The text as linguistic structure

CM 5 : The text as linguistic structure

In literary texts, meaning is always multiple, and a text is always a palimpsest: different strata of meaning superimposed upon each other.

1. polysemy
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple meanings.
Those multiple meanings can be deliberately suggested by the writer, or can appear to the reader independently from the writer’s intention.

2. the syntagm and the paradigm
A text is produced by the interplay of these two axes: the Syntagm and the paradigm.
The syntagmatic axis and the paradigmatic axis are interlaced to produce meaning.

- The syntagm is the linear, horizontal, dimension of the text, i.e., the words combined with each other according to the rules of syntax.
The words function by contiguity, we have a succession of words: subject, verb, complement… and this combination produces meaning.

- The paradigm is the axis of selection. For when a writer chooses a word in preference to another, he chooses it from the vast reserve of words that constitutes language.

3. Énoncé / énonciation (sometimes in English “statement” / “utterance”, or “enunciated” / “enunciation”):
the text on the page is the visible side of the énoncé, but each énoncé only exists because of the act of enunciation which produces it.

Statement (énoncé) = a linguistic unit (a sentence, a phrase or clause, a text, a novel, or a short-story), i.e., the verbal result of the act of enunciation.

Enunciation: the act performed by a speaker, for it takes a speaker, a human originator, for any statement to exist (whether he is fictional or not).
There can be no énoncé without this act, performed by an enunciator.
Enunciation: a pragmatic reality (an énoncé is a discursive reality).