Michel Pêcheux: entre o óbvio e o nome complexo

Este estudo tem o objetivo de tecer um conjunto de considerações acerca de partes iniciais da obra Semântica e Discurso: uma crítica à afirmação do óbvio, do autor Michel Pêcheux, considerado o fundador da Análise de Discurso de linha francesa. Dentre todas as questões que são tematizadas sobre Pêcheux por aqueles que o estudam e o tomam como fundamento teórico, as duas de que trato1 neste trabalho parecem não ter sido fonte de reflexão ou de maior problematização. Elas se referem ao lugar (não lugar ou fora de lugar) da Semântica, que afirmaria o óbvio, e à escolha das orações adjetivas como problema “linguístico” para a constituição/demonstração da Teoria do Discurso. Busco refletir sobre como estas duas questões entram nas reflexões de Pêcheux e tento, com isso, contribuir de alguma forma com o leitor que pode ter algum auxílio para a leitura da obra citada

Biosemiotics, politics and Th.A. Sebeok’s move from linguistics to semiotics

This paper will focus on the political implications for the language sciences of Sebeok’s move from linguistics to a global semiotic perspective, a move that ultimately resulted in biosemiotics. The paper will seek to make more explicit the political bearing of a biosemiotic perspective in the language sciences and the human sciences in general. In particular, it will discuss the definition of language inherent in Sebeok’s project and the fundamental re-drawing of the grounds of linguistic debate heralded by Sebeok’s embrace of the concept of modelling. Thus far, the political co-ordinates of the biosemiotic project have not really been made explicit. This paper will therefore seek to outline 1. how biosemiotics enables us to reconfigure our understanding of the role of language in culture; 2. how exaptation is central to the evolution of language and communication, rather than adaptation; 3. how communication is the key issue in biosphere, rather than language, not just because communication includes language but because the language sciences often refer to language as if it were mere “chatter”, “tropes” and “figures of speech”; 4. how biosemiotics, despite its seeming “neutrality” arising from its transdisciplinarity, is thoroughly political; 5. how the failure to see the implications of the move from linguistics to semiotics arises from the fact that biosemiotics is devoid of old style politics, which is based on representation (devoid of experience) and “construction of [everything] in discourse” (which is grounded in linguistics, not communication study). In contrast to the post-“linguistic turn” idea that the world is “constructed in discourse”, we will argue that biosemiotics entails a reconfiguration of the polis and, in particular, offers the chance to completely reconceptualise ideology