the-chomsky-hash

[the-chomsky-hash]

[D. Extralinguistics and literature - cont'd]

[2. "Delivering a speech:" discourse in the sense of a very precise rhetorical form. From this form and its operation we can understand a certain extension of the word - cont'd]

a. If we accept defining literature as a language in which the language itself is manifested, we see how much

[on one hand,] the literary

[on the other hand,] delivering a speech

are both close and distant from each other. Speeches and literature are two forms of language whose distinctive character is

to redouble the elements which constitute them

to manifest them by a kind of emphasis which is essential to both of them

But:

i.  what literature manifests itself is language - forms and structures that make possible, in general, statements.

ii. what a speech manifests, on the contrary, is the extralinguistic: that exteriority which constitutes around each word

the subject who pronounces it

the circumstances in which it is said

the result it can produce

the object of which it speaks

iii. [In other words,]

a speech is the speech speaking of itself as an event

literature is the language coming in full light by an act of speech

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[D. Extralinguistics and literature - cont'd]

2. All this that we have said so far concerns only "delivering a speech" as genre and which opposes it to

poetry

tragedy

history

etc.

a. It is in a sense the definition of the narrowest discourse that can be given. It binds one to a very precise rhetorical form and one that is relatively rare.

b. It should be noted, however, that from this form and its operation we can understand a certain extension of the word.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[D. Extralinguistics and literature - cont'd]

[1. We thus come to define the speech as a set of statements which has the property of designating those elements of which form the extralinguistic side of its language - cont'd]

b. [The discourse states within what it says] that which can not avoid overflowing every word, since there is none that does not necessarily imply

someone who pronounces it

a time and a place of enunciation

an operative aim

something of which it speaks

i. The discourse in itself and inside the corpus that it forms states that which can not fail to be outside any utterance.

ii. The speech [discours] forms a hem of what surrounds it and aims to constitute in explicit text what is its silent context. It is redoubled within itself only by verbalizing what is outside.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

D. [Extralinguistics and literature]

1. We thus come to define the speech as a set of statements

which, like any set of statements, has an external side (constituted by the subject, the coordinates, the result and the object of the speech)

but which has the property of designating by a group of propositions or explicit sentences those elements of which form the extralinguistic side of its language

a. The discourse states within what it says that which borders it as a word.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

e. The four figures which

characterize speech

redouble it

are

i. not so many figures who manifest it as discourse, seeking to emphasize, by a kind of emphasis, the verbal performance it constitutes;

ii. they are rather figures that manifest in the discourse what is not of the verbal order, which constitutes the external aspect of verbalization:

the act of the talking subject

the event of his speech, locatable in space and time

the operation carried out by speech

the world of objects aimed at and represented by speech

iii. What the marks of a speech designate within the discourse is precisely what constitutes its exterior.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

d. But whether or not these elements are part of statements that together form the discourse is probably not the most important thing. It simply allows the speech to be

reported

summarized

taken up

within another set of propositions and sentences.

i. The essential thing is that the four marks peculiar to a speech and by which it manifests itself as a speech relate

not to what in it is language

but to what is only extralinguistic

ii. Thus,

the subject currently speaking

the moment when the utterance is made

the location which can serve as its spatial coordinates and which thus fulfills all indications of the place it may contain

the repercussions which are effected by these words, and which, if successful, may occur in those who have received the message directly or indirectly

iii. Ultimately,

events

individuals

projects

institutions

ideas

the "things"

that the speech has to translate into words

that it must analyze, explain, describe, criticize by its own statements

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

c. All the elements which the art of rhetoric has fixed are only part of the speech to the extent that

i. they designate it,

where they cover its surface

where they constitute a double reduction of the speech itself

not placed in an incision inside the speech, but

at another level than it

pronounced by another voice than it

ii. that

the signaling of the speech [discours]

the criteria which make it possible to recognize it

are distributed between

the utterances of the speech

those which serve as its context

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

b. In general, the figures that characterize a speech are grouped into a series of propositions and sentences which constitute a necessary part of its architecture:

i. the presentation of the speaker by himself (

the excuse he presents because he had the audacity to speak

the reasons why he should not be considered captatio benevolentiae),

ii. an indication of the circumstances which make the speech absolutely necessary - as uneven as the speaker may be in relation to

their task

the indication of the object chosen

the manner in which some will be chained to each other.

the different themes between which the object is divided (this is the division)

iii. And finally,

either in the last lines of the exordium

or at the end of the speech itself,

the speaker states

what they will have heard

the effect he expects from his speech about the listeners

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

[a. Verbal or typographical signs serve as substitutes - cont'd]

ii. The discursive figures are thus displaced outside the discourse itself, (or possibly placed in an incise, inside the discourse, but

at another level than it

pronounced by a voice other than it)

—the

signaling of a speech

the criteria which make it possible to recognize it

are thus distributed between

the utterances of the speech

those which serve as its context

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[5. The indices of: who the speaker is, the circumstances of the speech, the results to be achieved, what the speaker is talking about; these are the four figures of speeches - cont'd]

a. Verbal or typographical signs

that belong to the context of a speech [discours]

that designate it from the outside

are not sufficient criteria for the reason that they are external and optional duplications of these four figures. They serve them as substitutes.

i. These canonical figures of discourse may very well not appear to the extent that they have received in the context their replacement elements:

the speaker was named

the circumstances of their existence

what they sought to obtain by speaking

what they themselves intended to say

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

5. These [vis., signs of indication (such as a star-shaped pattern in the snow, that indicates a fleeing fox, for those who know):

index of who the speaker is

index of the circumstances of the speech

index of the results to be achieved

index of what the speaker is talking about

] are the four figures that can be found in a very visible way in most of the speeches that can be said to be canonical

whether they are speeches actually held, and that obey the rules of the kind

whether they are speeches reported in a text and isolated by these internal marks

A number of remarks can be made on this subject.

[In margin: cf. 1 intr.]

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[4. Finally the discourse indicates what it is talking about - cont'd]

b. This is where the discourse is opposed to other groupings of utterances:

i. for

—these have, of course, an object , or a referent;

—there is no statement,

even if it is false

even if it is contradictory

even if it is absurd

which does not speak of something, provided that it is properly constructed.

ii. But the discourse does not spontaneously and in itself stand for something:

it does not just allow it to appear, in a more or less clear, more or less complete way, through the statements that are talking about it

[rather,] it names

iii. That is to say, it devotes one or more propositions to state

what the object it is going to treat

or what are the different objects from which they are going to articulate themselves

iv. Discourse does not speak of something without saying that it speaks about it: so that the object of the speech is present twice,

in all the statements which constitute the speech

in this particular group of statements which, in relation to all others, define what they will talk about (and sometimes what they talked about)

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

4. Finally the discourse indicates what it is talking about.

a. [That is,]

it does not just say what it says

it announces in advance or recalls after the event that his task is to say it

i. it [a discourse]

only started in order for this something to be said

in short, that it exists only in relation to it

ii. "Warlike exploits, I do not want to dwell on them, you all know them, so I will not mention them. But the training which has allowed us to arrive at this result, the nature of the political institutions and manners which have brought us these advantages, is what I will show you first; I will continue with the eulogy of our dead, for I esteem ... "

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[3. The third character of discourse is that it indicates the result it wants to achieve, and the end the speaker proposes when they speak - cont'd]

c. A speech may well intimidate someone to do something; it is, however, radically different from an order, because:

i. The order designates its nature of command and the result it wants to obtain only by

its grammatical structure

the words used

ii. A speech (as it functions as an order) [specifies the axioms in force:]

—it states, by a set of definite propositions, both

a role of order

the nature of that order

—it is a set of utterances, some of which relate to all others, designating which acts are performed or referred to by the spoken words.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[3. The third character of discourse is that it indicates the result it wants to achieve, and the end the speaker proposes when they speak - cont'd]

b. There is no speech that Thucydides lends to Pericles because there is this

demonstration

undertaking of persuasion

i. There are many demonstrative statements

—which are not speeches [discours],

—which manifest their demonstrativeness by a certain number of linguistic signs (

choice of the words of coordination, and of subordination

choice of verbs, their time and their mode

choice of successive order of propositions and sentences, and sets that group them together).

ii. But what makes a speech a speech is that it manifests, by statements assigned to it exclusively, the end

which it proposes to reach

which justifies its existence

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

3. The third character of discourse is that it indicates

the result it wants to achieve

the end the speaker proposes when they speak

a. Pericles speaks because tradition imposes it on him; but this tradition also demands that he do not pronounce vain and simply decorative words;

we must say useful things;

by listening to the traditional eulogy, "the whole crowd of citizens and foreigners can make a great profit"

i. The eulogy of those who have died will be useful if we prove that the greatness and the merits by which they surpass their opponents are one and the same with

the greatness of the whole city

the political institutions in which they were formed

the tradition that has been passed from hand to hand

ii. Thus, listeners will understand why they will have to accept the suffering that the dead themselves have endured. The purpose of the discourse is therefore this demonstration which must have value of tradition.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff

[the-chomsky-hash]

[C. Figures of discourse - cont'd]

[2. A speech refers to the circumstances in which it is pronounced - cont'd]

iv. A speech can be contrasted with all other sets of statements by saying that it is a set of utterances such that

some of them relate to all others

some of them indicate what content to give to the marks of time and place that we can find there

A speech says what it is, that "here" and "now" that are constantly designated it in the utterances: it shows

not only what is this time, and what is this place

but how, from within, to fill in some way the empty place that is designated by them

[the time and place] designated as language of speech

In the speech there is reference to itself as an event.

– Michel Foucault, Homère, les récits, l’éducation, les discours, (Part IV: Discourse), ca. 1960s, BnF, Fonds Foucault, NAF 28730, boîte 48, from Nouvelle Revue Française, n° 616, Janvier 2016, edited by Martin Rueff