Well burrowed, old mole!

Notes are based on :

Michel Pecheux LANGUAGE, SEMANTICS AND IDEOLOGY  © Francois Maspero 1975 English translation © Harban, Nagpal 1982

Axioms

Thesis 1: The real exists necessarily independently of thought and outside it, but thought necessarily depends on the real, i.e. , it does not exist outside the real. 

• Proposition1: The relation between thought and the real is constituted by the complex whole in dominance of the discursive formations (interdiscourse) imbricated with a set of ideological formations that characterize a social formation in the class struggle.
• Proposition2: Meaning-effects do not pre-exist the discursive formations, production of meaning is an integral part of interpellation (production of subject as apparent causa sui).
• Primacy of the Signifier over the Sign and the Signified
• Signifier participates in the interpellation of individuals as subjects.
•  Proposition 3: The appropriation of the real in thought cannot consist of pure desubjectification but presupposes a subjective appropriation of the subject form.

Thesis 2:

1. ‘Ideology has no outside for itself’ = the universality of the Subject ofIdeology
2. ‘Ideology is nothing but outside for the sciences and the real’ =                                             the process without a subject of the real, of knowledge of the real and of the transformation of the real.

Idealism in Bourgeois Linguistics

      What is the overall goal or Pecheux’s foray into linguistics? He says, “[T]he point is, in the end, to be able to formulate the conceptual conditions which will make it possible to analyse scientifically the linguistic support for the operation of the ideological state apparatusses (207).” He sees idealism running rampant in linguistics, and as a marxist wants to help materialists who want to work within a materialist theoretical framework.  The need for a materialist framework becomes apparent as the self-evidence of the data of idealist philosophy is called into question. These givens include the transparency of language, the presence of meaning, and the self-presence of the subject of discourse/knowledge.

     People are becoming increasingly conscious of and suspicious of what he calls the ‘Münchausen effect’ whereby the subject is taken to be its own cause, like the character in the story who lifts himself up by pulling on his own hair.  This reification of the subject is rendered more and more unbelievable as the psyche is more and more scientifically exploited by marketing and bourgeois ideology. For Pecheux, ideology produces the evidentness of that which does not need to be said.  Pecheux says, “the “evidentness of identity conceals the fact that it is the result of an identification/interpellation of the subject whose alien origin is nonetheless strangely familiar to him.”  This critical consciousness comes as a result of the gradual arrival of history in philosophy; in history things come to be, thus more and more traditional categories are being examined in terms of becoming–the subject is no exception. This approach is very similar to Derrida’s deconstructive approach to the ‘metaphysics of presence’ where we find that the ‘self-presence’ of whatever is claimed to be ‘self-present’ is deferred, displaced onto something else, or is a complex construction. 

     What Pecheux hopes to do is to link the question of the constitution of meaning to the question of the constitution of subjects. This positions him very close to Foucault who takes the constitution of subjects as his object of study in many instances. This is where he differs most from American linguists many of whom have either never bothered with the work of Beneveniste, Ducrot, Sapir, Whorf and others like them, or have dismissed this work as unscientific.  Much of American linguistics still takes the causa sui self-identity of the speaking subject as a given. In fact, it forms the basis for Chomsky’s entire theorization of language; he believes that by isolating one individual we can recover a transcendental subjectivity that allows us to generalize over the entire community so long as we presuppose homogeneity. 

Linguistics and Logic–Positivism at Work

     Pecheux notices that linguistics as it is currently conceived cannot exist but by relying on some form of logical empiricist or realist philosophy, both of which are rooted in formal logic. However, he notes that both of these philosophies are fundamentally idealist. He claims that they are not capable of delivering a scientific theory of discourse. He gives us the following description of the division of labor between linguistics and logic as constructed by positivism:

Linguistics

• Common noun, Proper names                      
• Demonstrative, article                                   
• Lexical Properties                                          

Logic

• Quantifiers and functions
• Predicate, argument
• Implication, Syllogism
• Interpropositional Composition

 Then, he gives us a picture of the operations and mechanisms that are operative in the discursive realm:

Operations

• Modalities of place filling as a condition of statement formation.
• Articulations between statements; the passage to discourse or text.

Mechanisms-for relating domains

• The preconstructed (substitution-capture)
• Return of the known-support for a position (association-connection)

     The two-term opposition between linguistics and logic is not sufficient to constitute a materialist theory.  It results in a distinction between science and metaphysics which is founded on an ideological notion of the subject.  The Althusserean idea of interpellation provides us with a means by which a non-subjective process constitutes subjects, and paves the way for a non-subjective theory of subjectivity.  This frees us from the ideological trap of considering the subject as its own origin.This displacement of the ideological notion of the subject as origin allows us to theorize subjectivity instead of taking it as a given.In a materialist theory, the opposition is between science and ideology, and is more than a dualism of science and metaphysics.  Pecheux claims that there are three inter-linked zones that any such theory must address:

1. The constitution of subjectivity
2. Discursivity 
3. The discontinuity between science and ideology. 

In this inquiry we are to understand ideology as a material process, or as material practices not simply as a system of false ideas. 

Langue and Discourse

     Pecheux is not eager to be rid of the notion of langue although he is very critical of Saussurean linguistics.  His critique of the distinction between langue and parole takes up a harsher position toward parole. He claims that there exists a langue that is common for all people, for capitalist and worker, that operates according to internal laws and is relatively autonomous of the workings of the economy.  This langue does not itself take up a position in the class struggle. This common langue is composed of phonology morphology and syntax and is the proper object of linguistics. In this he is consistent with Stalin’s denunciation of Marr’s superstructural linguistics, which posited class languages without any central, unifying langue.  However, Pecheux is critical of Stalin’s assertion that the langue serves a society, as such an assertion smacks of sociologism.  Instead of taking up the positions of Marr or Stalin, Pecheux would have it both ways by admitting that there exists a langue, but that it forms the basis for forms of speech that take up positions in the class struggle. 

     Pecheux claims that the concept of parole in linguistics is unnecessary, and can have harmful consequences for researchers. He describes it as an anti-concept, a stop-gap, and a displaced re-introduction of the classical metaphysical oppositions of the idealist tradition. It seems to be opposed to the langue as the concrete is opposed to the abstract, as the individual is opposed to the universal, the linguistics of parole usually has recourse to the tropes of classical humanism citing the pure expression of the ideas of a hyper-isolated and monadic subject detached from history.  Pecheux comes up with an intermediary level on which we can discuss that in which the langue is manifest.  He calls this the level of the discursive formations, they exist between the disinterested universality of the langue and the dehistoricized isolation of the individual parolee. 

The Discursive Formations

     Pecheux’s objects of study are the discursive formations. At any given time in a society there exist multiple discursive formations, which are often contradictory.  These arise on the basis of the langue; as we discussed above, the langue itself does not take up a position in the class struggle, this is not to say that the class struggle does not take up a position toward the langue. Pecheux claims that they arise on this basis, “insofar as ideology simulates science.” They are inscribed in ideological formations that are inscribed in social formations which are traversed by the class struggle. Discursive formations are sites of (re)configuration which are capable of becoming sites of reproduction or sites of transformation. Pecheux defines the discursive formation as, “that which in a given ideological formation (from a given position in a given conjuncture determined by the state of the class struggle) determines what can and should be said.”  The discursive formation is the counterpart of the ideological formation,  but realized in and through language.

     For Pecheux, meaning is not located in the langue, it is constituted within the discursive formations. This follows from his discussion of the legitimate objects of the science of linguistics. Pecheux does not include semantics as one of these, for him this is where the relative autonomy of language ends, meaning is not a ‘linguistic’ concern but a discursive one. Inside a discursive formation, discursive processes are constantly at work. Pecheux defines these as, “the system of relationships of substitution, paraphrase, synonymy etc. which operate between signifiers in a given discursive formation.”  There are two basic forms of substitution that Pecheux recognizes within a discursive formation, equivalence and implication.  These processes constitute meaning within a discursive formation.  However, in order to constitute meaning the discursive formation depends on the ‘complex whole in dominance’ composed of other discursive formations. 

Inter/intradiscourse  

Discursive formations are asymmetrically related to one another by effects of the presonstructed, and transverse effects. A major interdiscursive mechanism is reconfiguration which occurs when a discursive formation absorbs a preconstructed element from outside and links it to one of its own elements by transverse effects (metonymy). 

The Preconstructed

We can say that the preconstructed is a form of interdiscursive embedding. It relates to a previous external construction, it erupts into a discursive formation as though it was “always already there.” The preconstructed presents an element to a discursive formation in the mode of externality and pre-existence, it is the ideological interpellation that supplies and imposes meaning in the form of universality.  The preconstructed corresponds to the discrepancy whereby the individual is interpellated as a subject while still being “always already a subject.” When we argue over names and expressions we are disputing the preconstructed. Pecheux claims that the proper name, insofar as it designates its object without representing it, is the paradigm case of the preconstructed. 

Transverse Discourse

 We can say that transverse discourse is a form of inter discursive connection. According to Pecheux, transverse discourse is the “return of the known in thought” or “sustaining process.” Another name for transverse discourse is the “articulation of utterances.” This interdiscourse constitutes the subject in relation to meaning. When we dispute the ordering or the concatenation of statements in the discursive formation we dispute regarding transverse discourse. When we encounter so called lexical facts that some would locate in the langue, we actually have substitution relations constituted by transverse discourse whose action has been forgotten.