The impact of speech-act theory and phenomenology on Proust and Claude Simon

pp. 275-279

in: Michael Herzfeld, Margot D. Lenhart, Semiotics 1980, Berlin, Springer, 1982

Abstract

Both structuralism and phenomenology in literature experience a shifting of conventional forms which threatens to abolish the causalism of the realist novel by establishing a dialectic of synchronic and diachronic experiences. Both the structuralist Gérard Genette¹ and the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty derive their theories of language from Saussurian linguistics. They institute a dialectic of perception to bring the diachronic and synchronic views into communication. Diachrony envelops synchrony; the dichotomy between impression and language is rejected by Merleau-Ponty who sees writing as bodily expression which is part of the ongoing primordial process of perception. The act of naming arranges a series of perceptual data, inaugurating rather than exhausting order. The written word indicates the presence of thought. Taking Saussurian linguistics as a basis for his argument, Merleau-Ponty hypothesizes an original utterance when langue is presented in its individual aspect as parole. Speech does not presuppose thought since parole has an innovative function and is not simply prefabricated from langue. Merleau-Ponty invokes Husserl's differentiation between the voluntary intentionnalité d"acte and the involuntary intentionnalité opérante.