Jacques Fontanille-The Semiotics of Discourse

62 BERKELEY
INSIGHTS
Bostic, TRANS.
Fontanille
IN LINGUISTICS
Jacques Fontanilles The Semiotics of Discourse fills a long- AND SEMIOTICS
standing need for a clear, comprehensive overview of
narrative semiotic theory. The book skillfully blends a historical 62
perspective with an emphasis on recent developments.
Outstanding features include a clear, thorough exposition;
numerous examples drawn from sports, cooking, and
The Semiotics of Discourse

literature; a balance of introductory overview and detailed
analysis; figures that graphically represent the ideas
expressed; and suggestions for further reading at the end of
each chapter. The book will be of interest to both scholars and
students in semiotics, linguistics, literary theory, and the study
of narrative.
Jacques Fontanille is President of the Universit de Limoges

in France, where he is also Professor of Linguistics and
Semiotics. He holds the Chair in Semiotics at the Institut
Universitaire de France. He is the author of several books,
including Le Savoir partag (1987), Smiotique du visible
(1995), Smiotique et littrature (1999), and Soma & sma
(2004). He is co-author, with Algirdas Julien Greimas, of The
Semiotics of Passions (1993) and co-author, with Claude
Zilberberg, of Tension et signification (1998).
Heidi Bostic holds a Ph.D. in French from Purdue University

in Indiana and a Diplme dtudes approfondies en Sciences
du langage from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences
Sociales in France. She is Assistant Professor of Romance
Languages and Gender Studies at Michigan Technological
University. She is the author of several articles on French
literature, feminist theory, and semiotics. Her published
translations include Luce Irigarays book The Way of Love
(2003).
THE SEMIOTICS
OF DISCOURSE
WWW.PETERLANG.COM
JACQUES FONTANILLE
PETER LANG
TRANSLATED BY HEIDI BOSTIC

62 BERKELEY
INSIGHTS
Bostic, TRANS.
Fontanille
IN LINGUISTICS
Jacques Fontanilles The Semiotics of Discourse fills a long- AND SEMIOTICS
standing need for a clear, comprehensive overview of
narrative semiotic theory. The book skillfully blends a historical 62
perspective with an emphasis on recent developments.
Outstanding features include a clear, thorough exposition;
numerous examples drawn from sports, cooking, and
The Semiotics of Discourse

literature; a balance of introductory overview and detailed
analysis; figures that graphically represent the ideas
expressed; and suggestions for further reading at the end of
each chapter. The book will be of interest to both scholars and
students in semiotics, linguistics, literary theory, and the study
of narrative.
Jacques Fontanille is President of the Universit de Limoges

in France, where he is also Professor of Linguistics and
Semiotics. He holds the Chair in Semiotics at the Institut
Universitaire de France. He is the author of several books,
including Le Savoir partag (1987), Smiotique du visible
(1995), Smiotique et littrature (1999), and Soma & sma
(2004). He is co-author, with Algirdas Julien Greimas, of The
Semiotics of Passions (1993) and co-author, with Claude
Zilberberg, of Tension et signification (1998).
Heidi Bostic holds a Ph.D. in French from Purdue University

in Indiana and a Diplme dtudes approfondies en Sciences
du langage from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences
Sociales in France. She is Assistant Professor of Romance
Languages and Gender Studies at Michigan Technological
University. She is the author of several articles on French
literature, feminist theory, and semiotics. Her published
translations include Luce Irigarays book The Way of Love
(2003).
THE SEMIOTICS
OF DISCOURSE
WWW.PETERLANG.COM
JACQUES FONTANILLE
PETER LANG
TRANSLATED BY HEIDI BOSTIC

The Semiotics
of Discourse
B E R K E L E Y
I N S I G H T S
I N LINGUISTICS
AND SEMIOTICS
Irmengard Rauch
General Editor
Vol. 62
PETER LANG
New York ! Washington, D.C./Baltimore ! Bern
Frankfurt am Main ! Berlin ! Brussels ! Vienna ! Oxford
Jacques Fontanille
The Semiotics
of Discourse
TRANSLATED BY
Heidi Bostic
PETER LANG
New York ! Washington, D.C./Baltimore ! Bern
Frankfurt am Main ! Berlin ! Brussels ! Vienna ! Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fontanille, Jacques.
[Semiotique du discours. English]
The semiotics of discourse / Jacques Fontanille; translated by Heidi Bostic.
p. cm. (Berkeley insights in linguistics and semiotics; vol. 62)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Semiotics. 2. Discourse analysis. I. Title. II. Series: Berkeley insights
in linguistics and semiotics; v. 62.
P99.F66413 401.41dc22 2006000643
ISBN 978-0-8204-8619-2 (hardback)
ISBN 9781453909546 (eBook)
ISSN 0893-6935
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.
2006, 2007 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

29 Broadway, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com
All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
Printed in Germany
Of all comparisons that might be imagined, the most fruitful is the one that might be
drawn between the functioning of language and a game of chess. In both instances we are
confronted with a system of values and their observable modications. A game of chess is
like an articial realization of what language oers in a natural form.
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics
Contents
Translators Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Chapter 1: From the Sign to Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Sign and Signication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. The Diversity of Approaches to Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. Theories of the Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Perception and Signication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1. Elements to Remember . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2. The Two Planes of a Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3. The Sensible and the Intelligible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 2: The Elementary Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1. The Binary Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.1. The Privative Opposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.2. The Opposition Between Contraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2. The Semiotic Square . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1. The Constitutive Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2. The Elementary Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3. Axiological Polarization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4. Second-Generation Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3. The Ternary Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1. The Three Levels of Apprehension of Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2. Properties of the Three Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3. Modes of Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
viii The Semiotics of Discourse
4. The Tensive Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.1. Problems in Suspense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2 New Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3. The Dimensions of the Sensible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4. The Correlation Between the Two Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5. The Two Types of Correlation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.6. From Valences to Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.7. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Chapter 3: Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1. Text, Discourse, and Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1.1. The Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1.2. Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.3. Narrative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.4. Text and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.5. Narrative and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2. The Instance of Discourse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.1. The Taking of Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.2. Gagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.3. The Positional Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3. Discursive Schemas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.1. Schemas of Tension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2. Canonical Schemas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3. The Syntax of Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 4: Actants, Actors, and Modalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
1. Actants and Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
1.1. Actants and Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
1.2. Trajectories of Identity, Roles, and Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
1.3. Actants and Actors of the Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2. Transformational Actants and Positional Actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
2.1. Transformation and Discursive Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
2.2. Positional Actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
2.3. Transformational Actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
2.4. The Positional Field and the Predicative Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3. Modalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
3.1. The Modality as Predicate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
3.2. Modalization as Passional Imaginary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Contents ix
Chapter 5: Action, Passion, and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
1. Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
1.1. Reconstruction by Presupposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
1.2. The Programming of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
2. Passion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
2.1. Passional Intensity and Quantity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
2.2. Figures of the Passional Dimension of Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
3. Cognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
3.1. Knowing and Believing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
3.2. Apprehensions and Rationalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4. Intersections and Embeddings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
4.1. Embeddings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
4.2. The Sensible and the Intelligible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter 6: Enunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

0. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
1. Recapitulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
1.1. The Proprioceptive Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
1.2. The Field of Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
1.3. Discursive Regimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
2. Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
2.1. Enunciation and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
2.2. Enunciation and Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
2.3. Enunciation and Speech Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
3. Enunciative Praxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
4. The Operations of Praxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
4.1. Existential Tensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
4.2. The Existential Becoming of Semiotic Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
4.3. The Existential Becoming of the Instance of Discourse . . . . . . . . . . 202
5. The Semiosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Translators Preface
The Semiotics of Discourse is conceived as an introductory volume for anyone

seeking to know more about the development and central questions of narra-
tive semiotics. This translation makes such an introduction available for the
rst time to English-speaking readers. The Semiotics of Discourse was initially
published in 1998; the present translation is based upon the revised and up-
dated edition, which appeared in 2003. While it remains close to the original,
the revised edition is enriched in a number of ways. Points are further clari-
ed, more examples are oered, and the lists of suggested readings are updated.
Fontanilles book is well-organized and clearly written. The authors Foreword
goes a long way toward explaining the books basic impetus. Rather than summa-
rizing the book, then, I propose, rst, to provide some background information
on narrative semiotics, or Paris semiotics, as it is sometimes known. Second, I will
discuss some key terms that presented special challenges for the translation.
NARRATIVE SEMIOTICS: SOME BACKGROUND

To understand Fontanilles work, it is helpful rst to know something about his
teacher and collaborator, Algirdas Julien Greimas. Greimas may be called the
founder of narrative semiotics which, unlike other semiotic theories that fo-
cus on signs, examines signication in a broader sense and always in light of
the human world and its social contexts. Greimas understood his semiotics as
a scientic endeavor, at a crossroads between linguistics, anthropology, and
formal logic. Drawing upon structuralist principles like the concept of struc-
ture as dierence and the principle of binary oppositions, Greimas created a
new, generative semiotic model to describe how meaning is constituted in dis-
course. This model characterizes discourse production as unfolding in a series
of stages, starting with fundamental elementary structures and moving toward
surface manifestations. Narrative semiotic theory thus incorporates distinct lev-
els of analysis: an immanent level, or a kind of deep structure, and a manifest
xii The Semiotics of Discourse
level, or that which one encounters in a given semiotic object, such as a story.
Elaborating a theory of the elementary structure of signication, Greimas
created his best-known concept: the semiotic square, to which Fontanille devotes
a section in Chapter 2 of The Semiotics of Discourse. After developing a semiotic
model based upon the actions that take place in texts, Greimas and his colleagues
wanted to account for the fact that every action presupposes an ability to act. This
goal led to the development of a theory of modalities, based upon the common
modal verbs knowing (savoir), being-able-to (pouvoir), wanting-to (vouloir), and
having-to (devoir). Fontanille explicates the modalities in Chapter 4. Following
this innovation was the crafting of a discursive syntax of aspectualities. Aspect,
which deals with modulations of process, applies to both time and space, and
treats questions of beginning, lasting, and ending. Signicantly, aspectualities
disturb neat semiotic categories, reecting an acknowledgement that meaning
is often better described through degrees of a quality rather than sharp opposi-
tions. As The Semiotics of Discourse makes clear, narrative semiotics has undergone
a shift away from binary structures and toward emphasis on shades of meaning.
This shift led to the development of a semiotics of the passions, which Fontanille
discusses in Chapter 5. Fontanille co-authored with Greimas the most inuential
text in this area, The Semiotics of Passions: From States of Aairs to States of Feel-
ings (1993). Departing from traditional philosophical approaches to the passions,
which focus on individual passions such as anger or jealousy, Greimas and
Fontanille characterize passions as a mood pervading an entire discourse. The
passions are manifest through ruptures and signs of emotion. While the actantial
model (see Chapter 4) described subjects exclusively in terms of actions, the se-
miotics of passions characterizes subjects as endowed with an interior dimension.
This evolution beyond a strictly structural approach has been described as a turn
away from a semiotics of the discontinuous, where meaning is conceived as a set
of discrete units, toward a semiotics of the continuous, where meaning is under-
stood as a whole that is marked by modulations.
As Fontanille explains in Chapter 6, narrative semiotics also attends to the
role of the subjects perception. This interest bears witness to links with phenome-
nology, particularly the thought of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Thus in narrative semiotics we discover ways to describe the act of enunciation,
including the role of the subject of enunciation. The inheritors of Greimass legacy
form a diverse group of theorists who study signication in elds ranging from
the humanities and social sciences to the ne arts. They have undertaken analysis
in domains including architecture and space, law, advertising, communication
theory, visual media, music, and sacred texts. Along with Greimas and Fontanille,
these thinkers have created the theories and texts that serve as the basis for the
synthetic account oered in The Semiotics of Discourse.
Translators Preface xiii
NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION

The translators task is an especially daunting one, as it necessitates speaking in
the place of another. I have attempted to create a readable English rendition of
Fontanilles book while remaining faithful to the meaning and style of his
writing. The existence of Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Diction-
ary (1982) in English translation was a great help; in all cases I have fol-
lowed the English equivalents for key French terms proposed by the
translators of that work. Readers facing terminological hesitations would
do well to consult this source. Here, I oer a few notes on specic terms.
The distinction drawn by Ferdinand de Saussure between langue, langage,
and parole is invoked several times in The Semiotics of Discourse. I have generally
followed Wade Baskins (1959) translation of these terms as language, human
speech, and speaking. In a few instances, however, for the sake of clarity, I have
rendered langage as language system.
The adjective propre is dicult to translate. Instances of le corps propre have
been rendered the body proper, following English translations of Merleau-Pon-
ty. Another use of the adjective occurs in the expression le monde propre, rendered
here as proper world. Also related to phenomenology is the expression le corps
sensible, translated here as the sensing body.
The noun vise, verb viser, and adjective vis(e) occur quite frequently in The
Semiotics of Discourse. In this English translation, the noun vise is translated as
intent; likewise, the adjective vis(e) is intended and the verb viser becomes to
intend. Occasionally, this verbal usage gives rise to some slightly unusual-sound-
ing sentences. Nonetheless, I have preserved to intend in these cases in order
to make clear the relation to other instances where words belonging to the lexical
eld of vise occur. In a few cases, however, Fontanille uses viser in a non-technical
sense, and in those cases I have rendered it as the more common aim for.
The words nonc and nonciation pose a challenge to the reader who pos-
sesses some knowledge of the French language but who is unfamiliar with the
technical terms used in narrative semiotics. Following other published transla-
tions of work in semiotics, nonc is translated as utterance while nonciation is
enunciation.
Finally, academic disciplines are not divided up or identied in the same
way in France as they are in Anglophone countries. To give just one example, in
France, semiotics is commonly viewed as much more closely linked to linguistics
than is customarily the case in English-speaking institutions. There exists no real
English-language equivalent to the French discipline known as sciences du langage,
which I have chosen to render here as linguistic sciences.
Acknowledgments
Like the semiotic project itself, the translation of this book was in many senses
a collaborative endeavor. At Michigan Technological University, I would like to
acknowledge Robert R. Johnson, Chair of the Department of Humanities, Maxi-
milian Seel, Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts, and David Reed, Vice
President for Research, for providing material and moral support for this project.
I am also grateful to Jacques Fontanilles research team in semiotics at the Uni-
versit de Limoges for contributing nancial support. Samantha Andrus-Henry,
Michael Robertson, and Karen Springsteen furnished research assistance without
which the project may never have come to completion. Thanks also to Erin Smith
and Cynthia Weber for technical advice on the layout and formatting. I gratefully
acknowledge Thomas F. Broden of Purdue University, a wonderful teacher and
colleague, for introducing me to narrative semiotics, for mentoring me, and for
suggesting that I undertake this translation project. Finally, my deep gratitude
goes to Jacques Fontanille for his generosity and guidance during my time study-
ing with him in Paris as well as during the months and years necessary for me to
carry out this translation.
Grateful acknowledgement is hereby made to the French publisher for per-
mission to reprint this book in English translation:
The original edition of this work appeared under the title Smiotique du
discours, published by Presses Universitaires de Limoges (PULIM),
39c, rue Camille Gurin F87031 Limoges cedex
(Tel.: 05 55 01 95 35; Fax: 05 55 43 56 29)
<http://www.pulim.unilim.fr> Email: pulim@unilim.fr
1998 for the 1st edition, 2003 for the 2nd edition
Foreword
This book is a manual, addressed to students and to all those who are al-
ready somewhat informed about theories and methods proper to the lin-
guistic sciences, and who are interested in the theory of signication. It
oers a synthesis of the knowledge gained through research in semiotics.
Other semiotics manuals, conceived and published during the seventies and
eighties, give an overall view of the discipline, from the perspective of the struc-
tural analysis of texts. This book endeavors to present in sum what has hap-
pened since, while maintaining the earlier knowledge in the background.
The various areas of research in semiotics have developed from divergent or
sometimes even frankly polemical perspectives. To envisage synthesizing them
is therefore to accept partially eacing these divergences, keeping only the basic
lines of convergence; it is also to renounce taking into account certain proposi-
tions that are more dicult to integrate. Each of the areas of research drawn upon
herenotably those of Denis Bertrand, Jean-Franois Bordron, Jean-Claude Co-
quet, Jean-Marie Floch, Jacques Geninasca, and Claude Zilberbergwill lose in
specicity, of course, but it is my hope that the discipline as a whole will gain, as
is said today, in readability.
What, then, has happened? In the sixties, semiotics was constituted as a
branch of the linguistic sciences, at the conuence of linguistics, anthropology,
and formal logic. Like all the other linguistic sciences, semiotics went through the
period called structuralist, and came out equipped with a strong theory, a co-
herent method...and some unresolved problems. The structuralist period is over,
which does not, however, mean that the notions of structure and system are
no longer pertinent.
The context in which the linguistic sciences are evolving today is completely
dierent: structures have become dynamic, systems organize themselves, forms
are inscribed in topologies, and the eld of cognitive research has, whether one
delights in it or deplores it, taken the place of structuralism in the strict sense. In
xviii The Semiotics of Discourse
many respects, this change remains supercial, and does not deeply modify basic
hypotheses and methods that, beyond intellectual fads, dene the fundamental
spirit of the linguistic sciences. Nevertheless, and in keeping with its closest cous-
ins, semiotics has encountered over the course of the past fteen years, and en-
counters today, new questions; semiotics is discovering new elds of investigation,
and is progressively shifting its centers of interest.
From a general point of view, an episteme may be considered as a hierarchy
of systems organizing a eld of knowledge. But, from the point of view of a spe-
cic discipline, an episteme is also a principle of selection and regulation of what
must, at a given moment, be considered pertinent and scientic for that disci-
pline. Consequently, change often looks like an enlarging of perspectives, or even
a concerted transgression of epistemological constraints: what was forbidden is
questioned, and once again becomes possible; what was excluded comes back into
the eld of concerns. Theoretical and methodological innovation is often just a
meaning eect of a forgetting or of a previous foreclosure. Prudence thus dictates
that we carefully avoid decreeing epistemological ruptures and paradigm changes,
when we are simply dealing with a return to what was repressed.
Renewal is thus not renouncement. For example, structuralism posed as a
principle that only discontinuous phenomena and oppositions called discrete are
intelligible and pertinent. But this did not account for the processes of emergence
and installation of these phenomena and oppositions, processes during which
they go through phases where continuous modulations and gradual tensions pre-
dominate. From the point of view of language conceived as an abstract and closed
system, these previous phases are not pertinent; but discourse and its enunciation
are not simply the reection of language and its system; they include, above all,
the processes of the systems emergence and schematization, and particularly the
processes that give form to the system starting from the perception of the sensible
world. Today, we thus have to nuance the claim and say that, certainly, only dis-
continuities are intelligible, but they are completely intelligible only if one takes
into account the processes that lead to them. This means that these processes are
just as pertinent as the discrete oppositions that are their result.
Another example: structural semiotics, following the example of other dis-
ciplines of structuralist inspiration, extolled formalization: formalism, which is
sometimes presented in the form of a system of explicit, codied, and symbolic
notation, translates the purely conceptual, xed, and complete character of the
forms described. But, in conformity with the preceding remark, these completed
forms have gone through other phases, in which they were still unstable and in
process. Furthermore, in the course of these previous phases, these forms acquired
sensible and impressive properties, which formalization then makes them
lose. Symbolic formalism is thus no longer adapted to these new preoccupations;
Foreword xix
the form, of course, remains the intended object, with its most explicit possible
description; but, in this exercise, topological representation, for example, takes
the place of symbolic notation. More generally, we will prefer a schematization of
signication in process over its complete formalization.
All of the linguistic sciences that have sought to account for both forms and
the operations that give rise to them, that have tried to account for the phases of
the process as well as its result, have made the change: positions in an abstract
space, changeable but controlled by known parameters, now replace series of sym-
bols and their terminological correlates.
What has happened in semiotics is also and above all the appearance of new
research topics, which had formerly most often been dismissed because, even if
they arose well and truly from semiotics as a discipline, they had nevertheless been
excluded from it in the name of the principles of structuralism. Scientic objec-
tivity forbade, for example, that one take an interest in the implicit and the un-
derstated elements of discourse. They were nevertheless reintroduced during the
eighties, in the movement inspired on one hand by pragmatics, and on the other
by the linguistics of enunciation. Nevertheless, as early as the 1930s, Mikhail
Bakhtin was already opposing to formal linguistics the implicit and understated
status of the very meaning of what he called the utterance, and of the axiological
and ideological orientation of discourse.
For structuralism, one of the cardinal sins of scientic practice was mental-
ism; thus, subjective impression, introspection, intuitive psychology, etc. were
excluded from the eld of scientic reection, and, consequently, anything that
remotely could seem to give credence to these errors of thought. Gustave Guil-
laume was often rejected because he inscribed in the psyche of subjects of lan-
guage operative time, which was necessary according to him for the formation
of linguistic realities. Noam Chomskys work gave rise to lively debate, because he
attributed judgements of grammaticality to the intuition of speaking subjectsin
fact, to the introspection of professional linguists. Finally, Grard Genette chal-
lenged the notion of point of view as too dependent upon the psychology of
perception.
One thus can understand why semiotics took time to rediscover emotions
and passions, perception and its role in signication, relations with the sensible
world, as well as its involvement with phenomenology. However, it escapes no
one that concrete discourses put events and aective states into play, and that
perception organizes textual rhythms and descriptions. Semiotics took time be-
cause it was necessary to discover the means to treat all of these themes as proper-
ties of discourse, and not as properties of mind, as themes proper to a theory of
signication, and not to a branch of cognitive psychology. The phenomena were
recognized; they had to be constructed as objects of knowledge from the point of
xx The Semiotics of Discourse
view of the semiotics of discourse.

Today it seems settled: we may now speak of discursive passions and emo-
tions, in the same way that we may speak of the enunciation of discourse, or of a
narrative or argumentative logic of discourse. And without for all that reducing
discourse to the status of a mere symptom, revelatory of a psychic state that is
exterior to it. Semiotics, which has made discourse not only its domain of explora-
tion but, even more, the object of its scientic project, today thus has the capacity
to take up these new questions without for all that renouncing what founds it as
a discipline unto itself.
Here, I will not insist any longer on these new preoccupations: these vari-
ous aspects will be amply discussed in what follows, or have already been treated
elsewhere. I would simply like to recall two essential dimensions of this shift of
interest: (1) a shift away from structures, toward operations and acts, (2) a shift
away from discrete oppositions, toward tensive and gradual dierences. The rst
shift leads to a general syntax of discursive operations; one then considers the
universe of signication as a praxis rather than as a stable set of xed forms. The
second shift leads to a semantics of tensions and of degrees, which is compatible
but in competition with classical dierential semantics.
This book is a manual, as I said above. As such, it must obey certain basic
principles that are supposed to facilitate access to the results presented: the results
of research must appear in a systematic and coherent form, both explicit and
usable. Most often, the work of gathering such results is left up to time, and to
pedagogues. Consequently, quite often the results of research are only usable in
teaching ten or fteen years later.
Here, I am taking the risk of not waiting for time to work in my place. It is a
risk, because time validates or invalidates, retains or rejects into oblivion hypoth-
eses and propositions of research; little by little time lters, sorts, and constructs
the conditions for complete coherence and systematicity, and for making research
results explicit. Thus I also must lter, sort, retain and reject, and organize: in the
place of time, this means adopting a point of view.
It is the choice of a general point of view, maintained with perseverance,
which will provide my attempt at synthesis with its coherence, its systematicity,
and its explicit character. This point of view will be that of discourse in action, of
living discourse, of signication in a state of becoming.
This choice will be presented and justied in Chapter 1, From the Sign to Dis-
course: to choose the point of view of discourse in action is, in fact, to choose to
observe the way in which semiotic praxis schematizes our experience in order to
make languages out of it, rather than to observe and to divide up minimal units.
The semiotics that I envision, from the perspective dened by A.J. Greimas some
thirty years ago, is that of signifying wholes, which are in a state of construction
Foreword xxi
and becoming.
This choice will then be put into practice with respect to the basic forms
with which any semiotic theory must be equipped in Chapter 2, The Elementary
Structures. In fact, if the pertinent unit of the semiotics of discourse cannot be
the sign, it is because semiotics is searching for a system of values that organizes
each signifying whole. Here, this system of values takes on the form of a tensive
structure.
Chapter 3 is the one in which all of the consequences of the proposed choice
are envisioned: it is entitled Discourse, and it proposes a general representation of
discourse as eld (a topological form), as well as an examination of dierent types
and levels of schematization, schemas of tension and canonical schemas.
In Chapters 4 and 5 (respectively: Actants, Actors, and Modalities; and Action,
Passion, and Cognition), other consequences will be drawn from this initial choice,
with respect to classic themes of semiotic theory. Regarding actantial theory, I will
show that the concurrence between two logics, the logic of places and the logic of
forces, leads us to distinguish the positional actants of discourse and the transfor-
mational actants of narrative. Regarding the basic dimensions of discourse, I will
show how the perspective of discourse in action modies the respective logics of
action, of passion, and of cognition.
Finally, the concluding chapter (Chapter 6, Enunciation) endeavors to make
a place for the concept of enunciation. In fact, this concept has given rise to many
diculties: after having been forgotten by structuralism, it has become prepon-
derant in post-structural linguistics; even Guillaumism reconverted after the fact
into an enunciative theory. After having been diminished, enunciation then be-
came everythingeverything that is not reducible to a closed and xed system.
Thus, at times, the subject of enunciation is strictly identied with the instance
of discourse in general. To explain everything, as everyone knows, is to explain
nothing. This is why I will attempt in conclusion to specify what is meant by the
concept of enunciation from the perspective of discourse in action.
Chapter One
From the Sign to Discourse
0. INTRODUCTION
In the history of theories of signication, at the end of the nineteenth century
with Peirce and the beginning of the twentieth century with Saussure, a new disci-
pline called semiotics was established, which undertakes to establish the typology
of signs and of sign systems. Today, however, this discipline is strongly oriented
toward a theory of discourse, and the focus has shifted toward signifying wholes.
This chapter sets out to reexamine theories of the sign in this new light: What
may be retained of theories of signication from the perspective of a semiotics of
discourse? What happens when the question of minimal units of signication is
bracketed, and when it is replaced by that of signifying wholes and the acts that
produce discourses? One then notices that perception and sensibility reemerge.
Among the great diversity of conceptions of meaning, at least one constant
stands out: signication as a product, as a conventional or already-established
relation, is almost always distinguished from signication in action, or living sig-
nication, which always seems more dicult to apprehend. However, despite this
diculty, it is the second perspective that I will choose, because the empirical eld
in which semiotics is practiced is discourse and not the sign: the unit of analysis is
a text, either verbal or non-verbal.
Examined from this perspective, theories of the sign propose four principle
properties of signication. From Saussure, I will retain only, on the one hand,
the co-existence of two worlds, the interior world of signieds and the exterior
world of signiers, and, on the other hand, the denition of signication as a sys-
tem of values. From Peirce, furthermore, I will retain above all the preeminence
of the interpretant, that is, the preeminence of the point of view that orients the
intent toward meaning, and the importance of the ground, which imposes the
limits of a domain of pertinence on the apprehension of signication.
The two planes of language now replace the two sides of the sign: no matter
what names they are given, the two planes of language are separated by a perceiv-
2 The Semiotics of Discourse
ing body that takes a position in the world of meaning, that denes, thanks to this
taking of position, the boundary between what belongs to the order of expres-
sion (the exterior world) and what belongs to the order of content (the interior
world). It is also this body that unites these two planes in a common language.
The sensible and the intelligible are thus inescapably linked in the act that
unites the two planes of language. The semiotics of discourse, like the cognitive
sciences, can no longer ignore this interaction of the sensible and the intelligible.
In fact, the formation of categories and signication in action are themselves submit-
ted to the regime of the sensible: the semantics of the prototype teaches us among
other things that there can be several styles of categorization, and we will see that
the distinction between these dierent styles rests upon the weight that they grant
respectively to the sensible and to the intelligible.
1. SIGN AND SIGNIFICATION

1.1. The Diversity of Approaches to Meaning
1.1.1. Meaning, Signication, and Signiance1
We have at our disposal three terms to designate semiotic phenomena in general:
meaning, signication, and signiance.
a. Meaning
Meaning is rst of all a direction: saying that an object or a situation has a
meaning, in eect, is to say that it tends toward something.2 This tending to-
ward and this direction have often been interpreted, wrongly, as belonging
to reference. Reference is actually only one of the directions of meaning; oth-
ers are possible. For example, a text can tend toward its own coherence, which
makes us anticipate its meaning; or then again, a given form can tend to-
ward a typical form that is already known, which will permit us to recognize
its meaning. Meaning thus designates a more or less knowable eect of direc-
tion and tension, produced by some object, some practice, or some situation.
Meaning is in the end the undened material with which semiotics concerns
itself, which semiotics endeavors to organize and to make intelligible. This mate-
rial (purport in the work of Louis Hjelmslev) can be physical, psychological, so-
cial, or cultural in nature. But this material is neither inert nor simply submitted
to the laws of the physical, psychological, or social worlds, because it is rife with
tensions and directions that constitute so many appeals to signication, pressures,
or resistances for an interpretant. The minimal condition for any material to
produce an identiable meaning-eect is thus that it be submitted to what I will
call an intentional morphology.
From the Sign to Discourse 3
b. Signication
Signication is the product organized by analysis, for example, the content of
meaning assigned to an expression, once this expression has been isolated
(through segmentation) and one has veried that this content is specically at-
tached to it (through commutation). Signication is thus linked to a unit, no
matter what its sizethe optimal unit here, remember, is discourse, and it
rests upon the relation between an element of expression and an element of con-
tent: thus one always speaks of the signication of ... something. I will say
consequently that signication, as opposed to meaning, is always articulated. In
fact, because it is only recognizable after segmentation and commutation, one
can only apprehend it through the relations that the isolated unit maintains
with other units, or that its signication maintains with other signications that
are available for the same unit. Just as the notion of direction is indissocia-
ble from meaning, that of articulation is, by denition, linked to signication.
The notion of articulation has long been reduced to that of difference, and even
of difference bewteen discontinuous units. This is, however, only one of the pos-
sible scenarios. For example, a semantic category like that of heat is a gradual cat-
egory, and its various degrees (i.e., cold/glacial) are distinguishable without nec-
essarily being opposed; better yet, if the gradient is oriented, the signification of
certain of its degrees, for example lukewarm, will be different according to wheth-
er the gradient is oriented positively toward hot (lukewarm is then pejorative), or
positively toward cold (lukewarm is then meliorative); signification thus depends
upon the polarization of the gradient. Furthermore, depending on the culture and
language, sometimes even depending on the discourse, the relative position of
degrees changes; thus the degree lukewarm will appear closer to the cold pole or
to the hot pole: if one travels through the gradient in the direction of its polarity,
from the negative toward the positive, one encounters a threshold that determines
the appearance of the degree lukewarm. The types of signifying articulations are
thus very diverse: oppositions, hierarchies, degrees, thresholds, and polarizations.
c. Signiance
Signiance designates the totality of meaning-eects in a structured whole, eects
that cannot be reduced to those of the units that make up this whole; signiance is
therefore not the sum of signications. This term has had many senses, especially
psychoanalytic ones, whose value is dicult to verify. But it introduces principally
a question of method: should analysis be conducted starting from the smallest units
and moving toward the biggest, or inversely? The concept of signication, in the strict
sense, would correspond to the rst option, and that of signiance to the second
option.
The term signiance is scarcely ever used anymore, because it presupposes a
hierarchy that is no longer pertinent today; in fact, it was only justied in a scien-
tic context in which it was still believed that the meaning of units determines the
meaning of the larger wholes that encompass them. Having chosen a semiotics of
discourse, we must assume that global signication, the signication of discourse,
orders local signication, the signication of the units that compose it; I will
show, for example, how discursive orientation imposes itself upon the very syntax
of sentences. This does not mean, however, that micro-analysis no longer has any
pertinence; it must simply remain under the control of macro-analysis.
Given that almost no one today believes that the local determines the
global, the term signication has now most often taken on a generic sense, en-
compassing that of signiance. This is the sense in which I will use it.
1.1.2. Semiotics and Semantics

mile Benveniste proposed distinguishing two orders of signication: that of the
units of language, conventional, xed in usage or in the linguistic system; and that
of discourse, in other words that of concrete linguistic realizations, of signifying
wholes, produced by an act of enunciation. The semiotic order corresponds, accord-
ing to him, to this conventional relation that unites the meaning of units of language
and their morphological or lexical expression, and the semantic order corresponds
to the signication of concrete enunciations, taken up by instances of discourse.
This distinction has not been adopted by linguists, who reserve the designa-
tion semantics for the study of contents of meaning in and of themselves, notably
in the linguistic domain, and the designation semiotics for the study of signifying
processes in general. But the question posed is still pertinent: beyond the relations
between the local and the global (discussed above), it is now the question of
the two modes of approaches to language that arises: on the one hand, a static
approach, which concerns only units that are instituted, stocked in a collective
memory in the form of a virtual system; and, on the other hand, a dynamic ap-
proach, that is to say one sensible to acts and operations, which concerns the liv-
ing signication produced by concrete discourses.
The semiotics that grows out of Peirces work has also proposed distinguishing seman-
tics (the signification of units), syntax (the rules for ordering units), and pragmatics (the
manipulation of units and of their ordering by subjects and for individual and collective
subjects, in a communicative situation). The solution is different, but the question
treated is identical: is discourse simply a putting into play, an individual appropria-
tion of units that are instituted and organized into systems, or does discourse entail its
own rules, and its own meaning-effects? But, if we adopt the point of view of discourse
in action, the distinction between semantics, syntax, and pragmatics proves to be irrel
1.1.3. Why Should We Choose?

The solution that consists in separating the question of meaning into two or three
orders of signication can only be provisional, a historically necessary solution,

but one which quickly comes up against questions that it has diculty resolv-
ing. For example, everyone can agree on distinguishing a units meaning in lan-
guage from its meaning in discourse; the distinction poses no insurmountable
questions as long as meaning in discourse is one of the possible meanings of
meaning in language: we will then say that discourse selects one of the senses
of a word; but what about when the two signications no longer overlap? Of
course, a meaning in discourse that is not foreseen in language requires a
supplementary eort of interpretation, and a dierent procedure of interpreta-
tion from that which consists only in drawing from a stock of virtual forms,
but this other procedure is possible and legitimate. Quite often, although this
is not necessary, this new sense is produced by a rhetorical gure. It even hap-
pens that certain of these unforeseeable senses come back in language, for ex-
ample in the form of a catachresis (such as when we say the wing of a building).
This last remark clearly indicates the level of pertinence of the distinctions
that I have mentioned up until now: it is a matter of the procedures of encoding
and decoding of languages, a coding that is facilitated or hindered, automated
or more elaborated, according to whether the meaning of the units is or is not
already known. But these distinctions, among several modalities of encoding and
decoding of languages, tell us nothing about the process of signication itself, as it
is put into play by acts of discourse.
Furthermore, the reasoning must not, in this respect, be based solely on ver-
bal language, which disposes of a very extensive stock of codied forms, because,
as soon as one takes on non-verbal languagesgestural, visual, etc., one is
surely obligated to admit that the place of invention, by discourse, of expressions
and of their signication is much more important there. For, from the point of
view of the organization of units as a system, languages are far from homogenous.
If one can establish the languages [langues] of a verbal language [langage], one
is far o the mark as concerns painting, opera, or gesturality in general which,
however, are signifying practices; one may even ask whether this enterprise, which
would consist in establishing the system of units endowed with meaning, has any
pertinence in the case of non-verbal languages. And even if it were pertinent, it
would be necessary, as for verbal languages, to wait centuries, if not millennia, for
the necessity of translation between systemsas was the case between the oral
system and the written systemto give rise to a stable division of units and to the
production of acceptable grammars.
Approaching phenomena of signification by way of signs (units) has been tried: it

proved to be not very useful, because once the sign-units were established, it was
necessary to invent their ordering, and notably the association between sensorial
channels foreign to one another; it led to atomism, and even to vertiginous clas-
sification (in one letter to Lady Welby, Peirce congratulates himself for being able
to reduce (!) the 59,049 arithmetically calculable classes of signs to 66 truly
pertinent classes). Furthermore, this approach is a factor contributing to the bal-
kanization of the discipline of semiotics and of its methods, for, because the inte-
gration of all the classes of signs into a single discourse at the moment of anal-
ysis is especially arduous, semiotic studies tend to be specialized according to
classes of signs (literary semiotics, pictorial semiotics, semiotics of cinema, etc.).
On the other hand, the linguistic sciences as a whole are oriented toward a
formalization of operations and of processes, and semiotics participates in
this movement: Peircean semiotics today emphasizes the interpretive trajec-
tory rather than the classication of signs, and the semiotics of discourse is
directed toward an exploration of fundamental acts, notably predication and
assumption, rather than toward a qualitative or statistical classication of cor-
responding substantives and predicates. Taken as a whole, this new preoc-
cupation concerns praxis, whether it be semiotic praxis or enunciative praxis.
I will now present briey the two principle theories of the sign, that of Sau-
ssure and that of Peirce, from the chosen perspective of a theory of discourse, in
order to arrive at a synthetic theory of signication that goes beyond the simple
division of signs.
1.2. Theories of the Sign

1.2.1. The Saussurian Sign
According to Saussure, the sign is composed of two sides, the signier and the signi-
ed; the signier is dened as a sound-image and the signied as a concept; the
rst thus takes shape as an expression based on a sensorial and physical substance,
and the second as a content based on a psychological substance. But, once they are
united in a single sign, they have no status other than a semiotic one, and their senso-
rial, physical, and psychological properties are no longer taken into consideration.
The relation between the two sides of the sign is called necessary and con-
ventional; that is to say, this relation is founded upon a reciprocal presupposi-
tion that owes nothing to their original substantial properties. Furthermore, this
relation is entirely determined by the value of the sign, that is, by the dierent
oppositions that its signier and its signied maintain with the other signiers
and the other signieds of the same language. In synchronynamely, in a given
state of languagethis value is unchanging; on the other hand, in diachrony, that
is to say in the history of the dierent states of language, this value evolves. The
link that unites the two faces of the sign can even, in the course of this evolution,
come completely undone.
The notion of system follows directly from the denition of linguistic value,
because if the value of a sign depends upon a network of oppositions, and if this
network of oppositions must be, for each sign, stable in synchrony, then the whole
network of oppositions of all the signs forms a stable system. It has only a virtual
existence, except in grammars and dictionaries, but it is available at any moment
for users of the language. Linguistics thus has for its task, according to Saussure,
the study of this system of values.
Furthermore, Jean-Franois Bordron, following Saussure, has emphasized the
irreducible duality of value: in the domain of economics, for example, the value
of a certain item appreciates both with respect to all other items in circulation
at a given moment, and with respect to the dierent moments in its history. In
linguistics, this duality of value leads to the distinction between the synchronic
and diachronic functioning of languages. In narrative semiotics, value is just
as much that of a semantic dierence as that which, determining the relation
between narrative subjects and objects, governs the syntax of the narrative and the
becoming of the actants.
To speak of a system of values is thus to invoke both the relations that dene
the value of each unit of the system, and the rules that determine the overall evo-
lution of this system, and thus, consequently, the evolution of the value of each
one of its units.
The notions of system and of value, from which the question of the sign in Sau-
ssure cannot be separated, necessitate the exclusion of the referent: the real or
imaginary thing to which the sign refers is not linguistically knowable. This exclu-
sion is most often presented as a methodological and epistemological decision: to
exclude the worldly referent is to procure for linguistics its proper object as a sci-
ence, and its autonomy as a discipline. But Saussures position with respect to the
referent is in fact a consequence of his definition of the sign, because the same
goes for all the substantial properties of the two sides of the sign which, without
deriving from the referent, are nevertheless excluded in the same way; in fact, the
system of values can tell us nothing about them, either. The link between sign and
referent is called arbitrarywe could also say contingent, that is to say that the
system of values does not provide any satisfactory explanation of it: a link consid-
ered as unintelligible is thus declared arbitrary. Let us note, even so, that this link
is not intrinsically unintelligible, arbitrary, and contingent, and that it is the point
of view adopted, that of the sign and of value, that makes reference unknowable.
Envisioning the broadening of this reection to other types of signs than those of
natural languages, Saussure lays out the project of a semiology that would incorporate
linguistics properly speaking: there one would nd not only signiers whose physical
substance is dierent from that of verbal language, but also signs whose fundamen-
tal relation is neither necessary nor conventional; for example, systems of visual
signs.
We see here that if we consider the denition and delimitation of units as sec-
ondary, the question treated by Saussure may be reduced to two essential points:
1. the relation between perception and signication: Starting from our

perceptions, signications emerge; our perceptions of the exterior world,
of its physical and biological forms, provide signiers; starting from our
perceptions of the interior world, concepts, impressions, and feelings,
signiers are formed;
2. the formation of a system of values: The two types of perception
interact, and this interaction denes a system of dierential
positions, each position being characterized according to the two
regimes of perception; the whole is then called a system of values.
Underlying the theory of the sign, a theory of signication comes to light in

Saussure; and this theory, notably through the notion of image (acoustic or
visual images, mental or psychological images), is rooted in perception. The tra-
jectory leading from substance to form, of which we have retained only the nal
result, is, in fact, what leads from the sensible world to the signifying world.
1.2.2. The Peircean Sign

While Saussure conceived the sign as a reciprocal presupposition between two
distinct sides, Peirce denes it from the start through a dissymmetrical relation:
something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It is
generally said that the Saussurian sign is dyadic (two sides, a signier and a sig-
nied) and the Peircean sign, triadic. But if we look carefully at the denition
proposed by Peirce himself, we nd that it comprises, in fact, four elements: (1)
the something that stands (2) for another something, (3) to somebody, and
(4) in some respect or capacity. It is also commonly said that, while Saussure
excluded the referent from the denition of the sign and, consequently, from
linguistics and semiology, Peirce accords it an essential place. This too-brief cita-
tion does not allow us to judge. Let us look more closely at the whole denition:
A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some
respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an
equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the
interpretant of the rst sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that
object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have called the ground
of the representamen.3
Let us count: (1) representamen, (2) object, (3) interpretant, (4) ground; that
makes four. To which is sometimes added the distinction between dynamic object
(the object insofar as the representamen intends it) and immediate object (that
which is selected in the object by the interpretant); that is to say, ve elements.

The signs functioning may be summarized thus: a dynamic objectan object
or situation perceived in all their complexityis put into relation with a repre-
sentamenthat which represents it, but only from a certain point of view (in
some respect or capacity), designated here as the ground. This point of view, or
ground, selects in the dynamic object a pertinent aspect of this object, called the
immediate object, and the joining of the representamen and the immediate object
occurs in the name of or for or thanks to a fth element, the interpretant.
Even if the dynamic object could pass for a referent, we can certainly see that
it is implicated in semiosis only through the mediation of a ground and of the
immediate object.
Umberto Eco brings the total number up to six elements: (1) the ground furnishes on
the one hand a point of view toward the dynamic object, but delimits on the other
hand the content of a signified; (2) the immediate object is on the one hand selected
in the dynamic object by the ground, and interpreted on the other hand by the in-
terpretant; (3) the dynamic object motivates, in accordance with its morphology, the
choice of the representamen, which, itself associated with the interpretant, permits
bringing out the signified from it. Eco finishes by reducing the whole thing to three ele-
ments, decreeing that ground, signified, and interpretant are one and the same thing!
These few remarks are meant to encourage prudence: (1) the Peircean sign comprises
three elements only for those among his exegetes who have decided that it would be so;
(2) Peirces body of work is so vast and diverse that several glosses and interpretations
may coexist; some are satisfied with a few simple solutions, which others then challenge.
At the very least, it is quite clear that the referent, in the sense that it is habitual-
ly meant, that is to say the reality to which the sign refers, is still out of reach here:
the dynamic object is already, at least in part, a percept, and the immediate object,
its pertinent aspect, only exists under a semiotic condition, the point of view
that the ground imposes. In sum, the Peircean object is just a pure artifact brought
about in the mind of a subject by the representamen; and, as Umberto Eco explains,
the dynamic object is only a set of possibilities, submitted to a semantic instruction.
As for the immediate object, it is no longer anything but a mental image of the
preceding object, and an impoverished image, in that only a part of the possibili-
ties are retained and presented to the mind. The world intended, in the Peircean
conception of the sign, is a virtual set of possibilities, or a perceived world, or even
a part extracted from a categorized world: that is to say that the referent, if there is
one, is already an organized semiotic universe, submitted to modal, perceptive, and
dierential determinations. The Peircean theory of the sign tells us nothing about
the emergence of a new signication, or about its completion and xing, but only
grasps a moment in a vast, innite semiosis, without origin and without horizon.
Consequently, if one puts to the side the question of the division into units,
one notices immediately that the Peircean conception of the sign also poses the
question of the relations between perception and signication, but by considering
them somehow in the movement that gives rise to the second beginning with
the rst, and not as well-delimited instances. In fact, two sensible elements, the
representamen and the dynamic object, are submitted to a reciprocal principle of
selection: the representamen can only be associated with the object under the con-
trol of an interpretant, and the object can only be associated with the representamen
from a certain point of view, the ground.
In both cases, this selection of the pertinent relations presents itself as a guid-
ance of the ux of attention. In the rst case, the interpretantwhat is nally in-
tended by the whole processindicates in what direction the choice of representa-
men must lead the signication; in the second, the groundthat starting from
which the object is graspedindicates what it is necessary to retain of the dynamic
object.
This guidance of the ux of attention may be understood (1) on the one hand
as the indication of a direction and of a tension, which we have already dened
as an intentionality, brought about by a morphology, and, (2) on the other hand,
as the denition of a domain of pertinence. These operations of semiotic guid-
ance correspond, for the rst, intentional tension, to intent, and, for the second,
the delimitation of the domain of pertinence, to apprehension; intent concerns
here the axis representamenimmediate objectinterpretant, while apprehension
concerns the axis dynamic objectgroundimmediate object. Intent and apprehen-
sion, independently of any Peircean perspective, and from a more generally phe-
nomenological point of view, are the two elementary operations thanks to which
signication may emerge from perception.
But now two essential conditions for speaking of discursive signication are
lacking: on the one hand the body, seat of perceptions and emotions and center
of discourse, and on the other hand value, the systems of value without which
signication is no longer at all intelligible.
2. PERCEPTION AND SIGNIFICATION

2.1. Elements to Remember
Examining theories of the sign provides valuable information about the
way in which signication takes shape starting from sensation and percep-
tion. In fact, if we set aside everything in these theories that aims at dividing
sign-units, there remains nevertheless a set of properties that seem pertinent
from the perspective of discourse, but that must now be readjusted, namely:
1. the division and coexistence of two sensible worlds, the exterior world
and the interior world;
2. the choice of a point of view (intent), which guides and directs the ux of
attention under the control of an intentional morphology;
3. the delimitation of a domain of pertinence for the signifying
process (apprehension);
4. the formation of a system of values, thanks to a bringing together
of the two worlds that form semiosis.
2.2. The Two Planes of a Language

2.2.1. Expression and Content
Once the perspective of the sign is abandoned, it is that of languages,
as they appear in discourses, that takes its place. A language is the set-
ting into relationship of at least two dimensions, called the plane of expres-
sion and the plane of content, which correspond respectively to what we
have until now designated as the exterior world and the interior world.
This change in terminology merits some commentary: the boundary between
the interior and the exterior is not given in advance. It is not the boundary
of a consciousness, but simply the one that a living being puts into place each
time that it accords a signication to an event, a situation, or an object. If, for
example, I observe that the changes in a fruits color may be put into relation with
its degrees of ripeness, the changes will belong to the plane of expression, and the
degrees of ripeness, to the plane of content. But I can also put the same degrees of
ripeness into relation with one of the dimensions of time, duration; in this case,
the degrees of ripeness belong to the plane of expression, and time, to the plane
of content.
Louis Hjelmslev, in his Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, maintains that
the dierence between expression and content is not useful, because it is unsta-
ble, determined and not determining, and must be established and xed for each
analysis. The interest is thus shifted: instead of being xed upon the presumed
existence of the two planes of language, it involves the way in which the boundary
between them is instituted.
This boundary is nothing other than the position that the subject of per-
ception claims in the world, when he or she endeavors to discern its meaning.
Starting from this perceptive position, an interior domain and an exterior domain
take shape, between which semiotic dialogue will be instituted; but no content
is, outside of this taking of position by the subject, destined to belong to one do-
main rather than to another, because the position of the boundary, by denition,
depends upon the position of a body that, in order to appropriate a signifying
world, moves ad libitum.
Some language systems [langages], notably verbal ones, are governed by languages
[langues], in which the distribution between expression (phonematic or graphematic)
and content (semantic and syntactic) seems stable and fixed in advance. But it is suf-
ficient to consider what happens in texts in order to find that other semiotic relations
are just as pertinent, and that figurative contents, for example, can become expres-
sions for narrative or symbolic contents. In the case of non-verbal language systems,
it is extremely difficult to determine the limits of a grammar of expression: each con-
crete realization actually shifts the boundary between the content and the expression.
Such a conception could lead us to think that semiosis, whose operator is al-
ways shifting between two worlds whose boundaries are constantly renegotiat-
ed, is an ungraspable function. But it is only ungraspable from the perspective
of a theory of the sign: in this way we can explain why the semiologies of the
1960s so often fell back on rigid and normative systems of communication,
such as trac lights, for example. We can also understand why non-verbal se-
miologies were then put under the control of linguistic semiology, the only
one that then seemed graspable, through grammatical and lexical conven-
tions, and which, because of this, too quickly became the model for all others.
But, from the perspective of discourse in action, with a theory of the eld of
discourse and a theory of enunciation, the taking of position that determines
the division between expression and content becomes the rst act of the instance
of discourse, through which it institutes its eld of enunciation and its deixis. This
taking of position is declined in two acts, as I have already suggested, on the one
hand intent, which directs and orients the ux of attention, and on the other hand
apprehension, which delimits the domain of pertinence: ux, direction, orientation,
boundary, eld, and domains are the concepts that allow us to describe the taking
of position and that are substituted for the simple reciprocal presupposition
discovered a posteriori between expression and content.
2.2.2. Exteroceptivity and Interoceptivity

One could, to refer to one of Greimass classic propositions (in Structural Seman-
tics), label in yet another way this arrangement constituted by the two planes of
language, by adopting a resolutely perceptive point of view. The plane of ex-
pression could be called exteroceptive, the plane of content, interoceptive, and the
position taken by the subject of perception could be called proprioceptive, because,
in fact, it is a matter of the position of ones imaginary body, or the body proper.4
The body proper is a sensory envelope (a boundary), which thus determines
an interior domain and an exterior domain. Everywhere it moves in the world
where it takes position, it determines a split between the exteroceptive universe,
the interoceptive universe, and the proprioceptive universe, between the perception
of the exterior world, the perception of the interior world, and the perception
of modications of the boundary-envelope itself. In each new position, it thus
recongures the series intero-extero-proprioception.
Signication thus supposes to begin with a world of perceptions, where
the body proper, by taking position, installs globally two macro-semiotics, whose
boundary can always move, but that each have a specic form. On the one hand,
interoceptivity gives rise to a semiotics that has the form of a natural language,
and, on the other hand, exteroceptivity gives rise to a semiotics that has the form
of a semiotics of the natural world. Signication is thus the act that unites these
two macro-semiotics, and it does so thanks to the body proper of the subject of
perception, a body proper that belongs simultaneously to the two macro-semiot-
ics between which it takes position.
From the perspective of enunciation, the body proper is treated as a simple
point, a center of reference for deixis. But, from the perspective of logics of the
sensible, for example, it is treated as an envelope, sensitive to solicitations and to
contacts that come either from the outside (sensations) or from the inside (emo-
tions and aects). On other occasions, it is considered as sensitive esh, a driving
force, whose dynamic plasticity allows it to adjust to the sensitive morphologies
of the natural world, or to adapt them to itself.
Then, the reection on the semiotic function opens onto a veritable semiot-
ics of the signifying body. And the body proper is no longer in this case a simple
common denominator (the neutral term in the pair exteroceptive/interocep-
tive), but a complex semiotic operator, whose multiple facets (reference-point,
memory-envelope, esh-movement, etc.) have well specied functions.
If one can speak of macro-semiotics, it is because they are already articulated;

it is futile in fact to wonder how things began: we swim in a world that is already
meaningful, we are ourselves party to it, and our perceptions of it also have a semiotic
form. But, each time we take position in this world, each time we submit it to a
point of view, we again perform the act starting from which signification takes shape.
2.2.3. The Isomorphism of the Two Planes

Hjelmslev points out that the two planes of a language must be hetero-
geneous but isomorphic: on the one hand, their contents must be het-
erogeneous, on the other, their forms must be able to be superimposed.
When redness means only redness, we learn nothing new; if redness means
ripeness, on the other hand, our knowledge about the world takes a step. But the
heterogeneity of the contents must not prevent the uniting of the two macro-
semiotics: the sequence of chromatic degrees thus must be isomorphic to the
sequence of degrees of ripeness.
Isomorphism is not given, but constructed through the uniting of the two
planes of language. The proof of this is that a set of elements, able to be put
into relation with several other sets, will change form with each new association.
Color, for example, can be put into relation with ripeness, with emotion, with
trac lights, etc. It does not result from this, however, that these dierent sets are
themselves able to be superimposed upon one another: with each new bringing
together, a new isomorphism is dened. It is thus that chromatic degrees are not
the same, according to whether color expresses ripeness or emotion; inversely, the
degrees of emotion are not the same, according to whether they are expressed by
color or by gestuality.
The semiotic function is the name of this uniting of the two planes of language,
which establishes their isomorphism. Before their uniting, the relation of the
two planes may be called arbitrary; but this does not make a lot of sense, because
this relation is then only one among all of the possible relations, which are innite
in number. Arbitrariness is in sum only the eect of our incapacity to nd our
way in the midst of an innity of possible combinations, and, when all is said and
done, the avowal of our powerlessness to understand what is happening. After
their uniting, the relation between the two planes is said to be necessary, in the
sense that one without the other cannot signify; but again, as soon as one remem-
bers that the boundary between the two worlds moves ceaselessly, with the body
proper, one must agree that it is a matter of a quite provisional necessity, and that
it is valid, at most, for one particular discourse and for the position that denes it.
Or, from another point of view, that the necessity in this case is that procured by
the body propers taking of position, in that it provisionally reduced the range of
possibilities to a single one; the necessary link between expression and content
is, in sum, only an a posteriori meaning-eect of this reduction.
2.3. The Sensible and the Intelligible

2.3.1. The Formation of Systems of Values
a. Presence, Intent, and Apprehension
To perceive something, even before recognizing it as a gure belonging to one
of the two macro-semiotics, is to perceive a presence more or less intensely. In
fact, before identifying a gure of the natural world, or even a notion or a senti-
ment, we perceive (or sense) its presence, that is to say something that, on the
one hand, occupies a certain position relative to our own position and a cer-
tain area, and which, on the other hand, aects us with a certain intensity; in
sum, something that orients our attention, that resists it, or oers itself to it.
Such is the minimum that is necessary in order to be able to speak of presence.
Presence, the sensible quality par excellence, is thus an initial semiotic articula-
tion of perception. The aect that touches us, this intensity that characterizes our
relation with the world, this tension toward the world, is a matter of intentional
intent; position, area, and quantity characterize, on the other hand, the limits and
the properties of the domain of pertinence, that is to say, those of apprehension.
Presence thus engages the two elementary semiotic operations that I have put for-
ward: intent, which is more or less intense, and apprehension, which is more or less
extended. In Peircean terms, let us recall from our discussion above, intent would
characterize the interpretant, and apprehension, the ground. More generally, they
are the two modalities of the guidance of the ux of attention.
But a system of values can take shape only if dierences appear and if these
dierences form a coherent network: this is the condition of the intelligible.
b. The Intelligible and Values

If we start o from the sensible apprehension of a quality, redness for example,
the experiments of Berlin and Kay, among others, show us that we never perceive
red, but a certain position in a palette of reds, a position that we identify as more
or less red than the others.5 How may values be formed under these condi-
tions? It is necessary and sucient that two degrees of color be put into relation
with two degrees of another perception, for example with the taste of fruits that
have these colors. On this condition only, we may say that there is a dierence
between the degrees of color, as between the degrees of taste. And the value of
a quality of color will then be dened by its position at the same time with re-
spect to other qualities of color, and with respect to dierent qualities of taste.
Let us return to simple presence: if we perceive a variation of intensity of pres-
ence, it remains insignicant as long as we cannot put it into relation with another
variation. But, as soon as variations of intensity are associated with a change in
distance, for example, dierence is instituted, and we may even say what is hap-
pening: something approaches or recedes in depth. The space of presence then
becomes intelligible, and we may utter (predicate) its transformations.
On the whole, the system of values thus results from the union of an intent
and an apprehension, an intent that directs attention toward a rst variation,
called intensive, and an apprehension that puts this rst variation into relation
with another, called extensive, and thus delimits the common contours of their
respective domains of pertinence.
2.3.2. Form and Substance

The preceding developments work toward shedding light on the relations between
substance and form. Hjelmslev claried Saussures theory by stressing the fact
that the two planes united in a semiotic function were rst of all substances: af-
fective or conceptual, biological or physical; these substances correspond roughly
to Saussures sound images and concepts. But their uniting thanks to the se-
miotic function converts them into forms: form of expression and content form.
It is now clear that the process of formation of values evoked above corresponds
quite exactly to the passage from substance to form: substance is sensibleper-
ceived, felt, sensed, form is intelligibleunderstood, signifying. Substance is
the site of intentional tensions, aects, and variations of extension and of quan-
tity; form is the site of systems of values and of interdened positions.
From the point of view of linguistics properly speaking, insofar as it is con-
cerned solely with systems of values that constitute languages, but also from the
point of view of a semiology that is only concerned with signs that are isolable and
well formed, neither substance nor the passage from substance to form is worthy
of attention. But, for a semiotics of discourse, where the primitive scene of signi-
cation, that is, the emergence of meaning starting from the sensible, is ceaselessly
played out and replayed, these questions become essential.
Furthermore, opposing substance and form must not lead us to imagine,
although the terms themselves make it tempting, that everything that relates to
substance is formless; substance also has a forma scientic form, or a phe-
nomenological form, but this form does not result from the uniting of the two
planes of a language; consequently, semiotics as such is not able to recognize it;
other disciplines take it on, other disciplines that one must know how to consult
when necessary. From a semiotic point of view, we consider in general that these
prior forms are schematizations, in the Kantian sense: the diversity of sensible sub-
stances is submitted to a pressure that stabilizes them and provides them identity
and regularity.
Finally, the boundary between substance and form, according to Hjelmslev,
just like the boundary between dynamic object and immediate object, according
to Peirce, also moves. It cannot be otherwise, because the boundary between the
plane of expression and that of content moves, as I have argued. Each time that
the boundary between expression and content moves, new correlations between
forms appear and suspend the preceding forms. The greater or lesser stability of
the boundary between form and substance thus depends upon the memory of the
analysis, as well as upon its progression. Let us take another step: this boundary
depends upon the point of view adopted by the analyst, and, thus, upon the posi-
tion that the analyst assumes.
2.3.3. Toward a Sensible Signication

I have observed above that apparently logical denitions, proposed to describe the
semiotic function, namely arbitrariness or necessity (a function sometimes also de-
ned as reciprocal presupposition), are neither denitive nor very useful. Certainly,
in the 1940s and 1950s these denitions founded the consistency of an object
of knowledgewhich is not nothing, in a universe of thought where math-
ematical logic was a model of reference; but, even if they remain partially true,
they do not furnish a satisfying point of departure for a semiotics of discourse.
The sensible and perceptive dimension seems richer in what it can teach us.
To recapitulate: the two semiotic universes are separated by the taking of position
of a body proper. The properties of this body proper, which may be designated
generally by the term proprioceptivity, belong at the same time to the interocep-
tive universe and to the exteroceptive universe. The union between these two
universes, with a view to making them signify together, is thus made possible by
the proprioceptive, and particularly by the fact that it belongs to the other two at
the same time.
The body proper makes of these two universes the two planes of a language.
Whether this operation ends up in a reciprocal presupposition is not really of in-
terest with respect to this last proposition: the sensible body is at the heart of the
semiotic function, the body proper is the operator of the union of the two planes
of languages.
The simple formula semiosis is proprioceptive has numerous repercussions. The most
obvious, for the moment, is contained in this new proposition: if the semiotic func-
tion is just as proprioceptive as it is logical, then signification is just as affective,
emotive, and passional as it is conceptual or cognitive. Other consequences will ap-
pear, notably in the parts of this book devoted to discourse and to the sensible itself.
2.3.4. Styles of Categorization

One of the founding abilities of the activity of language is the ability to cat-
egorize the world, to classify its elements. One cannot in fact conceive of a
language incapable of producing types, because it would need to have an ex-
pression for each occurrence; what language systems, including non-verbal
ones, manipulate are types of objects (for example, oce desks in general),
and not occurrences (for example, the particular desk located in a certain of-
ce). Thanks to the act of reference, only discourse can, subsequently or in par-
allel fashion, evoke a certain occurrence of the type in order to put it into play.
In the domain of the image, for example, the necessity of making reference to visual
types has long been confused with the necessity of naming the objects represented. The
image of a tree is not the image of a tree because I can call it tree, but because it is
close to a visual type which is that of a tree. Similarly, if I recognize an elliptical rounded
form, it is not because I can call it ellipsis, but because I recognized in it the visual
type of the ellipsis. Anyone who did not know the name, and who would be for example
obliged to use a periphrasis (flattened circle), also would not recognize the visual type.
Groupe Mu has clearly shown, for example in their Trait du signe visuel
[Treatise on the Visual Sign], that the alterations of a visual type could, under
certain specific conditions, sometimes refer to an idiosyncratic vision, oth-
er times to rhetorical operations, and other times to the constraints of a genre.
The formation of types is in some sense another name for categorization; it is the
formation of classes and of categories that a language manipulates. It concerns all
of the orders of language: perception, the code, and its system. But categorization
is especially at work in discourse, notably because it presides over the installation
of systems of values. In this sense, the formation of types and categorization in-
terests us directly, insofar as they become strategies within the activity of discourse.
Categorization in action more or less follows the trajectory that we have estab-
lished: schematization stabilizes sensible diversity, an instance of discourse takes
position and intends its results, then apprehends a domain in order to articulate it.
Now, the semantics of the prototype teaches us that there is not just one way
of forming categories of language. Intuitively, and because the structural approach
implicitly forms part of our habits of thought today, one could think that only
the quest for properties or for common traits, called pertinent traits, is possible.
One piece of evidence is Bernard Pottiers famous example of for sitting down
(with a back, with three or four legs, with armrests, etc.), the model for all semic
analyses, and which designates the common trait of the category seats. The forma-
tion of the category rests upon the identication of these common traits, upon
their number, and upon their distribution among the members of the category.
What is intended are these pertinent traits, and what is apprehended is the zone
in which they are distributed.
A more uid version of this approach may be envisioned. Let us imagine a
group of relatives. The resemblances that permit them to be recognized are un-
equally distributed: the son resembles the father, who resembles the aunt, who
resembles the mother, who resembles the son, etc. Each resemblance diers from
the following one, there is no longer anything in common between the rst and
the last element of the chain, and yet, there is hardly any doubt about each indi-
viduals belonging to the group. This network of unequally distributed traits, in
which no trait may pride itself on dening globally the familial type, rests upon
what is called, following Wittgenstein, a family resemblance. What is intended is a
link of belonging; what is apprehended is a network of local resemblances.
But one may also organize a category around a particularly representative
occurrence, from a sample that is more visible or more easily identiable than all
others, and which itself possesses all of the properties that are only partially repre-
sented in each of the other members of the category. The frequent use of antono-
masia bears witness to this: He is a Machiavelli. The formation of the category rests
upon the choice of the best possible sample: one intends the distributed properties
and apprehends a representative.
In the same sense, the occurrence chosen to characterize the type may also be
the most neutral, the one that possesses only the few properties that are common
to all the others. One certainly sees this tendency at work in the naming of kitch-
en instruments: to designate cooking containers, it is saucepan that is essential for
some, and pot for others; and motorized kitchen utensils are all kitchen gadgets.
The formation of the type thus rests upon the choice of a basic term.
There is no substance that lends itself naturally to a certain categorization; it
is the act of categorization, in sum the strategy that animates it, that will deter-
mine the form of the categorycentered or distributed, its boundariesopen or
closed, its internal organizationin a chain, a bunch, a family, etc., as well as
its relations with neighboring categories. This question thus directly concerns the
way in which cultures carve up and organize their objects in order to make of
them objects of language; but it also concerns discourse in action, insofar as they
also carve up and categorize gurative universes in order to dene in them systems
of values. This is why we may speak of styles of categorization.
These four basic styles rest rst of all upon perceptive choices, and more
precisely upon the way in which the relation between the type and its occurrences
is perceived and established: either the category is perceived as an extension, a
distribution of traits, a series (united by one or several common traits), or a family
(united by a family resemblance), or else it is perceived as the regrouping of its
members around one of them (or around one of its species), around which the
category forms an aggregate (united around a basic term) or a line [le] (as when
one says: aligned behind a leader [chef de le], the best example of a category). For
each one of these choices, then, the category can, because of its own morphology,
give us a feeling of strong or weak unity: in the case of line and of series, the feeling
of unity is strong; in the case of aggregate and of family, it is weaker.
In sum, the styles of categorization dene the modes of presence of the
type in the category: it may be presented as a diuse or concentrated extension,
and with a strong or weak sensible intensity. The following chart summarizes this
last point.
EXTENSION
Concentrated Diuse
Strong Best sample Network of common
INTENSITY (line) traits (series)
Weak Neutral basic Family resemblance
term (aggregate) (family)
Insofar as discourse in action refers to occurrences as well as constituted types and

leads us ceaselessly from the former to the latter and vice versa, insofar as it cease-
lessly predicts and/or asserts new categories and new systems of values, knowledge
of these styles of categorization becomes necessary for the elaboration of a semi-
otics of discourse. But the styles of categorization cannot themselves be established
unless one puts the formation of systems of value under the control of modula-
tions of perceptive and sensible presence, that is to say unless one takes into ac-
count in an explicit way the control that perception exercises over signication.
Moreover, because they characterize the way in which systems of values are
formed, styles of categorization determine at the same time value in both of its
dimensions: (1) as a position in a set of relations, and (2) as a dierence in the
becoming of this system.
For example, if the choice revolves around the strategy of the aggregate (around
a basic term), the systems becoming is limited to the movement between par-
ticularization and generalization, according to this basic terms level of speci-
cation: the value in the process of becoming will then be evaluated in terms of
specication. If the choice revolves around the strategy of the line (with the best
example), the systems becoming will be evaluated in terms of representativity. In
the case of the series (with common traits), the systems becoming is evaluated in
degrees of coherence, according to whether the number of common traits increases
or decreases. Finally, if one opts for the family, the systems becoming depends
upon the density of the local resemblances and relations, and thus will be evalu-
ated in terms of cohesion.
When one evokes the coherence of a text, one thus aims at the number and
recurrence of shared and distributed traits; when one evokes its cohesion, on the
other hand, one refers to the greater or lesser density of local links: local anapho-
ras, thematic reminders, discontinuous agreements and morphemes, rhythmic
groupings and phonetic or semantic rhymes. In sum, the choice of a style of
categorization, in accordance with the duality of value, is also a choice of syntag-
matic style.
NOTES
1. Tr. Here, I follow the practice of rendering the French signiance as

signiance adopted by Julia Kristevas translator, Leon S. Roudiez, in Desire
in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1980). See Roudiezs Introduction p. 18.
2. Tr. The French word used here, sens, can mean both direction and meaning.
See, for instance, Greimass discussion of the expression sens interdit (one-
way street, literally forbidden direction/meaning) in his The Social Sciences:
a Semiotic View, trans. Paul Perron and Frank H. Collins (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1990) 9.
3. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul
Weiss, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 193158) 228.
4. Tr. The French phrase is le corps propre. By it, Fontanille refers not to the
material body, but rather to the idea that one has of ones body, an instance
of self-representation taken in a phenomenological sense. The term is also
used by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in The Primacy of Perception, ed. James Edie
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964); see especially Part 1
Chapter 4 The Synthesis of Ones Own Body. Although Merleau-Pontys
translator renders the expression in English as ones own body, I have chosen
to use the body proper to remain closer to the French and to remind the
reader that Fontanille is not referring to an everyday understanding of the
body.
5. Tr. The reference is to Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1969).
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Benveniste, mile. Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek.

Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1971.
Bordron, Jean-Franois. Valeur et dualit [Value and Duality]. Le
libralisme, linnovation, et la question des limites [Liberalism, Innovation, and
the Question of Limits]. Ed. R. Laufer and A. Hatchuel. Paris: LHarmattan,
2003.
Eco, Umberto. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1976.
Groupe Mu [Francis Edeline, Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, and Philippe Minguet].
Trait du signe visuel : pour une rhtorique de limage [Treatise on the Visual
Sign: For a Rhetoric of the Image]. Paris : Seuil, 1992.
Hjelmslev, Louis. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Trans. Francis J.
Whiteld. Baltimore : Waverly Press, 1953.
Kleiber, Georges. La smantique du prototype [The Semantics of the Prototype].
Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1990.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. Charles S. Peirce: The Essential Writings. Ed. Edward C.
Moore. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Wade Baskin. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. crits de linguistique gnrale [Writings on General
Linguistics]. Paris: Seuil, 2000.
Chapter Two
The Elementary Structures
0. INTRODUCTION
The schematization and the articulation of signifying processes is an attribute of
discourse. The world is a sign, man is a sign, says Peirce, but this diuse mean-
ing in our environment and in ourselves only gives rise to a signication if it
is actualized by a discourse, that is to say, rst of all by an act of enunciation.
And, with respect to this diuse meaning, discourse proceeds by schematiza-
tion, that is, it proposes schemes of signication, from the simplest to the most
complex, in which the articulation of systems of values ows. Such is the aim
of the elementary structures: to identify the rst articulations of meaning.
The binary structures are essentially of two types: oppositions between con-
tradictories (sometimes called privative) and oppositions between contraries. The
very notion of privative opposition is debatable insofar as, quite often, a contradic-
tory opposition may take on a generic value, that is to say bring about a change in
hierarchical level. Hjelmslev denes these two types of oppositions as two man-
ners of occupying a categorys domain: an occupation that is more or less concen-
trated, more or less intense in the rst case, and a division into two zones, which
more or less saturate the domain, in the other case.
The semiotic square combines these two types of oppositions within one sys-
tem of values, thanks to another relation, that of implication. Each of the cate-
gorys terms is thus at the intersection of three types of relations: a contrariety, a
contradiction, and an implication, each one putting it into relation with another
term of the category. It receives its denition from the whole set of these relations.
The set thus structured may be covered in its entirety, thereby outlining the mini-
mal framework of a
narrative.
Peirces ternary structure treats another aspect of the elementary structure:
the three phases of the elaboration of meaning. The analysis of these three phases
shows that they correspond to dierent degrees of existence of semiotic entities, to
three major steps in the process that leads from perception to signication. These
degrees of existence, whose number I will increase to four and which I will call
existential modalities, may be used in the analysis of discourse.
The tensive structure is a model that attempts to respond to questions left
unanswered by classical models; in fact, it places the representation of el-
ementary structures within the perspective of a semantics of the con-
tinuous. Furthermore, by putting into relation a tensive space of va-
lences and a categorial space of values, the tensive structure combines the
two basic dimensions of signication: the sensible and the intelligible.
1. THE BINARY STRUCTURES

The analysis of minimal dierences leads to identifying binary oppositions.
The category is then dened by its axis, the common trait, and by its two per-
tinent traits, the terms of the opposition. The most successful and best known
form of this conception is represented by Roman Jakobsons phonology.
1.1. The Privative Opposition

The rst dierence is produced by the presence or absence of a trait: conso-
nants may be voiced or voiceless, in the sense that the same articulation, bilabial,
for example, may or may not be combined with a resonance of the vocal cords
(/p/ vs. /b/). The category is then that of voicing. But this presentation is de-
batable, because one has trouble seeing how a term that does not present the
categorys dening trait (the trait voiced) could belong to this same category.
In the1960s, the notion of privative opposition was replaced by that of mark:
between the two terms of a privative opposition, one then agrees to consider that
the presence of the trait marks one term, while the other term, which does not
possess the trait, is considered unmarked. The mark is perhaps more satisfying
to the mind than is privation, but does not move us forward: in fact, whether it
is lacking a trait or unmarked, it is dicult for the second term of the opposi-
tion to belong to the category dened by this trait or this mark.
In fact, privation or the absence of a mark hide an essential property of
the term concerned, namely its generic value: by suspending the application of a
specic trait, one nds all of the categorys possible terms. The famous feminist
slogan, Half of all women are men, rests upon this same principle. The most com-
mon usage, according to which the whole category is designated by the term
man, supposes that man possesses the trait that denes the category in general,
the sexual trait, while the term woman is treated as specic, and thus possesses a
supplementary trait that the generic term does not possess. By choosing the term
woman as the term designating the category, the slogan inverses the relation, mak-
ing man the specic term, equipped with a supplementary trait, and woman the
The Elementary Structures 25
generic trait that denes the category. The war between the sexes thus borrows the
weapons of categorization.
Moreover, the generic power of the unmarked term is such that it actually
suspends the eciency of the intended opposition: this term, in fact, is specically
engaged in the category of sex only through its opposition, in discourse, with the
other. But it is available for other distinctions: with animal, with god, with cosmos,
etc. In sum, the unmarked term restores to the central gure of a category the
whole range of its interpretive possibilities. And, according to whether the term
chosen for this role is man or woman, either one can procure this opening of
the possibilities.
Strictly speaking, the notions of privative opposition or of mark may suf-
ce when a category is limited to two terms, but putting them into play becomes
particularly problematic as soon as the number of terms is greater than two, be-
cause then, the term called unmarked covers the entire category, with the excep-
tion of the marked term. When, for example, an object to smoke is represented
in a no smoking pictogram, a cigarette is chosen, which covers all pipes, cigars,
and other smoking instruments. We notice then that, if it is retained for this ge-
neric use, this is because at a certain moment and in a certain area of our cultures,
it is the only member of the category that can be distinguished from each of the
others by a minimal trait (with or without paper, without or without an appara-
tus, big or small, etc.) We can recognize here a basic term that characterizes one
of the styles of categorization (see Chapter 1); in this regard, the unmarked term
of structural linguistics is only a particular case of the basic term of the theory
of prototypes, the case in which the category is reduced to two terms.
Hjemlslev proposed another approach, emphasizing the fact that this op-
position concerns the extension of a category, and not its comprehension. He
proposes considering that any category amounts to a domain in the abstract space
of our cultural divisions, and that this domain may be occupied in two dierent
ways: in a diuse and vague way (subset A), or in a concentrated and precise way
(subset a):
A a
It is then no longer a question of a present or absent trait, but of the perceptive

intensity of a part of the category: the diuse or vague term serves as back-
ground, against which a gure, the concentrated or precise term, stands out.
The opposition termed privative is, therefore, redened as an opposition
that concerns the place and the intensity of the terms; but it must be clearly un-
derstood, to avoid misunderstandings, that the term vague or diuse is not, as
one may think, imprecise, but that it has a generic value; diuse characterizes
the terms mode of existence in the category (the type of apprehension that it im-
poses), and not the mode of designation of some referent. Then, when it appears
in discourse, for example under the eect of a negation or of the neutralization of
a specic trait, it gives free rein to all of the categorys possible terms and traits: it
is no longer a matter of an empty box (deprived of a trait), but, we may say, of
a Pandoras box.
1.2. The Opposition Between Contraries

Another possible opposition is that which, on the basis of a single axis, puts into pres-
ence two terms that are equally full, that is to say each one is dened by a trait. In
phonetics, for example, one opposes the trait bilabial and the trait labiodental on
the basis of a common axis, the trait labial. The category of labials is then organized
in French by the dierence of secondary point of articulation, either labial or dental.
At another level of analysis than the one evoked above, the masculine and the
feminine obey this same principle of contrariety: on the basis of the category sex,
the two terms are opposed thanks to the presence of two equally present traits,
each one being the contrary of the other.
From Hjelmslevs perspective, it is necessary to suppose that two concentrated
subsets occupy the domain of the category.
A
A1 A2
This representation has the advantage of showing that the domain may or may not
be saturated by the two contraries and that, consequently, if there are zones that
are not covered by A1 and A2, there remains a diuse subset, occupied by the
generic term. But in this case, the generic force of the dierential opposition rests
upon the comparison between the two contrary positions: while it is carried by
only one term, in the case of the privative opposition, it emerges here from the
pressure of homogenization exercised upon two gures of equal status. It is thus
that, alongside the contraries already instituted in a language or in usage, discourse

is able to invent new contrarieties, notably thanks to metaphors, upon which
this generic pressure, necessary for interpretation, is also exercised. In this re-
gard, the generic force of the relation of contrariety is a particular case of discursive
mediation in general, of which Lvi-Strauss showed the value for the analysis of
myth. There is mediation, in fact, starting from the moment when some seman-
tic heterogeneity is treated like a contrariety submitted to this generic pressure.
2. THE SEMIOTIC SQUARE

The semiotic square is presented as the uniting of two types of binary oppo-
sitions in a single system, which governs at the same time the simultane-
ous presence of contrary traits and the presence and absence of each one of
these two traits. Because absence has, as I have shown, a generic value, one
may say that the semiotic square is concerned at the same time with the in-
ternal organization of the category and with the delimitation of its borders.
2.1. The Constitutive Relations

A semiotic square rests upon the contrary traits of a category, starting from which
one projects the contradictories:
a1 A a2
non-a1 non-A non-a2
But this representation is not terribly interesting, as long as the relations between all
of the terms are not specied, notably the relations between a2 and non-a1 on the
one hand and between a1 and non-a2 on the other, but also between non-a1 and
non-a2. It is thus a matter of specifying the relation that is established between the
respective products of the rst two types of dierences. In fact, starting from a1,
for example, we obtain the contrary a2 and the contradictory non-a1. We note then
that, if the category is homogenous, these two new terms must be complementary
to one another. The contrary trait a2, in fact, implies (at least by default) the ab-
sence of the trait a1, that is to say its contradictory, non-a1, which is of the same
type as it. In the same way, the trait a1 implies (at least by default) the trait non-a2.
In other words, starting from a1, I can intend a2 only through the mediation
of non-a1, and reciprocally. In the semiotic square, the question of complementa-

ries is thus essential, for they are what make elementary structures into structures
of mediation, and not only of opposition. If, for example, the category life/death
were reducible to the opposition between contraries, there would be no place for
any narrative about the fear of death, nor for the genres of the fantastic or hor-
ror. In fact, the province of these narrative types rests entirely upon the existence
of the non-living and the non-dead, and, even more particularly, upon the
complementarity and the tension between the dead and the non-living on
the one hand, and the living and the non-dead on the other. For this reason,
starting from the position life, one can intend the position death only through
the mediation of the non-living (devils, demons, and other such creatures) and,
inversely, starting from the position death, one can intend the position life
only through the mediation of the non-dead (ghosts, zombies, and other wan-
derers of the netherworld).
But this way of presenting things, which introduces intents and media-
tions into the representation of the elementary structures, implies at least that
semantic positions are not only projected and articulated in an abstract space, but
taken up by an activity of semantic perception: from each one of the positions
of the category, an observer must be able to intend and to apprehend the other
positions, under certain conditions dened in terms of relations (contrariety,
contradiction, complementarity). When two other positions may be intended in
perspective, the farthest away is then apprehended thanks to the mediation of the
closest.
This is, in my view, the only way to predict, beginning with the elementary
semantic structures, the place of enunciation. Certainly the observer in question
is not a subject, because this observer occupies only one position of semantic
intent. But this observer implies at least the actantial structures of perception in
the very formation of semantic categories. I examine these actantial structures in
detail in Chapter 4, particularly in section 2.2., Positional Actants.
One finds in all of the semiotic works of the 1970s and 1980s excellent presentations
of the semiotic square, which has long functioned as the emblem of Greimassian se-
miotics. The reader may refer to these works for more details. In fact, in practice, this
model has always presented the same difficulties: a technical difficulty and a method-
ological difficulty. From a technical point of view, the relation that is the most difficult to
establish and to justify is always the relation of complementarity; it is always possible
mechanically to build formal squares, beginning with two contraries A and B and pro-
jecting their contradictories non-A and non-B; but it is more difficult to clearly identify
these contradictories, in the course of analysis, and to be sure that they are truly the
complementaries of the contraries, that is to say that they function as mediators.
From a methodological point of view, the construction of a square beginning
with the analysis of a corpus is always problematic, because the definition of the
square comprises no indication of the manner in which the textual data must be
selected and treated to enter into the style of categorization to which the semiotic
square leads. As a result, the square most often appears as a projection that con-
strains the elements of the corpus to adopt the form that it imposes. In fact, in both
cases, the difficulty always resides in the problematic relation between the consti-
tutional model and the form of the textual data extracted from a concrete corpus.
This is the reason why complementaries and the mediation they establish de-
serve special attention, for, after the establishment of pertinent oppositions in a given
text, the identification of operations of mediation allows us to make explicit the pro-
cedure through which textual data will be articulated by the constitutional model.
Let us take another example. Imagine that in a text, two natural elements, water
and re, are opposed as contraries, and that the two others, earth and air, have no
role other than to manifest the absence of the rst two terms. In this scenario, earth
would be the contradictory of water, and air would be the contradictory of re.
water vs. re
earth air
(non-water) (non-re)
The simple projection of the two types of dierences tells us nothing about
the relations between, respectively, water and air, re and earth, and nally
earth and air. Now, in order for the category to be isotopic and homogeneous,
the value of each term must be specied in relation to all of the others, and
not in relation to only one. This is a question of the style of categorization:
if we were content to dene each term by a single relation with a single oth-
er term, generally, the category would only be a family of oppositions. Now
the type of category sought here is a category forming a whole, in which all of
the terms enter into relation with all of the others, that is to say, according to
Saussure, a system of values. Mediation must operate between the oppositions.
We will thus say that two other sorts of dierences are added to the basic dif-
ferences: water and air are complementaries (coming from the same type) because
they are both opposed to re; in the same way, re and earth, both opposed to
water and coming from the same type, are complementaries. As for earth and air,
they are subcontraries, both of them produced by the negation of contraries. It
is then possible, beginning with re, to intend the position water thanks to the
mediation of the position air, and, starting from water, to intend the position re
thanks to the mediation of the position earth.
The tradition lays out these terms in a manner that is more explicit and, as a
visual schema, intuitively acceptable; the diagonal will be reserved for contradic-
tion, the horizontal for contrariety, and the vertical for complementariety.
From a practical point of view, if one endeavors to construct a semiotic square,
the diculty almost always resides in the establishment of relations of comple-
mentarity. Their usefulness is precisely to provide a good test of consistency: if the
complementarities do not function in the text analyzed, it is because the category
has been badly constructed or badly delimited.
a1 a2
(water) (re)
non-a2 non-a1
(air) (earth)
2.2. The Elementary Syntax

The semiotic square is destined to be traversed: the system of values that it
proposes can lay out the principle phases of a minimal narration, and the re-
lations between the terms then serve as support for the elementary narra-
tive transformations. But all of the relations are not exploited in the same way.
First of all, contrariety cannot give rise to a transformation: the path that
leads from one contrary to the other, from a1 to a2, passes rst of all through
the contradictory non-a1. In sum it is rst necessary to deny the term that is at
the origin of the trajectory, before arming its contrary; it is necessary to deny
the rst type in order to enter into the second. This rule follows the principle of
mediation.
Next, two paths are possible, one of which is canonical and the other of which
is non-canonical: starting from a1, one may deny a1 (non-a1) in a canonical man-
ner, then arm a2; but one may also, in a non-canonical way, take complemen-
tarity with non-a2 in reverse, then take the contradiction between not-a2 and a2
in reverse. This second trajectory is sometimes encountered in texts, but we can
see right away why it is not canonical, because it takes in reverse each one of the
relations that it uses as support; these transformations being non-canonical, even
illogical, they appear as particularly striking qualitative and passional leaps.
The non-canonical paths are, in sum, those that contradict or inverse the
principle of mediation: for example, starting from the position life, intending
the position death while passing through the non-dead (ghosts and zombies)
means taking the risk of getting lost in an intermediary zone of wandering, if the
force of assertion (to pass from non-dead to death) is at all insucient. Thus:
Forbidden Paths:
a1 a2 & a2 a1
non-a1 non-a2 & non-a2 non-a1
Canonical Paths:
a1 non-a1 a2 & a2 non-a2 a1
Non-canonical Paths:
a1 non-a2 a2 & a2 non-a1 a1
2.3. Axiological Polarization

Elementary syntax is a sequence of predicates (to deny and to arm) that assure
the disjunctions (to deny) and the conjunctions (to arm) of a condensed nar-
rative trajectory. If we acknowledge, with Greimas, that narrative is dened as
a transformation of content, then this sequence becomes the narrative matrix
par excellence. I will show later that other narrative matrixes may be envisioned.
But, as for the one that occupies us here, the semiotic square, the terms that
compose it become the stakes of the narrative trajectory: for example, one takes
position at a1 and one seeks to attain the position a2, via the position not-a1.
Consequently, the system of semantic values that the semiotic square sche-
matizes must then be considered as a system of values for subjects, that is to
say, as an axiological system. One has thus gone (1) from the value of a term in
relation to other terms (2) to the value of a position in relation to other po-
sitions, and (3) to the value of these contents and of these positions for sub-
jects. From value dened by dierence (the paradigmatic version), we have
passed to the value dened from the perspective of a narrative subject, a subject
itself engaged in a series of narrative transformations (the syntagmatic version).
This conversion may be explained simply, even though it is not, in itself, a
simple conversion. In fact, once it is put into form as a semiotic square, the Sau-
ssurian system of values must be oriented, or, more precisely, polarizeda positive
pole and a negative polein order to be able to be traversed by a subject on a
quest for value.
The observer of the semantic intent has become here a narrative actant, and
the movement between the semantic positions is substituted for their simply being
put into perspective. A sensible body, the center and reference point of a percep-
tion, has become a body in movement.
The path that leads from one contrary to another then becomes the path that
leads from one pole to another, that is to say the path that draws nearer to or
moves away from the positive value. If, for example, the square of natural elements
is polarized in the following ways, here are the paths traveled by the syntax:
1. a progressive canonical path that is linked to positive value:

(-) re air water (+)
2. a regressive canonical path that is linked to negative value:
(+) water earth re (-)
We will pose as a rule that the two trajectories are always available and always at least
virtually active. Consequently, each one of the two can only be realized by neutraliz-
ing the other and the energy deployed to do this will then be a function of the resis-
tance oered by the contrary trajectory. The rst consequence of the polarization of
the system of values is thus a tension (a dierence of potential) between the negative
pole and the positive pole; the second consequence is the appearance of a tension
between the two possible directions, that is to say, between two opposed trajectories.
2.4. Second-Generation Terms

The terms obtained in a semiotic square are just the end terms of the constitutive
relations of the square, which appear at the intersection of three types of relations:
contrariety, contradiction, and complementarity. But in concrete discourses, it is
most often mixed gures that present themselves, composite gures that comprise
dominant gures, and it becomes necessary, in order to take account of them,
to associate simple terms in what are commonly called second-generation terms.
The association of two contraries, a1 and a2, forms the complex term. The as-
sociation of two sub-contraries, not-a1 and not-a2, forms the neutral term. One
may also associate the complementaries two by two; if the square is polarized,
forming an axiology, one of these associations (a1 and not-a2, for example) will
form the positive term and the other (in this case, a2 and not-a1) will form the
negative term.
The identication of such combinations is generally specic to each concrete
discourse, but, the number of combinations being limited, one may anticipate the
dierent scenarios. One may thus imagine, taking the natural elements, for ex-
ample, that a certain discourse could propose the following combinations: [water
+ re] = liquid re; [air + earth] = dust; [water + air] = fog; [re + earth] = cinder.
When such gures are identiable in a text, this means that the operations
of mediation have not only succeeded but moreover have produced new gures:
then, the analysis shifts and is interested in the process of iconization of these
gures. In fact, it is by examining their textual becoming, their degree of stabil-
ity, and the vicissitudes of their identication that one may follow precisely the
process of mediation.
3. THE TERNARY STRUCTURE

3.1. The Three Levels of Apprehension of Phenomena
Peircean semiotics rests entirely upon a ternary conception of the elementary struc-
ture. It is not a matter in this case of the structure of a categorys terms, but of the
levels of apprehension of this category, or, in other words, of three dierent modes
of apprehension of signication which are, according to Peirce, three dierent,
hierarchically arranged manners by which we may know the world of meaning.
This semiotics is rst of all a theory of knowledge, based upon a phenomenology.
On the rst level, called Firstness, one apprehends only the sensible or emotive
qualities of the world; this level is rst by virtue of order, but also because it entails
only one element: the quality itself. For example, the sensation wet is rstness.
The typical sign of this level is the index, not because it is thought to entail only
one element (the index is always an index of something), but because it is the rst
moment of a perceptive apprehension.
On the second level, called Secondness, one puts the quality into relation with
something other than itself; this level is second by virtue of order, but also because
it entails two elements. For example, when the sensation wet is put in relation
with falling rain, this relation is called secondness. The typical sign of this level is
the icon, insofar as there can be no icon other than one that is identied, recog-
nized, and thus at least stabilized through comparison with itself.
On the third level, called Thirdness, one puts the two rst levels in the per-
spective or under the control of a third; this level is also third because it entails,
in fact, three elements. Most often, this third element presents itself as a law, or a
convention: one could, starting from the present example, thus end up with It is
still raining or It is wet by comparing the relation of secondness to the weather,
which would function as a third, and would thus lead to the identication of a
rule. The typical sign of this level is the symbol.
3.2. Properties of the Three Levels

In the innumerable writings of Peirce, the three levels of apprehension of phe-
nomena concern just about all imaginable properties: each exegete is convinced
that he or she has found those that t a certain usage. Asking what Firstness,
Secondness, and Thirdness are concretely scarcely makes any sense, because it is a
matter of three fundamental moments of any construction of meaning, of any
experience, and, in general, of the relation between human beings and their
environment. In Peircean theory itself, the ternary structure serves notably to:
1. construct the sign itself, because the object is rst, the representamen is
second, and the interpretant is third;
2. distinguish types of signs (see above);
3. distinguish, lastly, several types of objects, representamens,
interpretants, and then types of icons, indices, and symbols, each
time on the same principal, by a new division into three levels.
On the other hand, if one adopts the perspective of the elaboration of a lan-
guage and of the functioning of the discourse that puts it into action, one
perceives that the Peircean triplication fundamentally concerns the stages
of a process of production of meaning or interpretation. Jean-Franois Bor-
dron has shown that these stages correspond precisely to the three Kantian
syntheses: apprehension, reproduction, and recognition. He deduces from
this a model of the formation of semiotic gures starting from sensation:
sensible apprehension, stabilization of the gure, and semiotic regulation.
Moreover, these stages concern more precisely the modalities of the elabo-
ration of signication. Actually, among the properties of this triplication that
are the object of a consensus between the diverse readers of Peirce (Deledalle,
Eco, and Savan, among others), modal properties are the most frequently invoked.
These modal properties characterize the levels of articulation of signication.
From the perspective of a semiotics of discourse, we will thus dene them as modes
of existence of signication in discourse.
3.3. Modes of Existence

All theories of language must be equipped with epistemologi-
cal levels, which are dened as the modes of existence of semiotic entities.
For example, Saussure distinguishes language, which is virtual, from speech,
which is realized. Guillaume distinguishes language (virtual), eectuation (actu-
al), and discourse (realized). Hjelmslev always distinguishes between the realizable
(the system) and the realized (the process). Greimas, nally, distinguishes the vir-
tualities of the system, the actuality of semio-narrative unfolding, and the realiza-
tion in discourse. These diverse approaches could rather easily be superimposed,
but here, it is only the principle that interests us: any theory of language needs a
theory of modes of existence in order to be able to specify the status of the objects
it manipulates.
Furthermore, concrete enunciations also exploit these modes of existence, in
a certain way playing upon these dierent levels of reality. The epistemological
question of the status of linguistic and semiotic entities becomes then, in concrete
discourses, a methodological question, that of the modulations of the presence
of these entities in discourse. Thus, litotes (I hate thee not)1 plays upon two
modes of presence: a content whose presence is realthe negative utterance,

and a content whose presence is potentialthe underlying positive utterance, I
love you.
For most linguistic conceptions, three levels are sucient, but we will need
four. In fact, these conceptions only envision an ascending trajectory, from the
virtual to the realized, which passes through an intermediary actualization. But,
if we envision a descending trajectory (for example, linguistic forms are put into
memory after usage, and stocked for subsequent evocations), then we do not
come back to actualization, but to another intermediary form, potentializa-
tion. The same remark could be made with regard to the Peircean triplication,
which in general is only conceived in an ascending manner, and which does not
distinguish descending secondness from ascending secondness.
Overall, Peirce proceeds no differently than Saussure, Guillaume, or Hjelmslev, with

his ternary structure: while the theory that he deduces from it is quite different, he
also presents the different stages of a modal elaboration of signification, by distin-
guishing: (1) the virtual mode (firstness), which includes all of the possibilities of a
language, and notably all of the sensible and perceptive possibilities; (2) the actual
or real mode (secondness), which includes the realized facts, and which permits
notably the anchoring of the action, and the transformation of states of affairs into
perception and the sensible; and (3) the potential mode (thirdness), which includes
all of the laws, rules, and usages that program existence and its transformations.
The three levels of Peircean semiotics themselves encourage us, in fact, to de-
fine the modes of existence of a discourse, and to define them thanks to contents
of modalities: we can recognize (1) the alethic modalities (the possible) at the first
level, (2) the factual modalities (wanting, knowing, being-able to do), at the sec-
ond level, and (3) the deontic modalities (duty, law, rule, etc.), at the third level.
To elaborate the signification of a discourse is thus also to traverse these dif-
ferent modal phases, from the maximal opening of possibilities that impression
and intuition provide, to the constraining schematization that analysis provides.
The question that remains is the following: how to make the very general notions of
modes of existence useful? Most often (in Saussure and in Chomsky, for example),
they only furnish the epistemological background of the theory; furthermore, the
theory itself only retains as pertinent one of the modes of existence (the two authors
just mentioned voluntarily conne themselves to the virtual, either language or
competence). Peirce, with Guillaume and Greimas, is one of the few to have given
these modalities a role in the method itself, in the analysis of objects of signica-
tion; but we have seen that the solution he accepted opens out onto an exponential
multiplication of types and sub-types of signs, which quickly becomes extravagant.
In order to avoid such a course, we propose assigning the distinction of modes
of existence to one and only one category: that of presence. Thus, the modes of
existence of signication (a general question of epistemology) become modes of

existence in discourse, modalities of presence in discourse (a question of method and
of analysis). Thus in the antonomasia He is a Machiavelli, the character Machia-
velli is actualized, but not realized, because the reference intended by the predica-
tion concerns another actor. Thus, this other actor intended by the predication,
for instance a certain politician, is realized. Furthermore, the set of actors that can
correspond to this denition remain virtual, while the schema of comportment
that it implies, and which characterizes the category, will be considered potential.
The number of modes of existence will thus come to four: virtualized, actualized,
realized, and potentialized. I will return to this topic below.
4. THE TENSIVE STRUCTURE

4.1. Problems in Suspense
The semiotic square assembles the dierent types of oppositions in order to
form a coherent schema. But it presents the category as an accomplished
whole, which is no longer under the control of a living enunciation; further-
more, it transforms the category into a formal schema, which no longer main-
tains any relation with perception and the sensible approach to phenomena.
The proposition that I made, which consists in introducing an observer, in-
tents, perspectives, and mediations, is not yet sucient to articulate the phenom-
enal properties of perception: in this regard, a new step must be taken.
Moreover, concrete discourses present us ceaselessly with their mixed forms
and intermingled gures: complex forms and entanglements that it is necessary
to untangle in order to get to the elementary mechanisms. Now the method that
rests upon putting elementary structures into place starts o, inversely, from the
most simple forms in order to end up with the most complex forms. We must
then, in order to complete this approach, give ourselves the means to apprehend
things such as they are presented in discourse, that is to say rst of all as complex
forms.
Peirces ternary structure, and more generally the distinction between the
modes of existence, furnishes us with a schematic representation of the path that
leads from the sensible to the intelligible, a representation lacking in the semiotic
square. But, on the other hand, this other approach tells us nothing about the
manner in which systems of values are formed, a topic on which the semiotic
square is perfectly explicit.
4.2. New Requirements

Today if one wants to propose a schema of the elementary strutures, it seems ne-
cessary to abide by the following requirements:
1. the links between the sensible and the intelligible, the stages of the
passage from one to the other must be dened, it being understood
that semiotic properties properly speaking will be on the side of the
intelligible;
2. the model proposed must end up with the formation of a system of values;
3. this model must also take into account the variety of styles of
categorization;
4. the procedure must respect things as they are presented in discourse,
that is to say, beginning with complex forms, in order to end up with
the formation of simple positions.
I propose a procedure consisting of four stages, which I will follow using natural
elements by way of illustration.
4.3. The Dimensions of the Sensible

Prior to any categorization, any entity is, for the subject, rst of all a sensible pres-
ence. This presence is expressed, I have said, at the same time in terms of intensity
and in terms of extent and quantity (see Chapter 1, section 2.3.1., The Forma-
tion of Systems of Values). For example, what could be the quality of presence
of natural elements? Even before identifying a certain material, a certain element,
we will have recognized its tactile and visual properties, the hot and the cold, the
smooth and the rough, the mobile and the immobile, the solid and the uid.
It is these sensible qualities that may be appreciated according to the two
basic directions that we are proposing: the mobile and the immobile, for example,
may be appreciated according to intensity. Dierent levels of energy seem attached
to the dierent sensible states of material, or according to extent: the movement
is relative to the successive positions of a material presence, and it implies an ap-
preciation of the space covered and the time elapsed.
Now, solidity, the promise of permanence, will be appreciated as a capacity to
remain in a single position and a single form (extent), thanks to a strong internal
cohesion (intensity), while uidity is apprehended as a weakening of internal cohe-
sion (intensity), and the promise of a great lability, an inconstancy of forms and
positions in space and in time (extent).
Each eect of sensible presence thus associates, precisely in order to be called
presence, a certain degree of intensity and a certain position or quantity in ex-
tent. In sum, presence combines forces on the one hand, and positions and quan-
tities on the other hand. Let us note here that the eect of intensity appears as
internal and the eect of extent as external. It is not a matter of the interiority
and exteriority of some psychological subject, but of an internal domain and an
external domain laid out in the sensible world itself. As I have already suggested
in the preceding chapter, the body proper of the subject becomes the very form of
the semiotic relation, and the phenomenon thus schematized by the semiotic act
is equipped with an interior domain (energy) and an exterior domain (extent).
4.4. The Correlation Between the Two Dimensions

If, during the rst phase, one explores all of the possibilities of a sen-
sible apprehension of the phenomena, during the second phase, on the
other hand, it is necessary to select two dimensions, one concerning in-
tensity and another concerning extent, in order to put them into relation.
This setting into relationship is called correlation. Correlation is established
starting from a certain quality and a certain quantity of sensible presence, even
before the recognition of a gure. For example, it is in the name of solidity that
the element earth may be able to see attributed to it a strong force of cohesion
and a very weak propensity to spatio-temporal dispersion. Inversely, in the name
of this same quality of presence, air may have attributed to it a very weak force of
cohesion and a very great lability of extent. When one adopts the point of view of
discourse, one is thus led, prior to asking oneself if the terms of a category have
any universal value, to seek rst of all the sensible qualities that determine and
orient the categorys being putting into play. But it is in the correlation between
sensible dimensions that semiotic gures are formed and stabilized.
If we start o from the two dimensions invoked, intensity and extent, con-
sidered as gradual dimensions, their correlation may be represented as the whole
set of points of a space submitted to two axes of control. In conformity with the
denition of the two planes of a language:
1. intensity characterizes the internal, interoceptive domain, which will

become the plane of content;
2. extent characterizes the external, exteroceptive domain, which will be-
come the plane of expression;
3. the correlation between the two domains results from the
taking of position of a body proper, the very same that is the
seat of the eect of sensible presence; it is thus proprioceptive.
Space of the
Gradient of points of
intensity correlation
Gradient of extent
4.5. The Two Types of Correlation

During the third phase, one must draw out the consequences of the tak-
ing of position of a body proper, of a sensing body; this body does not
only impose sharing between two domains, an internal and intensive do-
main and an external and extensive domain, it also imposes an orienta-
tion, that of intent (starting from the internal domain, thus in intensity) and
that of apprehension (starting from the external domain, thus in extent).
Intent and apprehension, the two operations that we have considered as neces-
sary for a representation of signication in action (Chapter 1, section 2.3.1.,The
Formation of Systems of Values), thus convert the gradual dimensions into axes
of depth, oriented beginning from a position of observation. The degrees of inten-
sity and of extent, under the control of the operations of intent and apprehension,
then become degrees of perceptive depth.
If one considers the points of internal space one by one, all of the combina-
tions between the degrees of one of the axes with the degrees of the other may be
envisioned. Consequently, all of the points of the internal space are equally avail-
able in order to dene the positions of the system. But we are not seeking to dene
isolated positions; we seek values, that is to say relative positions, dierences of
positions. And, as soon as one considers the relation between two points of the
internal space, one is obliged to take into account the relative orientation of the
two axes of control.
When one compares two dierent positions in the internal space, two relative
evolutions are possible, which dene two types of correlations between the axes
of control.
Example of direct Example of inverse

correlation correlation
In fact, either it is the cast that, between the two positions, the two dimen-
sions evolve in the same direction: the more intense the intent, the more
extended the apprehension; or else it is the case that, between the two po-
sitions, the two dimensions evolve in opposite directions: the more in-
tense the intent, the less extended the apprehension, and reciprocally.
We can thus distinguish two types of correlations between in-
tent and apprehension: a direct correlation and an inverse correlation.
The two correlations may be approximately represented by the two labeled
zones of the gure shown here. In the case of a direct correlation, the direction of
the variations of positions follows the orientation of the angles bisecting line; in
the case of the inverse correlation, the variations of position follow a direction that
is perpendicular to this bisecting line, a direction that may also be represented by
an arc of which the two extremities rejoin the two basic axes.
Zone of
inverse
Zone of
correlation
Axis of direct
intensity correlation
INTENT
Axis of extent
APPREHENSION
4.6. From Valences to Values

The two axes of the external space dene the valences of the category being exam-
ined. All of the points of the internal space are susceptible to correspond to values
of the same category. But from this group of points, some organizing principles
stand out: on the one hand, the dierence between the two correlations deter-
mines two basic zones (represented by the two gray zones in the schema); on the
other hand, the combination of the strongest and of the weakest degrees on the
two axes determines extreme zones. All of the points of the internal space are
pertinent; but the extreme zones of each correlation are the most typical zones of
the category being examined. The combination of these two principles permits
us to identify four basic zones that are typical of the category, which correspond
moreover to the styles of categorization presented in Chapter 1, section 2.3.4.:
1. a zone of strong intensity and of weak extent (category style: the line)
2. a zone of equally strong intensity and extent (category style: the series)
3. a zone of weak intensity and of strong extent (category style: the family)
4. a zone of equally weak intensity and extent (category style: the aggregate)
To come back to a more concrete case, let us examine what happens when, in a
particular discourse, the natural elements are intended and apprehended by way
of the energy that they put into play, and of the spatio-temporal unfolding of which
they are capable. In this case, the valences are energy and spatio-temporal unfolding.
The four zones typical of the internal space are then each occupied by one of the
natural elements, whose position in the space of correlation determines its value. In
short, the elements thus dened are only values ordered and dened by perceptive
and sensible valences of the external space. It is certainly necessary to explain here
that the value of a position depends at the same time on the degrees that dene it on
the axes of control and on the type of correlation (direct or inverse) to which it be-
longs. The distribution obtained is specic to a culture or to a discourse, because it
depends upon valences that have been selected in a particular discourse; the choice
is not enormous, but it is in any case, and by principle, specic to a certain discourse.
The proposed model is thus conceived to account for discursive categori-
zation such as it appears under the control of concrete enunciative praxes. The
semiotic square has often been criticized for proposing only universal structures,
while claiming to describe concrete discourses: I am taking account of this justi-
ed critique, by placing the appearance of values under the control of valences.
In other words, cultural variation is present here beginning with the elemen-
tary structures, on the condition of placing them under the control of perception,
insofar as the perception of discursive values and gures already results, by itself,
from a selection of perceptive valences. Thus, according to the case, one will in-
tend the natural elements through the perception of their energy, of their stability
in time, of their uidity, of their capacity to occupy space or their propensity to
form identiable icons...
The distribution of natural elements in a tensive structure must be specific to the

discourse or to the culture being analyzed; the valences themselves will be spe-
cific, because if intensity and extent truly have a general value, the isotopies
that realize them in each discourse are specific; the values will themselves
also be specific, insofar as the figurative types retained depend strictly upon va-
lences and their correlations. The distribution that I propose below was elaborat-
ed starting from an analysis of the semiotics of the natural world in the writings
of the pre-Socratic philosophers: there, fire occupies the position of highest ener-
gy and of weakest extent; water that of highest energy and greatest extent; etc.
FIRE WATER
Axis of
intensity
(Energy)
EARTH AIR
Axis of extent
(Spatio-temporal Lability)
4.7. Summary
The tensive structure is thus obtained at the end of four stages: (1) the iden-
tication of the dimensions of sensible presence; (2) the correlation between
these two dimensions; (3) the orientation of the two dimensions, which
then become valences, and the doubling of the correlation in two direc-
tions; (4) the emergence of four typical zones, dened by the extreme poles
of the two gradients, which characterize the typical values of the category.
This model obeys the requirements recalled above: the dimensions of the sen-
sible correspond to the two oriented gradients, the intelligible values appear in the
space of correlation. Furthermore, the rules of the constitution of a language are
themselves also respected, because the correlation and the orientation of the two
dimensions result from the taking of position of a perceiving body, which schema-
tizes the sensible presence by dividing it between an internal domain (intensity)
and an external domain (extent).
NOTE
1. This famous line comes from Pierre Corneilles play Le Cid.

Bordron, Jean-Franois. Rections sur la gense esthtique du sens [Reections

on the Aesthetic Genesis of Meaning] Faire, dire, et voir [Doing, Saying, and
Seeing], ed. Charles Palmieri, Prote 26.2 (1998) 97104.
Deledalle, Grard. Charles S. Peirces Philosophy of Signs: Essays in Comparative
Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Fontanille, Jacques. Smiotique et littrature [Semiotics and Literature]. Paris:
Presses universitaires de France, 1999. 130158.
Fontanille, Jacques and Claude Zilberberg. Tension et signication [Tension and
Signication]. Lige: Mardaga, 1998. Chapters Valence [Valence] and
Valeur [Value].
Greimas, Algirdas Julien. Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method. Trans.
Daniele McDowell, Ronald Schleifer, and Alan Velie. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1983.
Greimas, Algirdas Julien and Joseph Courts. Semiotics and Language: An
Analytical Dictionary. Trans. Larry Crist, Daniel Patte, et al. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1982. Entry Square, Semiotic.
Hjelmslev, Louis. Nouveaux essais [New Essays]. Ed. Franois Rastier. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1985.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. Charles S. Peirce: The Essential Writings, ed. Edward C.
Moore. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Wade Baskin. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Chapter Three
Discourse
0. INTRODUCTION
Discourse is the unit of analysis of semiotics. It permits us to apprehend not
only the xed or conventional products of semiotic activity (signs, for ex-
ample), but also and above all semiotic acts themselves. Discourse is an enun-
ciation in action, and this action is rst of all an act of presence: the instance
of discourse is not an automaton that exercises a capacity for language, but a
human presence, a sensing body that expresses itself. Furthermore, when one
chooses discourse as the point of departure, one perceives very quickly that the
xed or conventional forms that one nds there are far from being uniquely
signs, because one of the most interesting properties of discourse is its capacity
to schematize globally our representations and our experiences: thus the study
of the schemas of discourse quickly replaces that of signs properly speaking.
Within this rubric, the three notions will be dened and compared, in such
a way as to remove a certain number of misunderstandings that have developed,
notably surrounding the relations between discourse and narrative on the one
hand and between discourse and text on the other hand.
Discourse and text are two dierent points of view on the same signifying
process; furthermore, a careful reading of Benveniste shows that discourse and
narrative do not belong to the same level of pertinence.
The instance of discourse entails a small number of properties: a position,
a eld, and actants. It accomplishes the elementary acts of enunciation: deictic
positioning, the diverse operations (engagements and disengagements) that per-
mit assigning enunciation and organizing the planes of enunciation. The simplest
representation that one may give, following Benveniste, is that of a positional
eld.
They are of two types: on the one hand schemas of tension, which furnish a
precise and calculable representation of the modulations of tension in discourse,
the logical stages of action, or the passional trajectories in discourse.

The tensive schemas are basic modules, associating tension and relaxation
according to the combinations foreseeable by deduction. The canonical schemas
are relatively general sequences, produced and xed by enunciative praxis, which
combine several tensive schemas in such a way as to procure for one of the dimen-
sions of discourse its overall tensive prole.
The syntax of discourse is not, however, reducible to these schematized forms.
Other factors, like discursive orientation, produced by points of view, the syntax
of truth values, or even the rhetorical syntax of gures and of argumentation,
must be taken into account.
1. TEXT, DISCOURSE, AND NARRATIVE

I have adopted the point of view of a semiotics of signifying wholes, which goes
beyond and encompasses that of minimal units, signs. It is thus necessary to specify
the status of these signifying wholes that are the text, the discourse, and the narrative.
1.1. The Text

The text, rst of all. One could imagine that the text is the object of literary stud-
ies (one thinks automatically of a literary text when one encounters the word
text); we know, however, that the text is the object of study of one of the spe-
cialties of linguisticstextual grammar, or textual linguisticswhich is not con-
cerned only with literary texts, but with any semiotic object that is verbal in type.
But the verbal text is only one of the possible texts. In Prolegomena to a Theory
of Language, Hjelmslev declares from the start: The objects of linguistic theory are
texts. The aim of linguistic theory is to provide a procedural method by means of
which a given text can be comprehended through a self-consistent and exhaustive
description.1 He even species: If the linguistic investigator is given anything
, it is the as yet unanalyzed text in its undivided and absolute integrity.2 The
text is thus, for the specialist in languagesthe semioticianthat which is given
to apprehend, the set of facts and of phenomena that the semiotician prepares to
analyze. Linguistics does not deal with facts of language as is typically said, but
with texts, with textual facts.
To say that these are the data of the linguist and of the semiotician, does not
mean that these givens do not themselves need to be rst elaborated, and that this
elaboration does not encounter any diculties. The establishment of the text,
prior to its possible publication, is a task unto itself, which grows out of philology,
and which the current techniques of electronic publication have caused to evolve
in a spectacular manner. But, in another domain, the division of a lm into shots
and sequences, for example, is also a manner of establishing the text of the lm.
To say that the text oers itself to the linguist as an unanalyzed totality does
Discourse 47
not mean that the totality in question is always obvious. When one is deal-
ing with, for example, a lyrical piece of the Middle Ages, which only exists
through a multitude of versions and of which no one version is authoritative,
the totality in question is especially dicult to apprehend, and it is not in-
carnated in any isolable material text; one is then led to talk of a virtual text.
In the same manner, what we call today a hypertext, if it isnt hypermedia, is
never given in its totality, or even graspable as a tangible whole: each reader elabo-
rates his or her own text, as a function of the links that the reader activates and of
the trajectory carried out through the dierent textual layers available on the ma-
chine. The coexistence of diverse textual wholes and diverse modes of expression
is assured there in a quite particular way, which obliges us to distinguish between
virtual, potential, and actual layers.
The text, in sum, results from an initial set of operationsdelimitation, seg-
mentation, the establishment of dataapplied to the continuous ux of concrete
semiotic production.
More precisely, segmentation and the identication of ruptures, links, and
transitions constitutes in all cases the rst stage of semiotic analysis, because it al-
lows us to identify, by way of hypothesis, the initial macro-gures of the plane of
expression. Nevertheless, as Jacques Geninasca has often observed, textual units
thus obtained are not discursive units, because they are not necessarily pertinent
from the perspective of a semantic interpretation.
1.2. Discourse
This term has a large number of accepted meanings, which it is not use-
ful to dwell on here. Let us evoke as a reminder: discourse may be con-
sidered as a set of sentences, as a group of organized remarks, or as the
product of an enunciation. According to the situation, discourse is the concern
either of textual linguistics, or of enunciative linguistics or, nally, of rhetoric
or pragmatics. But in all of these cases, the underlying idea may be summa-
rized as follows: discourse is a whole of which the signication does not re-
sult from the simple addition or combination of the signication of its parts.
We are already quite aware that the signication of a sentence may not be
obtained by the simple addition or combination of the signication of the words
that make it up. It is rst of all necessary to recognize (1) the syntactic form in
which these words nd their place and (2) the predicative orientation of the act of
enunciation that takes charge of this syntactic form. The same goes for discourse;
but there, even more than for the sentence, whose syntactic forms are easier to
identify, the predicative orientation that the enunciation imposes is determinant.
Discourse is therefore an instance of analysis where the production, that is to
say the enunciation, cannot be dissociated from its product, the utterance. This
position is coherent with that taken from the beginning: to be interested only in
the product is to be interested in its units, and to make an eort to generalize them
in order to make of them a system. Now, and this is one of the presuppositions
of the various theoretical positions that I am defending here, discourse does not
content itself with using the units of a system or with a pre-established code; this
vision of things is only applicable in a small number of marginal and ultimately
uninteresting situations (trac codes, for instance). Quite the contrary, discourse
unceasingly invents new gures and contributes to shifting or to distorting the
system that other discourses had previously nourished.
Thus the importance of never losing sight of the production of signifying
forms, the manner in which discourse schematizes our experiences and our rep-
resentations in order to make them meaningful and able to be shared by others.
But this perspective has consequences: discourse is inscribed in time, that of its
material unfolding as well as that of the productions of which it is a provisional
sampling.
1.3. Narrative
In its beginnings, during the 1950s and 60s, the structural analysis of texts was
devoted to their narrative dimension, which led to seeing a more or less explicit
narrative structure in any text; it is explicit in the narrative genres, the novel, the
tale, the fable, or the short story, and implicit in the other genres. In fact, when
one searches for a general organizational principle of discourse, which surpasses
the structure of sentences, narrative logic imposes itself as one of the easiest solu-
tions to put into play. It permits, among other things, establishing links from a
distance, sometimes masked by the segmentation and succession of textual units.
But the place accorded to narrative structures also responded to a more gen-
eral interrogation. When one seeks to analyze the signication of a discourse, one
cannot just rely on dierences, on oppositions between terms, on expressions or
gures: such is, in any case, the basic postulate of all of the linguistic sciences.
Now, when one establishes the pertinent oppositions, one does not encounter
dierences in the strict sense, alternatives which, in a given place in the chain,
could be emphasized by commutation. One only encounters contrasts, that is to
say oppositions whose terms are situated at dierent places in the chain of verbal
discourse or in the plane of an image or in the three-dimensional space of archi-
tecture, of a scene or an installation.
This comes down to saying that a dierence, when it is apprehended in a
text, presents itself in fact as a transformation between two contents, situated at
dierent places; from one place to the other, a category has been transformed,
modulated, distorted, or inversed.
This observation in fact has led to the following principle: in a discourse,
Discourse 49
meaning is only graspable through its transformations. From then on, as any narra-
tive also rests upon the same type of semantic transformation, the establishment
of the signication of a text became indissociable from the study of its narrative
dimension.
But narrative transformations are not the only transformations possible in
a discourse: gures, rhythms, genres, and semantic wholes may be transformed
without this being translated into a narrative change; the very principle of discur-
sive transformation must thus be generalized without that bringing about a gen-
eralization of the narrative structures in the strict sense. Narrative transformations
are just one of the possible scenarios of the discursive transformations.
From the point of view of the history of semiotics, the diffusion of Vladi-
mir Propps propositions and their reformulation and adaptation, following the
impetus of Claude Lvi-Strauss, A.J. Greimas, and Roland Barthes, has con-
tributed much to the generalization of narrativity, conceived as the very prin-
ciple of the intelligibility of discourses. One may even consider that this
generalization permitted the foundation of the semiotics of discourse.
But, like any scientific reduction, it was destined to be surpassed. In fact, not
every transformation is necessarily narrative: a text may contain figurative transf-
mations, or passional transformations, affecting the affective identity of subjects,
even while their reader has the feeling that nothing is happening, that is to say
that the situation of the actors with respect to their environment has not changed.
Inversely, contemporary literature has made us accustomed to novels that con-
tain a multitude of events and that nevertheless produce the impression of a narrative
standstill. This standstill may be, as in Robbe-Grillets Jealousy, the effect of a seg-
mentation and a repetition apparently unrelated to the events, and of a segmentation
that disallows the projection of a narrative logic. It may also, as in Clines Journey
to the End of the Night, be the very form of the narrative becoming: the accumula-
tion of failures and catastrophes transforms neither the protagonist Bardamus situ-
ation nor even his identity; they do nothing but progressively consume the capital
of virtual hope that, at the beginning of the novel, could make us expect a change.
1.4. Text and Discourse

Taking the inventory of the distinctions between these two notions would be fastid-
ious and sterile; the very notion of discourse, in fact, changes signication accord-
ing to whether it is opposed to that of language, of system, or of text. Not to
mention that each one, in order to specify and distinguish its position on the chess-
board of theories, sometimes recognizes the text as pertinent, sometimes discourse.
Generally, most linguistic conceptions interpret the text as an analyzable ma-
terial object, where one may identify structures, and the discourse as the product
of speech acts. But these speech acts manipulate and produce structures, and the
structures cannot be actualized except by speech acts.
As these two notions generally cover, in fact, the same phenomena, we are
justied in considering that they designate two dierent points of view on signi-
cation. We will thus speak of the point of view of the text and of the point of view
of the discourse.
If we dene signication at a minimum as the joining of a plane of expression
(E) and of a plane of content (C), the two points of view can be dened thus: the
point of view of the text is what permits us to follow the path [E C], and the
point of view of the discourse is what permits us to follow the path [C E].
In a more elaborated version, one may consider that the path that leads from
the content to the expression (and vice-versa) entails several phases, and that, no-
tably, it leads from the most abstract structures (for example, the structures called
elementary) to the most concrete organizations, close to the natural world and to
expression (for example, gurative organizations), or inversely. From this perspec-
tive, the path that links expression and content is a trajectory called a generative
trajectory which crosses a series of strata, in a theoretical space organized vertically,
and this trajectory is susceptible to being followed in both directions. The path [E
C] is then considered as descending, and the path [C E] as ascending.
These two points of view are strictly homologous, as concerns signifying
wholes, with what is called, for lexical units,the onomasiological (or descending)
point of view and the semasiological (or ascending) point of view.
The generative trajectory is presented as a set of levels of signification that,

as it is most often understood, is composed of (1) elementary seman-
tic structures, (2) actantial structures, (3) narrative and thematic struc-
tures, and (4) figurative structures. Each level is rearticulated in a more com-
plex manner in the following level, from the most abstract to the most concrete.
Thus, for example, (1) the category [life/death] (elementary semantic structure)
will be rearticulated (2) in [conjunction/disjunction] (elementary narrative structure),
thanks to the setting into relationship, within the first category, of a subject actant
and of an object actant (actantial structure), and it will itself give rise (3) to nar-
rative programs of preservation, of loss, or of reparation (narrative and thematic
structures); the latter, finally, (4) will be considered as figurative once they receive
perceptive, spatial, temporal, and actorial determinations (figurative structures). For
example, [life/death] could at this level, at the end of its trajectory, be manifested
as [light/darkness] (perception), or even [day/night] or [summer/winter] (temporaliza-
tion). This simplified illustration describes the ascending generative process, that
of the construction of signification, because it is that of concrete analysis, which
starts from directly observable figures and ends with basic underlying abstract cat-
egories. Thus, starting from [day/night], a figurative occurrence in a concrete text,
one may find again successively, and in inverse order: [light/darkness], [conjunc-
tion/disjunction], [life/death], even, more generally, [existence/non-existence].
The point of view of the text is that which follows the trajectory in the de-
scending direction, from concrete organizations to abstract struc-
Discourse 51
tures. The point of view of discourse is that which follows it in the as-
cending direction, from abstract structures to concrete organizations.
The point of view of discourse would then be, in the strict sense, generative,
because it starts from the most general structures of content and progressively en-
counters the diversity and the particularities of expression; in sum, it is the point
of view that endeavors to provide us with a representation of semiotic production.
The point of view of the text, on the other hand, could be called hermeneutic,
because it is guided by the search for an explanation and an intentionality that
would underlie textual facts properly speaking; the point of view would then be
what gives us a representation of the semiotic interpretation.
But I have already pointed out that the path which leads from the segmenta-
tion of textual units to underlying structures is at least subject to rules of perti-
nence; this initial segmentation must rightly be passed beyond, if not forgotten,
in order for us to accede to the pertinent structures, notably those of action, of
passion, or of cognition (see Chapter 5). In the same way, the inverse trajectory,
which should lead from elementary structures to the concrete organization of dis-
course, runs into numerous obstacles, and notably into the fact that enunciation
intervenes constantly to select and orient the underlying structures.
The apparent symmetry between the two points of view in fact masks a radi-
cal dierence of pertinence. From the point of view of discourse, at each stage of
the trajectory, the question arises of the acts which, under the control of enuncia-
tion, orient, select, and assemble structures in order to inscribe them in an expres-
sion. Faced with a signifying whole, the semiotics of discourse is always searching
for the instance of discourse that procures for it its status as a present, current, and
specic occurrence.
From the point of view of the text, these acts appear at best as useless or
marginal, at worst as obstacles that it is necessary to erase progressively in order to
nd the more objectiable and observable, or even more general, structures. The
semiotics of the text must go beyond the specicity of textual facts and the singu-
larity of enunciations in order to stabilize reading: did not Juri Lotman maintain
precisely, in The Structure of the Artistic Text, that the specicity of a text only
resulted from the intersection of a great number of structures which, taken in
isolation, are of a very general character?
Beyond this dierence of theoretical pertinence, there is another one that di-
rectly inuences the method of analysis and the role of what is called the context.
J.-M. Adam proposes reasoning beginning from the following two equations:
[Discourse = Text + Context] and [Text = Discourse Context]
From this perspective, the point of view of discourse would integrate the con-
text, while that of the text would exclude it. Things present themselves, how-
ever, a bit dierently. One nds, through experience, that it is the point
of view of the text, from a hermeneutic perspective, that obliges adding con-
textual elements: without that, interpretation remains incomplete and com-
prehension unsatisfying. On the other hand, discourse does not necessitate
recourse to context, not because it includes it in the sense of an added part,
but because the notion of context is not pertinent from this point of view.
In fact, the point of view of discourse neutralizes the dierence between text
and context; to adopt the point of view of discourse is to admit from the start that
all of the elements that work toward the process of signication belong by right to
the signifying whole, that is to say to discourse, no matter what they are.
In brief, it is the point of view of the text alone that invents the notion of
context, because it starts o from a set of previously delimited data, and because it
only then, at the moment of interpretation, discovers the necessity of adding data
that were unknown or excluded at the beginning
Many discussions bearing upon the necessity of getting out of the imma-
nence of language or of the text lose some of their interest if one does not decide
a priori which are the pertinent elements of analysis. Textual linguistics having
determined that only verbal elements are pertinent, it inevitably discovers the ne-
cessity of integrating elements of the context, because signication does not rest
exclusively upon verbal elements. In the same way, is it necessary to decide prior
to the analysis that, in a painting, only the painted surface is pertinent? Certainly
not, because one would then take the risk of having to add, after the fact, and in
the name of context, the other paintings of the same series, the other paintings
by the same painter, then the frame, the border, the way the painting is hung,
perhaps even the architecture of the room where it is installed, and the positions
of observations that it imposes.
The notion of aerence, introduced by Franois Rastier, which allows him to take
account a posteriori of the associations between the verbal text and other types of texts
(notably non-verbal ones), participates in this same principle: rst posing the verbal
text, then seeking the elements of context that are necessary to its interpretation.
Let us imagine a semiotician who is endeavoring to analyze a conversation. If he

or she adopts the point of view of the text, it will be necessary first of all to de-
cide on the limits of the expressions to consider, and to proceed with segmenta-
tion. For example, the text will be comprised of the set of linguistic utterances;
the search for the significations of these utterances will rapidly lead the semioti-
cian to add information of a mimo-gestural and intonative type, coming from
what will be called the para-linguistic context. But if the semiotician wants to give
speech acts all their significance, in place of erasing them progressively, it will be
necessary to explore the institutional and social relations between the partners
Discourse 53
in the interaction, and even to take account of the history of their relations, of
their respective cultures, etc. It is thus the socio-cultural context that is solicited.
On the other hand, if the semiotician adopts the point of view of discourse, he
or she will begin, starting from a set of non-delimited expressions, and by successive
samplings, to elaborate hypotheses on the dominant thematics of the conversational
exchange, on the stakes of this exchange, and on the roles played by each one of the
partners. Only then will the semiotician search for the corresponding expressions, with-
out imposing any limit of genre or type of signifier. It is only at the end of the analysis
that the semiotician may fix the limits of the corpus, which will then have the form of
a semiotic situation, including linguistic, mimo-gestural, spatial, institutional, and cul-
tural expressions. Because the limits of a text will not have been arbitrarily fixed, at no
moment of the procedure will the semiotician need to call upon a context. On the con-
trary, the semiotician will have constructed the discourse (here, the semiotic situation)
as a whole of signification, borrowing the expressions from diverse types of signifiers.
The notion of context is thus an invention that is only necessary when one adopts
the point of view of the text, and which one can do without if one chooses the
point of view of discourse. On the other hand, from the point of view of discourse,
other problems arise, notably because of the combination in one signifying pro-
cesses of several semiotic modes: verbal, visual, auditory, even olfactory, proxemic,
etc. In the same way, within discourse, several logics and several types of coherence
(see Chapter 5) cohabit. It is then necessary to ask if these semiotic modes, these
logics, and these types are or are not taken up by the same enunciative voices, and
if they maintain relations of a symbolic, semi-symbolic, or rhetorical type. In sum,
it is necessary to ask how the network of inter-semiotic relations is constituted.
But even more, we could suggest here a fundamental displacement of the
question of meaning in general: if we suppose on principle that any text is a het-
erogeneous whole whose limits can only be decided after the analysis, a posteriori,
and not a previously delimited and homogenized whole, then the very process
of signication, the very pressure of meaning, whether it be in the situation of
production or the situation of interpretation, is a pressure of homogenization, or
more precisely, a pressure with a view to the resolution of heterogeneities.
Far from being an afterthought of interpretation, through aerence or through
appeal to context, heterogeneity is an a priori semiotic given of production and
interpretation, at the same time as it is a tension to resolve: the signication of a
text thus conceived would then only be apprehensible in the form of the diverse
resolutions of heterogeneities that it puts into play. Paul Ricoeur, for example, has
devoted a signicant portion of his work to this inquiry: metaphor as the resolu-
tion of gurative semantic heterogeneity, narrative as the resolution of temporal
heterogeneities, etc.
The various forms of the synthesis of the heterogeneous then assume a central
place in reection about the dynamic structures of discourse.
The question is, quite obviously, of a totally dierent scope than that of a
simple addition of context to text. No one would think, for example, of saying
that the performance of a play, an opera, or even a musical piece results from the
addition of the context of the performance to the verbal and/or musical text.
Intuitively, we can agree to recognize in the entire performance the status of a liv-
ing signifying whole, of a global enunciation that produces a discourse. It is the
same way with a conversation and with any given social practice.
The strict point of view of the text thus creates a diculty that is at most only
an artifact of the chosen method. The point of view of discourse gives rise to other
diculties, notably at the moment of constructing the syncretism of dierent
semiotic modes and logics, but these diculties may be resolved by appealing to
the plural and polyphonic organization of enunciation and, insofar as they open
analysis to the question of the syntheses of the heterogeneous, they have a heuris-
tic value far superior to the text + context solution.
1.5. Narrative and Discourse

I have already evoked the role of narrative structures in the comprehension of dis-
course. But this couple discourse/narrative has been the object of a specic anal-
ysis by Benveniste, to which we must return in order to remove some ambiguities.
In a famous article from Problems in General Linguistics entitled The Correla-
tions of Tense in the French Verb, Benveniste endeavors to resolve the problem
posed by the apparent redundancy in usage of the pass simple and the pass
compos in French.3 Far from competing with each other, he maintains, they
belong to two systems which are distinct and complementary.4 Then, expanding the
analysis, he demonstrates that these two systems correspond to two dierent planes
of enunciation: that of history for the pass simple and that of discourse for the pass
compos.
The two planes of enunciation correspond to dierent morphologies, which
concern spatio-temporal localization as well as the designation of persons; fur-
thermore, each plane of enunciation exploits a group of verbal episodes [tiroirs].
For history there are the pass simple, the imperfect, and the conditional, as well
as their compound forms. For discourse, there are the present, the pass compos,
and the future, as well as their compound forms. But, beyond just verbal mor-
phology, the two planes of enunciation are also distinguished by their enunciative
regime. For history, this is the absence of speaker, and for discourse it is the free
manifestation of the speaker and of the listener. History and discourse are distin-
guished at the same time by a contrast between linguistic morphologies that are
specic to them and by the presence or absence of the speaker and of his or her
partners.
Here is where the ambiguities begin. In fact, in the course of his demonstra-
Discourse 55
tion, Benveniste proposes examples of the rst type, both historical and narra-
tive texts, which has sometimes allowed certain readers to conclude that historical
narration and discourse were dierent genres of texts, accommodating dierent
morphologies, and governed by dierent types of enunciations; textual types, in
sum, that are opposable one to the other.
Now, Benveniste only speaks of planes of enunciation, of which one (history)
is only distinguished by the absence of the manifestation of the other (discourse).
Discourse is every utterance assuming a speaker and a hearer, and in the speaker,
the intention of inuencing the other in some way.5 History is thus dened as the
suspension of discourse: No one speaks here; the events seem to narrate them-
selves.6 It is quite obviously not a question of textual types, but of two dierent
strategies for manifesting or dissimulating, in textual morphology itself, the pres-
ence of the instance of discourse. Formally, we thus must distinguish the general
casethe existence of an instance of discourseand the particular casesdis-
play or dissimulation. Substantially, we will consider that the textual apparatus of
enunciation is, among other things, destined to modulate our perception of the
instance of discourse.
From a terminological point of view, the confusion is born from
the double meaning of discourse which, in Benvenistes work, des-
ignates at the same time the general case, or the existence of an in-
stance of discourse, and the particular case, or its explicit manifestation.
In order to mask the presence of the enunciation, it is not only necessary to sup-
press the expression of the actors or of the spatial and temporal positions of the
enunciation; it is also necessary to adopt other expressions, notably adverbs, per-
sonal pronouns, and verbal episodes [tiroirs], specific to the disengaged mode.
This type of functioning is, however, common: for example, linguistic gender
is expressed by the presence or absence of the feminine ending (lion/lioness), as
by the alternation between two different expressions (man/woman). The fact re-
mains that in both cases the masculine is always the generic term and the femi-
nine, the specific term. In the same manner, although discourse and narrative adopt
specific and opposable terms, the fact remains that one is the generic mode and
the other, the specific mode. The distinction between generic and specific is not
necessarily expressed by an opposition between marked and unmarked terms.
The question raised by Benveniste is therefore not in ne that of morphologi-

cal classes and of textual genres, but that of modulations of the presence of the
instance of discourse in the text, more or less masked, more or less displayed: it
thus arises entirely from the point of view of discourse and the history-narrative is
only a particular case of total or partial eacement of the instance of discourse.
Once again, the point of view of the text goes astray from the problem posed.
In terms of method, this means that it is futile to want to characterize and

classify texts according to their mode of enunciation, but that, on the contrary, it
is tting to be particularly attentive to the degrees and modalities of the gradual
presence and absence of enunciation. The complete eacement of the instance of
enunciation would be in this regard only one of the forms of the manipulation of
the sender, a simulacrum of objectivity that fools only those who believe in it, the
feigned absence of an enunciator who comes forward but who is masked.
2. THE INSTANCE OF DISCOURSE

The term instance, proposed by Benveniste, is undoubtedly the most appro-
priate to designate discourse as an act: instance designates the set of operations,
operators, and parameters that control discourse. This generic term permits
us in particular to avoid introducing prematurely the notion of the subject.
The act is rst, sui generis, and the components of its instance are secondary.
From the point of view of discourse, the act is an act of enunciation that
produces the semiotic function. The semiotic function may certainly be examined
from another point of view, as the accomplished uniting of the plane of content
and the plane of expression, but then it is a matter of the point of view of the
text.
2.1. The Taking of Position

Let us recall that, during the establishment of the semiotic function, the instance of
discourse must accomplish a division between the exteroceptive world, which fur-
nishes the elements of the plane of expression, and the interoceptive world, which
furnishes those of content. This division takes the form of a taking of position.
The rst act is thus that of the taking of position: in uttering, the instance
of discourse utters its own position. It is then endowed with a presence (a pres-
ent, among others), which will serve as a point of reference for all of the other
operations. Merleau-Ponty explains: To perceive is to render oneself present to
something through the body.7
If we, in turn, arm: To utter is to make something present with the help
of language, we are only prolonging the phenomenological axiom and making
of it a semiotic axiom. Furthermore, from a semiotic point of view, perception is
already a language, because it is signifying. Because the rst speech act consists in
making present, it can only be conceived with relation to a body susceptible to
feel this presence.
The operator of this act is thus the body proper, a sensing body that is the rst
form that the actant of enunciation takes. In fact, even before it can (or cannot) be
identied as a subject (I), the latter is established as a sensible center of reference,
reacting to the presence that surrounds it.
Discourse 57
This rst stage is not without consequence: the deixis of discourse (space, time,
and then the actor of enunciation) is not a simple form. It is rst of all associated
with a sensible experience of presence, a perceptive and aective experience.
Because it is a sensible taking of position, destined to install a zone of refer-
ence, it consists also in a taking of position on the basic dimensions of perceptive
sensibility, intensity, and extent. In the case of intensity, we will say that the taking
of position is an intent; in the case of extent, we will say that it is an apprehension.
The intent operates according to the mode of intensity: the body proper then turns
toward what arouses in it a sensible (perceptive, aective) intensity. Apprehension
works, on the other hand, according to the mode of extent: the body proper per-
ceives positions, distances, dimensions, and quantities.
2.2. Gagement8
The term gagement [brayage] is constructed from its two better-known deriva-
tives, engagement and disengagement.
Once the rst taking of position is accomplished, reference may then func-
tion: other positions may be recognized and set into relationship with the rst.
It is the second founding act of the instance of discourse: disengagement accom-
plishes the passage from the original position to another position; engagement
endeavors to return to the rst position.
The theory of engagements and disengagements was elaborated by Greimas
starting from the concept of shifters which, in Jakobsons work, designated the
elements of language that are susceptible to manifest the presence of the enuncia-
tion. But gagement is a much more extended concept, because it characterizes
the act of enunciation par excellence, the one by which discourse can manifest,
indirectly, the taking of position.
Engagement has in general been defined as a set of ruptures of isotopies (spatial,

temporal, and actorial ruptures) opposing the I and the He/She, the now and the
then, the here and the elsewhere. This description is accurate, but only delimits the
superficial consequences, and, if the truth be told, the textual and morphological
consequences of disengagement. Furthermore, it exploits an operation of general
value, the rupture of isotopy, without specifying what is specific in the gagement,
that is to say the change of position of the instance of discourse. The taking of
position being considered as the first act of discourse, instituting a field of pres-
ence, and disengagement being defined as change of position, the various rup-
tures of isotopies (actorial, spatial, temporal, cognitive, affective, etc.) associated
with disengagement then appear as superficial manifestations of the basic operation.
Disengagement is disjunctive in orientation. Thanks to it, the world of discourse

detaches itself from the simple inexpressible lived of presence. Discourse loses
in intensity, certainly, but gains in extent: new spaces and new moments may
be explored, and other actants put into play. Disengagement is thus by deni-
tion pluralizing, and presents itself as a deployment in extension. It pluralizes
the instance of discourse: the new universe of discourse that is thus opened
comprises, at least virtually, an innity of spaces, of moments, and of actors.
Engagement is on the other hand conjunctive in orientation. Under its action,
the instance of discourse endeavors to return to the original position. It cannot
succeed, because the return to the original position is a return to what is inexpress-
ible in the body proper, to the simple premonition of presence. But it can at least
construct a simulacrum of it. It is thus that discourse is capable of proposing a
simulated representation of the moment (now), of the place (here), and of the per-
sons of enunciation (I/You). Engagement renounces extent, because it comes back
closest to the center of reference and gives priority to intensity; it concentrates
anew the instance of discourse.
The apparent uniqueness of the subject of enunciation is thus just an eect of
this reduction of extent (reduction of quantity) and of the sparkle of the recovered
intensity. In the very gesture of the return to the original (inaccessible) position,
discourse thus procures at the same time the simulacrum of deixis and the simu-
lacrum of a unique instance. This remark must be understood as a theoretical
precaution: the uniqueness of the subject of enunciation being just an eect of the
most extensive engagement, the ordinary situation of the instance of discourse is
plurality: plurality of roles, plurality of positions, plurality of voices.
But, as this return is always imperfect, it is subject to degrees: thus, if engage-
ment is interrupted midway, the person will remain dissociated, either plural or
dual. In the latter case, the You may be for example one of the gures of the sub-
ject of enunciation, just as much as the I.
2.3. The Positional Field

2.3.1. The Properties of the Field
The rst mode of instance, that of pure presence, intense and extended, intended
or apprehended, is susceptible to being expressed in discourse, just like the second-
ary modes, obtained through disengagement and engagement. For the rst, we
will speak of the function of presentation of discoursecalled also presentication.
For the others, it is a matter of the function of representation, representation of an
other world (through disengagement) or representation of a proper world [monde
propre] (through engagement). Each operation of the instance of discourse is in
fact accomplished on the basis of the one preceding it, and which remains active.
The discursive putting into play of the taking of position may be partially
schematized under the form of a positional eld. For Benveniste, the positional
eld is constituted by the categories of person, of number, and of diathesis: one may
Discourse 59
recognize here the more general categories of actant, of quantity, and of predicative
orientation.9 All of them are deduced from the original taking of position.
1. The predicative orientation is established starting from the position of the

instance of discourse, and this position permits foreseeing the
distribution of dierent actants around the process (active,
passive, factitive forms). More generally, it indicates what
is the point of view that imposes itself on the discourse.
2. The actant is the operator of the taking of position; we have already indicated
that the minimal actant was the body that occupies the center of reference
of the discourse. The formation of dierent persons is a secondary
phenomenon.
3. The quantity results from the putting into relationship of diverse positions
and from the measure of the spatio-temporal distances between these
diverse positions.
The elementary properties of the positional eld may be identied as fol-

lows: (1) the center of reference, (2) the horizons of the eld, (3) the
depth of the eld, which puts the center and the horizons in relation,
and (4) the degrees of intensity and of quantity proper to this depth.
The center is instituted by the sensing body itself; it is the site of maximal in-
tensity for a minimal extent. As Benveniste explains: The one who orders the eld
is himself or herself designated as a position, as center and as reference point.10
Without disengagement, the center can only feel itself, as a pure emotional and
proprioceptive intensity, without extent.
The horizons are those that delimit the domain of presence: beyond, they
push back the domain of absence. They correspond to the minimal intensity for
a maximal extent; in fact, nothing situated on the horizons of the positional eld
may aect the sensible center with a sucient intensity. On the other hand, this
loss of intensity permits an appreciation of the distance that separates the center
and the horizons. But the appearance of a very strong intensity on the horizon
signals at the same time the formation of another positional eld, concurrent with
the rst, that is to say the positional eld of alterity.
2.3.2. Depth
Depth is precisely this distance (sensible, perceived) between the center and the
horizons: at the moment when some gure breaks through the horizon of the
eld, a certain extent coincides with an almost non-existent perceptive intensity.
The appreciation of this extent associated with a weak intensity furnishes the mea-
sure of the elds depth. As extent shrinks and intensity grows, depth diminishes.
It is certainly necessary to explain here that we are talking about the depth of
the positional eld of discourse, conceived as a tension between a center and ho-
rizons, a tension that depends upon variations of perceptive intensity and extent.
For the sensible center of discourse, there is thus depth only if there is a change in
equilibrium between intensity and extent and a variation in the tension between
the center and the horizons. In other words, depth here is a dynamic category,
which the positional actant may apprehend only in movement, only if something
draws near or if something moves away. Depth is thus not a position but a move-
ment between the center and the horizons, not a measure but the perception of a
variation of the tension between intensity and extent.
The notion of depth contains in itself all of the necessary determinations in
order to constitute a eld of presence: it presupposes a center of reference, it
indicates the place of the horizons of the eld, it species the distance that sepa-
rates them. The experience of depth, dened as an inverse correlation between an
intensity and an extent, would thus suce to dene a positional eld and its two
principle directions. At the two extremes of the correlation, the center-body, with
no depth, and the horizons, with maximal depth, take place respectively.
The impression of uniqueness and of punctuality provided by certain deictics
directly results from their absence of depth: here is the place where depth is ap-
preciated, but it is not part of depth. On the other hand, there and over there are
at the same time reference points to appreciate the depth of the eld and parts of
this depth: within there, in fact, a certain extension that distinguishes it from the
here leaves a place for the withdrawal in depth, a withdrawal that Heideggerian
philosophy (that of Dasein) has particularly exploited.
A distinction is called for here between a progressive depth and a regressive depth.
Two movements may be envisioned, starting either from the center or from the ho-
rizons. The depth that moves starting from the center has a known reference point,
the position of reference of the discourse; the actant may evaluate and measure
the distance in depth. On the other hand, the depth that moves starting from the
horizons does not have a known reference point; it advances toward the center
and can only be felt. Such is, for example, the experience of vertigo, or that of the
premonition of an invasion or of an aggression. Progressive depth is thus mainly a
cognitive depth, which the instance of discourse may predict, measure, and evalu-
ate. Regressive depth is on the other hand a mainly emotional and passional depth.
2.3.3. The Positional Actants

These rst denitions, combined with the two types of taking of position, in-
tent (intensive) and apprehension (extensive), allow us to dene the actants of the
positional eld, or, more simply, positional actants. In the next chapter, I will
return to this notion by opposing positional actants to transformational actants.
Discourse 61
Although Benveniste speaks of the positional eld of the subject and of the
person, it still seems to me premature to speak here of a subject, for an actant that
only feels the intensity or the extent of a presence, and the proximity or distance
of the horizons. On the other hand, person already has a place in the elementary
properties of the positional eld, if one means by that that it is a question mini-
mally of an actant endowed with presence, an actant present to itself and to others.
Nevertheless, I will show later that the category of person must be used with cau-
tion (see Chapter 6).
As typical actants of the positional eld (or, to put it briey, eld actants),
they are considered as the very actants of perception, the minimal actantial struc-
ture that allows us to speak of perceptive acts, of operations of perception,
and of the production of signication starting from perception, notably within
discourses themselves. If I oppose them to transformational actants, it is es-
sentially due to the division I am making between the logics of forces (on the
side of the transformational actants) and the logics of places (on the side of the
positional actants). But, more profoundly, the actantial structure of the transfor-
mation presupposes the existence of a system of values (at least in order to dene
an object of value and to characterize its relation with the other actants, the
subject and the receiver); on the other hand, the actantial structure of perception
does not presuppose such a system of values because, by denition, it contributes
to putting it into place.
Positional actants are eld actants, furnishing the rst rules and orientations
prior to the emergence of signication, while transformational actants are trajec-
tory actants, which in some sense realize the values sketched out and invested by
the positional actants. It would thus be prudent, when a trajectory actant seems to
invent values at the same time as it realizes them through actions, to attribute to
this actant both of the two statuses: it actually combines in this case a positional
role and a transformational role.
The positional actants of the perceptive structure are thus, by declension, ac-
tants of intent and of apprehension. In both cases, the positional roles are three in
number: sources, targets, and actants of control, the latter being able, under certain
conditions, to become obstacles.
There is a source, a target, and a control of intent; the source is present by its
eciency, the target by the intensity of its reaction, and the control by the modu-
lation of intensity and the regulations it induces between the two (lter, amplier,
inection of direction, etc.).
There is a source, a target, and a control of apprehension; the source puts into
place an arrangement of inveigling, of measure, and of closure, the target is evalu-
ated in its extension, and the control furnishes a standard, a scale of evaluation, a
mediation that facilitates or hinders the interaction.
As there is no preeminence and anteriority of intent over apprehension, there

is none among the three positional actants. Moreover, their respective roles are
not dened by the predicates but by discursive orientation. For example, in Apol-
linaires Alcools, the I and the You, whose roles are xed by the act of enunciation,
are nonetheless inversed as positional actants: I is the target, and You is, according
to the case, either the source or the control.
The identification of the source and of the target is not always very easy. According to the
mode of intensity, for example, which is the prerogative of the intent, the body, center
of the field, feels an intensity which it attributes to the effect of a presence in the field.
It thus intends it, in order to recognize it as the origin of this intensity: paradoxically, it is
the source of the intent, but the target of the intensity. It is entirely a matter of knowing
where the intentionality is located: as long as the presence thus felt is not recognized
as intentional, the body-center remains the source of the intent. However, if this pres-
ence is perceived as intentional, then the actant who is the center of the discourse
loses the initiative of the intent; this actant is himself or herself intended by the inten-
sity that he or she feels; an intentional alterity takes shape in the actants own field.
Inversely, according to the mode of extent, where apprehension is exercised,
the body, center of the field, is the point of reference of all evaluations of distance
and of quantity: it is at once the source of the apprehension and the source of
the measures of extent. But the same alternative remains open: if presence
is perceived as intentional, it is the place of the actant who is the center of dis-
course that is apprehended and evaluated; it is he who is gauged and quantified.
This signifies among other things that presence, in a semiotic sense, is already an
elementary structure of communication, at least through the effect of an orientation,
which overdetermines the structure of the sensorial information. This information is, in
fact, always a certain movement, an intensity that affects the sensible body (thus it is
centripetal). But the sensation of presence implies a complementary relation, which is
that of intentionality, and according to whether this new relation is centrifugal (it is the
sensible body that intends the world) or centripetal (it is the world that intends the sen-
sible body), the intentional source will be placed in the sensible body or in the world.
Perceptive intent, as an actantial structure of communication, thus com-
bines two relations and orientations: the informative relation and the intentional
relation. This duality allows us to explain that the same type of sensations, ac-
cording to the case, may be perceived either as a movement of the sensible
body toward the world or as a movement of the world toward the sensible body.
The actants of control thus govern the relation between sources and tar-
gets. They may be dened starting from the variation of gradients of inten-
sity and of extent in depth: any modulation or brutal variation of one or the
other will be imputed to an actant of control that weakens or reinforces pres-
ence. The actant of control can give rise to the appearance of new horizons:
it is sucient for it to function as a target and for it to suspend any presence
beyond itself; the actant of control is then transformed into an obstacle. This
Discourse 63
functioning is particularly evident in the case of lighting, where the relation

between the sources and the targets of light may be disturbed by the appear-
ance of obstacles: actants of control that have been transformed into targets.
As the structure of the eld actants is independent from the substance in
which the eld is realized, it may be manifested in a great diversity of forms.
For example, in a relation of communication between two partners, the ac-
tant of control may be incarnated in what is sometimes called an additional or
indirect receiver (a third observer, either visible or invisible, whose presence is
known by at least one of the partners and consequently inects the course of the
exchange).
From a totally dierent perspective, the evocation of a sensorial experience
easily takes on the form of a eld structure, in which two principles, the source
and the target, are submitted to the regulation of a third, the control. Thus, dur-
ing a wine tasting, if the power and intensity of the source (the alcohol, the liveli-
ness, the strength) are directed toward the stable structure of a target (the grapes,
the sugar, the tannins, etc.), they may be submitted to the regulation of a control
of a mediation that modies the principal interaction (the oral essences, the
fruity tastes, the acidity, etc.).
And yet, if we consider the gures and tropes of rhetoric not as simple se-
mantic forms but as events and operations that take place in the text in the eyes
of an observer (either producer or interpreter), then the rhetorical dimension
of discourses is entirely submitted to this perceptive actantial structure. In each
trope or gure, there is (1) a source (the confrontation between domains, between
isotopies, between parts of domains or gures, between arguments, or between
axiological positions, etc.), (2) which problematically intends a target (a resolu-
tion of the initial confrontation, an interpretive solution, a form of synthesis for
heterogeneous assemblages, etc.); and (3) between this source and this target, the
enunciation has at its disposal a control, which is also a guide for the resolution or
the interpretation of the problematic utterance (variations and displacements of
its own power of assumption and of its own belief, eects of composition and of
conguration that are more or less stabilized and identiable, etc.).
The general arrangement of the positional eld is applicable to numerous
categories: one may for example speak of depth in space and in time, but also in
aectivity or in the imaginary. If the substance that it organizes does not mat-
ter, its properties (center, horizons, depth, positional actants) remain constant.
Certainly, such a diversity of applications may appear to play upon metaphorical
displacements, but it is then a question of metaphorical transfers which have a
meta-semiotic value, and which reveal the permanence of a single elementary sche-
matization of discourse.
The category of person, for example, demonstrates such modulations. The
variety of personal pronouns that designate or include Ego bears witness to this.
In the case of the royal we, the amplied we, the center is transformed into a mas-
sive form that is soon merged with the entire eld. The actant of control and the
targets are then pushed outside of the eld: this transcending we allows no other
presence than its own, it has no interlocutor, it allows no depth.
Moreover, the distinction between the we called inclusive (which includes the
second person and which excludes all the rest) and the we called exclusive (which
excludes the second person and which includes third persons) may be interpreted
as a displacement of the elds horizon. In the rst case, the actant of control
closes the eld; in the second, the actant of control opens it to them. In other
words, the dierence between these two wes is not a simple combinatory dier-
ence, but a modulation of the depth of the category of person and a modication
of the consistency of the elds boundary: the we called inclusive reinforces this
boundary, insofar as the two interlocutors mutually control each other (or even
become confused) in order to dene its place, while the we called exclusive
weakens the boundary, because only Ego then has control on the part of the
they that it makes participate in this we (and moreover, no rule of reference
obliges it to declare that it is the extent of this part).
Another example is the experience of the madeleine in Proust: when the

narrator recounts the reappearance of what was hidden in the depths of memory,
thanks to tasting the madeleine dipped in tea, he puts into place the po-
sitional field of the instance of discourse and he would have great dif-
ficulty retranscribing it with figures other than those of depth.
The source here is the hidden memory; the target is the actants body;
the actant has felt the effect of the madeleine, he has evaluated the depth
where the memory is hidden; in recognizing the gustative effect as associ-
ated with a memory, he has, at the same time, attributed an intentional val-
ue to this sensible presence. This actant, however, endeavors to be the source
of an intent, but he does not succeed in apprehending the hidden memory.
The actant of control is then represented by the different layers of memory that the
recollection must cross in order to rejoin the body which is the center of the field. The text
is very explicit about the form of this actant of control: a stratification and a thickness
that slows, blocks, turns the reappearance of the memory, then clears the way in order
to let it blossom. But the actant of control only frees the memory if the actant who is the
center of the field gives up being the source of the intent and accepts just being its target.
This experience may be apprehended at another level of analysis as a micro-
narrative, with characters and events; but it is then a question of narrative repre-
sentation and not of sensible experience, of the experience of a presence. For the
latter, only the positional actantssource, target, controlare pertinent. It is also
the stability of this positional and perceptive actantial structure that allows the im-
mediate transposition between, on the one hand, a gustative sensorial field, and,
on the other hand, a memory field: in both cases, it is a matter of a perceptive field.
Discourse 65
3. DISCURSIVE SCHEMAS
The instance of discourse does not ensure the intelligibility of discourse; it
guarantees the presence of discourse in the world and it accomplishes the
acts necessary for the realization of this discourse. But the meaning of these
acts cannot be reduced to just their value of presence: in that case, each act
would always be irreducibly singular, and would provide no usable informa-
tion about the world to which it refers or which it proposes, since it could
not be reported and compared to any other. Moreover, presence does not al-
low us to identify either gures or values; it is their condition, it provides the
valences, it is the background upon which phenomena receive an initial se-
mantic schematization, starting from which gures and values are articulated.
However, discourse brings us identiable knowledge and emotions. When it
acts upon us, if we want to understand the manner in which it works, we must be
able to compare, confront, generalize, and thus escape the irreducible singularity
of the current presence. We must pass, in sum, from discourse in action to uttered
discourse, in which values form a system and in which the gures take on the
stable contours of icons.
In fact, when we were speaking of a rst action, of an original taking of
position, this was only in relation to this singular presence. But no one ever
pronounces the rst discourse: discursive activity is always taken up in a chain,
or even a thickness of other discourses to which it ceaselessly makes reference.
Each occurrence of discourse is itself the occasion of a multitude of speech acts,
interlinked and superimposed upon one another. We must in some sense pass
from the act of enunciation to enunciative praxis: praxis is precisely that open set of
interlinked and superimposed enunciations, within which each singular enuncia-
tion slips.
That being the case, through repetition, reformulation, even innovation, all
acts of enunciative praxis are underlying the exercise of a singular act. It is in this
sense that discourses are capable of schematizing that to which they refer and of
projecting onto them intelligible forms that permit us to construct their signica-
tion.
A discursive schema is thus an intelligible form that maintains a link with the
sensible universe: each act of enunciation in fact reactivates these two dimensions
of meaning. The discursive schemas express, in sum, the link between what we
understand of the discourse and our sensible apprehension of its presence.
We will thus distinguish between two types of schemas of discourse: (1) ten-
sive schemas are schemas that regulate the interaction of the sensible and the intel-
ligible, the tensions and relaxations that modulate this interaction; (2) canonical
schemas are schemas that combine and connect several tensive schemas, in a form
that is xed and immediately recognizable in a given culture.
The term schematism, in the tradition descending from Kant, designates the mediation
between concept and image and, more generally, between categories of understanding
and sensible phenomena. Ernst Cassirer, in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, takes
this role as a central function of language: Language [...] possesses such a sche-
mato which it must refer all intellectual representations before they can be sensu-
ously apprehended and representedin its terms for spatial contents and relations.11
3.1. Schemas of Tension

Upon the basic principle according to which schemas assure solidarity between
the sensible (intensity, aect, etc.) and the intelligible (the unfolding in extent,
the measurable, comprehension), one may dene the set of discursive schemas
as variations of equilibrium between these two dimensions, variations leading
either to an increase in aective tension or to a cognitive relaxation. Increase
in intensity brings about tension; increase in extent brings about relaxation.
The syntax of discourse, this connection, and this superposition of acts, thus
combine at each moment the dimension of intensity (the sensible) and that of
extent (the intelligible). The objective now is to anticipate and calculate the typi-
cal scenarios.
3.1.1. The Four Elementary Schemas

Discursive schemas are, following the preceding denition, movements ori-
ented toward a greater tension or toward a greater relaxation. These di-
verse movements combine decreases and increases in intensity, with reduc-
tions and unfoldings in extent. The organizing principle of the tensive struc-
ture (see Chapter 2) allows us to envision four basic types of movements.
1. a decrease of intensity combined with an unfolding of extent brings about

a cognitive relaxation: this is the descending schema, or the schema of
decadence;
Schema of
Decadence
Intensity
(Intent)
Extent
(Apprehension)
Discourse 67
2. an increase of intensity combined with a reduction of extent brings

about an aective tension: this is the schema of ascendence;
Schema of
Ascendence
Intensity
(Intent)
Extent
(Apprehension)
3. an increase of intensity combined with an unfolding of extent brings

about an aective-cognitive tension: this is the schema of amplication;
Schema of
Amplication
Intensity
(Intent)
Extent
(Apprehension)
4. a decrease of intensity combined with a reduction of extent

brings about a general relaxation: this is the schema of attenuation.
Schema of
Attenuation
Intensity
(Intent)
Extent
(Apprehension)
a. The Schema of Decadence

This rst scenario leads to an accent of intensity, an emotional shock to relaxation,
brought about by a development, a clarication, or even a reformulation in exten-
sion. The theory of incipits, whether it be that of Louis Aragon with respect to his
novels (in I Never Learned to Write, or Opening Lines [Je nai jamais appris crire,
ou Les Incipits]) or that of Paul Valry with respect to his La Jeune Parque (in Frag-
ments of Memories of a Poem [Fragments des mmoires dun pome]), is the per-
fect illustration of this: both present enunciative praxis from the point of view of
production as a brief moment of inspiration, where the beginning of a text and
its general form take shape at the same time, followed by a long time of develop-
ment and of the lling out of this form. Aragon and Valry even claim, each one
in his own way, that the two moments have neither the same cognitive status nor
the same modal status: in the rst, the body, the imagination, the gures of the un-
conscious predominate; in the second, cognition, rereading, conscious and reec-
tive production take over. The rst moment is that of a striking taking of position;
the rest of the process is the cognitive exploitation of this initial taking of position.
In an entirely dierent domain, the relation between what advertisers call
the hook and the rest of the advertisement is of the same order: the hook only
has value as an accent, for its ability to capture the gaze and the attention of the
spectator, that is to say to propose a condensed, intense, and thus aectively ef-
cient formulation. The rest of the advertisement, both text and image, exploits
and diuses this attention, in order to lead it, through a more or less complex
argumentation, toward a decision or some other cognitive act.
b. The Schema of Ascendence

The second scenario, the inverse of the rst, leads to a nal tension, which some-
how, with a burst and in an aective mode, adds up all that precedes it. On the
side of narrative structures, it is this type of schema that brings about the progres-
sive increase of fear in horror stories, or, quite simply, the increase of suspense. But
the sentences syntax itself, insofar as it is submitted to discursive praxis and orien-
tation, provides us with many examples, notably with the type called exclamative.
Cinematographic editing, which is reputed to be under the control of the
lms enunciative instance, of course also plays upon this possibility: when the
editing rests upon the narrowing (either progressive or sudden) of the eld, up
to a face centered in a close-up shot, or to an object seized by an insert, it
passes from a descriptive or narrative development to a purely emotional eect.
Inversely, when it progressively enlarges the eld, beginning with a wide shot or
a close-up shot, and ending up with a series of descriptive or narrative wide or
panoramic shots, it passes from an emotional eect (in some sense the equivalent
of a question or an exclamation) to an explicative and cognitive unfolding. No
Discourse 69
matter what the particular reasons that may lead to such choic-
es, the dialectic of the sensible and the intelligible is always deter-
mined by the overall choice of an ascending or a descending schema.
One may also evoke, as a reminder, the construction of literary genres that
end in a fall: the fall of a short story, the peak of a sonnet, are bursts of intensity
which overall put into question what precedes them, not because they contradict
it, but because at the last minute they reactivate the emotion: passion, worry, or
uncertainty. It is true that these falls and these peaks impose a retroactive read-
ing on the whole of the text. But it is not a matterexcept for professional and
university readersof a cursory rereading: instantly, under the force of the emo-
tion, the fall and the peak prompt us to go back over all at once what, from the
text, has remained in our memory. This trajectory somehow adds up all that has
preceded it, and, thanks to this ultimate condensation, recongures the meaning
of the whole.
c. The Schema of Amplication

The third scenario rests upon a principle of general gradation, which starts from a
minimum of intensity and a small extent, leading to a maximal tension, equally laid
out in extent. In this case, the growth of information and cognitive unfolding do
not bring about a decrease of intensity, on the contrary; the sensible and the intelli-
gible grow in concert. We can think of most symphonic constructions, which lead
us from the thin, barely audible line of the soli, to the most striking tutti. But also,
in rhetoric, of all of the gures said to be of amplication: at the level of a portion of
text or an entire text, they generalize and diuse an eect while increasing its inten-
sity. This schema is also, within the limits of one or a few sentences, that of emphasis.
Classical tragedy exploits such a schema: in Act 4, the tensions fall away,
arrangements are sketched out; one could say that the dramatic intensity is weak-
ened, without for all that a real solution having been found. In Act 5, the crisis
breaks out all the more, death or misfortune soon do not spare any of the protago-
nists: this destructive and contagious intensity is the only possible dnouement.
On the other hand, in comedy, every crisis must be resolved on the model of the
descending schema, thanks to cognitive arrangements, reasonable compromises, or
even new facts discovered at the last minute and sometimes even presented in a
laboriously explanatory manner; the relations between the protagonists is reorga-
nized, and the situation stabilizes.
d. The Schema of Attenuation

The fourth scenario is that of the general dissipation of tensions and unfoldings:
according to a principle of dissipation, or even a dwindling of forces in a discourse,
as well as of reduction in extent, it leads to a relaxation that has the form of a general
devaluation, which itself calls for a reevaluation: the sensible valences of intensity
and the intelligible valences of extent are then at their lowest, even nil, waiting for
an amplication. In certain ways, the dissipation of tensions in Act 4 of the classical
tragedy, even though no cognitive scenario appears, would arise from this scenario.
More generally, the reign of dullness results from such a schema. Dullness is
never installed, it must ceaselessly exercise its control over sensations, over gures
and over the situations evoked. To evoke dullness in the work of Paul Verlaine,
for example, is to set forth all of the semantic and formal procedures by which
it extinguishes the spark of sensations and thanks to which it intends a neutral
(or neutralized) state, a complete state of relaxation. In Sagesse, for example, the
poem Hay Spreading [Lchelonnement des haies] moves from a contrasted rep-
resentation of the elements of a rural landscape (plants, mill, animals, sounds of a
bell) to the most neutral presence possible. In fact, in the nal analysis, everything
gets confused in the mued atmosphere of fog; the animals and plants exchange
their properties, thanks to metaphor; the bells ring like utes, thanks to simile;
and, in the last verse, the sky is like milk. Finally, the trait /maternal/ confers upon
this neutrality of presence and upon this relaxation a psychological and aective
dimension that could be exploited by a psychoanalytic interpretation.
Dullness is also, according to Franois Jullien (In Praise of Dullness [Eloge de la
fadeur ]12), the very principle of all of Chinese culture. But this dullness is strate-
gic: it allows, via the most neutral position possible, nding the center or the base
of any experience in the world. In sum, dullness would be the place that is the
least determined, the least specic, that of the most guarded presence, and, conse-
quently, that where, nothing being actualized, everything is still possible.
The zone of valences that are the weakest in intensity and extent, this zone
that the schema of attenuation intends, would be in this way the virtual zone par
excellence, that of the eacement and disappearance of gures, but that also from
which new semiotic forms may emerge.
From an entirely different perspective, this zone of weak valences would also be that of
derision. Let us think for example of the role of figures of derision in Apollinaires Alcools:
at the moment when affective tension is rising, without hope of a solutionit is generally
a matter of a love unrequited or lost, the flash of humor or the incongruous joke come
to lessen the force of emotion, without for all that resolving anything: neither intensity
nor extent. If one may say that humor breaks the rhythm of an exchange or of a dis-
course, it is not only because it changes tone or registerit is only a means, but it is
above all because it imposes a new equilibrium between the sensible and the intelligible.
Moreover, in Alcools, the schema of attenuation is generalized: derision is associated
with lexical disuse, with anachronisms, with a whole set of figures that are local, acci-
dental, and without the capacity for textual unfolding, which manifest the weakening
of enunciative assumption.
Discourse 71
3.2. Canonical Schemas

The schemas of tension are in some sense syllables of discourse, which may be
put together to form sentences: we have seen for example that classical tragedy
linked three successive tensive scenarios: (1) the ascending schema, when the drama
builds, (2) the schema of attenuation, when, in Act 4, the conicts subside, and -
nally (3) the schema of amplication, by which the catastrophe comes to pass and
spreads. This typical sequence forms the canonical schema of French classical tragedy.
Each type of discourse, perhaps each genre (see the discussion above, on the
fall of a short story or the peak of a sonnet), and each rhetorical gure are thus
composed of one or several complex schemas, the recognition of which by the
reader is one of the most certain and most common reading lessons. As they are
characteristic of a type or a genre, they guide a priori the comprehension of the
discourse, and they have the status of cultural schemas, placed under convention
or inherited from tradition: this is the reason why they are called canonical sche-
mas.
The principles of composition of the canonical schemas have a very strong
heuristic power, insofar as they give a stable form to a process of resolution of het-
erogeneity. The case of the passion anger is particularly signicant; when one is
interested in human anger (which Seneca comments on in De Ira, for example, or
as analyzed by Greimas in Du sens II [On Meaning II]), we see being sketched out
a composition of ascendence/descendence, which rests upon an inverse correlation
between the intensity of the emotion and of its manifestations, on the one hand,
and the extension of these same manifestations (the number and duration of the
measures of retaliation, for example). As Seneca says, immediate explosion leads
to a powerless anger, because its intensity is spent in an instant, to the detriment
of retaliation and vengeance. But when one is dealing with divine anger, it is quite
another matter, because it obeys only the schema of amplication: its manifesta-
tion in intensity is an eect compatible with its extension to all things, with the
duration and the multiplication of its expressions and its consequences: the dif-
ference cannot be treated as a mere detail, because we pass from a passion-feeling
(which governs individual emotions and behaviors) to a passion-myth (which puts
into play cosmic forces and conditions of existence of the world and of humans).
Moreover, these combined canonical schemas may reach such a degree of
generality that they make intelligible whole classes of discourses, which go well
beyond the limits of a type or a genre. This is the case, for example, with canonical
narrative schemas and canonical passional schemas, which, within a cultural zone,
determine the discursive syntax of action and passion and thus dene two of the
main dimensions of discourse in general.
3.2.1. The Canonical Narrative Schemas

a. The Schema of the Ordeal
The schema of the ordeal is traditionally dened as the meeting between two
concurrent narrative programs (see Chapter 5): two subjects have a dis-
pute over one object. But in the schema of the ordeal as established em-
pirically starting from the work of Propp, the modication of the basic utter-
ancewhich permits identifying the narrative programsonly intervenes in
the last stage, which is preceded by two others. Here is the complete schema:
Confrontation Domination Appropriation/Deprivation
Appropriation is the narrative program of conjunction, which benets the victor,

and deprivation, the narrative program of disjunction from which the other subject
suers. But the status of the two other stages cannot be translated in the same terms
of the narrative program, that is to say of the discourse-utterance strictly speaking.
In fact, confrontation is quite simply the putting into presence of the two ac-
tants and their programs: without this meeting assured by the discourse in action,
the ordeal would never take place. In order to be able to dispute over the object,
the two subjects must take a position in the same eld of discourse, the eld of
presence of the instance of discourse. Sometimes, the stakes of the conict may
be limited to only this confrontation: it is then a matter only of winning the posi-
tion, of occupying alone the center of the eld of reference, without any transfer
of object being in question.
From then on, the meaning of domination is claried: even before winning or
losing the object, the subjects must compare their strengths, confront each other
in order to nd out who will win over the other. What does win over the other
mean, if not to take a dominant position? This domination may rst be expressed
in terms of modalities of presence: the victor is the one who has the strongest
presence; he takes his place at the center of the eld of reference. The vanquished
is the one who has the weakest presence; he is pushed back to the periphery, into
a humiliating depth, or outside of the eld. This phase may be manifested alone,
and then it takes the form of shadowing, which is one of the typical gures of
certain passional trajectories, like jealousy: the shadow of a rival extends in the
eld of the subject, precisely due to its too-intense presence.
Domination may also be expressed in terms of modalities of competence: the
being-able to do of the one wins out over the being-able to do of the other. But the
being-able to do of the vanquished is not obligatorily null (not being-able to do):
victory, in fact, has a high price, and all the more so as the resistance is strong.
Even in modal terms, domination is still a matter of intensity and quantity.
The schema of the ordeal thus can only be translated partially in terms of nar-
Discourse 73
rative programs: only the last phase corresponds in fact to such a description. On
the other hand, it corresponds generally to the linking of two schemas of tension:
rst of all the ascending schema, which leads from confrontation to domination,
and during which the battle for position makes the victors presence stronger and
stronger; it is followed by the descending schema, which leads from domination
to appropriation/dispossession, and which, thanks to a transfer of the object, fa-
vors (at least provisionally) narrative relaxation.
The whole thing is constantly under the control of enunciation, and nota-
bly of discursive orientation: it is this orientation, in fact, which determines the
coincidence or non-coincidence between, on the one hand, the position that is
the stakes of the narrative conict, and, on the other hand, the center of the po-
sitional eld of discourse. Upon this decision depends the point of view to which
the schema is submitted: the point of view of the victor, if these two positions
coincide, or the point of view of the vanquished, if they do not coincide. It goes
without saying that the axiological and passional eects of each of these points of
view dier entirely.
b. The Quest Schema

The quest schema, established by A.J. Greimas starting from Propp, puts into
play four dierent types of actants: the Sender and the Receiver, the Subject
and the Object (see Chapter 4). The latter two, Subject and Object, are con-
cerned, as before, by programs of conjunction or disjunction. The two oth-
ers, the Sender and the Receiver, appear here because of a new dimension of
the narrative schema: the quest, in fact, is a form of transfer of objects of val-
ue. It is no longer a matter of a conict of two actants in order to occupy the
same position, nor in order to win an object. It is a matter of the denition
of values, which will give the Subjects trajectory its meaning. This is also why,
value here being a supplementary and particularly decisive determination,
it is traditional to write the names of these four actants with a capital letter.
The quest schema may be analyzed in two dimensions, on the one hand
junctions and the tensions that accompany them, and on the other hand the
manipulation of values. The junctions generally obey the descending schema
(when the end point is a conjunction) or the ascending schema (when the end
point is a disjunction). The manipulation of values obeys, on the contrary, the
schemas of amplication or of attenuation, insofar as variations in the quantity of
exchanges cause the value of the objects in circulation to vary in the same sense.
The Receiver (the one who receives the Object of value) is very often the same actor as
the Subject (the one who seeks the Object), but this is not always so; in any case, it is
truly a matter of two different actantial roles: in one case, the Receiver participates in
the contractual definition of the values; in the other, the Subject participates in the pro-
grams of junction with the Object. At times it has been believed that the Receiver could
be done away with, due to this frequent overlap with the Subject, but to do so is to misun-
derstand the difference of pertinence between the two levels of the canonical schema.
Each one of these pairs of actants follows its own trajectory. The trajectory of the
pair Sender/Receiver is as follows:
Contract (or Manipulation) Action Sanction
That of the pair Subject/Object is as follows:

Competence Performance Consequence
The second ts into the rst, because the set of these three stages is equivalent to
the second stage (Action) of the rst schema:
Action = Competence Performance Consequence
These two trajectories may be intermingled in the chain of discourse, but

their radical dierence in status (the rst controls and subsumes the oth-
er, the one denes the values that the other manipulates) obliges us to con-
sider them as two distinct layers of determinations, the one needing to
disappear provisionally for the other to appear. They are in a hierarchi-
cal relation, and thus cannot be attened in a single linear sequence.
For example, when the Subject passes to action, it can appear to be totally
independent from the Sender. The latter can still intervene, but only in a weak-
ened and ancillary form, that of the Helper, who completes or reinforces the
competence of the Subject. That is to say that at this moment, the center of the
positional eld is occupied by the pair Subject/Objector, at least, by the Subject
alone. The Sender only occupies a marginal position there: it remains transcen-
dent, but it is beyond the horizon of the eld.
Inversely, at the time of the negotiation of the contract or at the moment of
the sanction, the tension between the Subject and the Object is only potential.
In certain narrative types, the Subject must even give back the Object it has con-
quered to its Sender, to better signify its change of status (formerly Subject, it be-
comes Receiver). At this moment, it is the relation Sender/Receiver that occupies
the center of the positional eld, to the detriment of the other pair of actants.
The sequence that develops the action is thus at the same time subordinated
to the general sequence, which determines it, and is in competition with it for
textual manifestation. It is not only a matter of point of view (the being-ablehav-
ing-towanting of the subject or the being-ablehaving-towanting of the sender)
but rst of all an axiological matter: according to whether it is the Subject/Object
relation or the Sender/Receiver relation that dominates, the values value rests
Discourse 75
either upon the quest or upon the circulation of the objects.
Bringing together manipulation and competence is particularly enlightening, notably

because it brings to the fore two different types of intentionality. Thanks to manipu-
lation, the Sender negotiates the Receivers passage to action, that is to say the
Receivers conversion into a Subject. Knowing the values, the Sender endeavors to
realize them, to make them pass into a different level of reality that the one where
he may know them; he endeavors to make them pass from the transcendent level
to the immanent level. On the horizon of manipulation, the hierarchy among the val-
ues thus always remains present, and this hierarchy is what supports intentionality.
Thanks to the acquisition of competence (the modalities of wanting-to, of being-
able-to-do, etc.), on the other hand, the Subject obtains only the identity necessary for
performance. This competence is exclusively directed toward the accomplishment of
the narrative program, and not toward the realization of values. Intentionality then rests
only upon the tension between the disjunctive programs and the conjunctive programs.
In more complex narratives this intentional difference may engender some hesi-
tations, which are nothing other than affective expressions of comings and goings
between the two levels of pertinence of the canonical narrative schema; they are
however, at the same time, an indication of a strong solidarity between the two of
them. The subject of discourse often appears as worried or indecisive: divided be-
tween his role of Subject and his role of Receiver, he must in fact ceaselessly ne-
gotiate between ends and means, between values and the conquest of the Object.
Caught between two positions, the instance of discourse stirs or hums and haws.
The only thing not aected by these variations of the degree of discur-
sive presence, is the existence of value. The Subject in action may forget
that it is also a Receiver, but cannot forget the value attributed to the ob-
ject, without which the Subjects whole trajectory changes meaningwhich
will not go unnoticed at the moment of the sanction. If it loses sight of this
value even a little, the Subject must then take stock, deliberate, reactivate
the systems of values, and renew contact with the instance of the Sender.
It is the case, with regard to a given instance of discourse, that the presence
of the value cannot be weakened: it is present, it is presence itself, at the center of
the enunciative arrangement. If the presence of the value weakens, it is the case
that it becomes antiphrastic, ironic, derisive: another instance of discourse is thus
taking position.
We will thus retain of the canonical narrative quest schema that it is com-
posed of two distinct layers, arising from two dierent domains of pertinence,
which are nevertheless interdependent, and which pass alternatively to the rst
and to the second level of discourse.
3.2.2. Some Other Canonical Schemas

Narrative schemas being by denition the products of enunciative praxis, they are
thus dependent upon cultural, or sometimes individual, zones, most frequently col-
lective zones, where these schemas have been xed in usage. During the 1960s and
70s, semiotics thought canonical schemas could be generalized, notably the quest
schema, in order to make of them a universal schema of the meaning of action.
Today, this ambition seems not only out of reach but, in its principle, unjustied.
In fact, each culture oers its own representation of the meaning of action,
or, more generally, its own schemas of the meaning of life. It is clear for example
that a culture in which the destiny of each individual is considered already de-
termined from the beginning will hardly accord any meaning to the individual
quest. Already in French Christian culture of the classical age, the debate between
Jesuits and Jansenists about grace was indirectly, with respect to the meaning
of life, a debate about the narrative schemas of action: he who believes he can
construct and win salvation may make of it an object of a quest; he who believes
to have received grace, or not, can only endeavor to prove himself worthy of it,
and it is no longer a quest in the strict sense, but rather a permanent eort on his
own identity.
And even within the limits of the European folkloric and literary corpus
starting from which the rst canonical schemas were elaborated, one nds that
a whole class of narratives is ignored, in which fear dominates, in which ight is
the dominant form of the plot: this turns up in many tales and stories by Guy de
Maupassant, as well as in the whole tradition of the fantastic tale. Generally, only
cases where the narrative subjects were put into the presence of desirable objects of
value have been taken into consideration, but the quest schema ignores narrative
situations that put subjects in the presence of negative, repulsive, or frightening
objects of value.
a. Some Alternatives to the Quest Schema

The dominant cultural model rests upon a lack to be lled: the narrative sub-
ject has knowledge (or makes the discovery) of the existence of an object
of value, and the lack of it that this subject experiences activates the quest.
But literature has also explored other scenarios: put into the presence of an
ever-greater number of objects, which invade his eld of presence, the narrative
subject is horried by them, suocates, and seeks to escape. This is, of course, the
dominant schema in the work of Eugene Ionesco: in his plays, chairs, rhinocer-
oses, cadavers, words, and sentences proliferate by repetition and accumulation,
and saturate the eld of presenceas it happens, the stage itself. At the same
time, they lose all valuein some way by inationand their presence becomes
oppressive.
Without going as far as the symbolic and dramatic saturation proper to Io-
nescos theater, the New Novel also exploits this vein, by according to objects that
Discourse 77
encumber the eld of presence an almost obsessional attention. For example, we

could point to the recurrent enumerations in Alain Robbe-Grillets Jealousy, or to
the fascinated descriptions of Jean-Marie Le Clzios The Interrogation. From quite
a dierent perspective, Georges Perec, in Les Choses: A Story of the Sixties, shows
how the quest for objects of value leads to stereotyped behaviors and how their
accumulation little by little empties them of their meaning.
This convergence would tend to prove that today, the question to ask is less
that of lack than that of satiation: one must ee, or learn to endure the intrusive
presence of the objects, or invent new systems of value, for novel quests to be
imagined.
On the other hand, and without the aura of modernity of the preceding
examples, we have long been aware of a type of object that gives rise to schemas
totally dierent than that of the quest: it is a matter of that class of objects which
can at any moment turn against their possessor, those objects that can nourish
as well as poison, glorify as well as degrade whoever has conquered them. The
pharmakon is the best example: the medicine is also a poison. But there are innu-
merable examples: magical objects that become malecient if one does not carry
out a certain ritual; sugar, which becomes a poison in the imaginary of diabetics;
drugs in general; the beloved object, in the case of jealousy (a poison that eats at
Othello); and nally, writing, according to Plato in a famous myth: by being sub-
stituted for our failing memories, it liberates us from time, but, at the same time,
it chains us to a technique by weakening our memory.
This type of object, whose presence is itself a factor of axiological reversal,
leads to trajectories of resistance, of contention, or of merit: if the subject
merits it (by virtue of his or her acts, qualities, some predestination, etc.), the
objects presence will remain benecial.
Furthermore, as concerns the schema of the ordeal, feminist theses emphasize
that its character is culturally marked by the masculine imaginary. Luce Irigaray,
for example, opposes to it schemas of sharing, of mothering, and of exchange of
care and good works, which according to her correspond to a feminine narrative
imaginary.
These few observations bring us back to presence; the quest schema rests upon
lack. In terms of presence, the lack rests upon the lack of the object: the intent,
which is then intense (a waiting, a strong attention incited by the object) only
meets a weak or null apprehension. The liquidation of the lack consists precisely
in adapting the extent of the apprehension to the intensity of the intent: the ap-
prehension is then called conquest, or capture.
The mode of presence/absence of the Object for the Subject then seems to
determine the form of the narrative trajectory that associates them. If a typology
of narrative schemas may be envisioned, it will rest upon modes of presence. Here
are its basic traits:
Intense Intent Weakened Intent

Extended Apprehension Plenitude Inanity
Restricted Apprehension Lack Vacuity
Narratives of plenitude are rarely happy narratives: since happiness does not incite
good stories, in these scenarios we will encounter the forms of oppressive or obses-
sional saturation described above: action then only has meaning if it permits eeing
the saturated eld of presence, or recomposing it in sorting among the objects and
among values. The narrative schemas of oppression, of ight, or of selective recompo-
sition consequently rest upon the harrowing plenitude of the Object for the Subject.
It is thus necessary to dispose of narratives of axiological sorting; they can
sometimes take on the supercial appearance of quest narratives, but the quest
is then just a secondary program that does not furnish the global signication of
the discourse; for discourse is in this case entirely consecrated to discrimination
between the good and the bad, the desirable and the execrable, etc. At the
limit, the sorting is so exclusive that it retains nothing: one ends up at cynicism
or nihilism, which lead, each one in its own way, to the same general devaluation
of the objects.
Narratives of inanity are very well represented by Perecs Les Choses: A Story
of the Sixties: the more the narrative subjects accumulate objects, the more their
desire weakens, and the less the value of these objects counts in their eyes; the
objects keep their social, economic, or symbolic value, but lose little by little their
quality of presence for the instance of discourse.
Moreover, from another perspective, any narrative in which the subject, well
endowed at the start, puts into question his capital as object, derives from this sce-
nario. Dostoevskys The Gambler and Balzacs The Wild Asss Skin are narratives in
which, to give back meaning to action, he who possesses something (goods, life)
must risk losing them. It is then no longer the quest that governs the action, but
risk. Narrative schemas of risk thus rest upon the Objects inanity for the Subject,
for they take as their point of departure the weakest object-value, reactualizing
it in the taking of a risk. Many adventure narratives, which appear supercially
as quest narratives, actually function, from the point of view of the instance of
discourse, and notably from the point of view of this instances passional engage-
ment, according to the model of risk.
Narratives of vacuity are much less widely represented, but the schema of
wandering (notably in the cinema, as in Jim Jarmuschs road movies) would be
Discourse 79
a good illustration. As far as novels are concerned, Cline seems also to have ex-
ploited this vein: Journey to the End of the Night presents us with a universe where
values collapse: no more courage, honor, love, delity, security; nothing is worth
being experienced, aside from pleasure. In fact, the characters in this depressing
universe, notably Bardamu, do glean in passing a few material goods, a few ad-
vantages, and in particular some pleasures, but everything systematically escapes
them, including life, for some.
This narrative universe is that of vacuity in the sense that nothing is worth
being intended, and nothing can be the least bit apprehended. It diers from the
universe of the cynic (in the sense of the philosophical cynicism of a Diogenes)
insofar as cynicism nevertheless apprehends all that is necessary for immediate
satisfaction. Clines heroes, on the other hand, apprehend very little: we witness
a veritable intentional collapse, of the intent as well as of the apprehension. From
then on, the only thing that can be recounted is degradation: degradation of bod-
ies, of things, and of places, degradation of souls: in short, abjection. Schemas of
degradation thus rest upon the Objects vacuity for the Subject.
In fact, in Clines work, the eld of presence is not empty; it is even saturated,
but by destructive aggressive presences. It is no longer the subject who intends
or apprehends, it is he who, in an ultimate overturning of our schematization,
is intended and apprehended by death. We then nd the mode of the oppressive
plenitude, and the only way to still give meaning to action, is to ee.
The four types of presence thus give rise to four basic schemas: (1) lack: the quest
schema; (2) plenitude: the schema of flight, or of selective recomposition (se-
lection); (3) inanity: the schema of risk; (4) vacuity: the schema of degradation.
This sketching out of a typology probably does not exhaust the possibilities of nar-
rative schematization, but it nevertheless sketches out its principle and horizons.
b. Some Alternatives to the Schema of the Ordeal

As concerns the schema of the ordeal, things are probably simpler, be-
cause the alternative is already known: polemical relations or contractual re-
lations. Nevertheless, some nuances may be oered, if one takes into account
the possibilities oered by the semiotic square. In fact, the contract and the
polemic may be considered as the two poles of the relation between two sub-
jects who share the same positional eld (let us recall: in the ordeal, it is
above all a question of taking position). Because there is no program with-
out a counter-program, discourse must in sum govern the co-presence, not of
a subject and of an object, but of two subjects and their respective programs:
1. The question is settled if the two subjects accept to form just one subject, and
if they do not each demand an identity and a position: one speaks then of
collusion, of which the principle would be the exchange of traits

of identity and of good works.
2. The relation is particularly violent if each one of the subjects demands a
specic identity and position: one speaks then of antagonism, of which the
tension can only be resolved by the domination of one identity to
the detriment of the other.
3. The suspension of collusion is produced at the moment when at least
one of the subjects demands a position, identity traits, and programs that
are dierent from the other: it is then a question of dissension. In this case,
action can only be accomplished if the co-habitation of dierent identities
is dierent.
4. The suspension of antagonism supposes that one endeavors to
bring the two positions together, and to draw out the identity traits
and programs common to the two subjects: this is negotiation,
which gives meaning to action by constructing an intersubjectivity.
We can see that the schema of the ordeal corresponds to only a single scenario,
that of antagonism, where the other has the strongest negative presence. Inversely,
the case of collusion is the one where the other has the strongest positive pres-
ence; although it is perfectly imaginable in theory (see above, the narrative ac-
cording to Irigaray), I am not sure that it is very productive on the narrative
level. As for the two other scenarios, negotiation and dissension, where the presence
of the other is more or less weakened, they correspond to all of the narratives
of beginning or of degradation of an intersubjective relation: according to the
case, budding loves or friendships, fragile complicities or conictual fraternities.
1. the schema of the intersubjective exchange corresponds to collusion,

2. the schema of the intersubjective ordeal corresponds to antagonism,
3. the schema of intersubjective cohabitation corresponds to dissension,
4. the schema of intersubjective construction corresponds to negotiation.
Most concrete narratives combine or link two or more of these types.
3.2.3. The Canonical Passional Schema

Passion in discourse is of the order of the experienced, of the felt: with regard
to presence, it is an intensity that aects the body proper, eventually a quantity
that is divided or reassembled in emotion. But, in the same manner as the other
dimensions of discourse, the passional dimension is schematized by enunciative
praxis, and this schematization allows it to escape pure feeling; it makes it intel-
ligible and allows it to be inscribed in cultural forms that give it its meaning.
Giving meaning to passion is thus rst of all procuring for it the form of a
Discourse 81
canonical sequence in which a culture will recognize one of its typical passions.
But, just as for the other schematizations, cognitive recognition remains associ-
ated with sensible impression; in other words, the canonical sequence of passion
remains submitted to schemas of tension.
Let us begin by establishing the sequence. The canonical passional schema is
established as follows:
Aective Awakening Disposition Passional Pivot Emotion

Moralization
a. Awakening
The aective awakening is the stage during which the actant is shaken:
its sensibility is awakened, a presence aects its body. For us to be able to
speak of an aective awakening, we must be able to observe both a modi-
cation of intensity and a quantitative modication; the combination
of the two then modies the rhythm of its trajectory: agitation or slow-
ing, suspension or acceleration, the ux of presence in the eld is aected.
This modication is not only the precondition of the passional trajectory, but
it is also its signature and permanent indicator: the slowed rhythm associated
with a depressed statefatigue or distresssignals at the same time the entry into
this passional state, and the tensive stylehere: weak intensity and great unfolding
in timeof the passional trajectory as a whole.
b. Disposition
The disposition is the stage during which the type of passion is made clear:
the stage of simple emoting is passed beyond, the impassioned actant is
now capable, for example, of imagining respective schemas of fear, envy,
love, or pride. The disposition is thus the moment where the passional im-
age is formed, that scene or scenario which will provoke pleasure or suering.
But, from this very fact, it implies a certain capacity on the part of the actant:
the jealous actant must have imagination, from which arises the suspicion; the
fearful actant must also build, beginning from the menacing presence that invades
its eld, simulacra of aggressions, dictated to it by the feeling of its weakness,
experience, or ignorance; Cline summarizes this capacity, in Journey, in a single
formula: the imagination of death. The prideful actant, for its part, will give itself
scenarios of gratication, suggested to it by the overestimation of self.
c. The Passional Pivot

The passional pivot is the very moment of the passional transformation, which
cannot be translated into the terms of junction, without unduly extending their
denition: we are dealing with a transformation of presence, and not a narra-

tive transformation in the strict sense. It is only during the course of the pas-
sional pivot that the actant will know the meaning of the trouble (awakening)
and of the image (disposition) that precede. It is then endowed with an iden-
tiable passional role; for example, the actant who feels a menacing presence,
who has entertained some scenarios of aggression, can overcome its apprehen-
sion: the actant will then be courageous; if, instead of overcoming this apprehen-
sion, the actant converts it into certainty, this actant will have become fearful.
d. Emotion
Emotion is the observable consequence of the passional pivot: the body of the actant
reacts to the tension that it undergoes, it starts, shivers, trembles, ushes, weeps,
cries out...This is no longer only a matter of giving meaning to an aective state, but,
now, of expressing the passional event, of making it known, to oneself and to others.
We generally consider emotion to be an intimate aair; but, with regard to
the canonical schema, it would seem on the contrary that emotion socializes pas-
sion, and that it permits each person, thanks to an observable manifestation, to
know the interior state of the impassioned actant. This is why emotion plays an
essential role in interactions: it allows us to foresee, to calculate, but also to make
an aect believable, to lead astray, and to manipulate.
e. Moralization
Having arrived at the end of its trajectory, the actant has manifest-
ed, for itself and for others, the passion that it experienced and recog-
nized. It may thus be evaluated, measured, judged, and the passions
meaning then becomes, for an exterior observer, an axiological meaning.
The criteria of this evaluation are diverse and numerous. For example, if the
manifestations of self-esteem are disproportionate with respect to the esteem
that others accord to the prideful subject, the subject will be called vain. Or, if
the manifestations of avarice seem unleashed by objects of little value, it will be
called stinginess (sordid avarice, according to the dictionary). In the same way,
mourning accompanied by an excessive suering would be suspected of insincer-
ity.
With moralization, passion reveals the values upon which it is founded; these
values are confronted with those of the community, and nally sanctioned (posi-
tively or negatively) according to whether they reinforce or compromise the values
established by this community. The ethical dimension that then develops in dis-
course, starting with the passional trajectories, intends to exercise a control on a
dierent, disturbing intentionality, even on emerging universes of values, and to
x a meaning that the impassioned actant alone could not succeed in stabilizing.
Discourse 83
On the other hand, the impassioned actant can demand the right to live its pas-
sions, fully assuming the meaning of life that they harbor.
The canonical passional schema is composed of several tensive schemas: start-
ing with intensity, with the awakening, it progressively unfurls its scenes, its im-
ages, and its roles in extent (descending schema); then, starting from the passional
pivot, it is concentrated in emotion, which assembles and mobilizes all of the
energies with a view to an intense expression (ascending schema); nally, the nal
evaluation measures it, confronts it with regard to the community, in sum restores
the rights of quantity and of extent. But moralization may either devalue the
vividness of passion and minimize its range (schema of attenuation), or encourage
it, diuse it in the community, and thus contribute to its emphasis and its gener-
alization (schema of amplication).
3.3. The Syntax of Discourse

The general framework of the syntax of discourse, from the perspective of pres-
ence, is furnished by schemas of tension, themselves put into sequence and thus
eventually transformed into canonical schemas. From the set of properties of dis-
course in action, from the instance of discourse and of the positional eld, these
diverse schemas exploit essentially the properties of presence, intensity, and extent.
But the syntax of discourse obeys other rules, which exploit other proper-
ties of the discourse in action. We will pick out notably (1) discursive orientation,
imposed in the eld by the position of sources and targets, and (2) symbolic ho-
mogeneity, which the body proper procures because it unites and puts into com-
munication interoceptivity and exteroceptivity. It is also necessary to take into
account (3) the depth of the positional eld, which allows making co-exist and
putting into perspective several layers of signication.
With regard to discursive orientation, the organizing principle will be the point
of view. With regard to the homogeneity of the gurative universes of discourse,
the organizing principle will be semi-symbolism, and more generally all of the
forms of connection between isotopies. Finally, with regard to the stratication
into depth of the layers and dimensions of discourse, the organizing principle
will be that of rhetoric.
Each one of these principles is in general well known, or treated in detail
elsewhere; I will say only a few words about them, so as to situate each one in the
perspective of a semiotics of discourse.
3.3.1. The Point of View

I will not insist upon the typologies of point of view issued from the eld of narra-
tology, and notably the work of Grard Genette: they rest mainly on the identi-
cation of the position of reference and on its place in the levels of enunciation (actor,
spectator, or narrator); they also sometimes distinguish the cognitive or perceptive

mode from the discursive apprehension: intellectual, visual, or auditory mode.
My perspective, that of discourse in action and of living enunciation, in-
vites us rather to consider the point of view as a modality of the construction of
meaning. In this regard, each point of view is organized around an instance; the
co-existence of several points of view in discourse thus supposes at the same time
that to each point of view corresponds a proper positional eld, and that all of
these particular elds are compatible, in one way or another, within the global
eld of discourse.
In order to understand the role of point of view in the construction of dis-
cursive signication, it is thus necessary to come back to the two elementary acts
that are constitutive of the positional eld, intent and apprehension, which link
sources and targets.
The point of view rests upon the gap between the intent and the apprehension,
a gap produced by the intervention of the actant of control. Something is opposed
to the apprehension recovering the intent. Such is the rst property of a point of
view: between the source and the target, an obstacle has appeared, the apprehen-
sion is imperfect.
But the point of view is also the means by which one seeks to optimize this
imperfect apprehension, that is to say to adapt the apprehension to what is in-
tended. Such is the second property of the point of view: the intent demands
more than the apprehension furnishes, and the apprehension tends to nd again
what the intent demands, and to adapt to it.
Optimization would be the act proper to the point of view, a sort of adjust-
ment between the apprehension and the intent: one lowers slightly the preten-
sions of the intent, and/or one improves the apprehension, in order to make them
congruent. It is a matter of adjusting the relation between the source and the
target, thanks to a reciprocal adaptation of the intensity of the intent and the ex-
tent of the apprehension. But, in a sense, this comes back to making the horizon
of the eld coincide with the actant of control; the latter is no longer perceived
as an obstacle that prevents the apprehension from being carried out; it is quite
simply taken into account as a limit of the eld. The point of view thus redenes
the limits of the positional eld. Such is the third property of the point of view:
converting an obstacle into a horizon of the eld means admitting the limited and
particular character of the perception in action, it means recognizing as irreduc-
ible the tension between virtual intent and actual apprehension, and making of it
the source of signication. Meaning emerges from this tension; it is the minimal
principle of any intentionality.
We could summarize this development by saying that the point of view exploits the discur-
Discourse 85
sive orientation in order to face the imperfection constitutive of any perception. Thus it
may, in a field whose limits have been redefined, give meaning to an imperfect perception.
From this perspective, the principle interest of the study of points of view
will reside in the examination of dierent types of treatment that they
make this imperfection undergo. And if a typology has a meaning here,
it must rest upon strategies of adjustment of imperfection, upon strate-
gies that permit optimizing the recovery of the intent by the apprehension.
From then on, and globally, we may envision four major types of strategies,
either in acting on the intensity of the intent, or in acting on the extent of the
apprehension, or in acting on both.
In the rst case, the point of view will be called elective (or even exclusive). The
intent renounces the totality of the object, concentrates on an aspect considered as
representative of the whole, and may thus nd again all of its intensity.
In the second case, the point of view will be called cumulative (or even exhaus-
tive): for lack of being able to make the intent coincide with the apprehension,
the subject renounces an intensive and unique intent, accepts dividing it into suc-
cessive and additive intents: the object is then no longer anything but a collection
of parts.
In the third case, one may either keep a globalizing pretention, and the point
of view will be called dominant or englobing, or very simply accept the limits im-
posed by the obstacle, and the point of view will then be particular or specic.
Intense Intent Weak Intent

Extended Apprehension Englobing Strategy Cumulative Strategy
Reduced Apprehension Elective Strategy Particularizing Strategy
With each type of point of view, the meaning attributed to the object rests
upon a dierent morphology: the object may be represented by one of its
parts, recomposed by addition, apprehended at rst as a whole (a gestalt), or re-
duced to an isolable fragment. These morphologies may carry systems of val-
ues, which sometimes even found genres: thus, the coat of arms of the femi-
nine body, in the sixteenth century, rests entirely upon a close-up point of
view, strongly particularizing, and only oers an isolated fragment, an eyebrow,
a foot, a throat, etc.; but the poetic and metaphorical elaboration of the vi-
sion of detail makes of this detail the emblem of beauty as a whole: the par-
ticular point of view is here nally converted into an elective point of view.
3.3.2. Semi-Symbolism
The issue of the connection between the dierent isotopies merits a special exami-
nation; on the one hand, it is founded upon the principle of the homogeneity of
any semiotic universe, a requisite homogeneity between the plane of expression
and the plane of content; on the other hand, it participates in the basic networks
of equivalences and analogies that assure the coherence of a discursive whole.
The connection between the isotopies may be assured by simple gures that
they have in common: for example, the trait of height may be common to the
isotopy of the celestial and to that of the sacred in the same discourse. But this
type of connection, resting upon a common part, can at best only be an indicator
of coherence. Homogeneity will only be assured if several elements of an isotopy
enter into equivalence with several elements of another isotopy; under this condi-
tion, one of the isotopies then presents itself as a plane of the expression for one
or for several others.
In fact, the coherence that we are aiming for here is only attained if the con-
nection is established between systems of values (to begin with, between systems
of pertinent oppositions), and not between isolated terms. Connections estab-
lished term by term would be at best symbolic, in the everyday sense of the term:
the rose symbolizes love, the sky symbolizes the divine, the scales symbolizes jus-
tice; these symbolic connections are of little heuristic value, for either they are so
conventional that they no longer oer any grasp of the discourse in action, or else,
in the opposite case, they are the fruit of personal projections of the analyst and
thus escape any possible discursive rationality.
On the other hand, the connections between particular systems of values (be-
tween pertinent oppositions) are the fruit of enunciative praxis and work toward
discursive coherence by constructing systems of values of the discourse as a whole.
For this very reason, they should, more than any other, be the basic principle of
any semiotic approach to the coherence of a discourse. This type of connections
is called a semi-symbolic system.
The principle for this was established by Claude Lvi-Strauss when he was
putting into place the formula of myth: the opposition between two gures was
set into relationship with the opposition between two functions.
It was taken up by A. J. Greimas, who considers semi-symbolism as one of the
semiotic systems that is possible in theory, and by Jean-Marie Floch, who makes
of it the principle instrument of analysis of the image. In fact, because semi-
symbolism is a semiotic coding strictly attached to the exercise of a particular
enunciation, either individual or collective, it is the only means of acceding to the
structure of a language when the latter does not possess any language or generaliz-
able grammar. As is the case with the image, it is quite naturally in this domain
that semi-symbolic codings have been the most frequently used.
Discourse 87
Semi-symbolism is one of the forms of stabilizing meaning in a discourse:

it stabilizes it by specifying it. On the one hand it provides the meaning with an
immediately recognizable form (it icon-izes the discursive meaning), and on
the other hand it submits it to a condition of correlation proper to a particular
enunciation.
In The Jealous Potter, Lvi-Strauss finds that woman is at the origin of pottery, and that
myths systematically associate this relation with another: the goatsucker (a bird of the
Amazonian forest) is at the origin of jealousy. He thus establishes two isotopies: those of
the figures of origin (woman/goatsucker), and that of the thematic functions (pottery/jeal-
ousy); this permits him to put into relation, on the one hand, the opposition between wom-
an and goatsucker and, on the other hand, the opposition between pottery and jealousy:
woman : goatsucker :: pottery : jealousy
This type of formula may be read in two ways: (1) the woman is to the goatsucker
what pottery is to jealousy (in myths, these relations are conflictual), or (2) the woman
is to pottery what the goatsucker is to jealousy (in myths, the one is the origin of the
other).
Enunciative praxis intervenes here in three ways:
1. It distributes series of figures, motifs, or themes on isotopies:

nothing, in fact, in the linguistic definition of woman and of goatsucker
allows deciding a priori that the two figures belong to the same
isotopy. This isotopy is then purely discursive (and not linguistic).
2. It establishes a global connection between series belonging to at least
two different isotopies.
3. It hierarchizes the connected isotopies, and, for that, attributes to
each relation a syntaxic property (here: the figures are in conflict among
themselves, and each one of them expresses the origin of a thematic
function).
Thanks to these three interventions, the discourse in action entirely controls the
network of relations that it proposes and the signification that emanates from it.
In the very rst example of connection that I evoked, the one that associates
height, the celestial, and the sacred, the semi-symbolic system would be estab-
lished in two stages. First of all there is a relatively conventional coding, which al-
ready supposes a cosmological organization of a cultural type, according to which:
high : low :: celestial : terrestrial
Then there is another one, which is doubtless more culturally specic:

celestial : terrestrial :: sacred : profane
As these semi-symbolic systems are transitive, one nally obtains:
high : low :: sacred : profane
We can then assert, for example, that the high is the space of the sa-
cred without this being a personal interpretive projection: the network
of relations that leads there is entirely controlled by acts of discourse.
3.3.3. Depth of Discourse and Rhetorical Dimension

The semi-symbolic connection between isotopies may be established at a distance
or in proximity; the greater the distance, the more the global homogeneity of
the discourse is assured. Let us move now to the local level, that is to say to
the examination of the connections to proximity, or even to coincidence. Let
us imagine that the discourse keeps the isotopies connected in tension with one
another permanently, and that it plays upon their co-existence and their equiva-
lence in order to go back and forth between them. In any point of the chain, one
then observes little discursive events, made of local connections and tensions.
The co-existence of dierent isotopies in one zone of discourse supposes that
they are aected by dierent degrees of presence, that is to say considered as more
or less intense and more or less distant from the position of reference of the dis-
course.
This vision of things is particularly veried in the case of slips of the tongue:
several isotopies coexist in each moment of the discourse, and only one of them
may accede to manifestation, under the control of isotopies of discourse and of
thematic orientation. If, at a given moment and at the time of a phonetic acci-
dent, another isotopy surfaces, there is a slip of the tongue. We then must suppose
that, in this competition to accede to manifestation, each isotopy is endowed
with a strength, with a capacity for enunciative pressure, and that ordinary and
controlled discourse is the result of a permanent contention exercised against all
of the other isotopies that are candidates for manifestation.
Rhetorical tropes and gures are particular cases of this type of enunciative
event, regulated by tradition, and structured to provide persuasive and aesthetic
eects.
The presence of which I am speaking now is no longer simply the presence of
an actant for another actant; it is a matter of the presence of the very contents of
discourse, a presence more or less felt and more or less assumed by the instance of
discourse. The positional eld of discourse then becomes a eld where the isoto-
pies are arranged in depth, on successive layers, from the most strongly present at
Discourse 89
the center of the eld to the most weakly present on the periphery.
This gradation of presence is also under the control of the instance of enun-
ciation: each layer is intended more or less intensely, or apprehended as closer or
farther away. This enunciative control is thus practiced in two directions: that of
assumption, in terms of intensity (sensible, aective), and that of unfolding, in
terms of distance (spatio-temporal, cognitive). The dierent isotopies arranged
in the layers of discursive depth are thus more or less assumed and more or less
deployed: the instance of discourse imposes on them or removes from them its
force of enunciation (sometimes called illocutory force), makes them recede or
advance in depth.
This arrangement is the very one where rhetoric is practiced. And the lit-
tle events of connection that I evoked above, which are played out in dierent
modalities of the co-existence between isotopies, are in fact tropes and gures of
rhetoric.
Here, we are approaching modes of existence of the contents of discourse, de-
termined by the degrees of their assumption and their unfurling by the instance of
discourse. If we take up again the typology of modes of presence established above
with respect to the canonical narrative schemas, we can align with each one of
them a mode of existence of discursive contents:
Intense Intent Weakened Intent

Extended Apprehension Plenitude Inanity
REALIZED MODE POTENTIALIZED MODE
Restricted Apprehension Lack Vacuity
ACTUALIZED MODE VIRTUALIZED MODE
Let us take the example of irony. This figure requires at least two contents, one
oriented positively and the other negatively, situated on two different layers in
the depth of discourse. For example, the pejorative expression Thats smart!
[Cest malin!] combines a content oriented negatively and not expressed, and
a content oriented positively and expressed. But it only functions ironically be-
cause the expressed content is not assumed (its discursive presence is weak-
ened, notably through intonation), while the content not expressed is assumed
(its discursive presence is strong, possibly marked by a subsequent commentary).
In the case of irony, the positive content is apprehensible because it is ex-

pressed but only slightly intended: it is thus potentialized. On the other
hand, the negative content is barely apprehensible because it is not expressed,
but on the other hand it is strongly intended: it is thus actualized. Let us
imagine that a play on words of which advertisers are fond, the expres-
sion Thats smart!, is nally to be taken literally. Then, the positive content is
at the same time apprehensible and fully intended, and it is thus realized.
The negative content is neither intended nor apprehensible; it is virtualized.
Any gure of rhetoric obeys this basic principle, as long as it associates two
planes of enunciation that are distinct and dierently assumed. Metaphor and
metonymy, for example, invite us to pass beyond the directly expressed content
and to associate with it another content, which is more abstract, more general,
or which belongs to another isotopy. They also play upon the arrangement of the
discursive contents in depth, and on dierent modes of existence.
The metaphor: That woman is a wheat field, beyond the interpretation which would lead
to an analogy (blonde hair? a promise of harvest?), begins by associating two isotopies
(that of femininity and that of agriculture), placing them on two different planes of depth.
But, contrary to irony, which does not assume the expressed content, the wheat field is
here strongly realized. On the other hand, it is the content to be reconstituted which is
more weakly assumed, barely apprehensible, and weakly intended, virtualized, in sum.
It is in the course of interpretation that this underlying content, under the pressure of the
attention that it demands, will be actualized (weakly apprehended, strongly intended).
This is not the place to examine one by one all of the gures and tropes of rheto-
ric. My goal consists only in situating the rhetorical dimension with respect to
the elementary properties of discourse in action, and in particular with respect
to the degrees of depth of presence. One may nevertheless remark that what is
emphasized here is not so much the semantic structure of the gureabout
which we already have clear and accessible studies at our disposal, but rath-
er the dynamics of its being put into play, the process that leads from the put-
ting into presence of two isotopies to the interpretation of their connection.
We thus come to consider a gure of rhetoric as a discursive micro-sequence,
including at least one phase of putting into presence (for example, a conict
between two utterances or two isotopies) and one phase of interpretation (for
example, the resolution of the conict by an analogy).
The putting into presence or confrontation may concern semantic domains
(as in allegory) as well as hierarchic levels (as in synecdoche), actantial roles (in
metonymy), or enunciative positions (as in gures of argumentation). It princi-
pally uses the macro-gure of conict, but does not disregard that of displacement
(notably when the confrontation results from an alteration of the syntax, on the
surface or in depth).
The phase of interpretation, or resolution, adopts two principal and alternat-
ing paths: similitude and connection. The resolution by similitude is proper to
metaphor, and to all gures of analogy, but also to gures of equivalence (for ex-
ample, the whole range of anaphors, periphrases, and other circumlocutions). The
Discourse 91
resolution by connection is found in all other cases in which, having concluded

with the absence of equivalence between the two wholes being compared, the
interpreter searches for the principle of their connection (either actantial or topo-
logical). We may distinguish two types of connections, according to whether the
connection functions by hierarchy (like synecdoche) or by system (like metonymy
or chiasmus).
In other words, each gure may be dened at the same time by the type
of confrontation (of putting into presence) and by the type of resolution that it
requires. Metaphor is a gure of conict between semantic domains, which is
resolved by analogy. Metonymy is a gure of displacement, which is resolved by
a systemic connection between actantial roles. Chiasmus is a gure of (weakened)
semantic conict, which is resolved by a systemic connection that is topological in
type, etc.
I have already invoked (in section 2.3.3., The Positional Actants) the pos-
sibility of an intermediate phase, that of control, during the course of which the
solution to the problem or the interpretation of the confrontation are prepared
and guided by variations of enunciative assumption, as well as phenomena of
conguration and composition.
The typical sequence of any rhetorical operation is thus composed of three
phases, and delivers syntax from these discursive micro- (or macro-) events, such
as they are perceived and apprehended, in action, by the actants of the enuncia-
tion. If we bracket the institutional weight of rhetoric, the principal (and perhaps
the only) dierence between a slip of the tongue and a gure of rhetoric lies in
this: the slip of the tongue is without a future, without syntax, and above all with-
out a canonical sequence, while the trope or the gure are modeled in a syntactic
form provided by several dozen centuries of usage and norms.
All of the preceding observations and propositions may be summarized in
two tables. In the rst, we nd the three phases of the canonical sequence, with a
distinction between the point of view of generation and that of interpretation.
Pragmatic Point of View Cognitive Point of View

(Generation) (Interpretation)
Source Confrontation Problematization
Control Domination Assumption
Target Resolution Interpretive Mode
In the second table, to each phase correspond the categories of discourse that are
aected or solicited by the rhetorical operation.
Intensive Mode Extensive Mode
Confrontation Conict Displacement

Phase Semantic conicts, Displacements or exchanges of
contradictions, etc. roles, Syntactic alterations, etc.
Control Assumption Conguration
Phase Intensity, Modulations of Repetition, Distribution,
presence and belief Composition
Resolution Similitude Connection
Phase Equivalence and Analogy System and Hierarchy
Discourse 93
NOTES
1. Louis Hjelmslev, Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, trans. Francis J.

Whiteld (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1953) 16.
2. Hjelmslev, Prolegomena 12.
3. Tr. The pass simple is also called the past historic; an example is Elle signa le
document [She signed the document]. The pass compos is similar to the
English present perfect; an example is Elle a sign le document [She has signed
the document or She signed the document.]
4. mile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth
Meek (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971) 206.
5. Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics 209.
7. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, The Primacy of Perception
and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History,
and Politics, trans. and ed. James M. Edie (Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 1964) 42.
8. Tr. The neologism brayage has previously been translated into English as
shifters. See, for example, Fontanille and Greimas, The Semiotics of Passions
xx. However, the construction of Fontanilles argument necessitates the use of
an English neologism, gagement, which remains closer to the original French
term and to the closely related terms engagement and disengagement.
10. Benveniste, Problmes de linguistique gnrale, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1974)
69.
11. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol. 1, trans. Ralph Manheim
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 19531996) 200.
12. Franois Jullien, Eloge de la fadeur: partir de la pense et de lesthtique de la
Chine [In Praise of Dullness: Starting From the Thought and Aesthetics of China]
(Paris: P. Picquier, 1991).
Adam, Jean-Michel. Le texte narratif [The Narrative Text]. Paris: Nathan, 1985.
Coquet, Jean-Claude. Le discours et son sujet I [Discourse and its Subject vol.
I]. Paris: Klincksieck, 1985.
Coquet, Jean-Claude. La qute du sens [The Quest for Meaning].
Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997.
Floch, Jean-Marie. Petites mythologies de loeil et de lesprit [Lit-
tle Mythologies of the Eye and Mind]. Paris: Hads, 1997.
Fontanille, Jacques. Smiotique et littrature. Essais de mthode [Semiotics and
Literature. Essays on Method]. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1999,
Chapters 14.
Fontanille, Jacques and Claude Zilberberg. Tension et signication [Ten-
sion and Signication]. Lige: Mardaga, 1998, Chapter Praxis.
Greimas, A.J. and Jacques Fontanille. The Semiotics of Passions: From
States of Aairs to States of Feelings. Trans. Paul Perron and Frank
Collins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Landowski, Eric. La socit rchie [The Reexive Society]. Paris: Seuil, 1989.
Lvi-Strauss, Claude. The Jealous Potter. Trans. Bndicte Chorier.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Parret, Herman, ed. La mise en discourse [Putting into Discourse], spec. issue of
Langages 70. Paris: Larousse, 1983.
Chapter Four
Actants, Actors, and Modalities
0. INTRODUCTION
Actants are the forces and roles necessary for the accomplishment of a process. The
characters of a plot, the nominal syntagms of a sentence, and the actors and roles of
a play are concrete realizations of actants. The ambition of an actantial theory is to
provide a general representation of the actants necessary for putting a process into
place, no matter what its particular realization. For this, it must distinguish (1)
the actors and the actants properly speaking, then (2) the positional actants and the
transformational actants, and nally (3) the fundamental actants and the diverse
roles that they may play, notably under the eect of modalities attributed to them.
Actors and actants are distinguished in two ways. First of all, they are distin-
guished by the principle that guides their recognition. An actor is recognizable
thanks to the permanence of a certain number of gurative properties whose as-
sociation remains at least partially stable, even while his or her roles change. An
actant, on the other hand, is recognizable thanks to the stability of the role that
is attributed to him or her with respect to a type of predicate, no matter what the
changes in the actants gurative description may be. Secondly, and consequently,
to each actor may correspond several actants, and to each actant, several actors.
Positional actants are dened exclusively by their place in the positional eld
of discourse: the intentionality that characterizes them is thus only an orientation
of a topological nature. Transformational actants are dened by their participation
in forces that transform a state of aairs; the intentionality that characterizes them
thus rests upon the stakes of the transformation, that is to say upon a system of
values. The former are under the control of the orientation of discourse, while
the latter depend upon the semantic structure of the predicates in which they
participate.
Modalities are contents that dene the identity of actants. Positional actants
are determined by modalities of presence (and modes of existence); transforma-
tional actants are determined by modalities of predicates of action and of state
(the modalities of doing and the modalities of being). The successive attribution of
dierent modalities to the same actant makes the actant, from the point of view
of the syntax of discourse, a succession of modal roles.
The question of actants is doubtless one of those that form the objectstill
not without some debatesof the largest consensus in the linguistic sciences to-
day; it is doubtless also the domain of research in which the results, since the
1950s, are the most constant and the most convincing. From the perspective of
discourse in action, this question constitutes one of the two essential questions,
that of the components of the instance, the other being that of the act as such (see
Chapter 3).
1. ACTANTS AND ACTORS

1.1. Actants and Predicates
The notion of actant is an abstract notion that must before all else be distin-
guished from traditional or intuitive notions of character, protagonist, hero,
actor, or role. These notions all start o from the idea that certain textual en-
tities represent human beings and that they have a function in the narrative
plot, or occupy a place in a scene (or on a stage). Starting from this common
background, the dierent notions vary according to the importance of the
place or the function that they designate (witness the contrast between actor
and hero), according to whether one emphasizes a human beings function of
representation or his or her participation in the plot (character or protagonist).
But, no matter what the nuances may be between these notions, they all pre-
suppose the undisputed textual existence of representative entities, and the only
question to ask, then, is to know what they are for.
On the other hand, the actant must be conceived from a perspective in which
nothing in the text is given by default; everything is to be constructed, notably
the identity of the anthropomorphic gures who seem to be manifested there.
Consequently, before asking what is the function of such or such a character,
it is necessary to establish the schema of the plots unfolding, and to dene the
functions that it requires. The actant is thus that abstract entity whose functional
identity is necessary to the narrative predication.
Actually, every utterance is composed of two types of entities: the predicate
itself, which expresses the state or the act, and its arguments, that is to say its
actants, which are the terms between which the predicate establishes a relation,
and which occupy around it a certain number of functions. The basic formula
would thus be:
UTTERANCE = ACTANTS (functions) PREDICATE

Actants, Actors, and Modalities 97
But this is a quasi phrastic point of view, focused upon a particular and unique
predicate. If one adopts a discursive point of view, the situation presents itself quite
dierently, because the same actant corresponds in this case to a whole class of
predicates, which it meets one after the other as the discourse unfolds. But, more-
over, each one of these predicates may, for its part, require several actants. Further-
more, discourse as a whole is constituted by a network of actants and predicates,
which is only intelligible if three conditions are fullled: (1) the predicates must
constitute classes that are few in number, (2) the actantial places required by each
one of them must also be few in number, predictable, and calculable, (3) the series
of predicates must constitute processes articulated in aspects, and these processes
must be congruent with the actants trajectories. The basic formula would thus be:
DISCOURSE-UTTERANCE + ACTANTS TRAJECTORIES

(congruence) PROCESS.
1.2. Trajectories of Identity, Roles, and Attitudes

The notions of actant and actor allow us to distinguish two basic types of permanence
and identity in discourse. Let me explain rst of all that what I am calling perma-
nence or identity is nothing other than isotopy, that is to say a semantic redundancy,
which is applied here to a particular category of contents. A character that has the
same name and receives the same qualications throughout a text obeys the princi-
ple of isotopy; it suces to imagine on the contrary a novel in which each character
would be with each appearance designated by a dierent name, and described us-
ing new traits, in order to understand how the identity I am speaking about arises
from isotopy: it makes a coherent reading of the characters trajectory possible.
The two basic types of identity are, respectively, (1) for actants, those assured
by predicative isotopies, and (2) for actors, those assured by all other isotopies
(gurative, thematic, aective, etc.). The identity of actants is dened with respect
to the recurrence of one class of predicates; the identity of actors is dened with
respect to the recurrence of one semantic class, whether it be abstract (thematic
identity) or more concrete (gurative identity). As predicates are laid out in pro-
cess, these identities are transformed all along a trajectory, namely thematic tra-
jectories (proper to the aspects of the process) and gurative trajectories (proper
to actors).
If we identify in a text a class of predicates like climb, ascend, elevate, take flight,
this class could be reduced to an arch-predicate such as go up, and we may then
wonder which are the actants that this predicate implies: at the least, a source
actant (below), a target actant (above), and a third that passes from the one
to the other. In Charles Baudelaires poem Elevation (reproduced below), these
three actants correspond to the following figures: (1) the earth, as source of dis-
placement (lake, vale, precipice, etc.), (2) the sky, as target (higher air, sideral,
fields serene and luminous), and (3) my soul, which moves from one to the other.
These same figures follow a figurative trajectory (the second type of discursive
identity), through a series of images and metaphors. For example, my soul is taken
up as a personal actor (you) and as a figurative actor (thoughts); but this tra-
jectory concerns more than the denomination of the actor, and also affects other
properties, notably passional ones: delight, griefs, woes, etc. The examination
of this trajectory moreover reveals that the actor, while conserving his identity, is
transformed in two complementary and congruent ways: with each new phase of
the process (thematic change), he receives new properties (figurative or passional
change): thus, at the source of the displacement, my soul is affected by the griefs
and woes; at the target, on the other hand, he knows delight; between these
two extremes, my soul is assimilated to a bird (the lark), and it undergoes the law
of the intermediary aspects of the process of flying (take wing, soar). We will
see in a moment that the congruence between these two trajectories is assured
by the actants modal positions, which change during the course of the process.
The notion of predicate is static, and the actant, associated with a predi-
cate, does not undergo any transformation, as long as the predicate is not
modified. On the other hand, the notion of process is dynamic, in the sense
that it implies successive phases (the aspects of the process) and transi-
tions of phases. It is thus that an actor, associated with a process, may un-
dergo as many thematic transformations as there are aspects in this process.
Elevation by Charles Baudelaire
Above the lake, above the vale,

The forest, cloud and precipice,
Beyond the sun, beyond the skies,
Beyond the spheres celestial,
My agile soul, you take your flight;

And, swimmer ravished by the sea,
Flash gaily through immensity
With marvelous, virile delight
Fly far from these miasms foul;
Go, cleanse yourself in higher air,
And drink, wine heavenly and pure,
The light unending, sideral.
Beyond the griefs and endless woes

That weigh upon our cloudy years
Happy the spirit strong that soars
To fields serene and luminous
The one whose thoughts like larks take wing

Towards the boundless morning skies
Who, far below, can recognize
The speech of flowers and dumb things!1
This example also allows us to better understand the notion of role: it is in-
separable from that of trajectory. Each actor is programmed for a certain
number of gurative trajectories (for example, the bird, to take ight, rise,
soar) and each stage corresponds to a gurative role. On the other hand,
the actant who moves is always identical to himself as actant, even while
the gurative trajectory of the actor who expresses it espouses very close-
ly the phases of the underlying process, which provide its thematic trajectory.
The relation between these trajectories and these gurative roles, on the one
hand, and the phases of the underlying process, on the other hand, may be con-
sidered as a semiotic relation, of semi-symbolic type: thus, the gurative phases
of the birds ight may express the thematic trajectory of spiritual elevation. This
general equivalence, established thanks to a trope (in this case, situated halfway
between metaphor and allegory), authorizes a re-reading of all the phrases of the
process in an analogical mode.
Baudelaires poem allows us to specify the distinction between the thematic

and the figurative: several different actors (soul, swimmer, lark), each endowed
with a figurative trajectory, here take charge of the actant that is displaced and
the process in which it is implicated. But one of them, soul, continues to un-
derlie the two others, even when they are substituted for it through metaphor.
In that case we say that it is a matter of a theme, or more precisely a thematic
role, with which the figurative roles swimmer and lark are compared. The thematic
role then appears as an intermediate position bewteen the actant and the actor.
The change of actantial role implies a change of class of predicates, and
thus a change of process. The same actor, my soul for example, may thus corre-
spond to different actants, if one changes process: having arrived in a space of
light unending, sideral, it no longer corresponds to the actor of the displacement
(the displacement is over), but to a receptive actant, because a new process be-
gins, a process of emission/reception: the new actant, then, drink[s] the light un-
ending and can recognize the speech of flowers and dumb things. In the same
way, at the very beginning, when it is interpolated as a you (you take your flight),
this new identity corresponds to another process, that of verbal communication.
The identity of the actors as well as of the actants is thus a constantly

transformable identity, that is to say itself composed of transitory iden-
tities. We must in this respect distinguish two types of trajectories:
1. closed, xed trajectories, of which each stage is foreseeable in advance;

the closed identity of the actants or actors would then be composed of
one or several roles, actantial roles for some, gurative roles for others.
2. open trajectories, in which the actants and actors dispose of a sucient
freedom of maneuvering in order to invent and construct their own
identity, in such a way that each one of the stages that constitute
it corresponds to an attitude, and not to a role strictly speaking.
Roles and attitudes are thus two dierent forms of transitory identities that make
up an actants or an actors trajectory. The role can be recognized only in two
scenarios: (1) because it is suciently stereotyped in a given culture such that
one may identify it immediately, and on the condition that the usage made
of it in fact conforms to the stereotype; (2) because it is suciently repeated
and conrmed in discourse to be stabilized and recognized. But, in both cas-
es, the recognition of the role happens after the fact, after the usage that has
xed it, after the repetition that has stabilized it. The role is an accomplished
identity, apprehended at the end of a trajectory, and which presupposes in all
cases an enunciative praxis thanks to which it has been stabilized and objectied.
On the other hand, the attitude may be recognized at the very moment when
it appears. It opens new possibilities of identity, it puts the actant or actor into
becoming: by the grace of an unexpected gesture, by audacity in behavior, or by a
revealed but not foreseeable property, new bifurcations see the light of day.
In order to establish a role, the instance of discourse must be placed at the
end of the trajectory, at the point where a process is nished, in such a way as to
take into consideration what has been transformed and what has remained identi-
cal. In order to identify an attitude, it must on the contrary take a position in the
very course of becoming, follow and share with the actant itself the unfolding of
the process. In sum, attitude is a subjective identity, because it can only be ap-
prehended in the presence of the instance of discourse, while role is an objective
identity, detached from this instance.
In Elevation, the lark does nothing but play its role (soar, go up); the swimmer,
on the other hand, is less foreseeable and much more inventive, because he fin-
ishes by being ravished, drinking the light unending, and recognizing the speech of
flowers and dumb things. The first plays a role: a stereotyped identity, programmed
under the form of a closed figurative trajectory. The second assumes an attitude: an
identity in becoming, under the form of an open figurative trajectory. Moreover, from
the point of view of the actant itself, these two types of identities correspond, as we
will see shortly, to two different groups of modalities: being-able to do and hav-
ing-to do for the lark; knowing how to do and wanting to do for the swimmer.
1.3. Actants and Actors of the Sentence

By denition, the sentence entails at least a predicate; it, too, is thus suscep-
tible to being analyzed in terms of actants. In the domain of contempo-
rary grammar, Lucien Tesnires was the rst to emphasize this aspect of
the sentence: since the sentence is conceived as a little drama, or a scene,

it can thus lay out around the verbal predicate the verbs valences, which des-
ignate both the number and the place of the actants necessary for the drama.
But the actantial valences are independent of the concrete syntagms that oc-
cupy their place: everyone knows that the actant subject may be represented by
a noun, an innitive, a pronoun, another sentence, etc. The nature of syntagms
must be likened to that of actors: it is gurative constituents that receive their syn-
tactic value from actantial valences dened by the predicate itself. What is called
function in traditional grammatical analysis thus designates a supercial relation
between gurative constituents, nouns, innitives, pronouns, etc. (the equivalent
of actors) and the verbal predicate. This relation cannot be established without
the intermediary of an actant that maintains a deep relation with the predicate.
Consequently, we could thus complete the formula proposed above by distin-
guishing two types of functions: phrastic functions (1 functions) and actantial
functions, or valences (2 functions):
SENTENCE = SYNTAGMS (1 functions) ACTANTS

(2 functions) PREDICATE
Tesnires, dealing with French, nds that French verbs demand, at most, the basic
structures of 3 valence (subject, object, receiver, for example). He then proposes
to generalize this nding, retaining just three types of actants: the prime actant,
the second actant, and the third actant. This classication, taken up in semiot-
ics by Jean-Claude Coquet, must be used with caution: a verb such as sell, for
example, is a little drama involving four actants (two subjects, two objects),
and in order to reduce the number to three actants, it is necessary to associate
the two predicates in the process of sell in a single process: to give an object and
to give the counterpart; we then obtain, for each of the sub-predicates, only three
roles: (1) the giver, (2) the object, and (3) the beneciary. But this analysis would
lead us to think that certain enunciations must be treated as composites, even
when one notes no embedding. Tesnires does not seem to have foreseen this case.
The limits of actantial analysis, compared to actorial analysis, appear clearly here: ver-
bal valences only retain the roles and places that are necessary to the little drama.
They correspond notably, in a concrete sentence, to the syntagms that one cannot
move without modifying the syntactic structure, and, at a minimum, without replacing
them by a clitic pronoun (Ta voisine, je lai vue hier. [Your neighbor, I saw her yester-
day.]) Consequently Tesnires valences do not account for the fact that the actants
of the basic structure, and all of the other constituents, will have to either attach
themselves indirectly to these constituents, or figure in the list of circumstants.
Furthermore, case grammar, whose best-known proponent is Charles Fillmore,

obtains another description of these actants (called, in this type of grammar, deep
cases), which are more abstract than syntagms. It also takes o from the idea that
the sentence, even before being a series of syntagms arranged in a line, is the
semantic (and mental) representation of a scene; each predicate-scene imposes a
certain distribution of actants (deep cases). These actants are, in essence, the agen-
tive (instigating animate actant), the instrumental (intervening inanimate actant),
the dative (aected animate actant), the factitive (resulting actant), the locative
(actant of situation), and the objective (aected inanimate actant); this list has
known many variations and complements, but here only its principle interests us.
It is really no longer a question here of places or of valences, but of seman-
tic cases that are dened by a small number of categories, whose common core
could be force, and the intentionality that is associated with it. Thus, the aecting
agent (the agentive or the instrumental) and the aected agent (the objective or
the dative) are forces two poles: force emanates from something, and it applies to
something else. Moreover, the animate actant (the agentive or the dative) and the
inanimate actant (the instrumental or the objective) are distinguished by the fact
that the former intrinsically possesses this force, or is aected by it in its identity,
while this is not the case for the latter. Finally, if one takes into account the scope
of this force, one may dene the locative and the factitive; the locative indicates the
spatio-temporal framework in which the force acts, and the factitive, the scope of
the force in terms of consequence and result.
It would thus seem that the actants themselves may be approached in two
dierent ways: according to a logic of places (see Tesnires verbal valences), and
according to a logic of forces (see Fillmores case grammar). The trajectory of their
identity will thus be dierent; in the rst case, it will be composed of a series of
successive positions: the actant changes identity by moving, passes to the rst
level, then retreats to the second level, according to the position (rst, second,
third) that each one of the successive predicates assigns to it. In the second case,
on the other hand, this trajectory will be composed of variations of the force
that denes the actant, this force being considered as the set of conditions neces-
sary for the realization of the act: the force grows, weakens, runs out; the force
either does or does not belong to the actant; it transforms it or not; it does or does
not revolve around it, etc.
It remains to be asked whether these two logics are incompatible, or whether
they correspond to two dierent and complementary levels (or domains) of per-
tinence.
2. TRANSFORMATIONAL ACTANTS AND POSITIONAL ACTANTS

2.1. Transformation and Discursive Orientation
It is this last suggestion that I would now like to take up again systematical-
ly from the perspective of a semiotics of discourse. The logic of places is a po-
sitional logic: it denes actants solely in terms of a position of reference,
starting from which they may be situated (rst, second, third, for exam-
ple) and move. The logic of forces is a transformational logic: it denes ac-
tants solely in terms of their participation in a transformation between two
states, and in terms of their engagement with a view to this transformation.
The propositions of Tesnires and Fillmore do not belong exclusively to one or the
other of the two logics; actually, in Tesnires work, the prime actant and the sec-
ond actant generally correspond to the subject and the object; inversely, we have
seen that the logic of forces, in Fillmores work, implies sources and targets.
But even so, one may find that Tesnires reasons more in positional terms, Fill-
more more in transformational terms. This is of little importance now: the distinc-
tion is set, and will allow us to define by contrast the positional actants, which
derive from the logic of places, and the transformational actants, which arise
from the logic of forces, independently of the theories of these two linguists.
An example will illustrate the dierence:
Jean sold his house in the Ardeches region to a German man.
The other possibility would have been:
Wolfgang bought a house from an Ardeches peasant.
These two sentences are based on the same little drama composed of the same
four actants: two subjects (the seller and the buyer) and two objects (an object and
a counterpart). Nevertheless, the verbal lexeme is dierent and the order of the
syntagms is inversed. The very content of the syntagms, and notably the level of
identication of the actors, is also dierent: it is only a dierence of how things are
staged, certainly, but, from one sentence to the other, the scene is barely recognizable.
We could be contented with saying that it is a matter of a change in point of
view: the same drama is recounted from Jeans point of view, or from Wolfgangs,
just like in the passage from an active sentence to a passive sentence. But here,
the perspective does not oppose an agent and an object, taking turns as syntactic
subjects of the sentence: it opposes two agents, which take turns as the initia-
tor of the process. To speak here of point of view does not explain a lot, unless
one accords to this notion more importance than usual: it would then concern
the actors systems of designation, the choice of verbal lexeme, the order of the
sentences constituents, etc.
It would even concern the meaning of the utterance, its intentionality: in fact,
the second utterance would literally have no meaning in a story where Jean (or
people of the Ardeches region, or peasants) would be the principal character(s).
And inversely. For taking the initiative of the process is simply obeying or disobey-
ing the discursive orientation, which determines the position of reference. The
position of reference decides what must be taken into account with respect to this
position. Discursive orientation, in sum, determines the manner in which narra-
tive transformations must be ordered around the instance of discourse in order,
generally speaking, to have a meaning.
The utterance of transformation is always interpretable in isolation, but it
will appear insignicant and incongruent in discourse if it does not obey the
dominant orientation. This is why it is necessary to append to this utterance of
transformation a taking of position which itself derives from the enunciation.
Inversely, the discursive orientation and the system of positions presupposes that
of the transformations, because, if the discourse orients, it is certainly necessary
that it have something to orient.
The concept of emplotment [mise en intrigue] developed by Paul Ricoeur
could be very useful here: on the one hand, discourse receives the structures of
the story, those of the narrative transformation; on the other hand, it assures their
emplotment, by emphasizing the modulations of the course of things. The role
of subject operator (the one that realizes the transformation) belongs to the
structures of the story, while the role of initiating actant (the one that modies
the course of things) belongs to the structures of the plot.
The plot is thus the result of the enunciative taking charge of narrative struc-
tures, recongured with respect to the position of the instance of discourse and
the discursive orientation that it imposes. Formally, for example, we will say that
the actantial role that has the initiative in the plot is the one whose place coin-
cides with the instance of discourse.
If we follow Tesnires to the letter, since explaining the opposing view is not nec-
essary for the basic structure of my example, the distribution of the three actants
(prime, second, third actants) would be strictly inversed: while Jean is the prime
actant in one case, he would become the third actant in the other; Wolfgang,
who was just the third actant in the first case, then becomes the prime actant.
If we follow Fillmore, on the other hand, nothing changes: Jean would still be at the
same time agentive with regard to the house and dative with regard to the counterpart.
Wolfgang would still be at the same time dative with regard to the house and agentive
with regard to money. As I have noted, Tesnires theory is more sensitive to the distri-
bution of the positional actants, and Fillmores to that of the transformational actants.
We can see that a complete description of the phenomena requires an actantial

theory that makes room for both perspectives.
2.2. Positional Actants

The notion of positional actant thus supposes that it is possible to dene the actants,
which are abstract syntactic entities, starting from a topology, from the structure
of a place. It is what is called a localist theory. This type of approach was not born
yesterday, because one encounters it already in the work of Stoic grammariansat
least according to what we know of it via medieval grammarians, and in the
work of several Russian and American authors. Hjelmslev himself, who did much
to inspire European linguistics and semiotics, conceived of a localist theory of cases.
This clarication must be accompanied by a second one: invoking a localist
approach means obligatorily appealing to perception; in fact, if syntactic struc-
tures may take the form of a place, of a space, it is because even before becom-
ing intellectually conceivable syntactic structures, they are rst vaguely perceived
scenes, scenes from which all the gurative substance is removed, thus retaining
only the properties of place and movement. These topologies thus have the status
of schematic images, underlying the syntax of discourse. As they are organized
around actants, they are eld structures.
This brings us back to the positional eld of discourse, to the eld within
which operate the two elementary perceptive acts, intent and apprehension.
These two acts each imply at least two positional actants, a rst and a second,
the source actant and the target actant, but with a change in register: in intent, the
source enters into an intensive and aective relation with the target, in an open
positional eld; in apprehension, the source enters into an extensive and cognitive,
even quantitative, relation, and this in a closed positional eld. In sum, intent
actualizes and opens the eld structures, while apprehension realizes and closes
them.
A third actant must also be foreseen, for it is necessary to make way for a
third, in the head-to-head encounter of the source and the target. I have already
identied it as the actant of control, or simply the control; among its possible re-
alizations, we could cite: regulation, lter, obstacle. The regulation type is par-
ticularly well represented by the functioning of points of view (see Chapter 3,
section 3.3.1. The Point of View). The lter type is implied in all processes
of selection and sorting. The obstacle type is the principle driving force of the
secondary incident.
These dierent versions of control particularly explain the modes of partici-
pation in structures of the plot (adjustments, bifurcations, secondary incidents)
which, as we can see, dier very clearly from narrative structures properly speak-
ing (conjunctions and disjunctions between objects and subjects).
Before being subjects or objects, agentives or objectives, positional actants are

thus sources and targets of the action in the positional field. Before being facti-
tives, instrumentals, or datives, they are third actants, actants of control.
This minimal arrangement nally rests upon the fact that elementary percep-
tive acts present two basic properties: a direction (source/target) and a con-
trol of this direction, which can modify its orientation, divide it, interrupt it,
prolong it, etc. In visual semiotics, this actantial arrangement applies par-
ticularly to lighting, which requires sources and targets and which some-
times encounters obstacles. On the other hand, in communication, it is the
additional receiver, or the observer, who will occupy the functions of con-
trol with respect to the source and the target of each phase of the exchange.
This terminology does not replace the one used in these dierent scenarios
(for example, the notions of sender and receiver or of emitter and recep-
tor); on the contrary, it invites us to distinguish between two levels of function-
ing. For example, in Apollainaires collection of poetry entitled Alcools, the poem
Vendmiaire puts into play an I and a You, which are respectively dened as
sender and receiver, even when the source is the You and the target, the I: the
positional roles do not coincide with the enunciative roles.
The semiotics of light, for example, and especially that of lighting, cannot be con-
ceived without these elementary positional actants. One may even envision a typology
of obstacles, according to whether they retain light more or less, according to the
force that they oppose to the circulation of lighting: then they are opaque, translu-
cent, or transparent obstacles. One may also take into account the force they deploy
in order to reflect the light toward the target: the absorbent obstacle only reflects
a glow, while the shiny obstacle can produce bright reflections. In the case of the
bright reflection, in particular, we can certainly understand that the actant of control
captures the radiance, changes its direction, inverses its orientation, and concen-
trates its intensity. The effect produced on the observer, the violence of the visual
shock, certainly results from the intensity of the original source, but also and above
all from all of the operations of control: diversion, reorientation, and concentration.
But in verbal texts, be they poetic or scientific, these positional actants also inter-
vene. When, for example, such texts put into play elementary transformations of mat-
ter, one notices that the material elements are sorted, transferred, mixed, or fused
thanks to a small number of operations that also rest upon the positional actants
source, target, control. A filter, for example, is an actant of control that separates the
mixed elements by opposing a selective resistance to their movement: with regard to
the direction retained, it hinders only a part of the flux and allows the other part to pass.
Finally, from the perspective of communication, the supplementary and indis-
crete receiver will appear as a third and thus as an actant of control, because it too
modifies and partially diverts the orientation of the process of communication. One
may even think that, probably, as it is sensitive to other information than the direct
receiver, it also will filter its flux, and will divert its meaning. Moreover, if its presence
is known by the two direct partners in the exchange, they themselves will be led to
inflect their strategies of communication, according to this presence, and to listening,
preoccupations, expectations, and strategies that they ascribe to the indirect receiver.
Two of the examples oered here (lighting and verbal communication) could make
it sound like our actants source and target are equivalent to the more classical emitter
and receptor. This ambiguity must be cleared up. First of all, it would only be through
metaphoror at a great level of abstractionthat the couple emitter/receptor could
be applied to the second example (the material transformations). Then, the couple
emitter/receptor implies a transforming activity (emission and reception) that is not
pertinent from a strictly positional point of view: actually, positional actants do noth-
ing by themselves; they occupy places, are moved by an energy that diverts them.
2.3. Transformational Actants

A transformational actant thus must be endowed or aected with an intentional
force, in order to participate in the predicative scene of the utterance, and it must
be so independently of the discursive orientation. Semiotic tradition distinguishes
with regard to this two classes of transformations: (1) those deriving from desire and
from the quest, which associate subject and object, on the one hand, and (2) those
deriving from communication, which associate the sender and the receiver. This
comes back to supposing that all narrative predicates belong to one of these two
classes, which, as concerns the syntax of the sentence, remains to be demonstrated.
But the underlying model is not that of the sentence and of verbal predicates;
it is that of discourses, in their broadest dimension, including anthropological.
Now, from an anthropological point of view, value is at the heart of discursive
predication: the stakes of a transformational logic, what gives it its meaning, is
certainly the construction of values, their becoming, their concrete realizations,
their inscription in the gures of the world. And, from the point of view of narra-
tive syntax, that is to say of a transformation of states of aairs, the actant that is
minimally required is the object, the very one who is transformed, for the object is
the stakes of the transformation, the actant in which the value is anchored.
The discursive perspective thus puts at the center of narrative syntax the object
of value: which supports the transformation and which, in sum, is worthwhile.
In essence, the becoming of the object of value in discourse only knows two di-
mensions: (1) on the one hand that of the actualization of values, thanks to their
inscription in objects and concrete gures, and thanks to the construction and/or
the conquest of these objects by subjects; (2) on the other, that of the exchange of
objects of value between senders and receivers, which is, by denition, their mode
of existence in human communities.

These two dimensions of the manipulation of values are also the two points
of view from which they are perceived: through the gures that express them, the
perception of value opens onto the aesthetic dimension of discourses; through the
exchange and the circulation of objects in a community, the perception of value
is ethical and economical.
Moreover, these two dimensions are both distinct and complementary: one
cannot function without the other, and if even one of them is inhibited, while the
other is activated, the inhibited dimension continues to be ecient. The miser, for
example, inhibits the dimension of exchange between subjects, in order to keep
only the dimension of the actualization of value in a particular type of object; but
he will appear miserly, in fact, only because he continues to belong to a collective
actant, that of exchange, which exercises pressure upon him with a view to putting
the goods retained back into circulation.
Certain passions, like jealousy or envy, rest entirely upon the problematic
solidarity between the two dimensions: on the one hand, the attachment for the
object is transformed into worry through the presence of the rival; on the other
hand, the exchanges with other subjects are converted into rivalries and competi-
tions around the desired object.
These two dimensions, treated as two valences issuing from the perception of
values, then form a tensive structure, in which the perception of value through
gures and objects sometimes dominates, and at other times the perception of
exchanges dominates. In this tensive structure, the perceptions may also be rein-
forced or inhibited reciprocally.
In Lvi-Strausss work, the kinship system is presented as a system of social com-

munication, solely concerned with the dimension of the exchange of objects
of value. But, if they were only that, they could not be the object of any narra-
tive, for there would never be anything to recount, and Romeo and Juliette
would never meet. Now Lvi-Strauss himself studied cases in which the kin-
ship relations between families are implied in concrete and complex narratives,
in which precisely the search for a partner, that is, in the first dimension, the in-
scription of value in identified figures (the quest for the object) also intervenes.
In narratives of incest, notably, the two dimensions come into contradic-
tion: the search for a partner then perturbs social communication; the quest for
values comes into contradiction with the principles of their exchange. The two di-
mensions are necessary for the narrative dynamic, and they influence one an-
other. The mode of actualization of values, of course, determines the objects that
may be exchanged; the rules of kinship determine the types of possible alliances
as well as those that are impossible. But in another sense, the influence is also
determinant: for example, a transgressive alliance will put into question the sta-
bility of the system of values, and will even depreciate the objects of value.
In the case of incest, the tensive structure (see above) functions in inverse corre-
lation, because the actualization of the value in a particular object dominates at the ex-
pense of the rules of exchange; inversely, in the stereotyped motif of arranged marriag-
es, it is rules of social exchange that impose themselves to the detriment of the choice of
object. There also exist happy choices that satisfy the social rules, as well as situations,
as the contemporary period demonstrates, in which neither the choice of object nor the
application of the rules of exchange can suffice to assure the value of the alliance. The
history of matrimonial customs thus rests upon variations in this axiological structure.
Genres themselves are subject to these tensions: the poetic text is both a site of
exchange (of values of communication as well as rhetorical and pragmatic val-
ues) and an object that allows anchoring value in a material and intellectual
reality (values of composition, both morphological and aesthetic). The two di-
mensions, the construction of the aesthetic object, and its communication to the
reader strengthen one another, and have meaning only with respect to each other.
But within one genre, the equilibrium between the two dimensions may vary,
according to whether the morphological and aesthetic preoccupation wins out
over that of communication (to the point of obscurity, notably), or the inverse, as
in the doctrine called socialist realism.
Consequently, we are still left with two dimensions: (1) the one in which val-
ues are incarnated in objects, sought and conquered by subjects, and (2) the one
in which values are proposed, guaranteed, exchanged, and put into circulation. In
each one of them, the category of the actant is split into two roles, thus producing
the couple subject/object in the rst and, in the second, the couple sender/receiver.
The subject intends and appropriates the object; the sender proposes it to the
receiver.
We perceive, at this point in the exposition, that it is now possible to simply
and directly derive transformational actants starting from positional actants. In
fact, the couple subject/object is the counterpart of the couple source/target (the
subject intends and apprehends the object); similarly, the couple sender/receiver
(the sender intends and apprehends the receiver by communicating the object to
him); nally, the couple sender/receiver acts globally as the actant of control (be-
cause it denes the value) with respect to the couple subject/object.
But we have changed domains of pertinence; we have now entered a logic of
forces, and this force is provided by value. We can thus say that the transforma-
tional logic results from the projection of value upon the positional system, on
which it imposes, beyond a change of status of its actants (dened with respect to
the axiological force and not with respect to the place they occupy), a doubling
of the structure, in accordance with the two dimensions of the manipulation of
values.
An ambiguity must now be cleared up: if the subject appropriates the object,
how may one say that the sender proposes it to the receiver? This apparent con-
tradiction has led certain semioticians to renounce the receiver, because it dupli-
cates the function of the subject. But the apparent confusion between the sub-
ject and the receiver is only an illusion maintained by the form of our daily nar-
ratives; however, there is no lack of narratives in which the subject constructs or
conquers an object of value, only to put it in the hands of a third, the true receiver.
The distinction between the two dimensions, and the four actants that support
them, is thus imperative if one does not wish to confuse the actants (and their roles)
with the actors (and their figurative identity). Moreover, the fact of allowing for four
actantial roles around narrative transformation in general does not constitute an obli-
gation for the particular transformations; on the contrary, when the total number is in-
complete, the actantial arrangement is all the more significant. For example, the pres-
ence of the sender makes of the subject a heteronomous actant, but, in its absence,
it becomes an autonomous actant. Similarly, the absence of a receiver, who makes
of the act an apparently gratuitous act, foregrounds the construction or the affirma-
tion of the identity of the subject, which then forms the narratives principal stakes.
2.4. The Positional Field and the Predicative Scene

Transformational actants are thus derived from positional actants (1) through
the adoption of another semiotic logic (force and values) and (2) by the re-
doubling of the structure.
But the distinction between positional actants and transformational actants
rests upon that more general distinction which leads to opposing the universe of
presence on the one hand and that of the junction on the other hand. The universe
of presence is that of the eld of presence, of enunciative taking of position, of
discursive orientation, etc.; that of junction is on the other hand that of utterances
of state and of action, transformations, and narrative programming. The universe
of presence has as its domain of election discourse in action, discourse conceived
as a signifying whole submitted to acts of enunciation. The universe of junction,
on the other hand, has as its domain of election the uttered discourse, the accom-
plished and objectival discourse. Presence, and its domain of pertinence, discourse
in action, thus derive from the inchoative and durative phases of the semiotic
process; on the other hand, junction and its domain of pertinence, the uttered
discourse, derive from the terminative phase, from the accomplished aspect of the
same process.
The moment of presence (that which founds the pertinence of the positional
eld) is thus that of the emergence of values in the modulations of co-presence
co-presence between sources and targets, synchronization and adjustments of
their rhythms of existence, uctuations of their reciprocal eects of intensity. The
moment of junction (that which founds the pertinence of the predicative scene) is
that of the anchoring of values in objects and of their being put into circulation.
This distinction is particularly perceptible in the discourse of Cynical philoso-
phy: the Cynic, in fact, perceives the presence of the means necessary to satisfy
his desires, but he does everything to prevent these means from becoming objects
of value. The Cynic is neither conjoined nor disjoined with objects, for he refuses
them this syntactic status. The surest means to enact this is immediate satisfaction,
without elaboration or ritual: food consumed without delay (and without being
cooked), sexual partners consumed on the spot, without prelude or seduction
ritual. Temporal syncope, in this case, is the means by which the Cynic remains in
synchronous presence with his needs and inhibits any axiological elaboration.
Jean-Claude Coquet proposes distinguishing between two different types of semiot-

ics: the semiotics of junction, of narrative transformation, and of the programmed
actant, is called objectal; the semiotics of presence, of the positional field, and
of the enunciating instance, whether programmed or not, is called subjectal.
Eric Landowski has also proposed, in another way, distinguish-
ing a semiotics of junction (of a cognitive and economic tenden-
cy) and a semiotics of presence (of a sensible and aesthetic tendency).
But it does not suffice to distinguish these two semiotics; they still must be
articulated as two different systems of signification.
Jean-Claude Coquet proposes, based upon a terminology borrowed from Tesn-

ires (prime, second, third actants), distinguishing within the instance of discourse
two types of prime actants, the non-subject and the subject, confronted with the ob-
ject (the second actant), to which is eventually added the sender (the third actant).
The non-subject can only predicate: it has no initiative, in the sense that it
can only follow pre-established trajectories, a very small number of imposed pro-
grams; but it is rst of all a body, the very one that takes a position in the eld of
discourse and, for this reason, it is also the seat of emotions and of passions.
The subject can at the same time predicate and arm; it is thus capable of
judgment, and thanks to that, it accedes to the superior functions of perception,
of cognition, and of evaluation; all initiatives are open to it, because it can always
deliberate, decide, and invent its own trajectory.
The sender is the third to which the rst two do or do not refer, according to
whether they are heteronomous or autonomous.
These dierent actants belong to the class of positional actants and not that
of transformational actants: in fact, they are enunciating instances of discourse,
and not narrative actants of the story. One of the dierences between the non-
subject (which can only act if it is programmed) and the subject (which invents
its own trajectories) goes back to the question of initiative, which I associate with
emplotment. Another dierence, which makes the non-subject a slave of the aspects
of the process and the subject an actant that is master of time, again evokes the
same distinction between, on the one hand, the atemporal narrative structures of
the story and, on the other hand, the temporality inherent to emplotment.
From the perspective that I am proposing, the non-subject is the source of an
intent, while the subject is the source of an apprehension. Actually, intent is sensible,
intensive, and aective, while apprehension is perceptive, extensive, and cogni-
tive. But, from another point of view, the subjects capacity for judgment would
make it a good candidate for the roles of control, in the absence of a sender.
However, as the typology proposed by Jean-Claude Coquet was elaborated
exclusively to account for verbal discourses, in the linguistic tradition stemming
from Benveniste, I am keeping the denominations source, target, and control,
which, beyond their more specic denition of the perceptive dimension, arise
from a general semiotics.
Let us add that Jean-Claude Coquets actantial theory principally exploits
another dimension of actantial identity, modalization, to which I will come back
shortly and which proves to be particularly heuristic.
If we reduce the instance of discourse to the positional eld and to presence,
we retain of discourse only its phenomenological underpinnings, its elementary
intentional form, and at the same time we lose the other dimension of discourse,
that which makes it a receptive structure and a site of exchange for values, in
short, a system of values.
If we reduce the instance of discourse to the positional eld, we only retain
of discourse its narrative and formal dimension and its phenomenological under-
girding, and at the same time we lose the dimension of discourse in action. This
conception of discourse made possible the greatest theoretical and methodologi-
cal advances in the 1970s and 80s, precisely because it reduced the domain of
pertinence and puried it of any subjective eect; by objectifying discourse
under the form of a pure utterance, it made its formal articulation possible. Today
it must be lled out by the other conception, which adopts the point of view of
discourse in action.
Between an option that consists in illuminating everything with the light
of the positional eld of discourse and another option that consists in bringing
everything back to a narrative actantial structure, I have thus chosen to keep for
each one of these points of view its domain of pertinence, and to associate them
thanks to the notion of enunciative praxis. I will come back to this notion, but it
may already be dened as the place where the semio-narrative structures, domi-
nated by the predicative scene, and the instance of discourse, dominated by the
positional eld, are linked. Furthermore, enunciative praxis is another name for
what I called above the semiotic process, or semiotics in action, and it is clear now
that the two domains of pertinence invoked each depend upon a particular phase
(an aspect) of this praxis and of its process.
3. Modalities
3.1. The Modality as Predicate
3.1.1. The Modal Predicate
Modalities are predicates that revolve around other predicates; they are predi-
cates that modify the status of other predicates. Moreover, they assure a me-
diation, within a predicative scene, between actants and their basic predicate.
Thus, the modality wanting puts a subject actant into relation with another
predicate, for example to dance. At the time of the concrete realization of this
formula, the actant of the modal predicate may be confused with that of the mo-
dalized predicate (He wants to dance), or may be dissociated from it (He wants you
to dance); we will also encounter cases in which only the object of the modalized
predicate is mentioned (I want this house). But, no matter what the variety of par-
ticular realizations may be, the underlying structure is always the same.
From a linguistic perspective, the expression of the modality is quite variable:
it may be a verb (to know), a verbal periphrasis (to be capable of ), or a nominal
expression (the capacity to..., the necessity of...), etc. The semantic nuances are in-
nite, and all the more so because the modal expressions may be combined; for
example, in the utterance: He would really like to learn to dance, the predicate to
dance is modalized by to learn, which is a factual modality of the type to know; this
cognitive modality is itself modalized by to want, another factual modality; this
volitive modality is itself twice modalized, a rst time by the verbal form would,
which is a modality of argumentative attenuation and which procures an enun-
ciative distance and a probabilist value, and a second time by the adverb really, a
modality of concessive axiological orientation. Without going into further detail,
we can certainly see here, with respect to an utterance that is actually quite banal,
that modalization multiplies the levels of control of the basic predicate, and at the
same time introduces reversible gradients, tensions, and polarities.
This property is essential for explaining certain passional eects, and more
generally what I will call below the modal imaginary: the modal determination
of predicates is recursive, and this recursivity may indenitely push back the real-
ization of the principal process.
This is why, from a discursive perspective, semiotics has retained a xed
number of modal predicates, which are designated by modal verbs for reasons of
convenience, but which must not be confused with the corresponding linguistic
expressions. These are wanting, knowing, being-able, and believing. I will come
back to the typology of modalities, but rst I must introduce a distinction be-
tween modality and modalization.
Modalization is more general than modality; in fact, in linguistics, modaliza-
tion means everything that signals the subjective activity of the instance of dis-
course, everything that indicates that we are dealing with a discourse in action.
Aective expression, axiological evaluations, and, consequently, the constitution
of systems of values of discourse, are all a part of modalization. And, if we adopt
the perspective of Jacques Geninasca, for whom discourse as a whole manifests the
activity of enunciation, there are virtually no limits to modalization.
On the other hand, the notion of modality is more specic: it is, let us recall,
a predicate that revolves around another predicate. More precisely, it is a predi-
cate that utters, from the perspective of the instance of discourse, a condition of
realization of the principal predicate. In other terms, modality emanates from an
actant of control, while modalization emanates in general from the manifestation of
the enunciative activity. This actant of control, as a positional actant, belongs to the
instance of discourse and participates in the enunciative activity, but it represents
only one of its multiple aspects.
This clause, which limits the notions eld of application, thus authorizes us
to treat it now in a specic manner, without confusing it with the global and im-
plicit enunciation of the discourse.
3.1.2. The Modality as a Condition Presupposed by the Process

In order to appreciate the particular nature of these modal predicates, one may
compare them with the predicates they modify.
In terms of truth value, the modal predicate remains true even if the modal-
ized predicate is not true: the fact that He dances is false does not mean that He
wants to dance is not true. On the other hand, if He wants to dance is false, then
it will be necessary to add many other complementary conditions (for example,
an obligation) in order for He dances to be, if not true, at least achievable. In the
case that the modality wanting is false, consequently either He dances is also false,
or else we may say, in the form of a concessive truth: Although he does not want to
dance, he is dancing even so (because he is obligated, like the thieving minister in
Voltaires Zadig).
This asymmetry of truth values is typical of the relation of presupposition:
we will say that the modal predicate is presupposed by the modalized predicate.
The status of being presupposed, in linguistics, implies a property that is crucial
for the semiotics of discourse: a presupposed content remains true even if it is
not explicitly expressed; it suces for the presupposing term to be expressed. If
He dances is true, then the modalities that it presupposes are also true, at least in
part; this means that during the analysis, we will have the right to ask, even if the
modalities are not expressed, about the implicit presence of a wanting or a know-
ing, for example.
This point is essential in order to understand the enunciative status of modali-
ties. They derive from the enunciative perspective, rst of all, because the actant
of control is one of the roles of the instance of discourse; they derive from it also
because they lead us to consider that any process may be intended from several
dierent points of view, or apprehended under several dierent principles of per-
tinence. Now, it is the role of the instance of discourse to cause intents and appre-
hensions to vary in this way; which conrms moreover my suggestion that consists
in attributing the modal predicate to a positional actant, the actant of control.
But, more generally, the modality certainly belongs to the domain of the
implicit, as presupposed. The implicit has no veriable existence in the domain of
pertinence of the discourse-utterance, except a meta-linguistic existence. In fact,
by deduction, one may decree that in order to do, it is rst necessary to know, to
want to, to have to, etc.; and, when one encounters a doing in a discourse, one
may then reconstruct by deduction the underlying modalities of knowing, want-
ing, and having-to.
On the other hand, from the perspective of discourse in action, what is im-
plicit in a discourse derives from the shared knowing, from the pieces of knowl-
edge (encyclopedic or ad hoc) that are common to the partners of enunciation.
What is implicit, as shared knowing, will thus be implied in enunciative praxis,
will be buried and extracted, called out, interrogated; at any moment, the partners
of enunciative exchange may use it in order to reinforce, test, or divert the empa-
thetic link that unites them.
Whether expressed or not, the modality is thus a condition for the predicate
to be accomplished and to be true in discourse. This status of presupposed condi-
tion has led, in semiotics, to according to modal predicates a status distinct from
other predicates: modalities are the necessary or optional conditions for the trans-
forming action of the actants.
But, as a condition of realization of the act, the modality bears upon the whole
process or, as I was saying above, upon the whole predicative scene; consequently, it
bears at the same time upon the predicate properly speaking and upon its actants.
It bears upon the predicate, of course, in the sense that it designates a mode of
existence of this predicate that is anterior to its realization (whence this property,
designated as a condition of realization). But it also bears upon the actants, in the
sense that the semantic content of the modality may be considered as a property
of the actant itself, a property necessary for it to realize the act.
In the canonical narrative schema, for example, modalities are acquired dur-
ing the stage called acquisition of competence (for Propp, the qualifying ordeals).
Modalities are veritable narrative predicates, in the sense that they transform
something: competence is acquired, completed, lost, etc. But what they transform
is only the intentional force of the actants, that is to say a part of their identity as
transformational actants, and not directly the narrative situation.
Modalities considered as presupposed conditions thus belong to the logic of

forces, the transformational logic of the discourse-utterance.
3.1.3. The Modality as Mode of Existence of the Process

A process whose conditions we express in modal form is a process that is not con-
sidered as realized. By choosing to approach it from the angle of its modal condi-
tion, we have chosen a perspective in which its accomplishment is only in the
background, and its modal condition in the foreground. Attention then focuses
on the conditions and turns away in particular from the transformation itself. We
will then say that the modality changes the mode of existence of the process in the
discourse, that it changes its degree of presence with regard to the instance of dis-
course. The modality occupies the foreground, absorbs the attention, and benets
from the strongest discursive presence; the accomplishment of the process is in the
background, it does not retain attention, and its presence in discourse is weakened.
In terms of the mode of existence, the modal predicate suspends the realiza-
tion of the act, because with the modality, one envisions the process from another
perspective than that of its realization pure and simple. It is thus necessary to
suppose that the modality procures for the predicate it modies another mode of
existence than the realized mode. Let us examine the series:
(1) He dances, (2) He knows how to dance, (3) He wants to know how to dance
In (1), dancing is realized; in (2), knowing is realized, but the realization of

dancing is suspended; nally, in (3), only wanting is realized, and the realiza-
tion of knowing and dancing is suspended. We may even consider the distance
between the new mode of existence of the process and the realized mode as a
function of the number and the type of modalizations. It is clear that, when
one increases the number of interconnected modal conditions, as in (3), one
makes the realization of the process retreat all the more to the background.
Let us consider existence in discourse as a gradation, whose two extreme poles
are the realized pole and the virtualized pole: on the one hand, He dances takes
place, is present in discourse, and on the other hand, He dances does not take
place, is absent from discourse. Between these two extreme poles, the dierent
modal predicates allow us to cover all of the intermediate degrees. I will come
back later to the denition of these degrees when I propose a typology of modali-
ties.
But, in order to be able to speak of dierences of discursive presence of pro-
cesses, in order to be able to invoke the gradient of diverse modes of existence
of a process, it is necessary to suppose that the latter is situated in the positional
eld of the instance of discourse, and that the subject of enunciation may rule on
the distance (spatial or temporal, it matters little here) that separates it from this
position. For lack of which the notion of mode of existence remains purely abstract
and formal.
In a positional eld, the more one moves away from the center, the more the
presence weakens with respect to this center; the closer one gets to the center, the
more the presence is reinforced.
As concerns modalities, the higher the number of modal conditions to which
the process is submitted, the more it is situated far from the center of reference.
Similarly, the more these conditions are uncertain or compromised, the more
distant it is in the depth of the eld of presence.
We will thus distinguish two dimensions of modal presence: number and in-
tensity. The number of modalities proportionally distances from the center of ref-
erence, for this number increases the distance with the realized mode; the intensity
is that of waiting for the accomplishment: the more uncertain the condition, the
more it is compromised, the more this waiting is weak, and the process withdraws
more in the depth of the eld, at a distance from the instance of discourse.
The mode of existence of the modalized process is thus measured with respect
to the enunciative position. It is a question of the positional eld, of the center
of reference, and of distance with respect to the center of reference. The mode of
existence of the modalized process thus participates in the other logic, that is to
say the logic of places, in the positional logic proper to the instance of discourse.
When the modality is considered as a condition of the process, it derives from
the logic of forces; when it is considered as a mode of existence of the process, it
derives from the logic of places.
As a result, modalities are at the interface between, on the one hand, the
storys narrative structure (on the side of transformations and of the logic of forc-
es) and, on the other hand, emplotment and the instance of discourse (on the
side of the perceptive eld and the logic of places). It is thus not surprising that
the theory of modalities has known two parallel developments: one in narrative
semiotics (starting from Greimass propositions) and the other in semiotics of
discourse (in Coquets work). We can also understand better why the semiotics of
passions (see below), which relies on modalities among other things, is halfway
between narrative semiotics and discursive semiotics and that, in some ways, it
proposes a synthesis of them.
3.1.4. The Typology of Modalities

By way of a synthesis of the preceding propositions, I can now propose a typology
of modalities, based upon their double status of presupposed condition and mode of
existence of the process. In conformity with this double status, the modalities will
be dened on the basis of two variables: (1) the actants that they involve, by way
of condition of the process, on the side of the logic of forces, and (2) the modes
of existence that they impose upon the process, on the side of the logic of places.
According to the logic of forces, two situations present themselves: either the
modality modies the relation between subject and object, or else it modies the
relation between the subject and a third actant. Wanting and knowing modify the
relation between the subject and its object. But this relation may also be modied
by a form of believing, which is expressed in French by the construction croire
quelque chose [believing in something], and which I will call simply believing.
Having-to and being-able modify the relation between the subject and a third,
whether this third is a sender (in the case of having-to) or an adversary (in the case
of being-able). This relation between the subject and the third actant may also
be modied by another variety of believing, which is expressed in French by the
construction croire (en) quelquun [believing (in) someone], and which I will call
adhering, in order to distinguish it from the rst.
According to the logic of places, which denes the dierent modes of existence,
four situations present themselves, which correspond to the four currently recog-
nized modes of existence. These are, in the order of degrees of presence: (1) the
virtualized mode, which characterizes wanting and having-to; (2) the potentialized
mode, which characterizes the two varieties of believing; (3) the actualized mode,
which characterizes knowing and being-able. Finally (4), the realized mode, last in
the series, is not, properly speaking, that of the modalities in the strict sense, for,
in this mode of existence, the utterances of doing and being appear, which do not
include any modal distance.
The typology of modalities, deduced from their two basic types of properties,
is thus established as follows:
Virtualized Potentialized Actualized

Mode Mode Mode
Motivations Beliefs Aptitudes
Subject / Object WANTING BELIEVING KNOWING
Subject / Third HAVING-TO ADHERING BEING-ABLE
3.2. Modalization as Passional Imaginary

The modal predicates of discourse as a whole now appear as a partly autonomous
dimension with respect to the narrative predicates of which they mod-
ify the sense and the status.
This relative autonomy is assured for them by two observations which, among
all those that precede, merit being recalled here: (1) rst, as presupposed condi-
tions, modalities are independent of the realization of processes; moreover, the

whole modal dimension of discourse may be reconstituted starting from process-
es, whether the modalities are expressed or not; (2) second, as modes of existence
of processes, modalities are under the control of enunciation, and thus escape the
control of the predicates they modify; on the contrary, they impose upon them
the position of the instance of discourse, and apply to them the discursive orienta-
tion.
This relative autonomy has led, moreover, to a considerable development of
modal research, for the modal utterance gives us access to actantial and narrative
structure even in the absence of an actual narrative. For example, it is thus that
in the semiotics of architecture, in order to characterize the semiotic value of a
door or a window, it is necessary to collect and to analyze the trajectories of the
subjects and their actual usages of these types of openings: it suces to recognize
their modal status (being-able/not being-able to see; being-able/not being-able to
cross, etc.).
All of this invites us to make of the modal dimension of discourse, uniquely
able to assure a whole part of signication, a dimension that is wholly separate
from the uttered discourse as well as from the discourse in action. This signi-
cation being considered as independent of the realization of processes, of what
actually happens on the narrative dimension, one may say in sum that it opens
in discourse a specic imaginary eld, an imaginary whose instance of discourse is
always the center, but which obeys other rules than the narrative dimension prop-
erly speaking. When I utter I want to dance, I may begin dreaming of scenarios in
which I dance: just the modality suces to open up these imaginary evocations,
no matter what I do in reality.
3.2.1. Modalization as Construction of the Actants Identity

The semantic identity of an actant is dened by the place it occupies with respect
to a predicate; but this identity is assuredand recognizedon the scale of the
discourse as a whole, only if it forms the object of a recurrence. As I have already
noted, modalities are better able to assure such a recurrence and thus to construct
the identity of the actant, insofar as, even when they are not expressed, they are
deducible; consequently, they are more frequent than their explicit manifesta-
tions. Moreover, they may be expressed even in the absence of a realized process:
consequently, they are generally more frequent than the processes themselves. This
property prompts us to rely upon modalities to construct the identity of the actant.
In more formal terms, we can say that, if modalized predicates describe ac-
tants doingtheir performance, modal predicates describe on the other hand
their beingtheir competence. The modal dimension of discourse may thus be
considered as the one in which, by accumulation, combination, or transformation
of modalities, the actants progressively construct their identity. Let us imagine

for example an actant who endeavors to acquire all the necessary competences in
order to accomplish an exploit: it accumulates techniques, stocks information,
trains, toughens itself, etc. Finally, the actant changes identity, feels better that
way, and decides that it has done the important part: the actant no longer both-
ers realizing the expected exploit. The construction of the modal identity then
overtakes the quest for objects of value. In more technical terms, modal values are
then substituted for descriptive values.
The actants modal identity may be characterized by the number of modali-
ties that denes it, and by the nature of the combinations that it accepts. It is thus
rst of all necessary to dene the number of modalities, and for each number, the
imaginable combinations:
1. The non-modalized actant (actant M0) is an actant immediately realized in

the event, a body that takes position; it is thus susceptible only to
react to sensible and aective tensions which cross its eld of presence.
When Proust describes the experience of waking up, at the beginning of
Swanns Way, he rst of all describes the progressive taking of position
of an actant M0, and only afterward the acquisition of modalities.
The actant M0 would then have the status of a phenomenological
instance, in a discursive eld in the process of formation.
2. The unimodalized actant (actant M1) must be endowed with the only
modality that one cannot do without in order to act, being-able
to do (capacity), or in order to exist, that is to say being-able to be
(possibility). When Fabrice is lost in the middle of the Battle of
Waterloo, in Stendhals Charterhouse of Parma, he ends up forgetting
what he came there to doght, perhaps glimpse Bonaparte. He
no longer has any point of reference, and he reacts only according to
secondary episodes, in such a way as to get out without major injuries:
neither wanting, nor having to, nor knowing, uniquely being-able.
The actant M1 is an automaton or a machine, eectively
programmed for one single task, depending for this
obligatorily on other actants, better endowed with modalities.
3. The bimodalized actant (actant M2) must thus combine being-able with
another modality. Acting impulsively, for example, means, from
the point of view of modal identity, acting under the sole control of
being-able and wanting (one then encounters neither deliberation,
nor cognitive programming of the action, nor exterior injunction).
On the other hand, acting methodically and without passional

engagement means contenting oneself with being-able and knowing.
Finally, the identity of the slave or the actant under control (or under
inuence) will associate having-to with the being-able of an automaton.
This is the modal minimum necessary in order to participate
in a canonical narrative schema: either being-able +
wanting, or being-able + knowing, or being-able + having-to.
The actants M0, M1, and M2 correspond for Jean-Claude Coquet to the
actant non subject: it is clear that the modal description is more precise
and more directly eective than a generic denomination adopted for
convenience. Let us specify moreover that the modal combinations
he envisions are less numerous than what I am proposing here.
4. The tri-modalized actant (M3) is the only one that can be

considered to have an almost complete identity, because at this level
of modalization, it combines almost all of the types of modalities: to
being-able will be added for example a knowing and a wanting, for an
autonomous actant, or a knowing and a having-to, for a heteronomous
actant; in both cases, in the place of knowing, believing, etc. may appear.
Perrette, in La Fontaines fable The Dairymaid and Her Milk-Pot, would
correspond to the type M3, but with a change of identity en route. She
leaves for the market, her milk-pot on her head, with a heteronomous
M3 modal equipment: she can, she knows, she must; but, with the
help of her imagination, she changes identity, and pretends to be
an autonomous M3 actant: she still can, she begins to believe in her
forthcoming fortune, she wants to speculate about her sale. The nal
incident brings her abruptly back to the rst identity, less being-able.2
5. When the actant is dened by four modalities (actant M4), the number of
combinations increases, but it is clear that a new dimension of identity then
appears. In fact, among the possible combinations, some are necessarily
going to bring together a knowing and a believing, and the others, a wanting
and a having-to, which could then appear at the same time redundant and
contradictory: either one knows, or one believes; either one wants, or one
has to.
In all of these cases, we are led to envision a hierarchy between the redundant mo-
dalities; we then perceive that, in both cases, this hierarchy allows us to understand
how the subject assumes its trajectory or its action. The new dimension that appears
is thus that of assumption. Not only does one know, but moreover one believes: then
it is clear that one assumes personally what one knows. Not only does one have to
do something, but moreover one wants to: then one assumes personally what one
must do. This dimension may also be present in the identity of the actant M3, but
then, in the absence of partial redundancy between modalities, only the context
allows us to decide if the believing and the wanting have this value of assumption.
A rst note: Jean-Claude Coquet translates this property by writing the mo-
dality of assumptionfor him, exclusively, the meta-wantingwith a capital
letter, and by putting it at the beginning of the modal series. It is for him char-
acteristic of the actant subject. I propose granting also to believing the status of
a modality of assumption. In fact, if one limited the exercise of the instance of
discourse to the positional eld, wanting would suce, because it allows arming
oneself as ego; but, if the instance of discourse is also the instance that constructs
and controls the systems of values of the discourse, then believing becomes neces-
sary to it in order to assume them.
A second note: The combinations envisioned here are less numerous than
those that are theoretically possible. There are two reasons for this.
First of all, just as the syllables of a language are much less numerous than
the possible combinations between the phonemes of the same language, modal
combinations are also culturally determined and limited; it is certainly necessary
to recognize that, in this regard, I have reasonedlike so many others!like
Westerners today. For example, I have placed being-able at the base of the edice,
because it characterizes the actant M1. In fact, we could certainly imagine a cul-
ture in which, for example, the modality of the actant M1 would necessarily be
wanting; we have perhaps a trace of this in the popular French expression Cet ar-
bre veut tomber [This tree wants to fall], an expression which is also found, among
other places, in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The whole arrangement would
be profoundly changed.
Moreover, the combinative arrangement opens up once again as soon as we
no longer take the perspective of the act, but, more generally, that of aect: as we
will see below, an actant may very well be dened only by a wanting and a having-
to, but it is clear that with only this modal equipment, it is not ready to pass on to
action; it may barely experience a passional state.
3.2.3. Modal Values

I have already suggested that the modal identity of subjects may become what
is at stake in a quest, the quest for identitynotably when they are capable of
assuming this identity (actant M3 or M4). Modalities may thus be precious ac-
quisitions for them, sought after for themselves and independently of the objects
of value. The typical form of the coming-of-age novel [roman dapprentissage],
and especially that expressed through the picaresque genre in the seventeenth
century, is one example. The term coming of age [apprentissage] could lead
to confusion, for learning [apprendre] means acquiring knowledge; but, in
this quest, the actant does not only intend knowing and knowing how to do; it
also discovers its vocation, its motivations, it hierarchizes its obligations, mea-
sures its capacities; it learns in sum to assume, to control, and to inect what it is.
But, for this, modalities must change status and use: they are no longer pre-
supposed conditions, but values that dene roles and attitudes before the world and
in a life trajectory. And it is a sign of this conversion, which does not deceive: in
place of functioning in a categorical manner (one may or may not do, one wants
or does not want, etc.), modalities then function in a gradual way.
The rebel, for example, is someone who accords more force to his wanting
than to his duties; this signies, at the other extreme, that the person resigned to
his fate, far from having no wanting, has simply adopted the inverse hierarchy,
and his wanting is submitted to the force of his having-to. These two examples
show (1) that modal dierences are of the type of more and less, which introduces
a hierarchy among modalities; and (2) that these hierarchies and these modal gra-
dients form roles (for example, the rebel or the resigned person).
But the modal gradation may concern intensity as well as quantity: it is then
necessary to remember that, like any system of values, modal values only appear
under the control of valences of perception (see Chapter 2, section 4, The Ten-
sive Structure), that is to say the valences of intensity and quantity.
Let us take the case of a scientist: as long as it is not a matter of her own iden-
tity in the community to which she belongs, her knowledge will only be evaluated
from the point of view of truth (appropriateness to things themselves, adherence
to current scientic procedures, etc.); but, if it is a matter for example of deciding
if she is a real scholar or a real researcher, the evaluation of this same knowl-
edge, according to cultures and disciplines, will then rely rather on its extent or its
degree of specialization. The Renaissance scholarwe could think of the famous
Pico della Mirandolasupposedly knew everything (the axis of quantity) and
with the greatest depth (the axis of intensity). But, beginning with the classical age,
gentlemen, and still today, educated people are supposed to know a little about
everything, that is to say to have extensive knowledge without passing themselves
o as specialists. Inversely, the specialist and the erudite must renounce quantity
to deepen to the maximal extent their knowledge of a narrow eld.
In each one of these scenarios, the value of knowing ows from a certain rela-
tion between intensity and extent. And each one of them corresponds to an iden-
tity that is recognizable in a given culture as a roleor an attitude. It is the same
for the other modalities: the waverer does not know where to set his wanting, and
disperses it upon a large number of objects, each time with weak determination;
the fanatic, on the other hand, has placed all the intensity of his believing in one
single object; inversely, the credulous person is he who believes in everything, but
weakly, etc.
Up to this point it has only been a question of the logic of forces: modal
values, from this perspective, rest upon the evaluation of the modal force, with
a view to the success of the transformations. But, according to positional logic,
the subject of enunciation, either individual or collective, is going to decide on
the acceptable equilibria, or which ones must be rejected: we certainly see, in
the preceding examples, that a moral judgment enters into the evaluation of the
modal identity and that, for example, he who condemns the credulous person
(great dispersion, weak intensity) adopts a position that is diametrically opposed
to that of he who condemns the fanatic (great concentration, strong intensity).
I will thus distinguish, in keeping with good methodology, what denominations
borrowed from language confuse, that is to say: (1) on the one hand, the forma-
tion of modal values, following the logic of forces, which establishes the diverse
equilibria between intensity and extent, and characterizes the identity of each
actant, its personal number, in some sense; (2) on the other hand, the ethical
evaluation, which takes position with respect to the system, following the logic of
places, and which applies to modal values a judgment emanating from the culture
of reference.
3.2.4. From Modalities to Passions

As soon as modalities become modal values, as we have seen, they rest upon a
perceptive and sensible regulation: a sensing body feels modal intensity and
extent; the observer recognizes there a role or an attitude, that is to say the tran-
sitory identity of an actant. These modal roles or attitudes are thus also, at least
virtually, passional roles or attitudes, because they deal with aect and sensibil-
ity. All of the examples that I have used to illustrate the preceding point con-
tain, to some degree, a passional dimension: the credulous person, the fanatic,
the waverer, and the erudite are actors whose aective comportments may par-
tially be predicted, because these comportments are predictable beginning with
their modal denition. Each one has its own unique emotions: thoughtless ad-
hesion, worrisome anger, anxious hesitation, or curiosity that is never satised.
And we can then perceive that the passional eect does not reside so much in
a certain relation between modal intensity and extent, but in the movement that
leads there: the role of the erudite, for example, will be treated as a passional role
only if it is apprehended in the movement and the tension that lead it to an always
deeper and always more narrowly specialized knowledge. It is the same with the
fanatic, whose impassioned character is all the more sensible in that it appears to
tend toward an always stronger and always more narrow belief. The role becomes
passional only if it is apprehended in its becoming.
From the point of view of the history of the semiotics of discourse, the theory
of modalities was the rst step toward a semiotics of the passions: passional eects,
thanks to the modal component issuing from narrativity, became analyzable; each
passional eect could be reduced, from a narrative point of view, to a combination
of modalities. These passional eects were then considered as simple epiphenom-
ena of the actants narrative trajectory. But this approach to the aective domain
remained within the limits of a logic of transformations, that of the discourse-ut-
terance. It is quite clear, however, that the aective dimension of discourse may
not be cut o from presence, from sensibility, or from the body that takes position
in the instance of discourse, because aectivity claims the body from which it
emanates and which it modies.
The propositions that I am currently able to make combine these two points
of view: even from the perspective of modalities alonethat I will soon propose
moving beyondpassional eects participate in both domains. Modalities, as I
have shown, guarantee a synthesis between the logic of forces (that of transforma-
tions, of predicative scenes, and of the discourse-utterance) and that of the posi-
tions (that of presence, of discourse in action), because they are at the same time
presupposed conditions with regard to the former, and modes of existence with
regard to the latter.
The passional identity of actants, resting upon modal values, is thus by de-
nition one of the key sites of the interaction between these two domains of per-
tinence: thus, the identication of the actants of enunciation with those of the
utterance, and inversely, will happen through the intermediary of these passional
roles and attitudes. One cannot ask a reader, for example, to share right away the
adventures that the actors in a story experience, or everything in the discourse that
derives in general from the domain of narrative transformations. On the other
hand, one may rely upon the fact that the reader has at least something in com-
mon with these actants: a body, a position, perceptions that combine intensity
and extent, and, consequently, degrees of depth and of presence.
Such is the means for the identication of the actants of enunciation and of
the utterance, if not the capturing of the reader by the discourse: in order to read,
the latter must elaborate signication; in order to elaborate signication, he or she
must take a position with respect to the eld of discourse, adopt a point of view,
display a perceptive activity, etc. By virtue of this fact, the reader already shares, at
least in part, the modal and passional identity of the actants of discourse.
NOTES
1. Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, selected and ed. Marthiel and Jackson
Matthews (New York: New Directions, 1955).
2. Jean de La Fontaine, The Dairymaid and Her Milk-Pot,The Riverside
Anthology of Childrens Literature, 6th edition, ed. Judith Saltman (Boston:
Houghton Miin, 1985) 241.
Bertrand, Denis. Prcis de smiotique littraire [Precis on Literary Semiotics]. Paris:

Nathan, 2000. Part 4, Narrativity.
Coquet, Jean Claude. Le discourse et son sujet I [Discourse and its Subject I]. Paris:
Klincksieck, 1985. 27153.
Fillmore, Charles. Toward a Modern Theory of Case in Project on Linguistic
Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1965. 124.
Signication]. Lige: Mardaga, 1998. Chapter Modalities.
Greimas, Algirdas. Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method, trans. Daniele
McDowell, Ronald Schleifer, and Alan Velie. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1983.
Greimas, A.J. and Joseph Courts. Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary,
trans. Larry Crist, Daniel Patte et al. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1982.
Hjelmslev, Louis. La catgorie des cas [The Category of Cases]. Munich: Fink,
1972.
Tesnires, Louis. Elments de syntaxe structurale [Elements of Structural Syntax].
Paris: Klincksieck, 1959.
Chapter Five
Action, Passion, and Cognition
0. INTRODUCTION
The faculty of language permits us to take a position with respect to the per-
ceived and lived world and, at the same time, to accord it a certain discursive
presence, namely, to represent it. This faculty can, it is true, appear a posteriori
as a more or less mastered usage of sign systems. These sign systems are prop-
er to a particular discourse or to a more general use, in which case they are
more or less conventional or stereotyped. But the perspective of semiosis in ac-
tion invites us to place ourselves both on this side and beyond the formation
of these sign systems and their uses, at the moment when language organizes
the lived dimension and experience to make them signify. Organizing experi-
ence to make a discourse of it means above all discovering (or projecting) in
it a rationalitya direction, an order, an intentional form, even a structure.
This chapter is thus dedicated to the basic rationalities that we use to organize
our experience in discourse: action, passion, and cognition, which constitute the
three basic dimensions of our language activity.
Action (the pragmatic dimension) has its own logic, that of transformations.
It is characterized essentially by its nalized character: the meaning of action can
only be determined retrospectively, thanks to the calculation of presuppositions.
The result of the action presupposes the act that produced it, which itself presup-
poses the means and competences that made it possible.
The rationality proper to action is that of programming: in the very movement
of discourse, action seems to obey a program, endowed with a goal, stakes, means,
roles, and a trajectory. The notion of programming must not create any illusion;
in fact, even if the program precedes the action, the rationality from which it
proceeds is always retrospective, for, if it is nalized, it is precisely because all of its
properties are established starting from the assigned end and the means.
Passion (the passional dimension) obeys on the other hand a tensive logic, that
of presence and of tensions that it imposes upon the sensible body of the actant.
This is why the majority of passional eects in discourse may be apprehended

from the perspective of variations of intensity and of quantity. But the analysis
of passions takes into account many other components besides strictly perceptive
and tensive ones, notably aspect, modality, and rhythm.
The passional trajectory follows a program only insofar as it is strongly stereo-
typed; but sensible experience can be apprehended by discourse only in the very
moment when it happens, and not retrospectively. Consequently, impassioned
discourse is directed by an entirely dierent rationality: that of the happening [ad-
venir], that of the eruption of aects, and of the becoming of aective tensions.
The rationality proper to the universe of passion is thus that of the event;
the event is not nalized, it happens and it aects the one in front of whom, for
whom, or in whom it happens.
Cognition (the cognitive dimension) may be understood in two senses: in a
general and englobing sense, cognition today often designates the entire faculty of
language, that is to say the three dimensions that we are talking about here. This
usage, brought on by the current success of cognitive research, is hardly useful: ev-
erything, in discourse, being cognitive, it is certainly necessary then to distinguish
dierent domains of pertinence, dierent rationalities.
In a more precise sense, cognition designates the manipulation of knowledge
[savoir] in discourse. Language is then envisioned from the perspective of pieces of
knowledge [connaissances] that it is able to provide us about our world, about our-
selves, or about the possible world that it invokes. From this perspective, discourse
is considered as a whole of intelligible signication, and not only as a place where
information circulates. Another logic is imperative in this case, an epistemic logic,
from which derive notably the modes of apprehensions of the lived world (appre-
hended by inferences, by impression, etc.).
To each one of these apprehensions corresponds a particular rationality (in-
ferential rationality, sensitive rationality, etc.), but in general, cognitive rationality
is that of apprehension and of discovery: the apprehension and discovery of the
presence of the world and of the presence of oneself, discovery of truth, discovery
of links that may appear between existing pieces of knowledge, etc.
This approach to the logics of discourse conforms to the empirical denition
of signication, as able to be apprehended only in its becoming, in transforma-
tion: each one of the three logics is in fact a way of apprehending change.
The three basic logics of discourse then appear as three forms of becoming:
(1) the transformation submitted to a program of action, (2) the event that pas-
sionally aects the position of the instance of discourse, and (3) the apprehension
and the discovery of change, considered as a source of knowledge.
Let there be no mistake: these three logics can neither appear nor function
separately; they are three points of view on the same faculty of language, but only
Action, Passion, and Cognition 131
three points of view, and not three realities.

If we consider argumentation for example, we can imagine that it derives
uniquely from the third type of rationality, cognition, for it manipulates knowl-
edge; but we know well that arguing also means relying on passions (the second
type of rationality), in view of acting, that is to say obeying a certain transforma-
tion of the other or of the situation that one shares with that other (rst type of
rationality). However, concrete discourses accord more or less weight to the mean-
ing given to the world, respectively, by action, passion, or cognition: thus, faced
with the meaning of life, genres or philosophical attitudes are sketched out.
The interaction between these three basic types of rationalities, programming,
event, and discovery, constitutes a complex but coherent whole, controlled by the
same praxis. Thus discourse may at the same time put into eect nalized trajec-
tories, emotions, and aective tensions, if it can reproduce stereotyped programs
as well as invent new worlds.
Action, passion, and cognition will be considered as the three principal di-
mensions of the syntax of discourse: three dierent and complementary systems
of discursivity, three identiable rationalities.
But sometimes (including here) we also speak of the rhetorical dimension
or of the aesthetic dimension of discourse. There are thus dimensions and then
there are dimensions. When we speak of the rhetorical dimension, dimen-
sion has a weak sense, and it must be understood that we are simply evoking a
homogeneous set of specic determinations of discourse.
On the other hand, when we speak of the pragmatic dimension (semiotics
of action), of the passional dimension (semiotics of passion), and of the cogni-
tive dimension (semiotics of cognition), dimension takes on a strong sense,
identical to that being used in the expression two- or three-dimensional space.
In this sense, we can say that any semiotic object is a three-dimensional object (ac-
tion, passion, cognition), probably for the same reasons for which Peirce said that
any semiotic object could be apprehended in Firstness, Secondness, and Third-
ness. I will bring the discussion up to the third dimension, cognition.
The three dimensions in question are thus the only three ways (only: QED!)
to organize the syntax of a semiotic object.
But we must then ask what organize the syntax of a semiotic object means.
The simplest answers often being the most useful, I will refer to what I have already
called the synthesis of the heterogeneous. Heterogeneity is in fact a pre-syntagmatic
given, a semiotic state prior to the setting into sequence and the recognition of
organizing schemas; heterogeneity is also a pressure that is exercised upon enun-
ciation, with a view to an identiable and signifying organization (in production
as in interpretation); heterogeneity, nally, is a property of perceived situations,
prior to an articulation of presence in intensity and extension.
To each one of these three dimensions of discourse thus corresponds a spe-

cic manner of assuring the synthesis of the heterogeneous (or at least of trying
to resolve it): I will call these dierent forms of the resolution of heterogeneities
discursive systems.
The pragmatic dimension thus oers in this sense one of the discursive sys-
tems, that of action: this armation can no longer surprise anyone who has read
the three volumes of Time and Narrative, because it forms the very theme of the
rst part of the rst volume (in fact, mimesis 1 is, for Ricoeur, the rst temporal
synthesis, the one that provides the semantics of action).
But the thymic (or passional) dimension oers another system, that of pas-
sion, which recongures the perceived as a whole around modulations of presence,
of co-presence with the world and with others, even of presence to oneself. All the
more so in that, if we compare several genres or types of discourse, we perceive
that passional congurations very often result from the problematic conversion
of basic mythical operations, and notably from operations of mediations between
heterogeneous domains.
The cognitive dimension, nallyis it necessary to point this out?, also
puts forth a synthesis of the heterogeneous, a third discursive system, notably
because it proceeds by confrontation and comparison, and because the dierent
types of apprehensions that it uses are rst of all, and by denition, dierent mo-
dalities of setting into relation: a setting into relation of gures with their referent,
of gures with one another, and of gures with the subjects interior states.
1. ACTION
The system of action rests upon the discontinuous transformation of states of
aairs. An action links two situations, the initial situation and the nal situa-
tion, whose respective contents are inverted: before the action, the ambi-
tious person is poor and little known; after the action, this person is rich
and (perhaps) honored. From this, all of the properties of action ow.
1.1. Reconstruction by Presupposition

In order to be able to apprehend a transformation, it is necessary to compare the
nal situation with the initial situation: the latter, in fact, has meaning only if
it is superimposed onto the former. If the presentation of the initial situation is
complex and undierentiated, it is impossible to identify the particular content
whose destiny it is to be inverted in the nal situation. But even if this pre-
sentation is explicit and, for example, if it emphasizes a fault or a lack, noth-
ing guarantees that it is actually a matter of the pertinent content. Many nar-
ratives are in this regard particularly misleading: a certain hero, who left to seek
his fortune, nds wisdom; another hero, who left to learn fear, meets fortune
and marries a princess. The initial situation may demonstrate the motivations
of the actors, but the motivations obey other rationalities than that of action:
the actor believes he needs a certain object; passion or error dictate to him a be-
havior from which no real action will result. The identication of the pertinent
content for action is thus not possible except starting from the end, that is to say
thanks to the superimposition of the nal situation onto the initial situation.
Narrative schemas, for example, are backward readings of the course of the
action: starting from the end, the sanctionrecognition, compensation, or pun-
ishmentone is invited to discover which fact carries the sanction, that is, to
identify the consequence of the action. Starting from the consequence, one may
reconstitute what led to it, beginning with the performance itself. Then, starting
from the performance, one may calculate the conditions that had to be established
rst of all, the competences that it was necessary to acquire, etc. The intentionality
of the action can thus only be retrospective.
The reciprocal is also true: any retrospective functioning signals that the dis-
course is seeking to impose upon us a logic of transformation, and, more gener-
ally, the rationality of action. If, for example, the outcome of a detective novel
turns out to be the exact opposite of all the hypotheses made during the course
of reading it, we may then consider that, through the retrospective reading that
it imposes, it neutralizes all of the anterior impressions or inferences, substituting
for them a discontinuous principle of transformation. Our knowing, our access
to the narrative information, and our inferences and impressions are then, despite
their cognitive content, found to be at fault by a logic of actionthat of the nar-
rator, of course, a logic of dissimulation and of revelation, but also that of the
criminal, a programming hidden by the narrative.
Given the synthesis of the heterogeneous, which I have proposed as a den-
ing element of these types of rationalities, the semiotics of action thus rests at the
same time upon the closure and the retro-reading of a process. More precisely, the
heterogeneity constitutive of narrative trajectories and their episodes, as well as
the temporal forms they manifest, is in this case treated like an integral totality of
which the components may be calculated and deduced by presupposition.
The principal components of the semantics of action, which Ricoeur recalls
in the rst volume of Time and Narrative (agent, patient, goal, means, circum-
stance, help, hostility, cooperation, conict, etc.), are constructed in no other way
than this: the general process of transformation must be closed, and starting from
this closure, the necessary actants and segments may be deduced and identied.
The homogeneity proposed by the system of action is thus that of a general
form composed of parts that are interlinked with one another; these parts are
identical in status (they are thus of the same type) but dierent in content. Finally,
the link of concatenation does not have the same meaning in a progressive trajec-
tory and in a regressive trajectory: in progression, links between the elements in

the chain are possible and contingent (following the principle of choice) and in
regression, they are necessary (following the principle of presupposition).
This form of synthesis is also that of distributional grammar or its most recent
avatar, generative and transformational grammar.
It is the same way with passional trajectories, once they are considered from the
perspective of the transformations they produce: passion acts, that is to say that it
leads up to a different rationality than its own. Senecas critique of anger in his De
Ira is exemplary in this regard: he who becomes angry has been affected by an event,
but this reaction arises from the fact that the angry man has programmed himself to
get angry. The reasoning is then entirely retrospective: anger presupposes a frustra-
tion, which itself presupposes expecting something (which will be refused); expecta-
tion itself presupposes a belief: the angry man is someone who believed that there
was something good to be expected from others in this world, and he was wrong.
Senecas reasoning does not obey a passional rationality; he even witting-
ly ignores it. He puts into relation an initial situation (an optimistic and peaceful
belief) with a final situation (an aggressive explosion) in order to show that an-
ger somehow reveals retrospectively an erroneous optimism. Inversely, a con-
trolled and effective vengeance presupposes a healthy view of things, that
is to say a pessimistic belief, not nourished with any positive expectation.
From this perspective, anger is no longer treated according to a pas-
sional logic, that of the event, because the question that must be asked
is that of the finality of the action, or even of its optimization: what are the
best initial conditions in order for the action to succeed? Moreover, the pro-
posed strategy has as its objective to make the event itself impossible: noth-
ing must occur that was not already integrated in the programming of the action.
1.2. The Programming of Action

The fact that the meaning of action is only recognizable a posteriori does not
mean that it is not controllable by the actant: if it were not, every action
would appear, during its entire unfolding, as uncertain and unintelligible. In
fact, the actant may program the action in three ways: (1) by calculating the
trajectory, backwards, starting from the situation it wants to obtain, (2) by us-
ing stereotyped schemas, (3) by putting strategies into place. But, from the
rst solution to the third, the actant is progressively distanced from the logic
of the action, and proves to be more and more sensitive to the event. In oth-
er words, starting from a strict backward programming, starting from the ex-
pected result, the actant ends up adopting a prospective programming, starting
from the position imposed by the instance of discourse. Stereotyped sche-
mas already appeal to praxis and to memory; as for the strategies ecacious-
ness, it depends upon the actants capacity of response to the event hic et nunc.
The more it moves away from the system of action, the less it satises the
conditions imposed by this system (closure and retro-reading): the strategy then
induces an open trajectory envisioned prospectively. But within these strategic pro-
jections, the mode of reasoning may nevertheless remain retrospective.
Actually, reconstruction through presupposition is accessible to the actant, as
long as the actant can accede to the cognitive dimension. Having discovered the
retrospective rationality of the action and having recognized this rationality as a
form of its experience, it is going to apply this rationality to its project of action
and reconstitute all of this rationalitys stages by presupposition. Commercial cin-
ema, for example, has habituated us to those scenes of preparation for a bank rob-
bery, where the temporal cutting of the action is xed in advance, starting from
the maximal delay that the robbers have to realize the operation. There is nothing
to discover, nothing to invent (from this particular point of view): everything is
already virtually programmed by the time limit and the circumstances.
It remains the case that, in many other types of discourse or in other narrative
situations, the programming is derived neither from a backward reconstruction
nor from a chain of instructions. The program must then be able to be invented
by the actant. It is in this case that the actants calculations truly become strategic.
When the plan for the bank robbery is put into place, for example, on the one
hand the counter-program of security and defense of order and on the other hand
what we generally call the imponderables, interfere. In this case, the actant must
be able to combine (1) backward programming, which allows the actant to keep
its principal objective, (2) stereotyped schemas, permitting a canonical response,
and (3) a strategic calculation starting from representations of the adversary or
of the imponderable that the actant imagines. But then it is clear that the rep-
resentation of the action is of the order of the simulacrum (a second-degree rep-
resentation within a discourse) and that the trajectory unfolds on the cognitive
dimension of discourse.
The technical discourses constituted by a recipe, a manual, or assembly instructions

accompanying a kit provide excellent illustrations of this retrospective logic. These are
discourses of programming, which are presented in the form of a series of instructions.
These instructions are entirely controlled by the result to be obtained: when it
is a matter of a dish, for example, establishing the recipe involves (1) making the
list of ingredients thanks to an analysis of the dish, (2) dividing the phases of the
realization, starting from the end (the moment when the dish must be presented on
the table): decoration, arrangement, cooking, preparation... and (3) ordering these
different phases in time, taking into account the duration of each one and their
necessary order. Although the discourse of instruction is to be read as a progres-
sion toward an end (in the sense of the discovery we make of it), it nevertheless
obeys a retrospective programming, calculated starting from the expected result.
On the other hand, when the action is at the planning stage, or at the mo-
ment of the production of the discourse of instruction, the programming can rest
only upon calculations, and it must take on a schematic frame. Consequently, the
reconstruction that it does by presupposition or by the projection of a simulacrum
must obey a certain number of typical indicators, that is to say, in sum, exploit the
canonical schema of an action: the basic program (or narrative program), the
goal (consequence), the stakes (object of value), the partners (other actants), the
obligatory intermediary phases (acquisition of competence, modal predicates), etc.
In this case, the programming uses a meta-discourse of instruction, that held by
the culture to which we belong, and which defines the right form of a programming.
1.2.1. The Narrative Program

The basic unit of the utterance of action is the narrative program. Note: the adjec-
tive narrative must be understood in the general and technical sense of that cor-
responds to a transformation. A basic program is composed of utterances of states,
that is to say of an elementary interaction between two types of actants, subjects (S)
and objects (O), united by a predicate said to be of junction: either conjunction (S
O) or disjunction (S U O). A narrative program then consists in transforming one el-
ementary utterance into another (initial situation nal situation), for example:
(S O) (S U O)this is a disjunctive program, or, inversely:

(S U O) (S O)this is a conjunctive program.
The formula traditionally usedwhich is only a writing, and not an analysis,

is the following, in the case of the conjunctive program:
Dt [S1 (S2 O)]
This formula retains only the symbols of the action (Dt, or doing of transforma-
tion), of the operator (S1), of the beneciary (S2), of the stakes, or object of value
(O), and of the goal, the nal utterance of the state (S O); the square brack-
ets symbolize the transformation and the parentheses the elementary utterance.
The programming of the action (basic program, operator, goal, stakes, action,
beneciary...) ows only partially from this formula of the narrative program: it
is still necessary to compare this program with the counter-program and with the
strategy of the sub-programs.
1.2.2. Program and Counter-Program

We must recall here that, from the perspective of transformation, we place
ourselves in a logic of forces, and that, notably, if a program aims to trans-
form an utterance into another utterance, it will meet a certain resistance
from the initial utterance, considered as a more or less stable state. It is then
a matter of resistance from the material, of resistance from the very complex-
ity of the initial situation, or, more frequently, of the resistance directly imput-
able to another subjects action. Solidity, complexity, or hostility: these gures
all sketch out the perspective of a counter-program. The counter-program ap-
pears more clearly if we lay out the formula of transformation in its entirety:
Dt [S1 (S2 U O) (S3 O)]
S1, S2, and S3 are distinct actants, and rightfully so; however, some equivalencies
(also called syncretisms) are possible:
S1 = S2 (the operator separates from the object and attributes it to someone else),
S1 = S3 (the operator removes the object from someone in order to appropriate it),
S2 = S3 (the operator attributes an object to someone who did not have it),
and nally,
S1 = S2 = S3 (the operator attributes to himself or herself an object that he
or she did not have).
But, no matter what the particular interpretation of the situation, it entails, at least
virtually, the trace of a counter-program; this counter-pro-
gram relies upon S2, the actant whose situation one modi-
es in order to bring about another one, to the benet of S3.
Lets return to the example of the assembly instructions: the non-existence of the ob-
ject to be reconstituted is in itself an obstacle to the assembly; the utterance (S2 U O)
is not only the utterance to be transformed, but also the trace of the counter-program
to be combated. In fact, the assembly instructions are conceived to deal with the
disassembly of the object, which itself results from the process of conditioning: the
object was designed as a whole, then segmented to be sold in a kit; the counter-pro-
gram is actually the disassembly of the object into parts. As long as the operator has
not at least imagined the ultimate form of this object, the counter-program will prevail.
This example shows clearly that the notion of counter-program need not be limited
to cases where a true anti-subject is opposed to the subject. In fact, we can still speak
of an anti-subject here only if we allow that the anti-subject has been in some sense
objectivized, inscribed in the very morphology of the object; but it may at any moment
recover its autonomy in the commentaries of the bricoleur: the resistance of the object
disassembled in parts is then imputed, for example, to the designer or the manufacturer.
Conict is thus inherent to the logic of action: if an operator is necessary in

order to transform a state, it is because, by denition, this state resists trans-
formation. On the other hand, unstable states may evolve without an opera-
tor; but, as we will see, their evolution does not derive from a logic of action.
Strategy will be dened as that dimension of the programming that consists in
undoing the counter-program.

There are numerous consequences to be drawn from this observation about
programming action, but I will retain only two of them, in terms of strategy: the
aspectual strategy and the strategy of simulacra.
1.2.3. Aspectual Strategies: Program and Sub-Programs

A recipe that said: Cook the oured pieces of beef in a casserole with the minced
onions, the wine, the oil, and the slices of carrot, would not attract many cooks. In
fact, the rst rule that must be applied in order to undo the counter-program is
the segmentation of the action: divide and conquer. Dividing the program into
sub-programs means dividing the resistance of the counter-program. If the resis-
tance is due to the situations complexity, then the sub-program will be applied
to a simpler part; if the resistance is due to hostility, then the sub-program will be
applied to a secondary aspect, or at least one separated from the principal stakes. A
dish such as beef with carrots, for example, must evoke a certain number of sensa-
tions (tastes, smells, textures) which one may obtain only through an ordering of
the operations. In other words, in order for the recipe to be eective, it must break
down the stages and order them: brown the onions before the meat, saut the meat
before adding the carrots, etc. But one may order the sequence only after having
done the pertinent segmentation, and this segmentation may only be carried out
starting from a general and stable representation of the object. There is, then, in
prospect in the programming, an iconic formation of the goal to be reached.
In a rugby match, the solitary action of a winger who tries to score all alone after run-
ning sixty meters is certainly admirable, but it presupposes the momentary absence of
a counter-program, that is to say the momentary disorganization of the defensive team.
For lack of being able in general to count on such an absence, the game will usually be
played thanks to the accumulation of less spectacular actions, composed of sub-pro-
grams: kicks, line-outs, stopping the ball, forward passes, series of passes, and so forth.
The segmentation into sub-programs accords less value to intensity and pa-
nache, to the concentration of a dazzling action, and more efficaciousness to cal-
culation, to the quantity of a multitude of concentrated and ordered actions.
In a certain way, the breakdown of the action into sub-programs echoes the
breakdown of the object invoked above. The breakdown of the object confers upon
it a resistant morphology, and this resistance must be compensated for by as-
sembly instructions. The breakdown of the action obtains for it a complexity and an
unexpected quality that must also counteract the action of the opposing team. The
only possible response is then a better knowledge of the available combinations.
The segmentation into sub-programs may obey several complemen-

tary rules: that of the presupposed conditions, that of the objects mor-
phology, that of the temporal and spatial form that the program must
adopt, and nally that of the very organization of the counter-program.

As concerns the presupposed conditions, the sub-programs allow acquiring
the modalities necessary for action (see Chapter 4). For example, in order to as-
semble a piece of furniture, the operator must at least know how to distinguish
between a at screwdriver and a Phillips screwdriver, or between a screw and a
bolt, between a post and a base, etc. These programs of modal acquisitions thus
form the operators competence.
As concerns the objects morphology, the sub-programs adopt its structure
in parts, at least the structure in which it is presented in the initial situation. The
case of the recipe is exemplary: for example, when one is preparing a mayonnaise,
it is best not to be able to recognize in the nal product the egg, oil, and vinegar;
however, the sub-programs involve breaking the egg, adding the oil, then the
vinegar. These parts are moreover ordered in a hierarchy, and the sub-programs
reproduce this hierarchy by projecting it in time (before/after) and in space (in
front of/behind, etc.).
As concerns temporal and spatial forms, the sub-programs thus follow the
hierarchical structure of the parts of the object. But the spatio-temporal program-
ming must also take into account the relative duration of each one of the sub-
programs: if the carrots are not cut into slices when the minced onions and the
pieces of beef are browned in the hot oil, the success of the beef with carrots recipe
is seriously compromised. That is to say that at any time, the counter-program, by
playing upon its own spatio-temporal programming, may lead to modifying the
strategy: if the carrots are not ready to be cooked at the right time, a few minutes
later, the onions and the meat will be burned.
As concerns the counter-program itself, the operator must be able to antici-
pate. To change registers, let us invoke Bardamus strategy in Clines novel Jour-
ney to the End of the Night. It deals with a persistent, irreducible, and irremediable
counter-program, which, through the degradation of all the encountered situa-
tions, leads to the decomposition of materials, to the aggravation of relations be-
tween characters, and to the death of some of them. The only initiative accorded
to him, in order to undo this counter-program, is ight; and it is still necessary
to leave in time. Bardamu thus anticipates the counter-program, thanks to cer-
tain signs that his experience has taught him to recognize. Thanks to the (real or
metaphorical) odor of the states of aairs, the aggression that emanates from his
fellow characters, or the spreading sickness, he is capable of foreseeing the mo-
ment when the irremediable degradation will have its eect. The episode of the
business in Africa is exemplary: having perceived in time the combination of all
the precursor signs, he sets re to his building, erases any trace of his having been
there, and ees.
This type of strategy, which rests upon cutting up a process into ordered
parts that are set in time and space, is of an aspectual nature: just like aspect in
linguistics, it consists in treating the process of the action not as a whole but as a
hierarchically ordered temporal and spatial structure.
1.2.4. Strategies and Simulacra

In order to adapt its program to the counter-program, the operator must be able at
any moment to call upon a representation of the counter-program that is adequate
to the phase in which the operator nds itself. What I am calling here a represen-
tation already has the form of a discourse: it refers to a position, it entails systems
of value, relies upon narrative programs, unfolds in space and time, and the actant
aimed for is endowed with a modal identity. It would thus be a virtual discourse,
imputable to the other actant, but apprehended from the position of the rst
actant. This virtual discourse, such as it appears in the response given to it by the
rst actant, is most often limited to a representation of the supposed objective.
In argumentative discourse, the construction of such simulacra has been in-
ventoried under the form of rhetorical gures: prolepsis [antoccupation], for ex-
ample, is the exact equivalent of a representation of the anti-subjects strategy,
because it is a gure that consists in imitating by anticipation an argument of the
adverse party in order to extract the objects and respond to them preventatively.
As strategies are interactive, each one constructing its own simulacra and that
of others, with respect to the simulacra that each one supposes the other is elabo-
rating, the mechanism that appears is that of an embedding and of an embedding
of simulacra: we will then have simulacra of rst, second, nth degrees (from a
pragmatic point of view), and simulacra of rst, second, nth ranks (from a syn-
tagmatic point of view).
The strategy thus supposes not only a capacity for anticipation of others tra-
jectories, but moreover a memory and a meta-semiotic capacity: memory allows
conserving a representation, which can be mobilized, of all the cumulative simu-
lacra, and the meta-semiotic capacity allows ordering them as possible scenarios.
Lets come back to rugby, to our solitary winger (team A): he has exploited the fact
that the defenders (team B) have gathered in another zone of the field. From the
point of view of the opposing team (B), team As program was thus the object of
a representation that indicated that in this phase of the game the effort was cen-
tered on another zone. Let us imagine that this gathering on the part of team B
is a ruse: it happens sufficiently forward toward the opposing goal in order that,
when team As winger grabs the ball, it may be considered as out of play, that
is to say beyond the position of team Bs first defender. Team B was thus creat-
ing by anticipation a representation of the counter-program of attack of the wing-
er, and thus undid it, because the wingers attack is sanctioned by the referee.
The representation that each team creates of the other teams program
is a simulacrum, that is to say a simplified equivalent adapted to the conception

of a counter-strategy. More generally, we will say that the actant creates a simu-
lacrum of the counter-program, in the form of a schematic and virtual image of
the objective aimed for by this counter-program (that is, its terminal utterance).
But the role of the simulacra goes far beyond this: assembly instructions
must provide a simulacrum of the object that respects the objects morphol-
ogy; the player may elaborate, for the benefit of the adversary, his own simula-
crum which, this time, will be deceptive: the tactical gathering of team B, de-
signed to put team As winger in an out-of-play position, is an example of this.
In the end, communication between the respective actants of the program and the
counter-program happens entirely through simulacra. This means, among other
things, that the programming of each one of them is at each moment inected in
order to falsify and manipulate the programming of the other. A cognitive dimen-
sion then appears, in which the programming put into play and manifested (and
not the immanent programming) becomes a means of strategic communication.
But if the programmed action is accompanied by an announcement [faire
savoir] about the programming, possibly destined to fool the adversary, this means
that the rationality of action is at all times susceptible to being doubled: it then
appears heterogeneous, composed of two signifying layers, a pragmatic layer and
a cognitive layer. In Hjelmslevs terms, the narrative trajectory is then subdivided
into two semiotics: an object-semiotics (the pragmatic dimension) and a meta-
semiotics (the cognitive dimension), and the setting into play of the action oers
two sides: the unfolding of the action, and the display of its internal model.
In strategies that could be called low level, the simulacra concern only the an-
ticipated representation of the nal result and, possibly, of the intermediate stages,
as for example in assembly instructions, photographs, sketches, and diagrams,
which include codes for parts and codes for steps.
In high level strategies, the action is doubled by another dimension, which
we will call persuasive, and in which the reciprocal simulacra of the programs
and counter-programs are proposed and interpreted. We know in this regard the
subtlety of a chess match; but we also know that such a strategic complexity has a
price, namely that it escapes the simple logic of action and that it has emotional
and axiological eects as well as meta-semiotic incidences.
The rhetorical dimension of discourse also exploits this type of high level strat-
egy. Let us think for example of asteismus. It is an argumentative figure whose
proposition has a negative orientation, and which must nevertheless be under-
stood in a positive sense. This figure allows for example thanking someone while
scolding him for his gift: the simulacrum that the speaker proposes of himself or
herself is thus that of someone who was not expecting the gift, or who was ex-
pecting a smaller one. Consequently, the interlocutor sees himself or herself at the
same time endowed with the simulacrum of one who gives without reason, free-
ly and generously; the strategy proposes a new reading of the gift, from the per-
spective of an unequal exchange, in which the gift is superior to the expectation.
Generally, the strategy aims to reconstruct the meaning of the gift, to retro-
spectively erase any anterior clause of obligation and of reciprocity, in such a
way as to emphasize on the one hand the generosity that inspired it, and on the
other, the pleasure and surprise that it evokes. The strategic figure is thus ac-
companied by an axiological displacement, by a modification of the modal iden-
tity of the actants in quesetion, and by a certain number of affective effects.
These last remarks must be emphasized: another dimension than that of action is
put into place here, passional roles and aects make their appearance; persuasion
derives from cognition and passion, and no longer just from action. And this is why
strategies founded upon exchanges of simulacra may modify the meaning of the ac-
tion: we are no longer solely within the rationality of the nalized transformation.
2. PASSION
The system of passion rests upon continual modulations of semantic intensity,
in relation with quantity (whether it be actantial quantity or spatio-temporal
extent). Passion transforms, certainly, just like action, but the rationality that
directs it is that of tensive transformationstransformations of tensions proper
to intensity and extensity. With regard to the schemas of discourse, passion
thus obeys tensive schemas, while action obeys canonical narrative schemas.
As a discursive system, passion synthesizes, establishes, and creates solidarity
among the tensions of presence, while action synthesizes the programs of junction.
In this respect, the semiotics of passions was born from the necessity of resolving
heterogeneities proper to narrative semiotics in which, alongside utterances of
junction and their transformations as well as modalities of competence, appear
inexplicable surpluses that are intensive, quantitative, and generally aective in
type. There are modalities (wanting, being-able, or having-to) that for example
overow the mere realization of a completed program, and that maintain the
actant in the same state of tension as at the beginning of the program. They con-
stitute a heterogeneous surplus that invites us to seek another level of textual
functioning. There are rhythms that, projected upon the course of the action,
signify nearly the contrary of the ostensible stakes of the action. There are actants,
nally, that forget the course of the action and no longer intend anything but
the realization of their own identity, etc.
If Ricoeur is to be believed, narrative emplotment suces for assuring tem-
poral syntheses. However, when we carefully examine the discourses that phi-
losophers (who constitute Ricoeurs corpus of reference) produce about time, we
notice that passion takes up more room than action. The temporal systems that
they deduce, in fact, are rst of all passional or sensible systems, which imply
the sensing body. For example, memory, attention, and waiting in Augustine; or re-
tention and protention in Husserl; or, nally, care and preoccupation in Heidegger.
The emplotment of passion, just as much as that of action, is thus a form of
discursive synthesis, but it acts principally upon the categories of presence, inten-
sity, and quantity.
2.1. Passional Intensity and Quantity

In discourse, passion is the eect of two determinations: modal determinations (see
Chapter 4, section 3, Modalities) and tensive determinations. The relation be-
tween the two may be illuminated thanks to the relation, better known in linguis-
tics, maintained between phonemes and intonation: phonemes are discontinuous
determinations that are the constituents of an abstract sonorous chain, while intona-
tion is their tensive accompaniment, made of accents and modulations; these phe-
nomena of accompaniment of the chain of constituents may be denoted exposants.
Modal determinations are constituents and tensive determinations are exposants.
The distinction between constituents and exposants is not hierarchical: cer-
tain syntaxes (like those already invoked) of distributionalism only identify con-
stituents; others, like that of Viggo Brndal, emphasize exposants and the energy
and rhythm that the sentence must manage. Indexes, in a certain sense, involve
the deepest layer of meaning in action: emotion, the felt, perception.
The system of passion shares with that of action the same type of constituents,
modalities, but it has its own exposants, the intensity and quantity of aect. Ac-
cording to the principle dened by Greimas, the modulations of phoric-tensivity
(exposants) are rearticulated in a discontinuous manner in the form of modaliza-
tions of being (constituents). The latter intend the value that the former deter-
mine.
In phonology, when one passes from the study of the phoneme to that of the syl-
lable, the principle of pertinence changes: one may define by commutation pho-
nemes that are discontinuous units, and that one may describe by the combina-
tion of pertinent traits (for example, voiced/unvoiced, or labial/dental); but
the syllable cannot be defined without appealing to tensive phenomena (oc-
clusion, explosion; opening, closing) that serve, among other things, to guide
the modulations of the articulatory energy. All the more so when one passes
to the more general study of intonation and prosody on the plane of expression.
Linguists have proposed to fix this difference: we thus speak of segmental fac-
tors and supra-segmental factors, the segment being, as its name indicates, the
discontinuous unity obtained by cutting up the chain of discourse; but the clearest ap-
proach seems to me to be that of Hjelmslev, who distinguishes in any syntax two dimen-
sions: that of the constituents (phonemes and syntagms, for example) and that of the
exposants (the profile and the intonative types, the accents of intensity and of length,
for example). The advantage of this presentation is that it concerns the plane of content
as well as that of expression: there is thus, for the plane of content as well, a set of ex-
posants, which is the counterpart of the one we already know for the plane of expression.
2.1.1. Intensity
When one speaks of intensity in phonology, one knows what it is all
about: it exploits a non-phonological substance, which may be identi-
ed with articulatory energy and with acoustical intensity. But when one
speaks of the aective intensity of discourse, what is one talking about?
In linguistic expression, intensity is a variable that appears at the moment of
evaluation and that participates in enunciative modalization: it derives as such
from the appreciation of the subject of enunciation. When this subject must come
to a decision concerning an event evaluated negatively, it will conclude, for ex-
ample, with an incident or a catastrophe; it will choose between the two with
respect to the intensitythe vividnessthat it accords to the dysphoric event.
Intensity thus intervenes in the enunciative modalization only at the second de-
gree, because the axiological evaluation is rst; more precisely, the intensity, in the
example invoked, is that of dysphoria.
Aective intensity is thus indissociable from axiology. It could even be de-
ned as a property of phoria itself: on the one hand, phoria is more or less intense
(this is the denition of aect), and on the other hand, it is polarized in dysphoria
and in euphoria by the axiological judgment (this is the denition of value). The
passional eect then results from the combination of these two properties, aect
and value. In general, it can be very dicult to dissociate the linguistic expression
of intensity from that of aectivity: a certain behavior will be judged unacceptable
with respect to the norm but scandalous with respect to the aective eect that
it produces (indignation, anger, etc.). The gain in intensity is then accompanied
by a passional manifestation. In the same way, between economy and avarice the
increase in intensity signals the transformation of a stereotyped behavior into a
passion. This does not mean that the unacceptable and economy have no passional
eect. It means only that aective intensity has not reached the necessary thresh-
old in order for natural language to be able to identify it in a distinctive manner;
it nevertheless remains latent, and available for possible subsequent explosions.
If we consider as a whole the modulations of intensity in a discourse, we
may then speak of a prole of intensity of the content of this discourse, which will
generally characterize its passional dimension. But I have decided not to limit the
discussion to verbal discourse. In visual or gestural discourses, in which marks of
intensity are not susceptible to being detected through the study of the linguistic
modalization of enunciation, it is necessary to widen the perspective by coming
back to the rst denition that I proposed. If aective intensity is what appears
jointly with the actualization of value, then any intensity associated with a percep-
tive contrast and participating in the actualization of a discursive value may be
chalked up to passion. In fact, this proposition ows directly from the principle
of the synthesis of the heterogeneous: the rst operation, in fact, consists in estab-
lishing contrasts of intensity, which will form a rst network of relations.
Which leads us in the end to ask with respect to this intensity the same ques-
tion asked with respect to intonative intensity: what is its extra-discursive corre-
late? Which substance does it exploit? The response is found rst in our denition
of semiosis itself: the passional intensity of discourse has as its phenomenological
correlate proprioceptivity, the sensitivity of the body proper that serves as media-
tor between the two planes of semiosis (see Chapter 1). But we cannot ignore its
psychological correlate: it is then a matter of drives, of the libido, of all forms of
psychic energy.
No matter what the extra-discursive nature of this intensity, it has at least one
point in common with semiotic intensity: it involves the body proper, it is one of
the properties of the tensions to which the body is submitted at the very moment
when it takes a position to install the semiotic function.
Following the analogy with the plane of expression, we may ask what ef-
fect this intensive exposant may have on the constituents of the passional syntax.
When, for example, in the following sentence: Jeanne is the one who tipped over
the vase, the prosodic accent falls on Jeanne, intensity comes to complete the ar-
rangement of extraction through the presentative, in order to guide the ux of
attention onto the syntagm excerpted from the sentence and to reorganize the
information. On the other hand, in the sentence: Paul came to the house yesterday,
only the accent of intensity (falling on Paul, came, yesterday, or house) will tell us
to which isotopy it is necessary to link this information, or even with which other
utterance it enters into aective contrast. If yesterday is thus selected, and carries
the accent of intensity, for example, we will need to seek, before or after the fact,
an indication that makes of this moment, by anaphor or by contrast, a particular
moment.
The accent of intensity is thus not contented with directing the ux of atten-
tion. It also allows reorganizing the syntactic constituents, to extract certain of
them and to make of them the constituents that direct the chain on the semantic
plane.
Lets turn to an example from the plane of content, a passional example:
impulsiveness. The impulsive person reacts immediately, forcefully, obeying a
movement that carries him or her away before having reected; this means that
the impulsive persons modal identity is of the type M2, composed uniquely of a
wanting and of a being-able. But calling someone impulsive also means taking as
ones horizon of reference another modal identity, of type M3 or M4, which would
include, alongside the two preceding modalities, knowing and having-to. In fact,
impulsiveness includes at the same time a supplement and a lack: a supplement
of intensity and of vivacity, and a lack of reection. The passage from the identity
M3/4 to the identity M2 is explained precisely by the displacement of the accent
of identity: in coming to concentrate on wanting, intensity neutralizes all of the
other identity traits, to the point at which the impulsive person may even nd
himself or herself powerless before the obstacle that his or her wanting has led
him or her to confront. Modalities being the constituents of passional identity,
we will say here that the accent of intensity makes of the constituent wanting the
constituent that directs the actants whole identity.
2.1.2. Quantity
Our daily representations of aectivity accustom us to thinking in terms of in-
tensity or even of uncontrolled energy; they most often leave quantity and extent
in the shadows. However, we nd some traces of them in the most common us-
ages. For example, one may say of someone that he collects himself [rassemble
ses esprits] after a strong emotion: had the emotion dispersed him? This set ex-
pression, which rests upon the ancient meaning of esprit (The light and subtle
bodies that were considered the principle of life and of feelings, according to
Littr), belonged in the classical era to a productive and open set in which one
found also retenir ses esprits [retaining ones wits], reprendre ses esprits [regain-
ing ones wits], etc. According to this usage, aective life would thus be divis-
ible into constituents that are more or less strongly associated with one another.
From quite a dierent point of view, the dierence between avarice and stin-
giness is not due to intensity but to the value of the objects intended, or, more
precisely, the size and the quantity of these objects. In the same way, between
pride and sensitivity, or even touchy sensitivity, it is not so much the intensity of
the passional reaction that makes the dierence, but the importance, number, and
extent of the causes: pride will be expressed only in a few important occasions;
sensitivity will seize every little occasion.
Quantity thus concerns the whole passional process, and, more precisely, the
subjectwhen it is a matter for the subject of collecting oneself or of pulling
oneself togetheras well as the objectwhen it is a matter of the number and
of the importance of this number. But it also concerns unfolding in space and
time. What is proper to obsession, for example, is to impose a certain number of
occurrences, according to a high frequency, of the same aective role or attitude:
we obtain, at the limit, a temporal saturation that does not allow room for any
other role. This example touches indirectly upon the domain of the nomenclature
of the passions, which characterizes the basic types of aective states according to
their extent: emotion (instantaneous), passion (durable), inclination (permanent),
and sentiment (permanent).

The passional exposant of quantity thus aects the subject, the object, and
the spatio-temporal unfolding of the passional trajectory. But it may take very
dierent forms. For example, when it is a matter of spatio-temporal unfolding,
quantity only concerns measuring extent (distance, duration), or the number
of occurrences; the combination of measure and number then forms passional
rhythms, the rhythm of a possible repetition.
When it is a matter of the object, measure is also concerned, but in order to
x the value of the object and to bring it eventually back to a norm, as in the case
of stinginess or sensitivity. But there are also cases in which passion cuts the ob-
ject into parts, to retain only some and cover over the others. If love is blind, for
example, this is not because the subject no longer sees its object; on the contrary,
it is because the subject has focused on certain aspects and covered others, and
that all of the subjects attention is centered on the selected parts. In the same
way, compassion segments the other into two sides: a positive side and a negative
side. True compassion is addressed to both of them, because it treats the other like
a peer, or even, in Rousseaus work, an equal; pity and commiseration are ad-
dressed only to the negative side, and this is why the dictionary tells us that some
disdain plays a role in it.
Finally, when it is a matter of the subject, it is the subjects very identity that
is in question: each identity being composed of several roles or attitudes, each role
or attitude itself able to be composed of several constituents, notably of several
modalities, the coherence of this whole can be dicult to hold together. Actually,
the constituents of the roles and the roles themselves may become either incom-
patible or autonomous. Thus Swann, in Prousts Swann in Love, having begun
to experience love and jealousy, sees himself as if doubled: another has taken his
place next to him, and will accompany him until this love dies.
The heterogeneity of the spatio-temporal unfolding, of the objects morphol-
ogy, or of the subjects identity are problems that discourse resolves through pas-
sional sequences, which order the changes of equilibrium in tensions.
In this way, the motive for anger is not a passion in mythical discourse, be-
cause it gures there as a pure intensity, which compromises no quantitative or-
ganization: the god in Indian mythology whose name means Anger [Courroux]
is the one whose power spares and preserves us from non-being and chaos. On
the other hand, in everyday discourse or in literary texts, anger becomes a passion
because it must jointly govern two incompatible dimensions: on the one hand the
intensity of an explosion in which the subject is expressed as a whole and on the
other hand the extent (in duration and in quantity) of the retaliatory measures to
be taken.
The gure of mediation proper to mythical discoursebetween being and
existencebecomes a passion in a cultural context where mediation becomes

problematic, for the number and potential diversity of the manifestations of hu-
man anger can be actualized only to the detriment of the explosions force: it is
thus certainly the number that creates problems.
Eugene Ionesco, in his play Rhinocros, offers us another example of the actants
doubling. Near the beginning of the first scene, Branger confesses to his
partner, Jean:
Im so tired, Ive been tired for years. Its exhausting to drag the weight of my
own body about ... [...] Im conscious of my body all the time, as if it were made
of lead, or as if I were carrying another man around on my back. I cant seem to
get used to myself. I dont even know if I am me. Then as soon as I take a drink,
the lead slips away and I recognize myself, I become me again.1
We notice immediately that the question of identity is posed in terms of doubling,

but a doubling felt as an incapacity to assume a unique position: the subject feels
his body as if he were another body, and he must find an expedient in order to
reunite himself in a single me, that is to say in an instance of discourse. The
relation to oneself thus becomes a condition of the enunciative taking of position,
at the same time as that of the recognition of identity. The solution envisioned, in-
toxication, is not very orthodox, but it incontestably bears witness to the somatic
and passional nature of the binding that holds together the parts of the self.
The modal constituents of identity are also invoked in the same scene with
Jean, but in an entirely negative mode: Branger does not want to (he lacks will-
power, according to Jean), he does not have to (he isnt doing his duty, Jean
reproaches him), he does not know, but he creates hypotheses as soon as a rhi-
noceros appears onstage: a series of What do I know?... Perhaps it was...? Per-
haps it is...? Perhaps it has...? bears witness to this. The only modal identity that
still has a meaning for him is of an epistemic type, it is an uncertain and absurd
belief, the belief in the presence of rhinoceroses in the area. It is a matter of an
actant M1, and the fact that the perception of his identity is exclusively propriocep-
tive conforms to the definition of such an actant; it even seems that, in Brangers
case, the only passions that may be envisioned (he speaks of vague fears, of an-
guish, and of great fatigue) result from his belief in the doubling of his own body.
In a certain way, the dialectic of the Me (the instance of reference) and
of the Self (the instance in process in discourse) which any enunciation must
face, becoming problematic here, compromises the actants homogeneity, and
can be resolved only through the manifestation of one or several passions.
Passion could, from this perspective, be considered as the internal principle of

coherence (or incoherence) of the subject: it dissociates or mobilizes, it selects
a role and suspends all others, it groups the roles around a single one, etc. In
sum, it governs the relations among the constitutive parts of the self. The overall
identity of an actant not being attributable solely to the sum of its transitory
identitiesthe whole is not the sum of its parts, passion would be this more
or less eective binding that assures the consistency of the whole. If this to-
tality is permanent in the long term, it will be called character or temperament.
2.1.3. Association of Intensity and of Extent

Lets come back to the passional nomenclature: the dierent terms at our dis-
posal, emotion, passion, inclination, and sentiment, are dened at the same
time by a specic duration and by a certain degree of intensity. From emotion
to feeling, as the temporal extent builds and is regulated, the intensity drops.
I also invoked obsession; in this case, repetition does not bring about a drop
in intensity. On the contrary, the very duration of the obsession is an indication
of its gravity, of its aective power.
This is to say that the passional quantity may be appreciated only compara-
tively with an intensity, and reciprocally: for example, what is lacking in the im-
pulsive person in order to be energetic or willful? Undoubtedly a being-able
that would be independent of the wanting, but, above all, a capacity to want in
time, a capacity to want for as long as the setting out of the programs of action
requires, and the setting into place of being-able to do and knowing how to do. The
impulsive person thus chooses the intense and immediate burst, to the detriment
of eectiveness in extent.
We have thus come back to the tensive schemas of discourse, which combine
in all their scenarios a degree of intensity and a degree of quantity. And this is
what is proper to passional rationality: combining gradients and generating ten-
sions from them. And, if we recall that these gradients of intensity and of extent
express elementary properties of perception, then we may say that passional ratio-
nality consists in combining perceptive gradients, gradients of perceptive presence
in discourse.
In fact, the question of presence always underlies this discussion. We could
even consider that passional rationality consists in transforming simple utterances
of transformation into eects of presence: subjects, objects, conjunctions, and dis-
junctions are thus interpreted in sensible terms, thanks to an engagement in the
tensive space of perceptive presence, in order to give rise to passions. Disjunction is
not experienced as lack, for example, unless it is transformed into a certain feeling
of presence: the subject intends the objectthe intensity is then strong, but does
not apprehend itthe extent is null.
These remarks may be summarized, more generally, in the following way:
from the perspective of passion, a process is not considered from the point of view
of its result, but from the point of view of its weight of presence; it is no longer a
transformation, but an event.
2.2. Figures of the Passional Dimension of Discourse

2.2.1. The Passional Lexicon
In natural languages, passions are designated by lexemes, for the most part
nominal (for example, pride), some adjectival (for example, mean), adverbial
(for example, proudly) or verbal (for example, worry). These are signs, and, as
such, they result from usage; like all words of a language, they are the deposi-
tory and the tributaries of a history and a culture. Our project as a whole is
that of a semiotics of discourse and not of the sign, and, consequently, we must
also pass beyond the lexical expression of passion. Treating passion in discourse
by limiting oneself to the words of passion would be like treating the action in
a text by limiting oneself to the action verbs. This historical and cultural fos-
silization of passional eects is in itself an interesting phenomenon, but also
a limited phenomenon that depends upon the more general capacity of dis-
course to produce passional eects; this capacity cannot be approached simply
through these linguistic signs, which are just their particular and xed products.
I have already remarked (see above, section 2.1.1.) with respect to the distinc-
tion between unacceptable and scandalous, or between economical and avaricious,
that the French language recognizes passion only beyond a certain threshold of
intensity: it is already a question of a historical and cultural limitation, other
languages, notably Eastern languages, being able to highlight emotions of weak
intensity, emotions that are dull or neutral.
Moreover, the aective dimension of discourse, being submitted to a moral
evaluation in most languages, is particularly sensitive to current cultural grids: in
Indo-European languages, notably, it seems as if only aective states susceptible to
rst being classed as vices or virtues may be lexicalized as passions.
We know for example that in ancient Greek, the verb zl and its deriva-
tive zlsis cover the entire eld of what we call today emulation, zeal, envy, and
jealousy: a single notion then grouped what, for us, is divided into several dier-
ent passions. And the reason for these distinctions is immediately apparent; two
classes take shape in eect, under the pressure of diametrically opposed moral
evaluations: on the one hand emulation and zeal and on the other envy and jeal-
ousy. A closer examination of this conguration shows that ancient Greek culture
accepted the intertwining of the relation of attachment (S/O) and the relation of
rivalry (S1/S2). On the other hand, contemporary French culture distinguishes
in this set (1) passions founded upon one of the two relations at a time, which it
evaluates positively, and (2) mixed passions, which it evaluates negatively. On the
one hand there is emulation, which rests upon the relation between S1 and S2,
and zeal, which rests upon the relation between S and O; on the other hand, envy
and jealousy, which exploit the painful triangle formed by S1, O, and S2.
It appears clearly in this example that the moral division imposes itself upon
the aective division, in such a way that everywhere that pertinent traits appear
on the moral plane, passional distinctions are formed, and, inversely, where the
moral does not make any distinction, the division of the passions remains free or
undetermined. The moral dimension is thus at the same time a means by which
we may accede to passional classications and a mask that we must remove.
Furthermore, thanks to a somewhat attentive examination of the theories of

the passions proposed by philosophers, we can generally identify rather eas-
ily the patrician or plebian, aristocratic or bourgeois background of
any given philosophical system of the passions: in this sense, Diogenes, Ar-
istotle, Descartes, Spinoza, or Nietzsche rationalize an ideology of the pas-
sions, and systematize the division proper to the culture that they take on.
But, for the semiotician, these philosophical systems present another disadvantage:
because they are based upon the words of passion, they exploit, most of the time invol-
untarily, an inadequate semantics, of a discontinuous type. The philosophical theories
of passions almost all seek the meta-sememe of passion, the primitive passion(s),
beginning from which the entire passional system may be deduced thanks to a pro-
gressive specification through the addition of properties. According to the authors, this
primitive passion is desire and anger (Plato), reformulated as irascible and concupiscible
(Saint Thomas Aquinas), or apathy and anger (Aristotle), or, more recently, admiration
(Descartes), etc. The philosophical theories of passions always have more or less the
form of a tree of Porphyry, declining the passional species starting from genuses. The
tree of Porphyry does not seem to me an adequate form for a theory of the passions.
The difficulty is not only linked to the continuous and tensive nature of the pas-
sions; it is also attached to the fact that as far as we know, no culture has ever
produced a tree of Porphyry of the passions that its discourses express: the pas-
sions are not mammals or birds, whose classification into genuses and species
would be authorized by a common ancestor! If one takes the example of fury, one
finds that, according to the discourse in which it appears, it is a species of mad-
ness and of anger (see Senecas Mad Hercules), a species of jealousy and of di-
vine possession (Euripides Phaedrus), or a species of creative enthusiasm (Dider-
ots Rameaus Nephew). It would certainly take a clever person to be able to de-
cide, starting from these discourses, what is the genus and what is the species!
In fact, each passional configuration, treated like a discursive se-
quence, has the form of a semantic cluster, of which each branch is a
site of possible derivation toward other passions. The whole cluster thus
forms, within a given culture, a network whose form is extremely complex.
Moreover, in many cases, each discourse imposes upon typical and lexicalized
passions properties that make them almost unrecognizable: if one is interested
in ennui in Paul luards Capital of Pain, one nds that this lexeme only appears
under the following condition: when it is a matter of the state of feeling of an ac-
tor enclosed in a small space, who sees another actant passing by outside whose
route comes close to, without crossing, the space where the actor is located. This
does not annul the lexical sense of the word ennui, but it is certainly necessary
to recognize that it would be of little use in the interpretation of luards text!
Passion, like action or cognition, is a dimension of the syntax of discourse,
and, consequently, each passional eect must be related to the syntax on which
it depends, and which procures its context for it. The eld of variations is thus
wide open: generosity, according to the context, may be a sort of Machiavellism
as well as a sort of naivete! If it were necessary to establish a typology of the pas-
sionswhich I suspect, it would take the form of a family resemblance (see
Chapter 1, section 2.3.4. Styles of Categorization): no general hierarchy resists
syntactic and contextual variation, any passion considered a priori as inclusive can
appear in context as included. We have to resign ourselves to the fact that passions
are complex and changing phenomena, and the lexical approach, which may at
rst appear simple, is the source of useless complications as soon as one becomes
interested in discursive functioning.
This does not mean, for all that, that the name of the passions is without eect
in discourse: take, for example, Count Mosca who, in Stendhals The Charterhouse
of Parma, worries about whether the word love has been uttered between Sanse-
verina and Fabrice. The name of the passion in fact contains an entire program: by
its power to condense the set of roles and stages of a passion, it represents a codi-
ed usage that the actants no longer have to invent, and which may, as soon as it is
invoked, be deployed in an aective trajectory. One of the principal diculties of
passional interaction is found in the fact that, outside of a complete trajectory that
includes among other things somatic or verbal expression, one persons passion is
unreadable for another: the name of the passion then provides an indication of
temporary replacement, which reactivates a forgotten canonical schema. It does
not suce to feel; it is necessary to recognize what one feels!
2.2.2. The Passions in Discourse in Action

If we partly renounce the signs of passions that lexemes are, we must then
search for syntactic forms and schemas that produce the passional meaning ef-
fects of discourse; these forms are (luckily) stabilized in identiable codes,
the whole set of which constitutes what I have called the rationality of pas-
sion, and which, precisely, allows us to recognize it when it makes itself felt.
From the perspective of discourse in action, passions combine the sensible
(intent, intensity) and the intelligible (apprehension, extent, and quantity). The
codes of identication of the passional eects of discourse will thus derive at the
same time from these two types, but with dominant characteristics: on the side of
the sensible, these are somatic and gurative codes and, on the side of the intel-
ligible, modal, perspective, and rhythmic codes.
Let us come back to the source: the taking of position. It presupposes a body
proper; it installs a eld of presence, with a depth that may be evaluated. To these
two elements, the body that takes position and the depth of the eld of presence, cor-
respond respectively the somatic and the perspective codes of passion.
Moreover, the eld of presence is traversed by the ux of the gures that ap-
pear in it and disappear from it. This ux thus sets out arrangements of gures,
whose appearances, disappearances, and changes in form obey a rhythm, a tempo,
in retention and in protention: these two properties correspond respectively to
gurative codes and rhythmic codes.
Finally, the entire eld, animated by intent and apprehension, traversed by
intensive and extensive uxes, may be graduated into a series of modes of exis-
tence: this last property gives rise to the modal codes of the passional eects.
a. Modal Codes
I have already presented the passional functioning of modalities (Chap-
ter 4, section 3.2. Modalization as Passional Imaginary). Let us recall
here two essential principles of this functioning:
1. In order to produce passional eects, modalities must be treated

as modal values, submitted to tensions of modal intensity and extent.
2. In order to constitute a passional role, modalities must be associated with
one another, at least two by two; the overall correlation between the
intensities and the extents of each one of them is the source
of the passional eect.
This last clause is particularly important in the phenomenon recognized intui-

tively as passional contagion, which linguists and philosophers of language more
commonly call empathy. Without going into the details of the argument, which
must take into account, notably, the contact of bodies and the sharing of the
eld of presence, I would like to emphasize here only the role of the modalities.
Passional contagion is not identication: in the interaction, a passional ex-
pression gives rise to another, which in turn creates another, etc. At each stage,
each actant elaborates its own passional identity, in reaction to the preceding one.
But the suering of one may give rise to anothers compassion as well as irritation;
ones joy can invoke the others pleasure or envy, etc. And even when one actants
suering gives rise to anothers compassion, this compassion is not suering in the
same sense as the rst: Rousseau rightly insists, in the Sixth Walk of his Reveries of
the Solitary Walker, upon the pleasure that there is in feeling compassion for others
suering of others; in another way, Stefan Zweig, in his Beware of Pity, emphasizes
the relief that passion brings about, in compensation for the spectacle of others
suering.
It is thus not a passional and modal identity that circulates among the actants,
but, we could say, an aective principle: one passion gives rise to another, and
each one depends upon the modal identity of the actant who experiences it. And
this aective principle is manifested at the same time by the solidarity expressed
between the partners identities, and by a permanent and interactive recongura-
tion of these identities. Solidarity is motivated in various ways, but generally it is
founded by recognition, by a sensing body, by another body that resembles the
rst, at least by virtue of their common sensibility. As for reconguration, it for-
bids a true prediction of the passional eects of the interaction.
The mystery to be elucidated is that of the empathetic link; tensive modali-
ties supply the beginning of a response: each modality of one of the actants is cor-
related to a modality of the other actant, by means of an intensity or a quantity.
The more you want to, the less I can: this modal formula, typical of inhibition in in-
teraction, is identical to another: The more I want to, the less I can, which describes
a solitary inhibition. The dierence is found in the distribution of the modal
roles: in the rst case, the two modal roles are played by two dierent actors; in
the second case, they are played by the same actor. But the passional eect is the
same. It is thus necessary to consider that passional contagion is characteristic
of collective actants, whose modal intensities and quantities are closely correlated:
in the rst example, although there are two actors, there is only one inhibition, of
which they share the roles.
From the point of view of a useful semiotics, empathy or contagion may
be summarized thus: a tensive solidarity, an ecient intertwining among modal
properties that are no longer those of individuals, but those of an undivided ac-
tantial mass in which the manifestation of emotions provokes here and there,
at certain moments, eects of punctual individuation, and, at other moments,
eects of contagion and of circulation of the passional uxes.
b. Rhythmic Codes
In the tale entitled The Travelers Story, Maupassant has a character recount
two particularly traumatic experiences. One unfolds in the middle of the desert: a
comrade, stricken with sunstroke, falls and dies; during his agony, the drum of the
dunes is heard: an unexplained noise, without any particular tone, but whose un-
changing rhythm tries the protagonists nerves. An uncontrollable fear takes over.2
The rhythm could be dened as one of the minimal forms of intentionality:
appearances and disappearances follow each other according to an apparently reg-
ular order and frequency, thus signaling that they could be the eect of an inten-
tional act, of a program that has organized them. The rhythm programs, regulates,
and imposes the perception of the contrasts (in the case of The Travelers Story,
the contrast between noise and silence), that is to say elementary values. Where
there is rhythm, there is, at least virtually, meaning.

But, from the point of view of the passional eect, the rhythm is above all
the contour of tensions felt by the body proper: a slowed, agitated, or syncopated
rhythm that slows, agitates, or hastens proprioceptive perception. In Maupassants
story, knowing that there exists a noise called the drum of the dunes has no ef-
fect: it is necessary to experience this noise, to feel that it is present and to perceive
its eects on the body proper.
The rhythmic codes are of great passional ecacy because they are, as Jacques
Geninasca has shown, typically impressive: in the absence of an identiable
technical cause, the only thing to which rhythm can immediately refer back is the
somatic pulsation that it provokes. In other words, giving meaning to rhythm in
these condition means alienating ones own esh to a foreign form: an imprint is
presented to which the sensible esh will be adjusted and with which it will be
synchronized; this inveigling is eminently passional because there is no longer
even any place for interoceptive contents.
c. Somatic Codes
Emotion, one of the phases of passional trajectories, includes one or more somatic
expressions: color of the skin, physionomy, gesture, trembling, etc. In context, these
are means of making known what one feels, to oneself and to others. Without the
somatic expression that accompanies him or her, the actant is incapable of experi-
encing the passion that animates him or her: the actant may know that he or she is in
love, that he or she is angry or afraid, but does not feel love, is not angry, is not afraid.
There is thus, paradoxically, a meta-semiotic element in emotional manifes-
tation; but this meta-semiotic aspect, just like in strategy (see above), results from
the heterogeneity of the discursive system: in fact, into the emotional manifesta-
tion slip a cultural code that no longer comes from the thing felt, and a making-
known [faire-savoir] of a cognitive nature.
One of the versions of a famous classical tale, The Boy Who Left Home to Find
Out About the Shivers, set down by the brothers Grimm, proves to be especially
perspicacious in this regard. In it, a young man who had never known fear leaves
his village in order to finally experience this feeling; going through the most fearful
situations without fear, confronting the most frightening or repugnant people without
trembling, the hero ends up emptying his land of all its sorcerers, phantoms, and
brigands. In recompense for his exploits, he receives the hand of the kings daugh-
ter in marriage: quite determined to allow him to accomplish his quest, she pours a
bucket of water into his bed one night, little fish and all: he finally shivers! We can-
not eliminate the hypothesis of a derisory and humorous conclusion, of course, but
even if it seems funny, it clearly indicates the nature of our heros lack: he could not
experience fear as long as he had not felt its somatic expression; after the experi-
ence that his young wife arranges for him, on the other hand, every hope is allowed.
The coded character of these somatic expressions results from usage: because
their principle function is to make the felt passion recognizable, by oneself and
others, each somatic expression is sanctioned by an observer. This sanction,
which either does or does not lead up to an identication, nourishes an inter-
subjective praxis, which will retain or eliminate a certain expression, by virtue
of its power of passional codication. It is thus that the somatic codes of passion
become, through custom and praxis, true symbolic codes, typical of each cul-
ture: anger or love are not expressed in the same manner in Europe and in Asia.
The somatic expressions of emotion complete the dialogue established with
the exterior mode by rhythmic impression, for they send the imprint of inte-
rior rhythms and movements back toward the exterior world. The rst imprint,
the one emanating from the exterior rhythm, involved sensing esh; the second
imprint, the one emanating from interior movements, aects the body propers
surface and form.
d. Perspective Codes
The taking of position of the instance of discourse, via the body proper, is one of the
conditions sine qua non of the sensibilization of discourse. This taking of position
is translated, in passional eects, by a setting into perspective; in fact, the (trans-
formational) narrative utterance is then placed in the perspective of the actant who
occupies the position of the instance of discourse, and this perspective in some way
subjectivizes the aforementioned utterance. When we move from rivalry to emula-
tion, or even to jealousy, we move from a simple narrative and actantial situation
to a passion. But to do this, it is necessary to adopt the perspective of only one of
the rivals in the rivalry; from a non-oriented actantial conguration, one moves
to a conguration oriented from the perspective of one single actant, who is then
able to experience the passional eects of the conguration for himself or herself.
As there is no discourse without a taking of position, we must suppose that,
when a narrative situation is uttered without orientation, the taking of position
is exterior to the situation itself: telling about a rivalry instead of emulation or
jealousy means refusing to take a position within the situation.
I will not emphasize this question, and particularly the consequences of this
setting into perspective, amply presented in Chapter 3 (section 2.2., Gagement).
Let us simply point out that the question presents itself with respect to apparently
insignicant linguistic phenomena whose relation with other passional eects we
generally do not see: the choice between past historic and imperfect, for example,
or even, in certain ways, the choice between the denite article (where the instance
of discourse does not take a position, but treats the notion like a whole) and the
indenite article (where it takes a position and puts the notion into perspective).
In fact, it is a matter in any case of the alternative between engagement (a position
projected in the utterance) and disengagement (an implicit position).
In French, when one chooses between the past historic (or present perfect) and the im-
perfect, one chooses, according to Gustave Guillaume, between a non-secant vision and
a secant vision of the process. The non-secant vision consists in apprehending the pro-
cess as a whole, without perspective and from a distance, and entirely contained within
its two limits. The secant vision, on the contrary, projects the observer into the middle
of the process, installs a perspective there, a before and an after, in such a way that the
initial and terminal limits of the process most often remain inaccessible to this observer.
We have here quite precisely an alternative between the refusal to take a position
and a taking of position within the narrative utterance, even while the enunciative frame
is generally considered, for these two verbal episodes, as disengaged and detached
from the act of enunciation. This difference in the taking of position induces a difference
of perspective, which itself implies a passional difference: the past historic is inapt for
the expression of passions and states of feeling, unless it reduces them to simply ex-
terior events, while the imperfect is well suited to the task; more precisely, the imper-
fect allows the expression of the feel of the passions, but the past historic does not.
This analysis echoes the intuitions of Roland Barthes and certain others, who con-
sidered the past historic as the tense par excellence of the narrative that tells itself, as
if obeying a logic that transcends the events. It is clear that this impression of reading
flows from the fact that this verbal episode is more particularly adapted to what we call
the logic of action, while the imperfect would be better suited to the logic of passion.
In the same way, in ancient Greek, when one chooses between polis and astu,
the two names for the city, one chooses between an external and an internal taking of
position. In a study dedicated to the semantic values of these two terms in the Iliad,
M. Cazevitz, E. Lvy, and M. Woronoff showed that polis is reserved for the objective
city, apprehended in its entirety from the outside by a neutral observer who perceives
its limits; in certain cases, polis even directly designates the ramparts themselves.
On the other hand, astu is the name of the city seen from the inside by an observer
who has taken position within it, who has adopted or recognized its citizenship, or
who attributes to it a particular value, and who, thus placed mentally, no longer per-
ceives its limits.3 The authors specify: one thus may explain how astu was able to
take on an affective value, which is already perceptible in Homer. The internal taking
of position, which installs a perspective within the situation or the figure put into dis-
course, is thus the direct source of the affectivity: even the enemies (the Achaeans),
we find, use the term astu when it is a matter of the object of their covetousness
and preoccupations, when it is a matter of the very place of the value they seek!
e. Figurative Codes
The gurative code of a passional eect could be dened as the typical scene of
this passion, which, through the frequency of use, could even become a leitmotif:
the scene of exclusion of the jealous person (Nero in the wings, Othello behind
a curtain, Swann in front of a lighted window) is one of the best known exam-
ples. More generally, passion is expressed by gures, extracted from these typical
scenes, and uses them then as catachreses: this is the case with metonymical codes
of love on Swanns part (the little phrase by Vinteuil, the cattleya), or even the
synesthesic codes of Baudelaire, associated with the nostalgia of lost paradises.
The inscription of aect in the gures of discourse is one of the keys of pas-
sional logic: the impassioned actant is an actant dealing with values, but who, in
the logic that provisionally belongs to it, cannot recognize them directly (from a
conceptual point of view); values present themselves to the actant immersed in a
gurative universe, which provides the actant with sensations; these sensations are
sources of pleasure or of pain, the rst axiological impressions. Thus, the gurative
code becomes, for the impassioned actant, a code of axiological premonitions.
What psychoanalysis characterizes as fetishism is nearly of the same kind: a
scene strongly invested with an axiological and aective point of view is reworked
and segmented, and the aective accent of intensity is displaced from one seg-
ment of the scene to another. The latter is then extracted and, just like in a syn-
ecdoche, it is valid for the whole scene; like in an antonomasia, it represents the
best example of all the possible occurrences of this scene. The genre of heraldry,
notably of the female body, also proceeds in this way: a part of the body, even a
tiny part, is established as a representative of the totality through a series of se-
mantic transitions and displacements.
Cause or eect, we dont know, but it is certainly necessary to recognize that
passions are inextricably tied to the imaginary of natural elements: water, re,
mineral, wood, air, and wind have been essential elements of the qualitative physi-
cality of passions since the Presocratic era; love, anger, cruelty, insensitivity, worry,
or agitation nd therebetter than a metaphorical illustrationan inscription in
the things themselves. This is why the anthropological approach to the passions is
a gurative approach: in the myths studied by Lvi-Strauss, jealousy or pride are
not psychological or modal entities, but birds, mammals, or material elements.
3. COGNITION
The three basic discursive systems are three manners of intending and then con-
structing the signication of a world. Overall, it is a still a matter of a signica-
tion of change, insofar as we postulate from the beginning that signication can
only be grasped in its becoming. The system of action intends meaning through a
programming of the transformations of the world; the system of passion intends
meaning by experiencing carnally the events that aect the eld of presence; the
system of cognition intends meaning by constructing knowledge on the principle
of discovery. Each system has its conception of change and of becoming: for the
system of action, change is only apprehensible starting from the end and the
result; for the system of passion, change is apprehensible only in praesentia, as
impact and aect that surge forth in the presence of the actant; for the logic of
cognition, change is apprehensible only through comparison between two worlds,
a comparison that allows measuring discovery, the supplement of knowledge.

From the perspective of a semiotics of discourse, the system of cognition is
thus that of a calculation about representations: an actant provides representa-
tions, simulacra in a sense, upon which another actant will be able to make opera-
tions, notably operations of comparison. The rst actant is called the informer, the
second, the observer; the representations that circulate between them are objects of
knowledge, or cognitive objects. The totality of the discursive contentsnarrative
utterances, gures, actants and actors, action and passion, etc.may be the object
of such a treatment. But the value of these discursive contents will always depend
upon their confrontation with other contents, allowing us to appreciate the cog-
nitive change that they provide.
From the perspective of the synthesis of the heterogeneous, the minimal op-
eration that a certain cognitive actant may accomplish is consequently setting into
relation; it then dierentiates the properties of this relation: analogy or contrast,
symmetry or asymmetry, transitivity or intransitivity, connectedness or dissocia-
tion, etc.
Then, starting from acts of setting into relation, the cognitive treatment will
consist of more complex operations, permitting the observer to elaborate new
representationsnew objects of knowledgein his or her turn. Thus the logic of
discovery takes shape.
The cognitive synthesis is thus distinguished from the two other types in two
ways: (1) by the type of relation that it introduces into heterogeneous wholes, and
(2) by the change of level of pertinence that it imposes.
On the side of relations, we have seen that action works by closure and retro-
spection in order to produce calculable sequences, and that passion works upon
the sensible tensions of presence; in this regard, cognition works not directly on
the level of the general form, but through the local setting into relation of parts
among themselves.
On the side of the level of pertinence, I have already remarked that both the
pragmatic dimension and the passional dimension are, due to their own hetero-
geneity, susceptible to give rise to the appearance of a meta-semiotic dimension in
order to resolve it: this change in level signals the passage to the cognitive dimen-
sion. For strategic reasons, the appearance of a meta-semiotics is translated by a
making known [faire savoir]. My hypothesis is thus the following: the cognitive
dimension is where the rules and forms of the two other dimensions are appre-
hended, thanks to the passage from an object-semiotics (action or passion) to a
meta-semiotics.
In sum, this property of the cognitive dimension justies limiting the number
of dimensions to three: any other change of level and any other meta-semiotics
would produce nothing other than cognition, even if it is applied to the cognitive
dimension itself.
Some initial distinctions are vital here. First of all is that between knowing
and believing.
3.1. Knowing and Believing

I will not take up again here the basic discussion about this distinction, inso-
far as, on the one hand, it makes many considerations other than the signi-
fying logics of discourse intervene, and as, on the other hand, it presupposes
the intervention, within cognitive logic, of two other logics, that of action and
that of passion. For example, since condence rests upon an adhesion, it im-
plies that there is a passional dimension in believing; and yet, the minimal
form of duciary expectation is the very same that a programming of action
imposes: I expect the program to obtain the result for which it was conceived.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of cognitive logic alone, that of discovery,
one may introduce without great diculty the distinction between knowing
and believing by asking about the mode of setting into relation and of valoriza-
tion of the cognitive object. If the cognitive object is put into relation with other
cognitive objects simply with the goal of appreciating its contribution, or its dif-
ference, its knowledge value is that of a simple knowing. If it is put into relation
at the same time with other objects and with subjects (among others with the
observer himself or herself ), the confrontation then engages not only with cogni-
tive objects, but also with universes of assumption, and one will then be dealing
with believing. The question to be asked in this case is that of the assumption of
the cognitive object by the observer, a direct assumption, if the object is integrated
into the observers own universe of beliefs, or an indirect one, if it is integrated
with universes assumed by other actants to whom the observer grants his or her
condence.
More simply, the value knowing rests upon just the relation between cogni-
tive objects, without a taking of position by the instance of discourse, while the
value believing rests upon a triangular relation, the instance of discourse having
taken position between the two cognitive objects. The distinction between the
two is often very fragile, for, in the permanent process of the formation of forms
of knowledge and their being set into a network, it is certainly dicult to prove
that the instance of discourse never takes position. Perhaps it is more prudent to
speak then of two levels of pertinence, of two complementary modes of valoriza-
tion of cognitive objects.
But, even if it is tricky to put into action, this distinction is for all that no
less pertinent. Let us recall how modalities become modal values: following the
projection of modal contents upon the gradients of intensity and extent, then of
a constraint applied to these gradients in the form of a threshold. The distinction
between knowing and believing is particularly useful when these modalities dene
the subjects identity.
Let us take the example of a subject that intends cognitive objects only in
the mode of maximal intensity and minimal quantity: if it is a matter of forms
of knowing, we are dealing with a scholar; if it is a matter of beliefs, we are dealing
with a fanatic. The scholar is dened only in the relation that he or she establishes
among cognitive objects; the strong coecient of sorting that the scholar imposes
upon them has no eect upon the position that he or she adopts with regard to
them, even less the position with respect to others; the scholar excludes only to
know better. On the other hand, the fanatic implies in his or her restrictions his
or her relation with the other universes of assumption, and, consequently, with
those who assume them: the strong coecient of sorting is then applied to cogni-
tive subjects as well as to cognitive objects; it excludes, at the same time as the
impugned cognitive objects, the subjects who assume them. We should remark in
passing that the valorization of the cognitive object brings about a valorization or
a devaluation of the subject.
Inversely, if we consider a cognitive subject that intends the greatest possible
number of cognitive objects, with a weak intensity, we are dealing with, according
to knowing, a person said to be cultivated, and, according to believing, a credulous
person. There also, the dierence of evaluation bearing upon the modal identity of
the two actants signals a displacement of the stakes. No one will think of taking
oense at the supercial character of the cultivated persons knowledge, insofar
as the viewpoint adopted does not engage its position as an instance of assump-
tion; on the other hand, the credulous person is stigmatized because, while this
person should, under the regime of believing, arm his or her position, it is not
identiable; it moves ceaselessly from object to object, thus blurring the borders
of universes of assumption. Moreover, the credulous person is not credible because,
his or her unstable position not being identiable, one cannot have condence
in him or her: in other words, one may not use the credulous persons universe of
assumption to validate new cognitive objects.
3.2. Apprehensions and Rationalities

In La parole littraire [The Literary Word], Jacques Geninasca proposes a series
of distinctions that allow him to take account of the specicity of aesthetic dis-
course, but which, in themselves, are of a sucient generality to gure in the
perspective of a logic of cognition. Actually, the modes of signication that are
put into play in discourse are dened as reading instructions that allow us to
construct coherence: We understand by rationality any means of assuring the
intelligibility of the world or of utterances by bringing back phenomenal multi-
plicity to unity. 4 The denition is based upon a drastic reduction (bringing back
to unity), but it only invokes the reduction inherent in any knowledge: even if
the objective isnt unity, the process is certainly one of the reduction of phenom-
enal diversity, a reduction that produces categories, schemas, types, etc. From
another point of view, it is more general than the perspective of cognition, be-
cause it concerns the intelligibility of the world and of utterances, and because
action and passion can also play a role there. In fact, the denition invokes the
whole of what I have designated here as the synthesis of the heterogeneous.
Nevertheless, Geninascas conception merits being considered here because
the rationalities he proposes themselves exploit, among other things, apprehensions,
and apprehensions are modes of apprehension, that is to say cognitive modalities
of the discovery of facts of signication. As Geninasca explains, reality is always
just the eect of a mode of apprehension.5 Reality cannot be known except under
a certain apprehension. It is no longer a matter of programming change and/or
heterogeneity in and thanks to action, nor of experiencing them through passion,
but of apprehending them and discovering them as intelligible.
The time has come to reconsider our denition of apprehension: it is op-
posed to intent insofar as the former is of the order of extent and quantity, and
the latter of intensity; the one is of the order of the intelligible and of cognition,
the other, of the sensible and aect. Apprehension is thus, in our conception, the
elementary act of cognitive logic. The distinction between apprehensions will be
carried out based upon the relations that they induce, and the cognitive phase that
they actualize.
From the perspective of aesthetic discourse, Geninasca distinguishes three
types of apprehensions:
1. the apprehension said to be molar, which establishes relations of

unilateral dependence between gures or concepts on the one hand, and
their referent on the other;
2. the apprehension said to be semantic, which establishes schematic
and categorial equivalencies and solidarities within discourse itself;
3. the apprehension said to be impressive, which puts perceptions
into relation among themselves, and establishes rhythmic,
tensive, and aesthesic congurations.
If molar apprehension concerns unilateral dependencies and semantic

apprehension concerns multiple solidarities (at least bilateral correla-
tions), impressive apprehension seems interested in holistic dependen-
cies. The impression, in fact, whether it apprehends a rhythm or any
other sensible manifestations, apprehends them as a group, as an aggregate, or
as a series, as the virtual form of a whole that is analyzable, but not analyzed.
While apprehension said to be impressive seems atypical and marginal in

Geninascas thought, it seems nevertheless to me to be the key of a dynamic ar-
rangement of cognitive apprehension.
Actually, from the perspective of discovery, and from the valorization of cogni-
tive objects, the stakes are that of discourses capacity for innovation and cognitive
change: for there to be something to apprehend or discover, it is still necessary
for discourse to be able to innovate, to bring about its own semiotic universe. The
apprehension said to be molar is essentially referential and inferential; it establish-
es relations that apparently bring information, but in a predetermined system that
overall produces no new information: both reference and inference only verify the
conformity or non-conformity of the knowledge to be validated, in relation with
established shared knowledge. The apprehension said to be semantic, most often
through the eect of metaphor and under the control of the imaginationthe
capacity to produce imagesdirectly gives access to discursive innovation; and
this is all the more true in that the cognitive objects thus produced are, at the
limit, incomparable, and will present no guarantee other than the assumption of
the subject of enunciation, which guarantees their value.
The hypothesis that I am proposing is as follows: impressive apprehension lies
within the scope of change, the apprehension that compromises operations of
reference and inference, and that gives free reign to the apprehension said to be
semantic.
A few precursors in this matter will allow me to lay out this hypothesis.
The rst is Husserl, who proposed coming back, thanks to a concerted regres-
sion, to the sensible grounding of any knowledge, to what is called the hyletic
layer of any scientic practice. Knowledge is given to us in the form of categories
and laws, which make reference to a supposed reality, and which allow us to make
inferences about this reality; but, for Husserl, these categories and laws at the
same time hide from us the things themselves, notably the manner in which
they appear to us. He thus proposes coming back to a radical non-knowledge,
renouncing knowledge in order nally to accede to the thing itself and its sen-
sible eect.
Proust is another precursor. When he speaks of Elstir, the impressionist paint-
er in In a Budding Grove, he emphasizes the fact that in order to paint, the artist
must renounce all of his intelligence, all that he knows about objects and space,
the colors of the world and light, in order to discover and reconstruct secret equiv-
alencies between the gures of the landscape. In the same way, in order to con-
template the painting, his spectator must also renounce what he or she knows of
the gures of the world, in order to let himself or herself be surprised anew by the
optical illusions, which, precisely, no longer appear to the spectator as illusions,
but, quite simply, as the way in which things give themselves to be apprehended.
The artistic work, whether a painting or a literary text, must be treated as

one cognitive discourse among others: a discourse that organizes experience, that
gives it meaning, that extracts knowledge from it, that somehow, in its own way,
increases our knowledge of the world and of the place we occupy in it. But it is
a matter of knowing which knowledge merits being retained, which knowledge
merits being assumed by the subject of enunciation. And, in Prousts work, the
division is clear: on the one hand, the conventional perception of things, such
as it is xed in our gurative encyclopedia or even in the lexicon of a natural
language; on the other hand, the vast metaphor, the play of equivalencies and of
the circulation of images that transport the painting or the text into another uni-
verse of meaning. Between the two, all sorts of procedures of composition come
forth that intend to invalidate the conventional or purely inferential perception of
things, and, consequently, to reactivate this native sensibility that is at the origin
of the aesthetic experience.
In Elstirs case, the conventional and scholarly vision of a seascape would
consist in maintaining the stability of common isotopies: boats are on the water,
houses on the earth, shermen on the sea, and people strolling on paths, on the
sand, or on the rocks; this vision is referential, and ows from a molar apprehen-
sion. On the other hand, the aesthetic vision will be constituted by the whole
system of equivalencies, by the vast metaphor whose unfolding Proust attributes to
Elstirs genius; this vision ows from a semantic apprehension. As for the impressive
apprehension, it assures the transition between the two, suspends conventional vi-
sion, and prepares the aesthetic vision: it consists, quite simply, in giving oneself
over to the immediate impression, that is to say, to seeing (without knowing)
masts above roofs, shermen in grottos, people strolling on water, etc.
The impressive apprehension is what allows the direct manifestation of the
sensible relation with the world; it gives access to forms and to values through
the intermediary of pure qualities and perceptive quantities, perceived generally,
without analysis. Rhythm is one of the examples of these perceptive congura-
tions, in that it signals the potentiality of a form, and, consequently, of a signi-
cation to be discovered. But it is the same way with the typography of a text, or
even the dierent states of light or of matter in a work of plastic art. One often
imagines that the rst gesture of analysis consists in segmenting a text in order to
draw out the units. Certainly, this beginning is methodologically sound; but one
then neglects the fact that our segmentation may be guided by the perception of
rhythms, of contrasts, or of plastic forms that predetermine semantic analysis.
In sum, we will consider impressive apprehension as a questioning of inferen-
tial apprehension, which serves as the basis of semantic apprehension.
Among the precursors I could have included Benveniste, who, thanks to his
distinction between the semiotic mode and the semantic mode of signication, op-
posed a conventional signication, xed in the signs of language and in a system,

and a living signication, a signication in action (see Chapter 1). Inferential ap-
prehension (Benvenistes semiotic mode) does not impose a taking of position by
the instance of discourse; it is even created independently of any instance of dis-
course. On the other hand, semantic apprehension (Benvenistes semantic mode)
cannot be conceived without an instance that takes position and that assumes an
enunciation.
But, for Benveniste, it was only a matter of two epistemological points of
view, or even of two complementary approaches to the same phenomena of signi-
cation. It is now a matter of distinguishing between two manners of apprehend-
ing the world, in a logic of cognition; and, as these two types of apprehensions
coexist in discourses, it is necessary to take account of the syntax that permits
passing from the one to the other. Whence the mediating role accorded to impres-
sive apprehension in the following schema:
MOLAR APPREHENSION IMPRESSIVE APPREHENSION

SEMANTIC APPREHENSION
Molar apprehension and semantic apprehension may be identied here as

the contraries of the category of apprehension, the two poles between which
discourse comes and goes, the one resting upon unilateral dependencies, which
forbid the formation of a whole of signication, and the other upon multiple
correlations, constitutive of a totality. From then on, impressive apprehen-
sion is a contradictory, which suspends the action of the reference and the
inference, which puts into question again conventional perceptions; more-
over, through the holistic and uid approach of the totality that it brings
about, it prepares semantic apprehension. Starting from the position brought
about by impressive apprehension, it is then necessary to arm equivalencies
and solidarities, and to assume this totality thanks to semantic apprehension.
It is here that the deductive procedure comes into its own; in fact, the preced-
ing discussion sketches out the basic outline of a category of apprehension, which
would be organized by relations of contrariness and contradiction. Now, the law
of construction of a category thus structured denes the place of another possible
position, that of the contradictory of semantic apprehension; this same law of
construction at the same time sketches out another trajectory, which would have
the following form:
SEMANTIC APPREHENSION APPREHENSION X MOLAR

APPREHENSION,
where apprehension X would be the contradictory of semantic apprehension.

It is clear that the rst trajectory was characteristic of aesthetic discourse.
But if we leave this particular perspective and if we take into account the whole
set of discursive possibilities, the second trajectory must not be discounted. And
the nal question that must be asked is: What is apprehension X? What is the
contradictory of semantic apprehension?
This fourth type of apprehension has as its role to suspend the innovating
equivalencies of discourse, to weaken the assumption of the gures by the subject
of enunciation, and to prepare the terrain for new references and inferences, for
a setting into convention of semiotic forms. Starting from the free but strongly
assumed correlations that living discourse proposes, this apprehension would pro-
duce xed forms, products of custom and use. The rst gesture that leads to the
desemanticization of discourse is that which consists in foreclosing the relations
with the whole: in fact, a form can be xed and desemanticized only if it is cut
o from the organic whole that motivates it and makes it signify. Apprehension
X thus localizes, reduces the scope of the equivalencies and the solidarities,
and prepares the appearance of local and unilateral dependencies. This property
conforms to its status of subcontrary, that is to say of contrary of the other con-
tradictory, impressive apprehension: if the latter is holistic and uid, the former
is local and precise.
The case of catachresis (for example, the wing of a palace) and of many phra-
seological productions is exemplary: a metaphor is xed at the same time as it is
cut o from the discourse that invented it. Its distinction between content and
vehicle is often forgotten; soon we no longer perceive any relation of equivalence,
because we no longer perceive the competition between two contents. From then
on, the expression concerned requires neither being assumed by the subject of
enunciation nor being imagined beginning from its position or its perceptions.
It functions alone, and in an autonomous manner. It is now ready for a purely
conventional and referential use: the wing then directly designates a part of the
building; it is, as Pierre Fontanier said, a non-tropic gure.
This apprehension X is thus intuitively well known: it is what xes, what
fossilizes, what transforms the schemas of action into canonical schemas, narra-
tive programs into xed scenarios, and images into stereotyped designations. It
could be tempting to call it regressive apprehension, in order to clearly indicate the
fact that it imposes a return to referential and inferential apprehension, a return
to that against which any instance of discourseaesthetic or notendeavors to
struggle, through a taking of position and an assumption of values.
But, to extend the remarks already made about Husserl and Proust, it is an-
other denomination that we will retain. In fact, the movement that leads from
a mythical and magic vision of the world to a referential and positivist vision is
clearly designated by these authors. In Husserls work, it is that of technique:

a science that forgets the sense of being of the knowledge it elaborates is trans-
formed into a technique emptied of meaning. In Prousts work, it is scholarly
knowledge, or at least one that takes itself as such, that reduces metaphors to
optical illusions, that endeavors to explain what should only be felt and assumed.
It is also what reduces metaphor to a simple process of designation through tem-
porary replacement or a decorative impulse; nally, it is what will recognize in
gures and images, constitutive of living discourse, only procedure, capacity, or
virtuosity. Technique, then, nothing but technique. At the limit, and compared
to the semantic apprehension that problematizes the organization of the world,
technical apprehension takes refuge in a minima explanations, or even trivial ex-
planations.
The fourth type of apprehension is thus called technical apprehension and will
be dened as that which appreciates cognitive objects based only upon local, iso-
lating, and demythologizing explanations.
The second trajectory is now complete:
SEMANTIC APPREHENSION TECHNICAL APPREHENSION

MOLAR APPREHENSION
In the end we have at our disposal a typology of apprehensions that

takes the form of a semiotic square:
Molar apprehension Semantic apprehension
Technical apprehension Impressive apprehension
Among all of the trajectories that may be envisioned and that are indicated by ar-
rows on the schema, I would like to draw attention to two of them in particular:
1. the technical moral impressive semantic trajectory, and

2. the impressive semantic technical molar trajectory
These two inverse trajectories, in fact, both begin with a simple indicative ap-
prehension (respectively, the indicator of a procedure, and the indicator of a so-
matic effect), ending up with a rule, with a meta-knowing dealing with the ana-
lyzed discourses model of intelligibility (respectively, an inferential and external
model of intelligibility, and a symbolico-mythic and internal model of intelligibility).
Between each one of these two extremes, the two trajectories
cross two positions, each of which, in parallel, plays two specific roles.
a. The second position of the trajectory confirms and stabilizes the indicative
apprehension, by furnishing it with a correlate of identification, and which,
thanks to the relation of equivalence thus introduced, transforms the indicator
into an icon: in one case, it is the molar apprehension that stabilizes and iconizes
the product of the technical apprehension through an external reference; in
the other case, it is the semantic apprehension that does the same with
the product of the impressive apprehension, through an internal reference.
b. The third position, which results on both trajectories from a negation

contradictory of the second, substitutes for the first indicative base
another, based upon the other type of apprehension; but with respect to
the preceding one, and due to the contradiction, the former can only be a
critical apprehension, which already has the status of a meta-semiotics:
technical apprehension functions as a critical commentary on the semantic

apprehension, just like impression does with respect to molar apprehension.
This is the reason why, according to whether the molar apprehension and the seman-
tic apprehension are in the middle or at the end of one of these trajectories, they
take on a different meaning: in the first case it is a simple iconic stabilization of an
indicative apprehension, and in the second case it provides a meta-semiotic model.
If we follow this reasoning to its end, we arrive at the following consequence: in the
second position of each one of these two inverse trajectories, molar apprehension and
semantic apprehension propose two forms of iconic stabilization, two types of equiva-
lences, the one external and referential, the other internal and rhetorical; in the termi-
nal position of these two inverse trajectories, the molar apprehension and the seman-
tic apprehension propose two forms of meta-semiotic modalization, the one external
and inferential, and the other internal and symbolic, or even mythical. The difference
between the two types of iconizations and the two types of meta-semiotic modaliza-
tions is of a syntactic nature, because it results from the inversion of the trajectories.
We may now imagine which would be the corresponding cognitive rationali-

ties, by explaining the type of cognitive values that they propose. We have thus,
through the rst two types of apprehensions and along with Geninasca, identied
two basic types of cognitive values: referential and informative values (molar ap-
prehension) and aesthetic and symbolic, or even mythic, values (semantic appre-
hension). The values underlying the impressive apprehension are of a sensible type,
and even more precisely hedonic: meaning emerges from the pleasure or displea-
sure brought about by a certain impression and a certain perception. Finally, un-
derlying technical apprehension, we have identied technical and scientistic values.
The cognitive synthesis consequently is based upon four basic types of ratio-
nalities, themselves founded upon four dierent ways of valorizing the discovery
of cognitive objects:
Informative rationality Mythic rationality
Technical rationality Hedonic rationality
4. INTERSECTIONS AND EMBEDDINGS

Concrete discourses are never based upon only one dimension at a time; one
may envision a typology of discourses that would rest upon dominant systems,
even on dominant cognitive apprehensions, but certainly not upon exclusive
systems or apprehensions. We must then be prepared to give an account of the
intersections and embeddings between these three types of discursive logics.
The programmed becoming of a transformation, for example, may be inter-
rupted or diverted by an event, a passional happening that imposes its own
conditions. Through a simple variation of position of the instance of discourse,
one may in fact pass from one logic to another: if this instance is detached from
the process underway, the logic of the passion is suspended to make way for a
distanced logic, that of cognition, or a retrospective logic, that of action. It is also
necessary to remember that the position of this instance is, in fact, occupied by
a body proper, and that this body, even if it changes function from one logic to
the other, obtains for all three of them a common and permanent anchoring: in
fact, it may be the point of reference of a cognitive calculation, the seat of emo-
tions and of the aective invasion, or the simple instrument of the action, but,
precisely, it is also the same proprioceptive instance that plays these dierent roles
and that assures the transition among them.
4.1. Embeddings
The three basic discursive systems determine one another and form easily recog-
nizable sequences. The combinations are innumerable, as long as no limits are im-
posed on the number of phases. Here I will evoke only one type of combinations,
embeddings, which are presented according to the following model: [System A1
System B System A2]. Why this model rather than another? Because it seems
that this type of combinations is the richest in what it can teach us, since it allows us
to measure the eect of a type of logic, the B type, upon another type, which then
nds itself dissociated into two sub-types, A1 before the fact and A2 after the fact.
In the canonical narrative schema, for example, the system of the action is
framed by two moments of cognition: manipulation (Cognition 1) and sanction
(Cognition 2). Thus: [Cognition 1 Action Cognition 2]. And it is then clear
that it is the intermediate phase of action that modies the cognitive relations
between the actants: during the rst cognitive phase, it is the Sender who endeav-
ors to persuade the Subject; during the second phase, it is the Subject who, by
presenting its action in the best light, endeavors to persuade the Sender that this
action conforms to the initial contract.
But, inversely, when the narrative subject must elaborate simulacra within a
strategy of programming that is even slightly complex, it is cognition that nds
itself embedded between two moments of action, the second being modied
with respect to the rst, thanks to a reorientation of the strategy. Thus: [Action 1
Cognition Action 2].
In the same way, the system of passion may be embedded between two phases
of cognition, notably when knowledge is converted into belief, or even when it
can be assumed only by the intermediary of condence in a transcendent guaran-
tor. Thus: [Cognition 1 Passion Cognition 2].
If cognition comes to modify a passional sequence, this may be for example
to inect the universe of beliefs, or to take some distance with respect to emotion.
Thus: [Passion 1 Cognition Passion 2].
This is an embedding that almost all moralists advocate. For example, Seneca propos-
es in De Ira suspending the mounting strength of anger, allowing time for cognition
to do its work; and if the cognitive analysis of the motives for the anger succeeds, it
must nourish a desire for vengeance or for justice, rather than an explosion of anger.
On the other hand, the system of action may be determined by passion, to
the point of no longer being a passing to action which, as we know, also pro-
duces its own emotions, or, at the least, changes the nature of the initial passion.
Thus: [Passion 1 Action Passion 2].
Finally, a passional phase may be embedded in the middle of a sequence of
action. It thus serves as a momentary recourse; by increasing the intensity of a
certain modality that makes up the subjects identity, it restarts an interrupted
process, it allows overcoming an obstacle. It may also denitively compromise the
course of the action. In all of the scenarios, it modies the nature of the action.
Thus: [Action 1 Passion Action 2].
These sketches only have value, of course, as preliminary indications. The

concrete exploitation of such embeddings must obey two principles: (1) with
each change of logic, the entire universe of the discourse is aected: the position
of the instance of discourse, the role of the body proper, the level of the actants
modalization (M0, M1, M2, etc.), the sense of time, space, and becoming, etc.; (2)
the embedding itself species the components: the two logics in presence, the one
that embeds as well as the one that is embedded, are specied by the sequence
where they take their place; for example, the passional phase arises from belief and
condence when it is taken between two cognitive phases; on the other hand, it
participates in the (de)regulation of behaviors when it is embedded in a sequence
of action.
4.2. The Sensible and the Intelligible

4.2.1. Four Levels of Articulation
But the main question, in these intersections among the three systems, remains
that of the articulation between the sensible and the intelligible. This ques-
tion is much more general than that of the interpenetration of the systems of
action, of passion, and of cognition. It concerns in fact the emergence of sig-
nication starting from sensible experience, and this conversion is always at
work in discourse in action. We may approach it from four complementary
points of view: (1) that of the semiotic function, (2) that of the formation of
values, (3) that of the schemas of discourse, and (4) that of sensorial modes.
The rst point was already treated in Chapter 1. The semiotic function is not
a formal relation between a plane of expression and a plane of content. It results
from the taking of position of a body proper, which determines an interoceptive
domain and an exteroceptive domain, and then from the layering of these two
domains upon one another, through the eect of proprioceptive mediation. The
sensibleproprioceptionthus becomes the domain common to the plane of
expression and the plane of content.
The second point was treated in Chapter 2. The tensive structure is presented
as a model of engendering discursive values, in the internal space of correlation,
starting from perceptive and gradual valences that constitute the external space of
control. It thus puts into relation the sensible and the intelligible, insofar as the
valences of control, of gradual, tensive, and perceptive sorts, determine the diverse
categorial positions (or values) of the internal space.
The third point was treated in Chapter 3, under the form of the tensive sche-
mas of discourse. In fact, the tensive schemas are syntactic models that take ac-
count of the variations of equilibrium between intensity (sensible, aective, felt)
and extent (perceptive, cognitive, measurable). The question to be asked is then
to know how, at a given point in the discourse, the valences of aect and those of
cognition are combined or opposed, allied or combating.

Only this last point, touching upon sensorial modes, has not yet been explicitly
treated. In fact, it constitutes in itself a vast eld of research, of which I will indi-
cate only a few elements here, limiting myself to the example of odors. Arming
that signication relies upon perception and that the intelligible is indissociable
from the sensible is only to beg the question, or to take a philosophical posi-
tion, as long as one has not examined how conversion comes about concretely in
discourse. We now, however, have the means to do it: the tensive structure, the
semiotics of presence, and impressive apprehension give us access, from the point
of view of method, to this type of semiotic happening. But it is also necessary
to ask what we are seeking to discover there: in this regard, the question could be
that of the semiotic specicity of the sensorial modes. It may be set out in four more
precise questions:
1. In what way do values appear beginning from dierent sensorial

modes? Descriptive values? Modal ones? Aspectual ones? And which ones?
2. Signication not being susceptible to being apprehended except in its
becoming (in its transformations, as Greimas said), what are the narrative
systems and the actantial arrangements induced by each one of
the sensorial modes?
3. Which are the gures associated with each one of these modes?
The forms of time? The forms of space?
4. Up to what point can sensible experience determine discursive
structure? This is the question of aesthesis and of its relations with the
whole set of discursive schematizations.
I will endeavor to respond to these questions point by point, with re-

spect to the world of odors. But choosing a sensorial mode does not suf-
ce; it is also necessary for it to be put into action in a concrete discourse.
For this reason, I will refer to Clines novel Journey to the End of the Night.
4.2.2. The Semiotics of Odors

a. Olfactory Values
Generally speaking, the categorization of odors proceeds from two concurrent
principles: they are classied either according to their source (ower, animal, min-
eral...), or according to a process that is apprehended in one of its phases. In
the rst case, the categorization has an actantial basis, because it is the source
actant that serves as principle of classication; I will come back to this later. In
the second case, it has an aspectual basis, because the phases of a process de-
ne its aspectuality; it is this aspectuality that I will treat more closely now.
A musty or rotted odor, a fresh or stuy odor: all are classied with respect to
a precise phase in a process that remains to be determined.
We know that odor signies, on the axiological plane, purity and impurity,
and, by derivation, saintliness and sin. Purity, literally, results from a process of
sorting, upon a principle of exclusion; impurity, consequently, would result from
the contrary process, mixture, upon a principle of participation and confusion.
In sum, odor sorts and classies sensations with respect to a correlation in which
the number of ingredients is inversely proportional to value: the positive pole is
on the side of sorting, of exclusion; the negative pole is on the side of the hetero-
geneous, of mixture. There would then be, underlying the valorization by odor, a
process dealing with the quantitative structure of states of aairs: to put it briey,
ohand, unity smells good, plurality smells bad.
In view of one of the essential dimensions of this book, namely the study of
signication from the angle of the dierent forms of the synthesis of the heteroge-
neous, odor is thus an exemplary scenario: olfactory changes and contrasts are here
explicitly related to dierent moments of gurative and material heterogeneity, as
well as of its resolution.
It remains to be explained what is the semantic content of the categories
that undergo these processes of heterogenization and homogenization. Most ut-
terances of aspectual categorization concern, in fact, the living: it would thus be
the process that leads from life to death that would be apprehended in several
phases, and that would allow categorizing odors. Of course, most often we are
dealing with smaller sequences: a day, for example, or a season; but these are still
sequences of a process that concerns the living.
In what way may the living be concerned by such processes? The response is
in the categorization of odors themselves: rottedness and mustiness are composite
states that correspond to phases of disunion of organic matter. Freshness, on the
other hand, is a homogenous state, unied, corresponding to a previous phase of
the process.
The process in question thus appears oriented: a tension attracts it toward its
end, which leads to a progressive disunion of organic bodies. The passage from
unity to plurality, from a good to a bad odor, is thus generally also the passage from
life to death, from the inchoative phase of the living to its terminative phase.
If odor may be treated like a language, then the values of which this language
is constituted tell us about the internal becoming of organic matter.
In Clines work, the armation of this property is at the same time more
general and more crude. More general, rst of all, because Cline goes immediate-
ly to the heart of the problem, to the source of the odor, the process itself: People,
countries and objects all end up as smells.6 As often is the case, the metaphorical
use of an expression or of a gure is semiotically more true than ordinary usage:
by taking on the generic value conferred on it by the metaphor, odor becomes the
expression of any end.
Clines version is also more crude, because he directly evokes the menacing
decomposition:
Its not easy. Since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall
always have trouble with sentiment. Being in love is nothing, its sticking together thats
dicult. Feces on the other hand make no attempt to endure or to grow. On this score
we are far more unfortunate than shit; our frenzy to persist in our present statethats
the unconscionable torture.
Unquestionably we worship nothing more divine than our smell. All our misery
comes from wanting at all costs to go on being Tom, Dick, or Harry, year in year out. This
body of ours, this disguise put on by common jumping molecules, is in constant revolt
against the abominable farce of having to endure.7
To persist without movement is to come undone, to decompose. The odor of the

living is rst of all that of its holding together, produced by the eort to remain at
the same time identical to oneself and coherent; but it is also that of decomposi-
tion, of the unlinking of the parts. Cline attributes to odor two implicit predicates:
to retain (for the odor of the holding together) and to disperse (for the odor of the
unlinking of identity). The unhappiness of the living is, in sum, to be implicated
in a becoming. And odor, consequently, is a property of identity in becoming, as
soon as identity is conceived as a force of cohesion exposed to the contrary force.
In the terms that we were using above, the odor we like is the one that testies
to our unity; the one that repels us is the one that signals our disunion. The initial
hypothesis (the initial unity smells good, the nal disunion smells bad) having
been conrmed, we are now able to explain the status of olfactory values: no matter
what the isotopy that takes charge of them (moral, aesthetic, vital), the values in
play are always (1) on the semantic plane, of a quantitative type, and (2) on the
syntactic plane, of an aspectual type.
But Clines text introduces another variable, which was not foreseeable at the
beginning: identity. Is it generalizable? My response is armative.
In fact, odor is associated with its source, which allows us to identify it: the
odor of a rose, the odor of gasoline, the odor of Jean or Gaston, the odor of tan-
neries, etc. But we see clearly that it is a matter of a principle of classication (or
even of simple metonymic denomination) and not of categorization: this mode
of identication allows no more than sending the odor back toward its source, a
reference among the gures of the natural world, no more. The odor allows us to
recognize the source, but furnishes no knowledge about it.
This is not entirely true, for there exists a type of identication through odor
that has a cognitive virtue: an identication that delimits classes, and notably that
allows identifying groups dened by the thematic or gurative role. People have
spoken of the odor of the poor, of the odor of adulterous women (detected by
ecclesiastical noses in the nineteenth century!), etc. Classication based on a gu-
rative trait (poor, adulterous) sends us back to a role and the olfactory classication
appears to be more specic: odor is then the direct sensible expression of a social
or thematic role. Moreover, the process of classication through odor is one of
the most unique, because it integrates odors whose sources are very diverse. Let us
examine this passage from Clines Journey:
The motley mass of complainants and screeching witnesses had arrived early in the morn-
ing. In bright-colored loincloths they crowded around the hut. Defendants and mere
public stood mixed helter-skelter, all smelling strongly of garlic, sandalwood, rancid but-
ter, and saron-scented sweat.8
Here, it is a matter of the constitution of a collective actant, starting from

heterogeneous actors. The actors who constitute it have dierent roles and
the whole is visually disparate. But the collective actant is constituted nev-
ertheless, thanks to odor; for, no matter what the individual odors, once they
are grouped together in a mass, they belong to the totality of those present.
Odor has a generic and homogenizing power. And it is precisely this generic
power that allows it to be presented as the expression of abstract phenomena, like
disunity or the end of things. Cline, for example, speaks of the odor of catastro-
phes and defeats: the smell that clings to all catastrophes, emanates from all the
defeats of this world, the smell of smoking gunpowder.9 At the end of the process
of generalization, we always nd death, disunion, the end.
In Clines work, identication through odor thus only conrms, in the end,
the quantitative and aspectual nature of olfactory values.
b. The Olfactory Narrative

Curiously, the nomenclature of odors in natural language can give access to the
actantial and narrative structure of odor: aroma, bouquet, fragrance, scent, perfume,
smell, charred odor, fetidness, stink, stench, mustiness, euvium, exhalation. I will spare
the reader the details of lexico-semantic analysis and go immediately to its result.
The nomenclature of odors is based upon the three positional actants that I
have proposed (see Chapter 4): the source, the target, and the control.
The source is concerned according to whether it is liquid (bouquet), vegetal
or chemical (aroma), or organic (charred odor). The target is implicated from a so-
matic point of view: nausea (fetidness), disgust (stench), or from an aective point
of view, on an axis that goes from the pleasant (perfume) to the vile (fetidness).
The control, nally, is evoked: cooking (scent), re (charred odor), humid-
ity (mustiness), and any alterations (euvium), including the moist or the stuy
(mustiness). When the denition evokes the volatile character of the source, it
in fact implies the air, as control. We will distinguish actors, which are material
elements, re, earth, air, from operations (cooking, consumption, alteration, vola-
tilization, etc.).
The process itself breaks down into three stages: (1) a material transforma-
tion under the action of the actant of control, (2) an emission, (3) a penetration.
Certain terms of the nomenclature (exhalation) directly designate emission; as for
penetration, it is a gradual operation, which presupposes that the target is a space
endowed with orices and depth: an odor said to be penetrating is one that goes to
the deepest point of the target-body.
The proposed syntagm is presented in fact as a dialogue between living bod-
ies: even when the source is chemical, it is perceived in the mode of a natural
exhalation, emanating by simulacra from a metaphoric organic body. On the one
hand, an organic material in the process of becoming, under the action of the
actant of control; on the other, an empty body, which must welcome the odor
within it in order to identify it; only then may it accept or refuse the message
proposed to it.
Cline systematically exploits this syntagm in order to express the invasion of
the place occupied by the instance of discourse: in this sense, odor is just one of
the versions of the generalized aggression that intends the subject. For example,
under the control of duration: When you stay too long in the same place, things
and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benet.10
The odor of the end and of decomposition is not only ineluctable, it is also inten-
tional; it takes as its target the very place of the subject.
Clines Journey chose time as its actant of control; it suces to wait in order
for the process to be completed. But it also invokes another one, in the form of a
natural element: air.
Air, in fact, is the object of the same operations as matter: concentration
or dispersion. However, the eect is inverse: concentrated (conned) air favors
unpleasant odors, while free (diused) air favors pleasant odors. We should then
suppose that, from the point of view of perception, air and odor are correlated: air
controls the extent of the perception, while odor controls its intensity. The limit
case is expressed in this example: In the summer everything smelled strong. There
was no air left in the court, only smells.11 A semi-symbolic system is sketched
out, if we take into account the spatial nature of this extent controlled by the air:
As soon as a door closes on a man, he begins to smell and everything on him smells too.
Body and soul, he deteriorates. He rots. It serves us right if people stink. We should have
looked after them. We should have taken them out, evicted them, exposed them to the
air.12
The enclosed is to concentrated air what the open is to free air: odor of death
of the one hand, odor of life on the other. In fact, this actant of control acts
directly upon the composition of the material conguration: the enclosed favors
the concentration of heterogeneous gures and materials, while free air facili-
tates their diusion, their selection, and the homogeneity of gures and materials.
c. Olfactory Time and Space

Time and space being gurative avatars of the actant of control, they are di-
rectly implicated in the form of the olfactory process. I will now draw out
some of their gurative properties. These properties are directly dependent
upon those of olfactory presence, because the forms of space and time are
here the same as those of the eld of presence of odor. The principal charac-
teristic of olfactory presence is its capacity to dissociate itself from the source
and, consequently, to suspend the eects of spatio-temporal distance.
As concerns space, the dominant form is that of successive and concentric
envelopes of the source: odor is one of the envelopes of the odorous body. In
Clines work, it is a matter of the perimeter of cities: cities are surrounded by an
olfactory envelope. For example, there is the odor of the outskirts: Around the
Mtro entrance, near the bastions, you catch the endemic, stagnant smell of long
drawn-out wars, of spoiled, half-burned villages, aborted revolutions, and bank-
rupt businesses.13 This envelope is, at the same time, given the preeminence of
the odor of the end of things, the place where everything comes to die, the place
that conserves the odorous presence of failures and of death.
As concerns time, odor arises from the past or the future to invade the per-
ceptive eld of discourse. This is the gure of the stench, of olfactory remanence,
or even of anticipation through odor. For Clines narrator, odor becomes the
generic gure of any reminiscence; with respect to Musyne, one of his friends:
Obviously, as far as she was concerned, I stank of a whole past.14 Actually, it
is not the past itself that is dysphoric, but its current presence in the form of an
odor-memory, a presence that imposes itself on the subject, that occupies the
subjects perceptive eld. As for the future, it oers only one perspective, that of
death, and it is thus the odor of death that anticipates by its presence the ulti-
mate event: ... the world leaves us long before we leave it ... for good [...] death
is there too, stinking, right beside you, its there the whole time, less mysterious
than a game of poker.15 Here, Cline apprehends the mode of presence of odor:
obsessive, invading, persistent, insensible to time and to change; a presence that
exercises itself in the mode of intensity, but that occupies the entire available
extent; a presence, nally, that owes nothing to the retentions and to the proten-
sions of the subject itself: this is what is meant when one says that odor imposes its
presence. The explanation is already contained within the actantial arrangement:
with respect to odor, the sensible body, center of reference of the eld of presence,
is only a target; it is no longer the starting point for any intent whatsoever; it is
apprehended, immersed, penetrated.
The odor of the source, from the perspective of an intersubjectivity of the
living, becomes the odor of the other, and this experience is already that of an in-
version of the center of reference: the eld of the other (the non-person) imposes
itself, imposes its own center of reference, dislodges us from ours. What is unbear-
able in all of this is not so much the quality of the odor, pleasant or unpleasant,
as its power of penetration and invasion, its capacity to dislodge us from our posi-
tion as center of reference. Thus, Madame Herote is someone whose substantial,
talkative, and overwhelmingly perfumed person would have put the most bilious
of males in a lecherous mood.16 Here, we certainly see the successive envelopes
developing: an invading body, invading words, the whole thing crowned by an
even more invading perfume: the other body responds, dislodged from its posi-
tion of reference.
d. Olfactory Aesthesis and the Logic of Discourse

The world of odors, especially in Clines work, provides a good example of
the way in which an aesthesis, an exceptional sensorial experience, procures
for discourse the principle of its unfolding and of its schematism. We have
observed from the beginning a double direction of denomination and cat-
egorization of odors: on the one hand, identication through the source, on
the other, identication through aspect, through the intermediary of a par-
ticular phase of a process. The rst direction is prolonged with the odor of
roles, either social or thematic; the second obeys an orientation of the odors
toward the end of a process and a projection of the values of life and death,
the living being the isotopy underlying the whole set of interested processes.
The rst type grants odor the status of a referential and conventional designa-
tion: odor refers to its source; the individual that carries it is attached by inference
to the group to which he or she belongs. Whether it be the odor of a vegetal or
animal source, of a human group, of a trade, or of a role, this rst type would arise
generally from what Geninasca calls molar apprehension and from an informative
cognitive rationality.
The second type assigns odor a place in a process of becoming, in a discursive
schema, and sets it into relation with discourses basic systems of values; it allows
the instance of discourse to take position (at the risk, as we have seen, of nding
itself dislodged from this position by odor), to orient the processes, and, at the
same time, to put the generic capacity of odor into play for the benet of vast
analogical and metaphorical systems. This second type derives from semantic ap-
prehension and from a mythical cognitive rationality.
In Clines work, we note the incessant transformation of the rst type into
the second, for, nally, all of the particular odors end up signifying the odor of
the end of everything.
But, in order to better understand the organizing role of perception, we must
come back to aesthesis. I dene aesthesis as the mode of appearance of things, the
singular manner in which they reveal themselves to us, independently of any prior
codication.
The generic capacity of odor, in Journey, is put into the service at the same
time of a lack of dierentiation and of a heuristic: behind the distinct appear-
ance of living things is hidden their common and ineluctable destiny, the route
toward decomposition and death. The odor of the second type thus reveals what
the odor of the rst type tries to hide. In any olfactory experience, we can observe
a discrepancy between the olfactory appearance, which is referential, particular,
and informative, and the olfactory appearing, aesthesis, which expresses here the
meaning of becoming of all things.
Appearance is more or less stereotyped (the odor of social classes, for example),
but, in all cases, it is codied by a preexisting knowledge, of a medical, dietetic,
hygienic, sociological, or psychological type. Appearing, that of odor in becoming,
is not codied at all; it is, on the contrary, what the odor in becoming teaches us:
the movement that leads us toward the end (toward the end of the night). Con-
ventional perception and aesthesis then come into tension and this tension is the
moving force of all schematizations of discourse.
Appearing corresponds here at the same time to impressive apprehension, which
suspends the exercise of molar apprehension, and to semantic apprehension, which
deploys impression under the form of a vast equivalence. The initial tension be-
tween the two types of perception is especially suggestive: in fact, appearance is
actual, while appearing is rst of all virtual; the former is apprehended, the latter
apprehends the subject. This tension demands a resolution, and the functional
couple, tension/resolution, is divided up in Clines work into diverse narrative
and discursive schematizations.
For example, there is the schema of degradation: all of the situations of the
Journey know the same becoming; they entail from the beginning the germs of
their decay, but this virtual degradation still must be realized: things come un-
done, relations sour, death threatens, there is nothing left to do except ee.
Another example is the gure of the formless proliferation: all materials, all
gurative sets are presented, to start with, in their stable and recognizable identity.
But they contain in the virtual state the very principle of their undoing: the rock
then becomes a accid muck and big cities become vast bouillabaisses.
This is to say that the initial tension between actual appearance and virtual
appearing is the very model of all becoming in discourse, for it denes the imper-
fection upon which the intentionality of discourse is founded. We end up with

the following conrmations: (1) appearance is brought about by inferential ap-
prehension, (2) appearing is brought about by impressive and semantic apprehen-
sions, (3) aesthesis is the critical moment of impressive apprehension, by which
the sensible world is given to us otherwise. Cognitive apprehensions, which organize
the cognitive dimension, thus have for correlates moments of perception and of
sensation, appearance, aesthesis, appearing.
In this sense, the sensorial and gurative synthesis furnishes the schema for all
others, notably that of actantial and narrative syntheses.
NOTES
1. Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York:
Grove Press, 1960) 1718.
2. A Travellers Story, The Life Work of Henri Ren Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 10
(New York: M.Walter Dunne, 1903) 136.
3. Astu et polis, essai de bilan, Lalies 7 (Paris: Presses de lcole Normale
Suprieure, 1989) 27985.
4. Jacques Geninasca, La parole littraire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
1997) 59.
5. Geninasca, La parole littraire, 201.
6. Cline, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the End of the Night, trans. Ralph
Manheim (New York: New Directions, 1983) 156.
7. Cline, Journey 291.
Coquet, Jean-Claude. La qute du sens [The Quest for Meaning]. Paris: Presses
universiatires de France, 1997, Avant propos, 118.
Courts, Joseph. Analyse smiotique du discours [Semiotic Analysis of Discourse].
Paris: Hachette, 1991, pp. 69126.
Floch, Jean-Marie. Semiotics, Marketing, and Communication: Beneath the Signs,
the Strategies, trans. Robin Orr Bodkin. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Signication]. Lige: Mardaga, 1998. Chapters on Passion, Emotion.
Geninasca, Jacques. La parole littraire [The Literary Word]. Paris: Presses
universiatires de France, 1997, 5962, 21118.
Greimas, Algirdas J. Du sens II [On Meaning II]. Paris: Seuil, 1983, 1948, 115
33, 15769.
Greimas, Algirdas J. and Jacques Fontanille. The Semiotics of Passions: From States of
Aairs to States of Feelings, trans. Paul Perron and Frank Collins. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993, 4362.
Hnault, Anne. Le Pouvoir comme passion [Power as Passion]. Paris: Presses
universiatires de France, 1995.
Landowski, Eric. Prsences de lautre [Presences of the Other]. Paris: Presses
universiatires de France, 1997.
Ouellet, Pierre. Potique du regard: Littrature, perception, identit [Poetics of
the Gaze: Literature, Perception, Identity]. Montreal/Limoges: Septentrion/
PULIM, 2000.
Parret, Herman. Les Passions: Essai sur la mise en discours de la subjectivit [The
Passions: Essay on the Setting into Discourse of Subjectivity]. Brussels: Mardaga,
1986.
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, 3 vols, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David
Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 198488.
Chapter Six
Enunciation
0. INTRODUCTION
I oer this nal chapter by way of conclusion. In fact, the argument here will
lead us step by step to the horizons of culture as a whole, by way of the no-
tion of enunciative praxis. However, it is not through a generalization of
enunciation that we will get there, but, on the contrary, through a de-
nition of enunciation that is more specic than the one generally used.
In a conclusion, it is necessary to review the principle choices made up until
this point. I will do so before sketching out the domain proper to enunciation.
The role of proprioception in semiosis, the eld of presence, and the dierent log-
ics of discourse will each occupy us in turn.
Specifying the domain of enunciation rst of all means dierentiating it from
three other domains with which it is too frequently confused: that of communica-
tion, that of subjectivity, and that of speech acts.
Enunciation represents a dierent point of view on the activity of language
than that of communication, and it is independent from the eects of person and
of subjectivity. It may thus be dened as a double meta-discursive predication
comprising existential predication and assumption, which distinguishes it from
speech acts in general.
Reconsidering enunciation from a dynamic and dialectical perspective means
treating it like a praxis that, thanks to the two meta-discursive predications proper
to enunciation, may guide the modes of presence of utterances in discourse. In
enunciative praxis, the discourse in action and the underlying system interact
even beyond the distinction between diachrony and synchrony. Thanks to enun-
ciative praxis, discourse may equally well actualize the virtualities of the system,
recover xed and potentialized forms in usage, or invent new forms.
The syntax of modes of existence provides the model for the operations of
enunciative praxis: on the one hand, the utterances are submitted to ascending
and descending trajectories on the gradient of modes of existence; on the other
hand, the instance of discourse is the seat of diverse sentiments of existence

provided by these variations of presence.
This syntax proceeds from two basic dimensions: the more or less intense
dimension of the assumption of utterances, and the more or less extended dimen-
sion of their recognition in the community of subjects of language. Moreover,
when it concerns two utterances at the same time, whose tensions and modes of
co-existence it manipulates, it gives rise to the rhetorical dimension of discourse.
The semiosphere, according to the interpretation of it proposed here, supplies
a model for the eld of exercise of enunciative praxis. This eld of exercise is thus
coextensive with culture, and the movements observed in it are presented overall
as operations of translation and of diusion.
1. RECAPITULATION
The whole set of choices made and positions adopted until now could
lead to a hasty generalization about the notion of enunciation. A brief
recapitulation will easily convince us of this idea, and will lead us
progressively to redene the proper domain of enunciation.
1.1. The Proprioceptive Instance

Semiosis, apprehended from the perspective of the act that constitutes it, has
been redened starting from the taking of position of a proprioceptive in-
stance that, under certain modal conditions, becomes an enunciating instance.
The temptation is strong to presuppose an equivalence between the act that
consists in uniting the two planes of language, and the act of enunciation properly
speaking. We will soon see why and how it is necessary to resist this temptation.
But we can already note that the semiotic act in general arises rst of all from pro-
prioceptive sensibility, and that, from this perspective, the two elementary opera-
tions, intent and apprehension, are rst of all perceptive operations, before being
taken up by an enunciation that assigns deixis, locates, measures, and evaluates.
1.2. The Field of Presence

Choosing the perspective of discourse in action, at another level of analysis,
means seeking how to make a sign, rather than identifying and classifying the
ways of being a sign. This is why the rst unit of analysis in the semiotics of
discourse is the eld of exercise of the activity of language. But we have envi-
sioned several types of elds. At rst glance, the perceptive eld of presence, the
tensive eld of discourse, and the eld of exercise of enunciation may appear
co-extensive, and their dierent denitions may appear to derive simply from the
dierence between domains of pertinence, between three dierent points of view.
I will show, however, that the eld of exercise of enunciation (the domain of
Enunciation 185
enunciative praxis), even if it adopts the properties of a eld of presence and of a

tensive space, is much broader than the other two. Generally speaking, we could
say that the eld of discourse brings together all of the elds of presence invoked
by the dierent positions taken by the instance of discourse, and that, beyond
this, the eld of exercise of enunciative praxis encompasses all the elds of dis-
course of the various particular enunciations that it summons.
Moreover, it is true that enunciation manipulates the modes of existence of
the entities that it calls into discourse. By playing upon their respective degrees of
presence, it places them in a discursive depth that cannot be confused either with
the paradigmatic axis (since there is co-presence and not selection) or with the
syntagmatic axis (since there is superposition and not succession and combina-
tion). But if enunciation plays upon the intensity and the extent or the quantity
of these discursive entities, it is not a matter of intensity and extent in general:
the intensity in question here is that of the force of assumption of enunciation; the
extent is that of the capacity of unfolding and of the gurative declension of the
enunciation.
From a paradigmatic point of view, the domain of enunciation is more spe-
cic than that of presence in general, insofar as it manipulates only particular
varieties of intensity and extent; from a syntagmatic point of view, it encompasses
elds of presence and tensive spaces, because praxis, precisely, puts them into
communication with each other.
1.3. Discursive Regimes

Discourse being placed under the control of an instance that orients and de-
termines its signication, the principle logics of discourse also seem to
be submitted to enunciation: (1) action, when it becomes strategic pro-
gramming and when it rests upon the production of simulacra; (2) pas-
sion, with preeminence accorded to the events coming forth in the eld of
presence; (3) cognition, with the range of dierent apprehensions that or-
der the knowledge of the discursive world around its instance of reference.
However, the expression logics of discourse certainly indicates that these
dierent dimensions of discourse obey rules over which enunciation has no hold;
these rules and these principles of formation of discourse impose themselves upon
each individual enunciation and on enunciative praxis in general. The instance of
discourse may take a position with respect to the rules of programming of action,
with respect to the passional eects of the event, or with respect to cognitive ap-
prehensions, but it does not control the consequences of each one of its acts of
taking position: these consequences are governed by the logics of discourse.
2. COMPARISONS
In the recent history of the linguistic sciences we can see a curious confronta-
tion between two basic tendencies. On the one hand, the inheritors of the Euro-
pean tradition, and notably inheritors of Benveniste, defend the necessity of an
enunciative component in linguistics. But they have often conned themselves
either to the development of the formal apparatus of enunciation, in the form
of an enunciated enunciation (actors, spaces, and times of the act of enunciation
represented in the utterance), or to an increasingly complex typology of the in-
stances of enunciation (model narrators, observers, actors, and readers, etc.).
On the other hand, the inheritors of the Anglo-American tradition, and nota-
bly of the logicist and cognitivist approach, believe that they can do without this
notion, when they are not simply unaware of its existence: the question of enunci-
ation is then masked by that of communication, reied under the form of a com-
munication situation or engulfed within a pragmatic component of language,
in which it becomes confused with that of speech acts. Curiously, the two groups
sometimes agree upon making enunciation a marginal phenomenon, the very site
of semantic, syntactic, and referential dysfunctions of discourse: enunciation is
then thought to be indicated by its shifted, atypical, or enigmatic intervention.
Debate between theoretical tendencies is generally fruitful, but it seems here
to run up against two diculties that block a possible dialectical surpassing of
such positions. The rst is found in the fact that the question of enunciation
always appears as an addition to the basic theory, a sort of afterthought of the
theory itself, or even a badly integrated outgrowth: the linguistics of enunciation
on the one hand, the pragmatic component on the other. The simplest way to
resolve this diculty seems to me, as I have suggested, to adopt rst of all the
point of view of semiosis in action and of discourse in action. This is the solution
adopted by Jean-Claude Coquet (in La qute du sens [The Quest for Meaning])
and by Jacques Geninasca (in La parole littraire [The Literary Word]), each one in
his own way. Oswald Ducrots position, which consists in placing argumentation
back in language, in the sense of an integrated pragmatics, also goes in this same
direction, although it accords more importance to polyphony and to argumenta-
tion than to the act of enunciation properly speaking.
The second diculty resides in the abusive superposition between enuncia-
tion on the one hand and the three notions frequently associated with it on the
other, that of communication, of subjectivity, and of the speech act.
2.1. Enunciation and Communication

The point of view of communication is concerned with the circulation of mes-
sages within collectivities, or between the partners of an individual interaction.
Consequently, this is a point of view that places the activity of language in a
Enunciation 187
context, in an encompassing situation that is not itself treated as signicant and

is thus not considered as a language, but only the exterior determination of a
language. This extra-linguistic (and extra-semiotic) situation is sociological, in-
stitutional, or psychological in nature, and it determines the meaning of the dis-
courses and utterances that it encompasses, particularly that of the enunciations.
It determines this meaning, but can claim neither to explain it nor to articulate it.
Chapter 3 shows that the redenition of the limits of the discursive activity
itself, the taking into account of the context as a language, made that very no-
tion of context useless. When the communication situation itself becomes
a language, as Eric Landowski proposes for example in La socit rchie [The
Reexive Society], we are dealing with syncretic discourses, mixing dierent types
of languages in a more or less coherent manner. The perspective of the semiotics
of discourse thus invalidates the point of view of communication, at least such as
it has been dened above.
Moreover, from within the perspective of a pragmatics of communication, the
most useful propositions (the principle of cooperation, the calculation of implica-
tures, dialogism, polyphony) most often end up concluding with a co-enuncia-
tion of discourses, with a collaboration of the dierent partners of the exchange
toward the construction of their signication. They thus invalidate a conception
of communication reduced to the circulation of messages in a context.
On the other hand, from the point of view of enunciation, it is no longer a
question of the circulation of messages in an extra-semiotic context of a socio-
psychological kind. Everything is ordered around the position of the instance of
discourse, and it is then a question of constructing and of proposing this position,
but also of accepting it, adopting it, challenging it, refusing it, or displacing it.
For the enunciatee as for the enunciator, it is not a question of putting messages
into circulation but of taking a position relative to discourses in order to construct
their signication.
2.2. Enunciation and Subjectivity

Following Benveniste, enunciation is associated with eects of subjectivity;
the inference at work here could be summarized as follows: If there is enuncia-
tion, then there is a subject. If this enunciation is a representation simulated in
the utterance, then we are dealing with an uttered simulacrum of the subject;
if it remains presupposed by the utterance, then we are dealing with the sub-
ject of the implicit enunciation. This inference is at the center of the vulgate
in the matter of enunciation, but it leads, however, to counter-intuitive analy-
ses: for example, the analysis of epistemic modalizations, which introduce a
critical distance between the position of the instance of discourse and the ut-
terance, leads to calling them subjective, while in reality it is, on the con-
trary, the absence of such modalizations, the immediate adhesion of the in-
stance of discourse to its utterance, that should be considered subjective.
The notion of subjectivity, in fact, does not have quite the same meaning
when considered from the point of view of production or from the point of view
of interpretation. From the point of view of production, the subject expresses
itself by showing the modalities of its position with regard to the utterance; on the
other hand, from the point of view of interpretation, the subject is all the more
present and ecient, in that it does not express its acts and the particularities of
its position, for the enunciatee then no longer has any means of negotiating its
own position.
Moreover, what is actualized, in modalization for example, is not subjectiv-
ity but an enunciative activity: thanks to a meta-semiotic dehiscence, discourse
reects itself and proposes a representation of the conditions and operations that
preside over the production of the utterance. As we will see below, subjectivity
must be sought in the way in which the instance assumes this reexivity, and not
in reexivity itself.
Benveniste himself is in part responsible for this assimilation, although in-
directly; in fact, when he speaks of the enunciative operator, he designates it in
general by the expression instance of discourse; but, in his article devoted to
the system of person, he introduces the opposition between subjective person
(Ego) and non-subjective person (non-Ego).1 Such a description, which is often
debated, has nevertheless become canonical, and it entails two notable conceptual
displacements: the rst, from the instance of discourse to the category of person;
the second, from person to subjectivity; the instance of discourse encompasses per-
son, which itself encompasses subjectivity. It is these displacements that I would
like to submit to a critical examination.
The rst displacement is not generalizable. Christian Metz has shown that
the application of the category of person to cinematographic enunciation created
more problems than it solved, and he advocates an impersonal enunciation (the site
of the lm). Moreover, reection upon enunciative praxis also leads to an imper-
sonal conception of enunciation: praxis being by denition the work of several
actants of enunciation, of groups, of communities, or even of entire cultures, it
ideally must be considered as transpersonal or at least as multi-personal. So,
it seems prudent to reserve the category of person for describing pronominal and
verbal morphology, at least in languages in which it is associated with these parts
of discourse.
But there is another reason dictating against such a reduction: enunciation is
a concept of universal scope, while person is a cultural formation. The Ego-cen-
tered enunciation is typical in Indo-European languages, in which Ego is he who
says Ego and who takes himself (or herself ) as such in predication. Conversely,
Enunciation 189
in Asian languages, and notably in Japanese, it is well known that the place we
designate by Ego is a place of secondary rank, established and designated starting
from the place of the other, itself dened by its position in social and symbolic
stratication; in this case, the referent of the enunciation is no longer an ego cen-
ter, but rather social stratication, which does not in the strict sense derive from
the category of person.
And even without looking very far, we can certainly nd many poetic texts
in which the center of reference is a You obtained not by disengagement start-
ing from Ego, but, on the contrary, by engagement starting from an impersonal
world. In fact, the transcendence of the I over the You is far from being established
in discourse; everything really depends upon the way in which the constitutive
relations of the category of person are put into play; in the work of Apollinaire, for
example, the You is sometimes a projection starting from the I, sometimes starting
from the He or She.
Benvenistes formulation, Ego is he who says ego,2 taken up and complet-

ed by Jean-Claude Coquet: Ego is he who says ego (this is the linguistic act)
and who says he is (or is said by someone else to be) ego (this is the logico-
semantic act),3 is doubtlessly the most famous enunciative praxeme of Indo-
European culture (which theoretical glosses themselves have helped to estab-
lish). Benveniste did remark that, in certain languages, the category of person
did not obey this principle of subjective auto-designation, but he did so in order
to disqualify specificity, with an argument that today seems surprisingly specious:
A language without the expression of person cannot be imagined. It can only

happen that in certain languages, under certain circumstances, these pro-
nouns are deliberately omitted; this is the case in most of the Far Eastern
societies, in which a convention of politeness imposes the use of periphrases
or of special forms between certain groups of individuals in order to replace the
direct personal reference. But these usages only serve to underline the value of
the avoided forms; it is the implicit existence of these pronouns that gives social
and cultural value to the substitutes imposed by class relations.4
Defining the system of person in Far Eastern languages as practices of avoid-

ance and of substitution with respect to Indo-European languages is a curi-
ous approach, to say the least. And all the more so in that this system ruins the
conception of allocution proposed by Benveniste: according to him, I is always
transcendent with respect to You, because I imposes itself first of all by auto-ref-
erence, which then permits it to install its interlocutor. But it is clear that the in-
stance of discourse in Far Eastern languages first installs the other and then de-
fines itself with respect to the other. Where, then, is its transcendence?
A few observations about Japanese, in particular, show how biased Ben-
venistes conception is. The first concerns the status of pronouns as parts of dis-
course: these are, in Japanese, nominal words, or demonstrative particles,
used as pronouns; watakui (I) has as its (older) meaning: what is private, per-
sonal, intimate, secret, opposed to what is public and of general interest; the
first person reflexive wa also designates the self, and the two expressions have
some relation with, among other things, egotism, partiality, or arbitrariness.5
In sum, Japanese personal pronouns are more descriptive than deictic. They
make reference, not directly to the one who speaks, but to the social stratification and
the respective position of the partners within this stratification. As the specialist notes:
The superior being was considered as occupying the position that is at the same
time the farthest away and the most elevatedthe inferior being supposed to oc-
cupy the closest position [to himself], each time he intervenes as speaking subject.6
To support his thesis, Hagenauer evokes the expressions me.i ta (literally: eye
below) and me.u (eye above), which designate respectively the inferior (the one
below the line of vision of the superior) and the superior (the one above the line of vi-
sion of the subaltern). The personal field here is thus not centered, but stratified; it is
organized according to a depth in which the enunciator almost always chooses, out of
politeness, to occupy the lowest stratum, but in no way to constitute there a center
of reference. For proof of this we can see that the visual metaphor used to oppose
the inferior and the superior suspends the source-target effect to retain only the
line of vision, which acts as a hierarchical dividing line within the social stratification.
The first person, as we have seen, refers to the private sphere, and not to sub-
jectivity; to the self, and not to the me. In fact, rather than being the center
around which the instance of discourse is organized, thanks, among other things,
to the installation of the interlocutor, it is on the contrary a place of retreat, on the
margins of a social and public field proper to this cultural universe. The private is
only constructed in opposition to the public, but the various meanings of the term
first person (intimacy, egoism, partiality, arbitrariness) show that the specificity of
the private here is to determine an area in which exterior rules no longer func-
tion. From this perspective, if there were disengagement, it would be symmetrical
with that observed in Indo-European languages: rather than dissociating I and not-I,
it would first of all dissociate He (or She) and not-He (or not-She) (that is: self).
For even if the first-person personal pronoun, wa.takui, exists in Japanese, it is ap-
propriate to use it only in a concessive or restrictive manner, such that it would be trans-
lated into English as in my view, as far as Im concerned, as for me, I, that is to say
always to limit through restriction this field of intimacy in which the ordinary rules no
longer function; Japanese cannot express person otherwise than by these concessive
quasi-pronouns. It has also been shown that the determinative particle of the first per-
son, wa, is used to topicalize the first person, that is to reorient the predicate toward this
person; thus Watasi smisii wa (I am alone) must be understood as It is I who am alone.
The purely descriptive solution, which would consist in saying that per-
son and topicalization are amalgamated is not sufficient, for topical-
ization modifies the argumentative and axiological orientation of the first
person: it forbids, for example, putting it forward as originary and transcendent.
Basic Japanese predication thus can make no place for the assump-
tion of Ego is he who says ego, and one arrives at the subjective person only
through regression, through concession, starting from a broader social field.
The Japanese personal system appears to rest upon the following two principles: (1)
Enunciation 191
The personal quasi-pronouns describe the sphere of self, through a gesture of restric-
tion and of exclusion with respect to the public domain; (2) They allow a distribution of
positions in a vertically stratified field, which is relatively stable, and in which the enun-
ciator must take position without for all that becoming a center of reference. The model
proposed by Benveniste, and taken up by a large part of the community of linguists, must
thus be taken as one usage among others, from the perspective of a semiotics of cultures.
The second displacement is even more harmful, because it introduces into

enunciation an actantial category that changes its nature: in fact, the no-
tion of subjectivity refers to the distinction between the dierent trans-
formational actants (subject/object/sender/receiver), while the actantial
structure of the instance of discourse is only positional. According to the per-
spective of analysis adopted, one can draw out of this actantial structure only
the following series: in terms of eld, center, horizons, and depth; in terms
of positions, source, target, and control; or as in Metzs work, foyer and site.
The introduction of the notion of subjectivity, if it is not insidiously inspired
by some psychology or some philosophy and the belief in some interiority, thus
provokes a collapse of the positional structure of the instance of discourse onto
the transformational structure of the uttered discourse.
The subject being an actant of a transformational type, enunciation is then
treated like a transformation equivalent to a narrative transformation, which en-
tails stakes, an object of value, inversion of content, etc. This point of view may be
envisioned, and may even be legitimate, but it is not that of discourse in action; it
is that of a realized, nished discourse, apprehended starting from the end. With
the notion of subjectivity, we thus change domains of pertinence, and we consider
enunciation in the same way as uttered enunciation, inscribed in an accomplished
discourse, and apprehended retrospectively.
I have shown, moreover, following certain propositions by Jean-Claude Co-
quet, how we could pass from a positional actant of discourse (actant M0) to a
subject actant (actant M3 or M4). The question of subjectivity and of intersubjec-
tivity must then be treated (1) independently of that of person, which refers to a
cultural schematization of the eld of enunciation, and (2) from the perspective
of a progressive construction of the modal identity of actants, and not as a substi-
tute for enunciation. The question of subjectivity must in particular be carefully
distinguished from the positioning of the instance of discourse, which itself takes
place in any case, independently from the eects of person and subject.
As soon as enunciation, person, and subjectivity are distinguished, the iden-
tication of the instance of discourse (Who speaks? Who sees? Who hears? etc.)
is reduced to the status of a pedagogical exercise, which in the end is not very
pertinent from the point of view of the signication of discourse, and is of little
importance from the point of view of enunciation in action. From the perspec-
tive of a didactics of the text and of the image, it is in fact useful to understand
who speaks and who sees, exactly in the same way that it is useful to know which
character accomplished which action, or which other character saw its situation
transformed: we then place ourselves on the level of actorial continuity and cohe-
sion, but without any gain for the comprehension of the current acts themselves.
In fact, we then seek to identify the actor or actors who correspond to the personal
actants and to subjectivity, and we forget at the same time that enunciation is the
site of the organization of the discourse as a whole, the instance responsible for the
becoming of its gures, and, more generally, responsible for the acts that make of
it a signifying whole, submitted to a rationality and to an axiology.
The question of the operations of enunciation, of their nature, of the contents
and axiologies upon which they have any eect, seems to me pertinent in another
way. Concretely, for example, in the case of the analysis of a point of view, the
fact of knowing whether it is that of a character or of the ideal author, that of an
abstract observer or of a protagonist in the action, is of interest only insofar as it
allows us to measure the degree of engagement of the enunciation in the frame
of the utterance. The degree of identication between the actants of the enuncia-
tion and the actants of the utterance, between the enunciative positions and the
narrative forces, allows us to assess the way in which the former take charge of
the latter.
On the other hand, the fact of knowing whether the point of view is es-
tablished by the accumulation of aspects, by partial or global summons, by a
sampling or by the election of a representative part of the whole, by xing or by
rotation, etc. is decisive for enabling one to pass judgment on the form of the
content that it thus apprehends. This form of the content even informs us of the
conception of the world that presides over the choice of point of view. We may
then decide in the name of which cognitive value it proceeds in this way: if it
proceeds by accumulation and summons, it will seek exhaustiveness; on the other
hand, if it proceeds by sampling and selection, it will aim for representativity. And
so it goes. Each time, a new conception of totality and of coherence is imposed,
and, consequently, so is a new representation of the way in which the world makes
meaning and makes signs for us (and in which we make signs with it).
The typology of the instances of enunciation has had its hour of glory, and
today we can consider this aspect of things as settled. It would be imprudent to
continue on this path, rst because it presupposes confusion between enuncia-
tion, person, and subjectivity, and second because it entails the risk of termino-
logical profusion: if, each time a new operation is identied, we attribute it to a
new instance, we are led to add a new name of an instance to an already long list.
Terminological proliferation does not make knowledge advance even one step; it
is sometimes a necessary evil, but it would not be reasonable to make it an end
Enunciation 193
in itself.
2.3. Enunciation and Speech Acts

When philosophers of language, such as J. L. Austin, have put forth the distinc-
tion between descriptive utterancesthe narration of an event, for example
and performative utterancesthe promise or injunction that set an event in
motion, they have tried to make us believe that the theory of language only con-
cerned the former, and had forgotten the latter. Now, we know that the ancient phi-
losophers themselves, whether it be Plato on the occasion of the controversy with the
Sophists, or Aristotle in his Rhetoric, already thought that language is not made solely
to describe the world, but also to transform it, to act upon things and upon others.
This performative dimension of language had likely been forgotten, grant-
ed, but only, and provisionally, by engineers of information and technicians of
communication, who devoted all their eorts to the circulation of messages
and information, or by logicians, too occupied with the referential value of their
propositions.
Today, even the concept and the procedures of information planning can-
not do without an explicit representation of the receiver, of this receivers compe-
tence and expectations, and of the trajectory of action that one is seeking to have
this receiver accomplish or that one seeks to optimize through the intermediary
of a programmed information. One thus cannot imagine human communication
without inuence, without action by one of the partners upon the others; one
cannot conceive of enunciation and discourse without taking into account their
inuence and their action upon the states of aairs that they evoke.
Briey put, manipulation and action are inextricably associated with predica-
tion.
How, then, to distinguish between enunciation and action, between enun-
ciation and manipulation? Since we have a theory of action, of passion, and of
cognition at our disposal, why do we need a theory of enunciation? What remains
that is proper to enunciation?
In fact, whether it be in the form of acts of programming, acts of passional
manipulation, or cognitive apprehensions and representations, the systems of
discourse suce in general to cover all speech acts. There is one, however, that
escapes them, namely, predication: the narrative subject may seduce, inuence,
persuade, or command another narrative subject. However, it cannot predicate
seduction, inuence, persuasion, or injunction, unless it is granted the space to
speak, but it is then a matter of a delegation of enunciation.
Predication is proper to enunciation, and this property allows us to shed light
on the specicity of acts of enunciation, against the backdrop of speech acts in
general.
First of all, the enunciation asserts the utterance: something is the case, some-
thing is happening, something is present. Assertion is the act of enunciation by
which the content of an utterance comes into presence, by which it is identied as
being in the eld of presence of discourse. In other words, assertion is the act by
which the instance of discourse causes to be and makes present; it is thus that,
paraphrasing Merleau-Ponty, I redened enunciation (see Chapter 3, section 2,
The Instance of Discourse): Uttering means making something present to oneself
with the help of language.
Then, enunciation assumes the assertion: something is present to the one who
utters, something is happening with respect to him or her, in the eld of presence
of which he or she is the point of reference; something is happening with respect
to the position of the instance of discourse, and aects this position, or obliges it
to be rearmed.
This is why enunciation may be considered from two complementary per-
spectives.
1. Assertion, leading to an existential predication, concerns the presence of

utterances and modies the eld of presence of the discourse.
We can easily deduce from this that the act of enunciation par
excellence is the one that situates the utterance in this eld and that
attributes to it a mode of existence, that is to say a degree of presence.
Playing upon the intensity and extent of this presence, existential
predication will thus treat a certain utterance as realized, a certain
other one as virtualized, another one as potentialized, and so on.
2. Assumption is auto-referential: in order to be engaged in the assertion,
to take responsibility for the utterance, to appropriate the presence
thus decreed, the instance of discourse must relate them to itself, to its
position of reference, and to the eect that they produce on its body. This
act of assumption is, in fact, the act by which the instance of discourse
makes known its position with respect to what comes about in its eld.
But at the same time, assumptive predication is another articulation of presence,

complementary to the rst. In a certain way, it is actually a matter of presence
to the other, presence of the instance of discourse to what comes about, pres-
ence to what appears in the eld and is not the instance itself. This is why the
instance is also expressed in intensitythis is what pragmatists call illocutionary
force, the force of engagement in the act of predication. It is likewise expressed
in extentthe scope of this assumption, which will be identied in verbal dis-
course, for example, by a syntactic dislocation, a thematization or an emphasis.
These two levels of predication have in common a shared property: they are
Enunciation 195
meta-discursive acts. Enunciation is in fact not the speech act itself, but the prop-
erty of language that consists in manifesting this activity. Let us examine, for
example, existential predication: it is not confused with reference. The utterance
may be considered as making reference to a non-linguistic reality: That is a tree
may be considered as referring to a tree belonging to the natural world; but the
enunciation asserts the presence of the same gure, in the eld of discourse, and
as a being of language. That is a tree then signies, on the metadiscursive plane that
is proper to enunciation: As a being of language, the tree in question appears in the
eld of discourse.
In the same way, assumptive predication refers to the presence of the instance
of discourse, but to its presence as a being of language, in some way independently
from the being of the singular world that coincides provisionally with it.
In Lnonciation impersonnelle ou le site du lm [Impersonal Enunciation or the
Site of the Film], Christian Metz, obliged to go beyond theoretical conceptions
derived from linguistic morphologies of enunciation, also ends up dening enun-
ciation as a metalanguage. This is likewise the position of Greimas and Courts
in Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary, who oppose the descriptive
and non-scientic metalanguage of enunciation to the scientic metalanguage of
semiotic theory itself. Enunciation is a descriptive metalanguage because, by
predicating the utterance, it displays its own activity, codes it, and makes of it a
sensible or observable event. Enunciation is the place where the discourse declares
what is coming aboutentities, acts, eventsin its own eld.
To conclude, the distinction to be made between enunciation and speech
acts is not simple, because it seems to go against the most ordinary intuitions.
The meta-discursive status that we recognize in enunciation at least allows us to
understand why it cannot be confused with them. But, moreover, it is necessary
to explain how discourse can welcome, among other things, a deictic structure or
a modal component: the rst derives from the auto-reference characteristic of as-
sumptive predication, and the second from the attribution of modes of existence
to utterances called into discourse, characteristic of existential predication. Auto-
reference goes to the very principle of deictic reference, for in setting up a deictic
relation, the instance of discourse recalls its own position. The modes of existence
are at the heart of modalization, for the dierent modalities are deduced directly
from the four principle modes of existence (see Chapter 4).
3. ENUNCIATIVE PRAXIS
The preceding clarications will allow me to explain what is meant today by the
expression enunciative praxis, a concept put forth in semiotics at the end of the
1980s by A. J. Greimas, taken up in The Semiotics of Passions, and since devel-
oped by Denis Bertrand. Enunciative praxis, in fact, is not semiotic praxis in
general. Signifying is an act, discoursing is a set of acts, a network, and an en-

tanglement of operations whose enunciation only takes charge of what concerns
presence, the presence of the utterance or the presence of the instance of discourse.
Enunciative praxis is thus especially concerned with the appearance and dis-
appearance of utterances and of semiotic forms in the eld of discourse, or by
the event constituted by the encounter between the utterance and the instance
that takes charge of it. All other operations, all other acts arise from the respective
logics of action, of passion, and of cognition, and do not accede to this meta-dis-
cursive dimension that is proper to enunciation. Each person is free to understand
the concept of enunciation as he or she pleases, but only at the risk of making it
simply a double of the notion of semiosis, and a useless para-synonym of the more
general notion of discourse in action.
Enunciative praxis governs this presence of discursive entities in the eld of
discourse: it convokes or invokes in discourse the utterances that compose it; it
assumes them more or less, it accords them degrees of intensity and a certain
quantity. It recovers forms that have been schematized by usage, or even stereo-
types and xed structures; it reproduces them as such, or diverts them and pro-
vides them with new signications. It presents other forms with all the sparkle of
innovation, assumes them as irreducibly singular, or proposes them for a more
widespread usage.
Dening enunciation as a double predication (existential and assumptive) in-
uencing the presence of the utterance and of the instance of discourse to one
another, and arming that it is enunciative praxis that governs presence in dis-
course, all comes down to saying that enunciation, such as we have dened it, can
only be a praxis, whose substance consists essentially of the two basic dimensions
of presence, intensity and extent. The notion of enunciative praxis thus entails
some implications that it is tting to spell out now.
1. It is not the primary origin of discourse; it presupposes something other

than discursive activity (the system of the language, but also the whole set
of genres and types of discourse, or repertories and encyclopedias of forms
proper to a culture); it also presupposes a history of praxis, usages that would
be anterior types of praxis, assumed by a collectivity and stocked in memory.
The semiotics inspired by the work of Greimas arranges the elements of
the underlying system in the form of a generative trajectory, constituted
by several levels that are deduced one from the other by presupposition:
narrative structures presuppose utterances of junction, which themselves
presuppose the elementary structures. But the generative trajectory of
signication is only an idealized simulacrum of enunciative competence;
it allows us to organize the virtual structures that are, at the moment of
Enunciation 197
uttering, at the disposal of the instance of discourse. However, in the

concrete analysis of discourse, it can at best serve as a formal frame of
reference for the description of acts of enunciation, for it does not indicate
how enunciation proceeds, but rather it only (and partially) indicates
starting from what and upon what it intervenes. The generative trajectory
is in some sense the simulacrum of the mode of stocking of the systems
components and the products of usage, not that of their being put into play.
2. Nor can the system be considered as the origin of discourse. The notion
of individual appropriation of the language, advanced by Benveniste in
order to dene enunciation, is not entirely satisfactory, for it masks the
fact that the system (the language) is, in an inverse sense, the schematized
product of usages, and, consequently, of the accumulation of praxis.
We must say in sum, in order to understand the functioning of
enunciation, that it is not content to exploit the system in stock,
but that it contributes to remodeling it and making it become.
Such considerations presuppose, of course, that we move beyond
a strictly individual and personal conception of enunciation, since
discourses can contribute to the systems becoming only if one does
not separate individual enunciation and collective enunciation, if
one considers them as forming a part of a same whole in becoming.
3. The perspective of enunciative praxis is thus interactive. In topological
terms, it mines the forms in a space of schematization, which it
in turn modies and feeds. In temporal terms, it surpasses the
opposition between synchrony and diachrony, because it maintains
the link between a given synchronic state, on the one hand, and all
the previous and subsequent synchronic states. If there are laws of
enunciative praxis, they will be pan-chronic rather than a-chronic
(the system is, by denition, a-chronic; praxis is pan-chronic).
In terms of presencethat is to say in both spatial and temporal terms,
enunciative praxis governs, among other things, the mode of existence of
the entities and utterances that compose discourse: it apprehends them
at the virtual level (as entities belonging to a system), it actualizes them
(as beings of language and of discourse), it realizes them (as expressions),
it potentializes them (as products of usage), etc. The modes of existence,
of which praxis governs the distribution and the variation, directly
concern the relations between the system and the discourse, because
the system is by denition virtual, while discourse aims for realization.
Reection upon enunciative praxis should thus be pursued in two directions:

1. The examination of operations that produce types, reactivate them, or

challenge them, that produce innovative forms and that schematize them.
Enunciative praxis, by manipulating the modes of existence, is taken
up on the one hand in a dialectic of creation and sedimentation,
and contributes on the other hand to the formation of the rhetorical
dimension of discourses (places, gures, tropes, and argumentation).
2. The denition of a eld of exercise of praxis. Praxis is exercised in a
eld, the eld of discourse, that we may provisionally dene as a spatio-
temporal domain. It is possible to distinguish in the semiotic process several
aspectual phases, according to whether the signication is emergent,
underway, or accomplished; these three phases then serve as a principle
of declension, according to which the eld will take three dierent forms.
a. During the phase of emergence, the perceptive eld is articulated

by sensible and aective intensities, perceptive extents and quantities;
these rst articulations of the eld of discourse are valences (intensive
and extensive). It is a matter, strictly speaking, of a eld of presence.
b. During the second phase, that of discourse in action properly speaking,
that of the putting into place of discursive forms, the eld of discourse
is a schema or an assemblage of discursive schemas. In fact, it is in this
second form of the eld of discourse that underlying phenomenologies
may be schematized and in which properly semiotic congurations
may be formed; it is thus also in this second form of the eld of
discourse that values take shape. It is then a matter of the schematic eld.
c. During the last phase, that of the uttered and accomplished discourse,
the eld of discourse becomes a network of dierences, a categorized
space, made discrete. We are then dealing with the dierential eld.
The eld of discourse thus declines into three phases: the eld of presence, the
schematic eld, and the dierential eld.
But, beyond the eld of discourse, it is necessary to imagine a spatio-temporal
domain that would be common to the system and to the discourses, a domain
that, with each particular enunciation, is reduced to a specic eld of presence,
but which cannot be confused with the sum total of all the possible elds of pres-
ence. No more than discourse may be taken for the sum total of all the utterances
that it contains, praxis may not be dened as the sum of all the discourses that put
it into play. The domain of praxis is also, in fact, that of cultural memory and that
of semiotic schemas, as well as that of singular discourses.
The model of the semiosphere, borrowed from Juri Lotman, will provide us
with a good approximation of such a domain, that of semiotic experience within
Enunciation 199
a culture.
4. THE OPERATIONS OF PRAXIS

4.1. Existential Tensions
In order for entities of dierent status to coexist within the same discourse, they must
derive from dierent modes of existence: discursive co-presence is not reducible to
co-occurrence. The modes of existence, the virtualized, the actualized, the potential-
ized, and the realized, in some sense convert co-presence into a discursive thickness
and project modal articulations upon the eld of discourse. If we imagine the eld as
a domain endowed with horizons, the four modes of existence are distributed thus:
(potentialization)
(virtualization) (realization)
(actualization)
The productive act of signication is thus presented rst of all as a tension be-
tween the virtual (the outside-of-the-eld of discourse) and the realized (the center
of the eld of discourse), mediated by the actualized mode (passing through the
border). Moreover, another tension appears, which leads from the realized mode
to the virtualized mode, which is itself mediated by the potentialized mode (pass-
ing through the border in the other direction). We must note in passing that,
from the perspective of discourse in action, the one we have dened as the sche-
matic eld, the eld of discourse properly speaking, we cannot come back to the
virtual mode strictly speaking; leaving the schematic eld means adopting a posi-
tion that is still dened with respect to this eld, which does not mean coming
back to the virtual structures of the system. This is why, in one direction, we start
o from the virtual mode, and, in the other, we attain only the virtualized mode.
To what do these dierent modes of existence correspond? The virtual mode
is that of the structures of an underlying system, of a formal competence available
at the moment of the production of meaning. The actualized mode is that of the
forms that come about in discourse, and the conditions for their coming about:
the actualization of a coloring in an image, for example, entails the whole set of
tensions and contrasts into which it enters, by virtue of its coexistence with neigh-
boring colorings. The realized mode is the very one through which enunciation
makes forms of discourse meet up with a reality, a material reality of the plane of
expression, a reality of the natural world and of the sensible world for the content
plane.
The inverse movement is the one proper to the rhetorical dimension of acts
of discourse: a form is said to be potentialized when its diusion or its recognition
is such that it can gure as a site of discourse (type, commonplace, or motive,
available for other convocations). The virtualized mode (one never comes back
to the virtual mode properly speaking, for we are still in discourse in action) is
that of the entities that serve as a background to the functioning of the gures of
discourse: the semiotic act then consists in realizing a gure, in sending another
one back to the virtualized stage, and in placing them in interaction in such a way
that, at the moment of interpretation, the enunciatee is led to come and go from
the one to the other.
The operations of praxis may be considered from two dierent points of view:
from the point of view of the objects becomingthe object here being some semi-
otic entity, the product of the signifying act, an utterance, or from the point of
view of the subjects becomingthe subjects being in this case the partners of the
semiotic interaction.
4.2. The Existential Becoming of Semiotic Objects

The objects becoming is regulated by acts of praxis, considered as operations bear-
ing upon its mode of existence. The rst trajectory, which exploits the tension be-
tween the virtual mode and the realized mode, will be called ascending in the sense
that it rises toward manifestation, and that its object is to reach the discourses
center of reference, the realizing instance. The second trajectory, which exploits
the other tension, between the realized mode and the virtualized mode, will be
called descending (or decadent) in the sense that it returns toward the system, xes
living forms in stereotypes, in praxemes, and in sum feeds the competence of
the subjects of enunciation thanks to the products of the most typical usages.
The ascending trajectory, according to which the signifying forms are sum-
moned with a view to manifestation, is analyzable in two dierent acts:
1. The phase Virtual Actualized [V A] represents a forms emergence. It

is a phase of innovation.
2. The phase Actualized Realized [A R] describes a forms appearance.
The form receives an expression and a status of reality that allows
it to make reference.
Enunciation 201
The descending trajectory, according to which the signifying forms are made implic-
it, put into memory, typied, even eaced and forgotten, also entails two phases:
3. The phase Realized Potentialized [R P] is the condition of a forms

decline as a living and innovative form, and consequently describes its
entry into usage and its xing as a praxeme, potentially available for other
convocations.
4. The phase Potentialized Virtualized [P V] describes a forms
disappearance and its dilution in the virtual structures, underlying the
exercise of a signifying practice.
From the perspective of the rhetorical dimension of discourse, where the prin-
ciple transformations of usage and the interactions of discourse with the system
that feeds them take place, we must take into consideration the concomitant
manipulation of at least two entities or two utterances. Consequently, praxis will
generally bear upon at least two entities at the same time, each one deriving from
a dierent mode of existence. The semiotic act lowers one form in order to pro-
mote another one; two modes of existence in competition are jointly modied.
Praxis thus combines at least one act of ascending orientation and one act of
descending orientation. The typology of semiotic doing thus becomes calculable:
1. [A R] & [P V]: the appearance of a form correlated to the

disappearance of another form constitutes a semiotic revolution. Classical
commutation is an example of this. In the domain of the image,
Wittgensteins famous example of the rabbit duck
derives strictly from this: the appearance of the rabbit
brings about the disappearance of the duck and vice versa.
2. [V A] & [R P]: the emergence of a form correlated to the
decline of another is a semiotic distortion. The living tropes are excellent
examples of this, whether they are verbal or visual, for they put into
competition an actualized form (the guring and perceived content) and a
potentialized form (the reconstituted, conceptual, or paraphrastic content).
3. [V A] & [P V]: the emergence of a form combined with the
disappearance of another form is a semiotic revision, which aects the
relations among basic cultural forms and the system. Any operation
aiming for example to make the virtual combinatory play once
again in a stereotype derives from this; for example: putting the
expression hopping mad into action in the form of actual acrobatics.
4. [A R] & [R P]: the appearance of a form combined with the
decline of another is a semiotic uctuation. This is the case, notably,
when two isotopies, linked by a metaphor, are manifested each in

turn on the surface; their alternation then presupposes that the
guring isotopy comes and goes between actualization and realization,
and the gured isotopy between potentialization and realization.
The gure of the image in an image is a common example:
when ones attention is xed upon the embedded image, the host
image is not hidden from sight, and remains potentially available.
Let us review. Enunciative praxis, considered as a combination of ascending

and descending acts, apprehended from the point of view of the objects be-
coming, may adopt four dierent strategies, dened as four tensive transforma-
tions between competing states. We will generally obtain the following network:
Ascendance Emergence Appearance

Decadence
Decline Distortion Fluctuation
Disappearance Revision Revolution
4.3. The Existential Becoming of the Instance of Discourse

Modes of existence and existential tensions come forth only in the eld of
an instance of discourse, under which lies the eld of presence of a sensible
and perceptive instance, in relation with other instances. These are thus al-
ways modes of existence for someone, and situated in some place. Regarding
the degrees of presence of the enunciation, we thus have to take into account
the fact that this presence is a presence to and for instancesbodiesthat
are sensible to it and aected by it, and that consequently experience emo-
tions, and, more generally, dierent varieties of the sentiment of existence.
The two principle dimensions of the schematic eld, which by denition con-
trols the varieties of the eect of presence, are going to be of great help to us.
These two dimensions are those of intensity of assumption and extent of recogni-
tion. The presence of the instance of discourse with regard to utterances is in fact
measured in these two directions: the rst is of the order of intensity, because it
obeys the logic of forces; the second is of the order of extent, because it obeys the
logic of places.
The intensity of assumption characterizes the intensity of the link that unites
Enunciation 203
the subject and its production. This link is empathic, in the sense that it is all the
more strong in that the subject recognizes itself in its production. It is notewor-
thy, in this regard, that assumption is an indispensable dimension of existential
tensions in discourse: it is what, for example, according to whether it is strong or
weak, lets us know if a gure is proposed there or simply mentioned, if it is neces-
sary to take it literally or by derision, if not even as antiphrasis or irony.
The extent of recognition involves at the same time actants of enunciation and
the diusion of the signifying forms concerned. The repetition of a form in usage
does not have to be considered objectively, as a quantity of the semiotic objects
themselves, but as the quantity of occurrences, that is to say, as the recurrence of
the enunciations that put it into play, like the quantity and the frequency of their
being taken in charge by instances of discourse. We thus pass from the quantity of
the objects to the individual or collective structure of the instances of presence.
From a more general perspective, we must recall that praxis is in charge of
the general regulation, in diachrony and in synchrony, of the dierent modes of
existence of the entities of which discourses make use. This regulation entails, in
the linguistic tradition as in more recent cognitive semantics, an intersubjective
condition, as well as the conditions of iteration and of typifying. The intersubjec-
tive condition is central to Benvenistes thought, in such a way that the iteration
of forms is nothing if, for example, the sanction of the allocutionaries does not
support it.
Without the intentional sharing that intersubjectivity allows, the frequency
of use of a form is just pure objective and insignicant repetition: a forms forma-
tion and disappearance rest upon this principle; the subjects that try to make the
form evolve cannot hope to succeed if they nd no listeners, if they do not elicit
the horizon of expectation that will transform their practice into a veritable lan-
guage. Generalizing a little, I am inclined to think that it is social exchange and
the circulation of semiotic objects and of discourses within cultures and commu-
nities, that retain or reject innovative or xed usages and that somehow transform
the creations of discourse into canonical forms.
The frequency of use is supported by the intersubjective sanction, and the
perceptive prominence of a prototype depends upon agreement between a suf-
cient number of subjects. In this case, the intensity of the assumption and the
extent of the recognition evolve in the same direction and reinforce one another.
We may thus speak of direct correlation between intensity and extent. This direct
correlation assures a forms exchange value.
But we will also meet with evolutions in which the recurrence of a form dese-
manticizes its content and exhausts its value. When a trope becomes lexicalized
(for example, to drink a glass), it is literally desensibilized, forgotten as a trope. In
the same way, in an image, the semi-symbolic systems that produce the eect of
depth (e.g. small : big :: far away : close) are no longer perceived as such.
Discursive ination erodes in this case the use value of a form; inversely, in
the innovation phase, when an innovative form makes its appearance, it is little
diused, but endowed with the vividness of a strong assumption, and thus an
intact use value. Since intensity and extent evolve inversely with respect to one
another, these two scenarios signal an inverse correlation between these two dimen-
sions.
This being stated, it becomes possible to propose a typology of the opera-
tions of semiotic praxis, from the point of view of the becoming of the instances
of discourse, a typology that qualies the attitude of the instance of discourse
with regard to the utterances that it manipulates. In fact, the crossing of the two
elementary dimensions of presence, which are the intensity of assumption and the
extent of recognition, engenders several possible positions, which I identify in the
following way:
1. The direct correlation denes the two operations on the exchange

value: amplication and attenuation. Amplication installs a form into
usage, in such a way that the force of assumption is reinforced by the
extent of the recognition; amplication is thus a trajectory that leads
from the adoption of a form to its integration. Attenuation describes
the inverse process: the enunciation no longer believes in a form, it
no longer assumes it, little by little it falls out of use; the trajectory of
attenuation thus leads from the living usage to the obsolescence of a form.
2. The inverse correlation denes the two operations on the use value:
summons and unfolding. The summons imposes a form, through a strong
assumption, against a very weak recognition; it thus may lead from the
diusion to the revivication of a form. Unfolding, on the other hand,
diuses a usage by making it lose its force of assumption; unfolding is thus a
trajectory that goes from the formation of an innovative form to its wearing
out.
This gives us the following four types:
Strong Assumption Weak Assumption
Extended Recognition Amplication Unfolding
Restricted Recognition Summons Attenuation

Enunciation 205
5. THE SEMIOSPHERE
I cannot lay out Lotmans theory of the semiosphere in its entirety , all the more so
because I envision using only the theorys basic principle. The semiosphere is the
domain in which the subjects of a culture experience signication. The semiotic
experience in the semiosphere, according to Lotman, precedes the production of
discourses because it is one of their conditions. The semiosphere is above all the
domain that allows a culture to dene itself and to situate itself, in order to be
able to dialogue with other cultures; it is also a eld whose dialogical functioning
has as its principle task to regulate and resolve semio-cultural heterogeneities.
Lotman puts forth several properties that are strictly homologous with those
of the discursive eld: (1) the semiosphere, centered upon us (culture, harmony,
the interior), and excluding them (barbarism, foreignness, chaos, the exterior), is
marked o by borders; (2) incessant superpositions and transpositions take place,
between the center and the periphery, between the interior and the exterior. From
this point of view the heterogeneity of the entities that occupy the eld is double:
rst, categorical heterogeneity, and second, existential heterogeneity. The rst
compromises the unity and coherence of a eld, but the second, by aecting
for each entity a dierent mode of existence, restores if not a global coherence,
at least a certain congruence, and makes their co-presence possible. Categorical
heterogeneity in some sense elicits a conict that existential heterogeneity and the
concomitance of several stages of development come to regulate.
We have already examined the operations of praxis having an inuence on the
modes of existence. Let us now attend to the superposition of several versions of
the same semiotic entities. The movements and deformations of the semiosphere
take the form, in Lotmans work, of a set of translations, of processes of diusion
of forms, and of mechanisms through which dierent cultures assume and trans-
form external contributions.
The most remarkable thing, in this case, is the classication of the types of
translations and diusion that Lotman proposes. He describes the becoming of
an exterior contribution through the diverse metamorphoses imposed upon it by
its integration into a new culture, in four stages:
A. The exterior contribution is perceived as striking and singular, overvalued

as prestigious or worrisome; it consequently benets from an ambivalent
axiology: positive as for the surprise or interest that it elicits, negative as
concerns its subversive or distinctive force with respect to the host culture.
B. The exterior contribution is imitated, reproduced, and transposed in
terms of the proper and what is ours, which allows it to be diused
and integrated in the interior eld as a whole, in such a way that it loses its
sparkle; it thus also loses its surprising as well as its worrisome character.
C. The exterior contribution is no longer recognized as foreign, its origin is even

contested, everything specic to it is removed from it, and it is
overshadowed in order to be better assimilated to the host culture;
the exterior domain keeps all of its specicity and singularity
and appears all the more confused, false, not pertinent, in that
the form borrowed from it has been successfully assimilated.
D. Finally, the exterior contribution, having become unrecognizable as
such, is established as a universal norm, and proposed in return not only
within the limits of the interior domain but also to the exterior domains,
as a paragon of any culture, as a sign of civilization par excellence.
Whether it be at the level of the culture as a whole or of a discourse considered

as the vector of a cultural change, enunciative praxis rests, following Lotman,
upon a vast process of paraphrase and translation. But the use that I propose of
it rests more particularly upon the properties of the eld that it emphasizes: the
movements of actualization and potentialization of forms, crossing the frontier
of the semiosphere, actually aect principally the intensity and the quantity of
their reception and their diusion. We thus nd again, at the level of the culture
as a whole, the questions of the force of assumption and of the extent of recognition.
A more attentive examination of the semantic properties of the dierent types
of translation will now supply us with the schema. This paradigm of the forms of
dialogue among semiotic elds entails:
1. tensions between the elds opening: case (A) and (D), and the elds
closing: case (B) and (C);
2. tensions between a strong aective intensity (intensity of perception and of
reception): case (A) and (D), and a weak intensity: case (B) and (C);
3. tensions bearing upon the extent and the quantity, signicant
and expanding in cases (B) and (D), restricted and concentrated in
cases (A) and (C).
Praxis consequently plays upon two essential dimensions: intensity, on the one
hand, and quantity, on the other hand. Its eld of exercise, the semiosphere, thus
welcomes the contributions and transforms them into four phases dened as follows:
1. types A and B: intensity and extent evolve in an inverse way with respect
to one another; in A, the striking eruption of the exterior contribution
engenders an intense aect, but without extent; in B, the diusion does its
work, the exterior contribution is at the same time domesticated, capitalized
upon, diluted, and integrated: the whole eld is thus aected, but weakly.
Enunciation 207
2. types C and D: intensity and extent evolve in the same direction, conjointly;
in C, both extent and intensity are at their lowest; in D, amplication
emphatic, conquering, and normativedoes its work, and touches at
the same time upon intensity (of recognition) and extent (of diusion).
The schema of the semiosphere thus takes the following form:
Eruption of
the strange Unfolding of
the universal
tonic A D
Intensity
C B
Diusion of
atonic Exclusion of the familiar
the specic
atonic tonic
Unfolding and Diusion
NOTES
1. mile Benveniste, Relationships of Person in the Verb, Problems in General

Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables, FL: University of
Miami Press, 1971) 195204.
3. Jean-Claude Coquet, Le discours et son sujet I [Discourse and its Subject I]
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1984) 15.
5. Charles Hagenauer, Morphologie du japonais moderne [Morphology of Modern
Japanese] (Paris, 1951) 125.
6. Hagenauer, Morphologie du japonais moderne 119.
Enunciation 209
Benveniste, mile. Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek.

Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971, Chapter 18, Relationships
of Person in the Verb, 195204.
Bertrand, Denis. Limpersonnel de lnonciation [The Impersonal Aspect of
Enunciation] Prote 21.1 (1993) 2532.
Bertrand, Denis. Prcis de smiotique littraire [Prcis of Literary Semiotics]. Paris:
Nathan, 2000. Part 1.
Coquet, Jean-Claude. Le discours et son sujet I [Discourse and its Subject I]. Paris:
Klincksieck, 1985.
Culioli, Antoine. Pour une linguistique de lnonciation : oprations et reprsentations
[Toward a Linguistics of Enunciation: Operations and Representations]. Gap:
Ophrys, 1990, 1999.
Fontanille, Jacques. Les espaces subjectifs. Introduction la smiotique de lobservateur
[Subjective Spaces: Introduction to the Semiotics of the Observer]. Paris: Hachette,
1989, 1148.
Fontanille, Jacques and Claude Zilberberg. Tension et signication. [Tension and
Signication]. Lige: Mardaga, 1998. Chapter on Praxis.
Kerbrat-Orrechioni, Catherine. Lnonciation [Enunciation], 2nd ed. Paris: Armand
Colin, 1997.
Landowski, Eric. La socit rchie. [The Reexive Society]. Paris: Seuil, 1989,
717 and 199.
Lotman, Juri. La smiosphre [The Semiosphere]. Paris: PULIM, 1998.
Metz, Christian. Lnonciation impersonnelle ou le site du lm [Impersonal
Enunciation or the Site of the Film]. Paris: Klincksieck, 1991, 936 and 175
214.
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IN LINGUISTICS
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Irmengard Rauch
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62 BERKELEY

The Semiotics of Discourse

Jacques Fontanille is President of the Universit de Limoges

Heidi Bostic holds a Ph.D. in French from Purdue University

TRANSLATED BY HEIDI BOSTIC

The Semiotics of Discourse

Jacques Fontanille is President of the Universit de Limoges

Heidi Bostic holds a Ph.D. in French from Purdue University

TRANSLATED BY HEIDI BOSTIC

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.

2006, 2007 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: From the Sign to Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2: The Elementary Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4. The Tensive Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Chapter 4: Actants, Actors, and Modalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Chapter 5: Action, Passion, and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Chapter 6: Enunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

The Semiotics of Discourse is conceived as an introductory volume for anyone

NARRATIVE SEMIOTICS: SOME BACKGROUND

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION

view of the semiotics of discourse.

1. SIGN AND SIGNIFICATION

1.1.2. Semiotics and Semantics

1.1.3. Why Should We Choose?

orders of signication can only be provisional, a historically necessary solution,

Approaching phenomena of signification by way of signs (units) has been tried: it

1.2. Theories of the Sign

1. the relation between perception and signication: Starting from our

Underlying the theory of the sign, a theory of signication comes to light in

1.2.2. The Peircean Sign

which is selected in the object by the interpretant); that is to say, ve elements.

2. PERCEPTION AND SIGNIFICATION

2.2. The Two Planes of a Language

2.2.2. Exteroceptivity and Interoceptivity

If one can speak of macro-semiotics, it is because they are already articulated;

2.2.3. The Isomorphism of the Two Planes

2.3. The Sensible and the Intelligible

b. The Intelligible and Values

2.3.2. Form and Substance

2.3.3. Toward a Sensible Signication

2.3.4. Styles of Categorization

er times to rhetorical operations, and other times to the constraints of a genre.

Insofar as discourse in action refers to occurrences as well as constituted types and

1. Tr. Here, I follow the practice of rendering the French signiance as

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Benveniste, mile. Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek.

1. THE BINARY STRUCTURES

1.1. The Privative Opposition

It is then no longer a question of a present or absent trait, but of the perceptive

1.2. The Opposition Between Contraries

that, alongside the contraries already instituted in a language or in usage, discourse

2. THE SEMIOTIC SQUARE

2.1. The Constitutive Relations

non-a1 non-A non-a2

of non-a1, and reciprocally. In the semiotic square, the question of complementa-

2.2. The Elementary Syntax

2.3. Axiological Polarization

1. a progressive canonical path that is linked to positive value:

2.4. Second-Generation Terms

3. THE TERNARY STRUCTURE

3.2. Properties of the Three Levels

3.3. Modes of Existence

modes of presence: a content whose presence is realthe negative utterance,