the notion of the speaker
are the notions of what I call the producer (le producteur empirique), the loc-
utor (le locuteur) and the enunciator (l’énonciateur)1.
What do I mean by the producer of an utterance? The producer of an ut-
terance is the one whose activity results in the production of an utterance.
The producer is the one who carries out the phonetic activity, also the in-
tellectual activity necessary for the production of the utterance. Whenev-
er there is an utterance, there is obviously a social actor who must carry out
a certain activity for that utterance to be produced. I would like you to re-
alize immediately how uncertain that notion of a producer is, and it is that
uncertainty which is going to lead me to distinguish the notions of locu-
tor and enunciator, which, to me, seem clearer. Given any particular utter-
ance, it is extremely difficult, it seems to me, to say who exactly is its produc-
er. Who is the psychological or social actor behind a given utterance? At
first, it seems a very simple question to answer but when one starts thinking
about it, one realizes that it is, in fact, a very difficult one.
Suppose my son is a pupil: the school organizes, let us say, a walk in the
country, and for my son to be able to go on that outing, I must give my per-
mission. The school staff therefore give my son a form for me to sign. So
my son brings me the printed form, or at least a typed form, saying some-
thing like “I allow my son to take part in the school outing”. At the bottom
of the form, there is the word “signature”, and what I must do is put my per-
sonal signature under the word “signature”. Well, who is the producer of
that form saying “I allow my son to take part in the outing”? Is it I, I who
have signed? No, certainly not. I have done very little. I have merely put my
name at the bottom of the form. Is it the school secretary who has typed
1 Translator’s note. The terminology is no doubt unusual in English but it has seemed prefera-
ble to stick as closely as possible to the French here, as the theory of polyphony radically departs
from current theories on the speaker.
