Abstract
French semiotics came into being in the 1960s, following a new reading of the works of Louis Hjelmslev and helped notably by the publication in BSL (1946)1 of a deepened presentation of Hjelmslev’s Prolegomena to a Theory of Language by A. Martinet which was quickly followed by an English translation of the book. Thus the origin of French semiotics is to be found in the researches of French structuralism, which for its part can be understood as the development of all that had been achieved in the linguistics schools of Prague and Copenhagen, reaching into new fields such as comparative mythology (G. Dumézil), anthropology (Claude Lévi-Strauss), psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan) and literature (Roland Barthes).
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References
A. Martinet, “Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev,” Bulletin de la Société Linguistique de Paris, 42 (1946), 19–42.
J. Dubois, Grammaire structurale du français (Paris: Larousse 1965), 1: Le Nom et le pronom.
F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, nouvelle ed. (Paris: Payot, 1967).
A. J. Greimas, “L’Actualité du Saussurisme,” Le Français-moderne, No. 3 (1956), pp. 191–203.
Glaude Lévi-Strauss, Structures Elémentaires de la parenté (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1949).
R. Barthes, Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (Paris, Seuil, 1953), p. 24.
A. J. Greimas, “Differents niveaux d’analyse sémantique,” compte-rendu de la séance du 19 Novembre, 1966 (SELF).
J. C. Milner, “Quelques reflexions à propos de la notion de ‘lexis’ et de la nature contradictoire du langage,” in his Arguments Linguistiques (Paris: Marne, 1973), p. 219ff.
Glaude Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale (Paris: Plon, 1958), p. 349.
See for instance, A. J. Greimas and J. Courtes, Sémiotique, dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage (Paris: Hachette, 1979), p. 91, 288, 415, etc.
A. J. Greimas, “La Mythologie Comparée,” in his Du Sens (Paris: Seuil, 1970), p. 132.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 1958.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, “La Structure et la forme,” Cahiers de L’Institut de Science Économique Appliquée, No. 99 (1960). Now included in his Anthropologie structurale II (Paris: Plon, 1973).
Claude Lévi-Strauss, “La Structure des mythes,” in his Anthropologie structurale (Paris: Pion, 1958), p. 227.
Ibid, p. 239.
A. J. Greimas, in Herman Parrei, Discussing Language (The Hague: Mouton, 1974), p. 76.
In Greimas’s terminology phonemes are made up of bundles of phemes (distinctive features) and phemes in binary opposition are what relate phonemes to one another. Phemes thus constitute the semiotic elements in the formal construction of phonology in which they are, however, not manifest, but immanent.—Ed.
Ibid, p. 327, par. 6.
A. J. Greimas, interview in Pratiques, 11/12 (1976), 5.
Greimas, Dictionnaire, p. 345.
See Claude Lévi-Strauss, “L’Analyse structurale en linguistique et en anthropologie,” Anthropologie structurale, p. 37ff.
See in the present article, sect. II F., The Notion of a Semiotic of the Natural World.
Louis Hjelmslev, Prolégomènes à une théorie du langage (Paris: Minuit, 1971), p. 71.
A. J. Greimas, interview in Structures élémentaires de la signification. ed. Frederic Nef (Brussels: Complexe, 1976).
Ibid., p. 19.
Hjelmslev, p. 36.
Dictionnaire, p. 103. Lévi-Strauss, Mythologiques I (Pion: Paris, 1964), p. 346.
B. Pottier, “Recherches sur l’analyse sémantique en linguistique et en traduction mécanique,” Travaux de Linguistique et de littérature de l’Université de Strasbourg (1963), pp. 107 – 138.
A. J. Greimas, Sémantique structurale (Paris: Larousse, 1966), p. 42ff.
See note 19.
To quote only some recent examples, an important place is given to semic analysis in A.J. Greimas, Maupassant: la sémiotique du texte: exercices pratiques (Paris: Seuil, 1976), pp. 27, 30ff.
Jacques Geninasca, “La Poele et le tamis,” in Documents du Groupe de Recherches Sémio-Linguistiques de L’EHESS [École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales de Paris], No. 1 (1979) [Hereafter Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS], p. 33.
François Rastier, Essais de sémiotique discursive (Tours: Marne, 1973), p. 45.
A. J. Greimas and F. Rastier, “Le Jeu des contraintes sémiotiques” published in English in Yale French Studies, No. 41 (1968), under the title: “The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints.” Included in Greimas, Du Sens, (Paris, Larousse, 1970), p. 135ff.
Greimas, Du Sens, p. 137.
Ibid., p. 161.
H. Reichenbach, L’Avènement de la philosophie scientifique (Paris: Flammarion, 1955), p. 192.
See the critical analysis of this point by P. Ricoeur in “La Grammaire narrative de Greimas,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, No. 15 (1980).
Cf. Courtes, Lévi-Strauss et les contraintes de la pensée mythique (Paris: Marne, 1973), p. 117ff.
A. J. Greimas, Semantique structurale (Paris: Larousse, 1966), p. 207.
J. Courtés, Lévi-Strauss, p. 151ff.
Plato, Symposium, 202–203.
In its French meaning, “generativist” implies the reconstitution of all semiotic operations necessary for the codification of a meaningful message; cf. Thomas Pavel, “Modèles generatifs en linguistique et en sémiotique” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, No. 20 (1980).
Du sens, p. 159.
Dictionnaire, s.v. “Transformation”: par. 5, p. 401.
Greimas, Du sens, p. 39.
P. Claudel, La Ville, version 2–377/23, as quoted by J. C. Coquet, Sémiotique litteraire (Paris: Mame, 1973), p. 153.
The dramaturgic metaphor is recurrent in Tesnière’s grammar.
A. J. Greimas, “Un problème de sémiotique narrative,” “Les Objets de valeur,” Langages, 31 (1973), 13ff.
J. C. Coquet, “Les Modalités du discours,” Langages, 43 (1976), 64.
Ibid, p. 70.
Françoise Bastide, “Approche sémiotique d’un texte de sciences expérimentales,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, 7 (1979).
Ivan Darrault, “Pour une approche sémiotique de la thérapie psycho-motrice,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, 8 (1979).
A. J. Greimas, “La Soupe au pistou,” Documents G.R.S.L. 5 (1979).
J. Courtés, Introduction à la sémiotique narrative et discursive (Paris: Hachette, 1979), p. 7.
Lucien Tesnière, Éléments de syntaxe structurale (Paris: Klincksieck, 1959), Chap. 25–27.
Ibid., chap. 49 (9).
Cf. Anne Hénault, “Narratologie, sémiotique générale,” (Les Enjeux de Semiotique, 2,) (Paris: P.U.F., 1983), Chap. IV.
A. J. Greimas, Du sens, pp. 157–183.
A. J. Greimas, “Description et narrativité,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, No. 13 (1979).
60 Dictionnaire, s.v. “Configuration,” par. 8, p. 60.
Jacques Geninasca, “Mise en clair des messages. Analyse du recit et analyse du discours poétique,” in his Le Lieu et la formule (Neuchâtel: Ed. de la Baconnière, 1978).
Dictionnaire, s.v., “Conversion,” p. 72.
Thomas Pavel, “Modèles génératifs en linguistique et en sémiotique,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, No. 20 (1980).
J. Courtes, Introduction, p. 45.
J. B. Grize, in Grammars and Descriptions (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1977).
It is true that Saussure criticizes in advance any “naive realism,” including that which pertains to the nonlinguistic sphere.
A. J. Greimas, “Conditions d’une sémiotique du monde naturel,” Langages, 10 (1968); “Pratiques et langages gestuels,” reprinted in Du sens, pp. 49–91.
E. Benveniste, “Sémiologie de la langue,” in Problèmes de linguistique générale II (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), pp. 43–67.
Even as a provisional practical concept. This attitude is characteristic of the “New Psychology” as led by Jacques Mehler of the CNRS, Paris.
See note 52.
Sémiotique de l’espace, ed. Jean Zeitoun (Paris: Denoel-Gonthier, 1979).
Alain Renier, “Sémiotique de l’architecture,” Documents G.R.S.L. EHESS, No. 10 (1979).
C. Miereanu, “Text Komposition, voie zéro de l’écriture musicale,” thesis, Université de Vincennes, 1978.
R. Barthes, “Rhétorique de l’image”, Communications, 4 (1964).
Ibid, p. 2.
J. M. Floch, “Sémiotique poétique et discours mythique en photographie. Analyse d’un nu de Boubat,” Prépublications d’Urbino, No. 95 (June 1980); “Kandinsky bricole sa composition IV,” Communications, 34 (December 1981); “Sémiotique plastique et langage publicitaire,” Documents G.R.S.L., EHESS, No. 26, 1981.
F. Rastier, “Comportement et signification,” Langages, 10 (1968), 78.
Cf. Essais de sémiotique poétique, ed. A.J. Greimas (Paris: Larousse, 1972).
Anne Hénault, Enjeux II, chap. 5.
Felix Thurleman, “Trois peintures de Paul Klee, essai d’analyse sémiotique,” Thèse de 3me cycle, (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1979).
Biblical exegesis offers semiotics a wide field of application. Cf. A. and D. Patte, Pour une exégèse structurale (Paris: Seuil, 1978); Groupe d’entrevernes—Signes et paraboles, (Paris: Seuil, 1977); and the review called Sémiotique et Bible, Centre pour l’analyse du discours religieux (C.A.D.I.R.), Lyon.
E. de Kuyper, “Pour une sémiotique du spectaculaire,” and E. Poppe, “Analyse sémiotique de l’espace spectaculaire,” two theses in the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 1979).
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© 1986 Plenum Press, New York
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Hénault, A. (1986). Semiotics in France. In: Sebeok, T.A., Umiker-Sebeok, J. (eds) The Semiotic Sphere. Topics in Contemporary Semiotics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0205-7_8
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