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Doxa and Persuasion in Lexis

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Abstract

This article takes a linguistic perspective of argumentation, as proposed by Marion Carel and Oswald Ducrot with the “Théorie des blocs sémantiques” (SBT: Semantic Block Theory). This theory argues that the meaning of a linguistic entity is determined by a collection of discourses that this entity calls to mind. Describing the meaning of a word, a syntagm or an utterance amounts to specifying the argumentative linkages (“enchaînements argumentatifs”) allowed by these entities. We propose a semantic and argumentative analysis of syntagms mujer fácil, femme facile [easy woman] and hombre fácil, homme facile [easy man] that, in Romance languages in particular, hold different meanings: both hombre fácil/homme facile describe a man’s character or nature, whereas mujer fácil/femme facile, in their most common usage, imply a certain sexual behavior. We will compare the argumentative linkages that make up the meaning of mujer fácil/femme facile with those of other expressions that are part of the same semantic block. Also, this analysis will connect the proposed description to certain proverbial discourse about women, and it will call attention to the role that these expressions can play in a persuasive strategy.

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Notes

  1. From now on I will only refer to these expressions in Spanish and French.

  2. Other equivalent connectors are: entonces, por esta razón, por ello, es por eso que, etc. (in Spanish); alors, pour cette raison, de ce fait, c'est pourquoi, etc. (in French); (so, for this reason, thus, that’s why). The same relationship of conclusion can be established between two segments without an explicit connector. Conditional propositions (si… entonces), (si…alors), (if… then) are also part of the normative group. It is also possible that the results precede the origin, in which case we can use connectors like: dado que, porque, ya que, puesto que (in Spanish), vu que, parce que, étant donné que, puisque (in French); (seeing that, because, given that, for as much as). Lastly, the same categories encompass both relationships of conclusion and of consequence.

  3. Connectors that also mark concession such as no obstante (que), aun cuando, incluso si (in Spanish); malgré (que), bien que, même si (in French); (despite, though, even if) can also be used.

  4. The SBT calls them “aspects”; each aspect is defined as a group of linkages (Ducrot 2001, p. 23).

  5. It is necessary to mention that, although mujer fácil/femme facile are common expressions (in both Spanish and in French), they don’t entirely correspond to idioms, according to the conditions analyzed by Gross (1996). This author refers to semantic opacity (the meaning of a nominal group cannot be deduced from the meaning of one of its elements: for example, an English key is a particular type of key, and independent from the place where it is fabricated); the "freezing" ("blocage") of transformational properties (passivation, pronominalization, detachment, extraction, relativization); the freezing of synonymical paradigms (a short circuit/*a brief-circuit); the non-insertion in a nominal group, of an adjective, a relative, an interpolated clause or intensifying adverbs in front of adjectives. In a sequence, there can be various degrees of "crystallization" ("figement").

  6. Person of the female gender.//She who has reached the age of puberty.//The wife, with respect to a husband.//Governess. Servant who has the task of administering a house.//of art, of unsettled life, [], of a bad life, […]. Whore//of her house. She who has the authority and the faculty to order and to act about things that are therein, and upholds with diligence and fairness her domain and her family.//easy. She who is known for her fragility.//mundane, lost or public. Whore.

  7. Rational animal. This acceptation includes the whole human race.//Male.//He who has attained adulthood or virility.//Familiar, husband […] With certain nouns accompanied by the preposition of, he who possess the qualities or the objects signified by these nouns. MAN of honor, of tenacity, of value. […]//of two hats [de ambas sillas]. Fig. He who is knowledgeable in multiple arts or dispositions. […]//of great authority [de armas tomar]. He who has the aptitude, the resolution or the capacity to do anything.//good. He who is honest and who duly fulfills his obligations […].

  8. Kerbrat-Orecchioni proposes a classification of adjectives that account for the point of view of the speaker. This analysis seeks to specify the nature of the evaluation that these adjectives express. According to this classification, easy would be an evaluative axiological adjective. The use of this type of adjective implies “a qualitative or quantitative evaluation of the object signified by the substantive that it determines, and of which the use is thereby based on a double standard: (1) inherent in the object support of the quality; (2) specific to each speaker –and it is in this way that they can be considered as ‘subjective’.” The use of the adjective easy is thus relative to the object that it qualifies, and also relative to the idea that the speaker has of the norm for evaluating the given category of objects. Due to the significant imprecision of adjectives like easy, the designation of a quality by the use of this word implies a certain stance that is largely subjective: it is not possible to establish a consensus about which objects are allowed to be qualified as easy. Likewise, these terms—in as much as having an axiological attribute– come with a value judgment of the object indicated by the noun. This allows them to be considered doubly subjective: not only because their use will vary as a function of each speaking subject, for whom the ideology will shine through; but also because they will show the speaker’s stance for or against the indicated object, which is to say he or she will give or take value from the object in question (1980, pp. 83–100).

  9. Syncategorematical words “denote properties that require that one mentions events or actions that are not explicitly expressed in their own definitions, or that the lexical nature of such nouns—in principle—does not provide”. Bosque gives the example of the evaluative adjective excelente (excellent), which the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE) defines as “que sobresale en bondad, mérito o estimación” (“that which excels in goodness, merit or esteem”). This definition does not account for sentences like Este cuchillo es excelente (This knife is excellent) (2000, pp. 264–265). Pustejovsky (1995) has developed an approach that accounts for this problem. This author finds that lexicon is generative. His model for lexical analysis is made up of four levels of semantic representations in which the structure of “qualia” that accounts for different modes of possible predication of a lexical entity. The “qualia” correspond to four essential aspects of the meaning of words: the constitutive aspect, which has to do with the relationship between an object and its proper parts; the formal aspect, which distinguishes the object within a larger domain; the telic aspect, that indicates the purpose and the function of the object; the agentive aspect that indicates factors involved in the origin of an object.

  10. “Interdependence based on the very fact of the argumentation: the intrinsic meaning of each element contains the indication that it is an argument for the other or conclusion of the other.” (Ducrot 2002, p. 127).

  11. As we will see later, in the extract taken from the love poem Marie-Madeleine ou le Salut, the adjective accessible of this linkage is also a part of the context in which Marguerite Yourcenar uses the syntagm femme facile.

  12. A humorous comedy that’s part of the plot of Pedro Almodovar’s film Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces).

  13. “After having screwed, he asked me if he could stay at my place for a few days… I told him that he could, but that I wouldn’t promise anything, I didn’t want him to think that I’m an easy woman”.

  14. This is not the case for the IA, as we will see further down: each of the four aspects that make up a semantic block corresponds to a different expression's IA (Ducrot 2001, p. 23).

  15. “It’s only later that I understood that for him I represented the worst corporal offense, the legitimate sin, approved by custom, so much more dangerous since it incurs no condemnation. He had chosen me, the most veiled of maidens, to court while secretly hoping not to succeed; I accounted for his distaste of readily available prey; sitting on the bed, I was nothing more now than an easy woman. His impotency gave us a stronger bond than sexual hunger, which is so often used to justify love: both of us wanted to yield to a will more forceful than ours, to give ourselves, to be taken: we would bear every conceivable pain to beget a new life.” (1994, Translated in collaboration with the author by Dori Kats, p. 66).

  16. The use of these expressions in Spanish is corroborated by both the CORDE and the CREA:

    "'Fue una mujer excepcional', explicó el primer secretario del Partido Socialista, Lionel Jospin, 'una mujer libre, apasionada, fuerte, exigente con la verdad y la autenticidad'."(Diario El País, 01/10/1985: "Fallece la actriz francesa Simone Signoret, un mito del cine europeo"). ("'She was an exceptional woman', explained the First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Lionel Jospin, 'a woman who was liberated, passionate, strong and demanding of truth and authenticity’.).

    “¡La mala conducta de los hijos es la pena que nos persigue hasta la tumba! ¡La alegría del corazón es la mujer sumisa para con el esposo!”(Traducción de las mil y una noches, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, 1916). ("The bad behavior of the children is sorrow that follows us to the grave! The submissive woman is the heart’s rejoice for a husband!”).

    "De mi madre joven, sólo sabría decir que era una mujer seria, tan comedida… tan contenida…, que parecía amargada." (Pago de traición, Marta Portal, 1983). (“About my young mother, standing alone, I can only say that she was a serious woman, so moderate… with so much self-restraint…, that she seemed full of bitterness”).

  17. “[…] the transgression indicated by this however that means this doesn’t prevent that” (Ducrot 2001, p. 26).

  18. In other words, “not only is it false, but it’s the direct opposite” (Carel and Ducrot 2005, p. 48).

  19. From other perspectives, authors like Putnam, Fradin and Anscombre distinguish between the meaning that governs the semantic function of terms in discourse and the referential function. For these authors, the notion of the stereotype also has to do with meaning and it is related to the common usage of language. “The stereotypical level appears as governing the function of language in as much as how individual speakers use it.” (Anscombre 2001, p. 58).

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Correspondence to Luisa Puig.

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Translated from French by Christopher Renna.

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Puig, L. Doxa and Persuasion in Lexis. Argumentation 26, 127–142 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-011-9239-2

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