Page 43 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 43
Lecture II
that John would come”. Then, A, in that third utterance, gives a polyphonic
interpretation to the first utterance again, simply he proposes another iden-
tification for enunciator E1. I think that there are a lot of discursive prac-
tices that rest on the ambiguity there is in the identification of enunciators.
***
Now, I would like to apply this analysis of negation to the study of a
short, and this time real, literary text, which will give me the opportuni-
ty, among other things, of conjuring up not only two but, – wait and see, –
three enunciators. In certain analyses of mine, – but I will not present them,
because it would take too long, – there are four, five, six, even seven enun-
ciators: the number of enunciators is absolutely unlimited. The example I
am going to analyse seems interesting to me, at least interesting for the fol-
lowing lectures, because, in the course of the analysis, I will bring in certain
notions about argumentation which were mentioned in the last lecture and
which I will have to go into in greater detail in what follows. The text in
question is a short text from Pascal [which to quote I am going to “modern-
ise”, because it is written in a slightly old form of French, which is relative-
ly difficult to understand but, – trust me, – I have not falsified the facts].
The title of the text – very important for what follows – is Sound Opinions
of the People. So, Pascal is going to indicate a certain number of opinions of
the people which seem sound to him. And under that title, one finds the
following text:
“To be elegant is not so vain”.
Pascal then goes on to explain why being elegant is not so vain. Being el-
egant is not so vain, because it amounts to showing that a great number of
people work for you: it amounts to showing that one has a groom, a tailor,
a perfumer, etc. The conclusion is: being elegant amounts to showing one’s
power, it amounts to showing the importance one has within society and
such is the reason why, according to Pascal, being elegant is not vain. It is
the whole of the beginning which I would like to analyse, that is to say the
utterance “To be elegant is not so vain”. I will claim that there are at least
three enunciators in that utterance: E1, E2 and E3. Two of those enunci-
ators are easy for us to identify, given the polyphonic analysis of negation
that I have put forward previously. The utterance is a negative one. So, if
one accepts my polyphonic analysis, there must be at least two enunciators:
according to E2 “To be elegant is vain”; and then, there is E3 who disagrees
with E2. That is something that springs directly from my polyphonic anal-
that John would come”. Then, A, in that third utterance, gives a polyphonic
interpretation to the first utterance again, simply he proposes another iden-
tification for enunciator E1. I think that there are a lot of discursive prac-
tices that rest on the ambiguity there is in the identification of enunciators.
***
Now, I would like to apply this analysis of negation to the study of a
short, and this time real, literary text, which will give me the opportuni-
ty, among other things, of conjuring up not only two but, – wait and see, –
three enunciators. In certain analyses of mine, – but I will not present them,
because it would take too long, – there are four, five, six, even seven enun-
ciators: the number of enunciators is absolutely unlimited. The example I
am going to analyse seems interesting to me, at least interesting for the fol-
lowing lectures, because, in the course of the analysis, I will bring in certain
notions about argumentation which were mentioned in the last lecture and
which I will have to go into in greater detail in what follows. The text in
question is a short text from Pascal [which to quote I am going to “modern-
ise”, because it is written in a slightly old form of French, which is relative-
ly difficult to understand but, – trust me, – I have not falsified the facts].
The title of the text – very important for what follows – is Sound Opinions
of the People. So, Pascal is going to indicate a certain number of opinions of
the people which seem sound to him. And under that title, one finds the
following text:
“To be elegant is not so vain”.
Pascal then goes on to explain why being elegant is not so vain. Being el-
egant is not so vain, because it amounts to showing that a great number of
people work for you: it amounts to showing that one has a groom, a tailor,
a perfumer, etc. The conclusion is: being elegant amounts to showing one’s
power, it amounts to showing the importance one has within society and
such is the reason why, according to Pascal, being elegant is not vain. It is
the whole of the beginning which I would like to analyse, that is to say the
utterance “To be elegant is not so vain”. I will claim that there are at least
three enunciators in that utterance: E1, E2 and E3. Two of those enunci-
ators are easy for us to identify, given the polyphonic analysis of negation
that I have put forward previously. The utterance is a negative one. So, if
one accepts my polyphonic analysis, there must be at least two enunciators:
according to E2 “To be elegant is vain”; and then, there is E3 who disagrees
with E2. That is something that springs directly from my polyphonic anal-
