Journal of Pragmatics 11 ( 1987) 793-797 North-Holland

793

REVIEW ARTICLE

A SEMIOTIC MEETING IN THE SQUARE*

Svend Erik LARSEN**

Some members of the international scientific community seem almost predes- tined to be honored by a Festschrift. They have contributed to the progress of knowledge, either by establishing creative and influential scientific milieus or by their own original achievements.

If anybody is uncertain whether Algirdas Julien Greimas represents the first or the second of these qualities, the Festschrift shows clearly that his work is of both’kinds. Firstly, the book contains 79 articles, most of them of considerable scientific interest, originating from 22 different countries and covering a huge field of themes, methods and perspectives. Even if the criteria for placing an article in one or the other of the two volumes (Vol. 1 is theory, Vol. 2 is applications), or in one of the three chapters of each volume are not always clear, at least this editorial division presents a practical organization of the contents, and makes the breadth and depth of the impact of Greimasian theory obvious.

Secondly, the bio-bibliography in Vol. 1, established by Jean-Claude Coquet, attests to the widespread orientation of Greimas’ own production. This survey of his scholarly development, together with the introduction by the two editors, proves that the important steps, taken by Greimas inside linguistics towards semantics at the same time, and necessarily, opened linguistics to epistemology as well as to sociology and history. The fundamental merit of Greimas’ own work is, so it seems to me, that he has tried not to neglect the scholarly challenge of this opening, but to meet it explicitly throughout his entire production.

The reader may expect a Festschrift such as the one under review to contain an endless stream of papers paying their debt to the master, humbly praising him in repeating his thoughts, or telling anecdotes from their personal acquaintance

* A review of Herman Parret and Hans-George Ruprecht, eds., Exigences et perspectives de la semiotique. Recueil d’hommages pour Algirdas Julien Greimas. [Aims and prospects of semiotics. Essays in honor of Algirdas Julien Greimas.] I-II. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 1985. 1066 pp. $130.00 ** Author’s address: S.E. Larsen, Odense University, Dept. of Literature, DK-5230, Odense M,

0378-2166/87/$3.50 0 1987, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

194 S.E. Larsen 1 A semiotic meeting in the square

with him. Or maybe the reader thinks of the Festschrift as a sort of Baedeker for the semiotic tourist, describing how to find the easiest and most direct way to Semiotic Square, where the tourist hopes to find several semiotic monu- ments, erected in the center and surrounded by admiring disciples.

Of course, the reader-tourist will find contributions pointing in this direction - that is part of the Festschrift genre - but it is not the general tenor of the book. And perhaps the most profound contribution of this Festschrift in Greimas’ honor is the way the most interesting articles focus on problems and limits of Greimasian theory and engage themselves in constructive discussions on the aims and prospects of this theory. The editors’ introduction indicates this tendency of the Festschrift, as expressed directly by e.g. Manar Hammad and Eric Landowski, when they emphasize the heuristic character of the theory (p. 239) and its ability to make you ‘Clever le regard’ (p. 255).

It is not possible, within the limits of this review, to mention, let alone analyze, all of the 79 papers. But I do not find it out of keeping with the subject of my review to group the contributions according to the ‘semiotic square’, the organizing principle in this case being the deep structure of the attitudes to Greimasian theory expressed in the Festschrift. After this description of the general orientation of the articles, I shall provide a closing comment on some of the problems not dealt with in the book.

development

(conservation) Sl S2 (transformation) h

integration i’ ‘1

alternation

(-----’ (compatibility) non-S2 non-S1 (refutation)

limitation

Fig. 1. The semiotic square.

The articles gathered around the north-west corner of the square, manifesting the semantic value ‘conservation’ (Sl), are characterized by their attempt to complete the different aspects of Greimas’ theory as it is outlined in his own works. Nobody can be surprised by the fact that a great number of the articles belongs to this group.

These contributions give us a view into the interior of the Greimasian ‘house of semiotics’, with its address on Semiotic Square - from its epistemological and methodological crest to the basement of empirical details, from the rooms comprising different objects (such as linguistics, or literature, or mythology, or even the visual media), and representing fully furnished units ready for auto- matic (and somewhat dogmatic) applicative duplication, to rooms being in the process of renovation.

S.E. Larsen 1 A semiotic meeting in the square 795

In the last type of rooms, one will find many contributors, such as Per Aage Brandt, refining the analysis of the modalities as sketched by Greimas in his later writings; Klaus Heger with a paper on semantic acceptability; Marina Sbisa on actions and their implications in language; Sorin Alexandrescu on theatrical actants; or Francoise Bastide on the narrative hero.

More traditional inhabitants, crowding in the already well equipped quarters, are, among others, Joseph Court&s with a voluminous article on the semiotics of ‘sin’, and Frederic Nef with an excellent analysis of the semantic levels and shifts in a short story by Maupassant. Also Jacques Fontanille, Diana Luz Pessoa de Barros, Peter Haidu, or Daniel Patte could be mentioned here, together with most of the authors of chs. 5 and 6, containing textual analyses from philosophy, literature, religion, or mythology. The range of these articles may be indicated by taking, e.g., Louis Panier as a dogmatic extreme, and Tomas Pave1 or Wladimir Krysinski as his more open and more eclectic coun- terpoint. This huge group of articles provides the reader with extensive informa- tion about the analytical details of Greimasian theory.

In another building in the north-east corner of the square, next to the first men- tioned one and connected to it with a corridor, we find a large group of authors who are (more or less radically) engaged in a ‘transformation’ of Greimas’ theory (S2). They do so in different ways: either taking up new types of texts or domains of objects to be analyzed, or busying themselves with integrating other theories into the Greimasian framework, with a view to possibly transforming this framework itself. With the title of Eric Landowski’s paper on semiotic self-criticism ringing in my ears, I find this part of the book very stimulating.

Contributions exemplifying the integration of new domains are the ones by e.g. Roger Odin (film), Eero Tarasti (music), Manar Hammad (architecture), Jean-Marie Floch (music and painting), Hermis Campodonico (ethnology), and Lubomir Doleiel (possible worlds). The problem of theoretical interaction is dealt with specifically by Norma Tasca, Claude Chabrol, Michel Arrive, and Ivan Darrault (psychoanalysis); such aspects can be found also in the papers analyzing non-verbal media.

Of special interest in this connection are two articles: Denis Bertrand’s remarks on stylistics as an empirical feature of the textual surface, a neglected aspect in Greimasian theory; the author emphasizes the need for a concept of indexicality. The other one is Jean Petitot’s excellent paper on ‘imaginarity’, which touches the very ground of the theory in reflecting on the process of ‘conversion’ from non-meaning to semantic meaning.

This group of articles (S2), together with the first one (Sl), constitutes the ‘development’ of Greimasian theory. The main problems of this development are mentioned in the editor’s introduction, but before I take up these problems and discuss their possible solution, I shall turn my eye to a more quiet corner of Semiotic Square, where a small group of persons express ‘compatibility’ (non-S2) with the Greimasian conceptualization without using it directly, being placed only implicitly inside it.

796 S.E. Larsen / A semiotic meeting in the square

Authors like Roland Posner on syntax, Jerzy Pelt on conditionality, Claude Zilberberg on predicates treat Greimas-like problems in their own fashion, while others such as Italo Calvino, Paul Zumthor, S. Alcoba, and Jose-Manuel Perez-Tornero only have a loose connection to the goings-on in the square. Together with Sl, this group (non-S2) forms a theoretical ‘integration’.

But now I turn to the last corner of the square, labeled ‘refutation’ (non-Sl). This is where the rebels gather. Respecting the Festschrift genre, they do not provoke any riots or cause really serious trouble, but still, they discuss the weak spots in the foundation of the Greimasian house, indicating (without being completely explicit about it) that not all such weaknesses can be remedied. Some of the articles belonging to S2, ‘transformation’, also point to this more troublesome corner of the square.

As already mentioned, the introduction to the Festschrift suggests that the open questions in Greimasian theory derive from the challenge produced by its confrontation with the pragmatic aspects of meaning and meaning production. Together with the ‘intersubjectivity’ of meaning, five items calling for further reflexion are listed as a result of this confrontation, viz. ‘subjectivity’, ‘rational- ity’, ‘intentionality’, ‘modality’, and ‘deixis’.

It is clear that Greimas’ theory from the outset is a paradigmatic theory of meaning, based on the Hjelmslevian interpretation of Saussure’s general lin- guistic doctrine. It is equally clear that from this ‘starting point, Greimas has tried in different ways to develop concepts to cope also with the dynamic or processual aspects of meaning production - the focus on concepts like ‘action’, ‘modality’, ‘subject’, ‘discourse’ bears witness to this change. The basic question is whether the attempts to move a paradigmatic theory by means of a discussion of the dynamic processes of meaning production, and consequently also of the subject of this process and of the problem of reference, can be integrated in a formal paradigmatic structure or will change the paradigmatic fundamentals.

In fact, many articles treat phenomena such as ‘discourse’ or ‘modality’, but as far as I can see, these dynamic aspects do not go beyond a paradigmatic perspective, because they conclude in a paradigm or typology of modality types or of discursive segments and stages. In an astute study, Bernard Pottier points to the fact that the semantic aspects of ‘devenir’ are overlooked in Greimas’ and Court& Dictionnaire.

In Georges Kalinowki’s apology for a realistic semiotics, and in Umberto Eco’s and Patrizia Magli’s discussion of the difference between dictionary and encyclopedia, we become aware of the basic weaknesses of a formal foundation of a semantic theory, and so we are - implicity - invited to cast a critical glance on the Hjelmslevian theory behind Greimas. For instance, the type of problems dealt with in Jean Petitot’s paper cannot be discussed in the framework of Hjelmslev’s theory.

While these problems are openly debated, one cannot, and ought not, expect that such analyses are carried to final conclusions in a Festschrift. The question

S.E. Larsen 1 A semiotic meeting in the square 791

is still left open, whether or not the formal paradigmatic character of Greimas’ theory puts an absolute limit to the further development of the theory.

But even within the limits of a Festschrift, a few more problems could have been discussed. The article by Jean-Marie Floch, and especially the one by Edovardo Peiiuela Cafiizal, invite to a further discussion of the possible transfer of Greimas’ theory from verbal semantic structures to non-verbal phenomena. This points back to Hjelmslev’s notion of sign, presupposing formal identity between content level and expression level, and to the importance of a specific analysis of the structure of the expression level of the given sign system (cf. Denis Bertrand’s analysis of style).

Furthermore, and especially in the perspective of Jean Petitot’s paper, the phenomenological implications of Greimas’ notion of ‘le monde du sens com- mun’ and ‘le monde naturel’ could have been developed, lending another per- spective to the problem of reference than can be given from the point of view of glossematics.

I also regret the lack of discussion with other semiotic theories. Charles S. Peirce is mentioned (by the editors, by Felix Thiirleman and by Garry Philips) but - to put it mildly - not in an adequate way. Other interpretations of Saussure than the Saussure-Hjelmslev tradition could have been indicated; I am thinking of the hermeneutically and phenomenologically inspired reinterpreta- tion by e.g. Ludwig Jager and Achim Eschbach, which points to the pragmatic aspects implied in the Saussure manuscripts.

If we combine the last position on Semiotic Square, non-Sl, with S2, these two constitute possible alternatives to Greimas’ theory, whereas a connection between non-S2 and non-S1 indicates the limits of the theory -what is compat- ible with the theory contains those elements from the outside which can be absorbed by the theory; what refutes the theory marks the borderline between the inside and the outside of the square.

It may seem unfair to some readers that I finish this report from my visit to Semiotic Square in the corner of ‘refutation’. But I think it is fair to the editors and to Greimas to claim that a Festschrift which wants to discuss more than admire, or rather: prefers to admire by discussing, has to be looked upon from the point of view of the questions it raises.

It seems as if the editors themselves had planned that this should in fact be the raison d’&tre of the Festschrift; in Georges Kalinowski’s words: “Les initia- teurs des presents melanges nous ont invite a parler de l’avenir de la stmiotique et de ce qu’il convient d’exiger d’elle” (p. 25). While this invitation is not expressly quoted by the editors, I think they should have provided the quote themselves, just as they ought to have supervised the proofreading in a more thorough way and to have furnished an index to the volumes.

Even so, for those interested in semiotics, this Festschrift in honor of one of the most influential theoreticians in the modern history of semiotics is a must, despite the horrendous price.