Marc Angenot

Marc Angenot (1941) is a Professor Québécois of French Littérature to the Université McGill (Montreal) and holder of the pulpit James McGill of studies on the “social Speech”; it is also Théoricien of the literature, analyst of the speech and Historien of the Discours and the Idéologie S Politique S (XIXe and XXe century).

Born in 1941 with Brussels, Angenot supplements its higher learning with the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles of 1959 to 1967. Its thesis entitled Rhétorique of the Surréalisme (constant in 1967) fits in the current of the rédécouverte of the Rhétorique with work of Chaïm Perelman (ULB) and those of the “Groupe Driven” (Université of Liege).

Far from sticking to a formal or structuro-functionalist approach, Angenot questions the literary fact in its social dimension and counts among the first theorists of the approach known as “Sociocritique”. It would be however reducing to limit the searchs for Angenot to the Sociocritique since it describes more readily itself like an analyst of the social speeches. The sociodiscursive analysis which it practices tent to reconcile the projections of the rhetoric of the argumentation to a reading of the texts attentive with the Médiation S socio-histories and the phenomena of interdiscursivity.

Speech social and sociocritic

Following Claude Duchet, Pierre W. Zima, Jacques Leenhardt, Andre Belleau, Jacques Dubois or Régine Robin, Angenot contributed to the sociological approach of the texts inspired in particular by work of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the École of Frankfurt and, those, lately translated into French during the Seventies, of the famous Russian theorist of the literature Mikhaïl Bakhtine.

The originality of work of Angenot lies in its standpoint in favor of the concept of Discours at the profit of that, by too Structuraliste, of Texte. In this prospect which privileges the speech - i.e. the effective use of the Parole, in its sociological dimension and Dialogique implying “between-speakers” ( the word lampoonist , 1982) - with the detriment of only the " texte" who, following work of Gerard Genette or Tzvetan Todorov, considerably was déshistorisé and identified with a formal Structure where operate narrative and generic strategies without is not taken into account the fundamental sociality of any textual production.

It is in this context of exhaustion of the Texte, the Structuralisme and the “turning” Linguistique (Saussure) of the literary studies that Angenot proposes the concept of “social speech” ( 1889. A state of the social speech , 1989), a multi-field and interdiscursives research vast project which tries to reconstitute the total Contexte discursive in which emergent social speeches (of the literature " distinguée" with the conversations “caretakers”, without Esthetic hierarchy nor primacy ).

1889: A state of the social speech

For Angenot the social speech is " all that is said and is written in a state of société" , all that concerns the two forms of setting in speech, i.e. the Narration and the Argumentation (what is " narrable" and " opinable" at a given moment, in a company given). This seemingly cacophonous and disordered totality however reveals generic regularities and sets of themes; it also comprises repertories topics, " Gnoséologies " and of the " phraséologies" communes and Co-understandable.

This quasi archaeological approach of the social speeches fits in the wake of the theories of the verbal Interaction, the Dialogisme and the Sémiologie " idéologique" worked out by Bakhtine/Volochinov. In the same way, Angenot takes again to the not-orthodoxe Marxist Antonio Gramsci the concept d'" Hegemony " to make some, to some extent, the " moteur" social speech, i.e. a regulating core which organizes the " vast rumeur" social speeches.

In the theory of the social speech, hegemony has a topological role: it is according to this sociodiscursif engine that can appreciate the phenomena of " dominance" or of marginalisation, at the same time as the obsolescence of certain speeches or their persistence long-term. It will be pointed out in this respect the research program of Angenot consists - in first analysis - of a cut Synchronique (the year 1889). However this option at all does not prevent considerations of order Diachronique or an approach of the " memory discursive" whose texts carry the trace.

Methodological positioning

Included/understood like a company of décloisonnment disciplinary, the theory of the social speech can be regarded as a fertile Paradigme for the Analyze of the speech and the Cultural studies ; it is also about a new prospect for the sociological approaches for the Littérature, and even, in certain connections, for the Pragmatique. As the social speech must much in the former searches of Angenot on the Rhétorique and the argumentation, it is also about a research program compatible with the analysis of the speeches associated with the fields with the eloquence and the persuasive word. Indeed, the theory of the social speech proposes an approach of the " Probable " rhetoric on a scale much vaster than did it the traditional approaches of rhetoric. As should it be noted as the approach of Angenot prolongs the theory aristotelician of the topoï and of the opinable in their giving a detailed framework and effective inside a state of company.

Far from the restricted executives of the Ethnométhodologie, for example, or interactionnelle microphone-sociology, Angenot remains faithful to the tradition Hégéliano-Marxist in the sense that it privileges the analysis of the Totalité (concept that it includes in the wake of work of Gyorgy Lukacs and of Karl Mannheim). This is why he proposes to bring closer the sociodiscursive analysis to a “Pragmatique socio-history”, prospect which can be close to the extensive definition (and founder) of pragmatic as formulated by C.W. Morris (1938), which did not limit himself to a Linguistique of the use and word in act, but well with a vast psychosociological and cultural analysis of the Signe S.

Semiotic critical and rhetoric of the Lampoon

In Critique of the semiotic reason (1985) Angenot issued many reserves compared to the Sémiotique of obedience saussurienne and with the Méthodologie which generally prevails in Linguistique (“Scotomisation” of the sociality in the analysis, etc). With a semiotics too often founded on the linguistic model, Angenot proposes a critical semiotics attentive with the ideological configurations (in the wake of that proposed by Bakhtine in Marxisme and theory of the language ) and with the social Praxis (Bourdieu). The task of the semiotician such as Angenot conceives it is to establish a “Gnoséologie practices” where the facts semiotics are considered as being the products of a social Sémiosis where necessarily interfere of the phenomena of Idéologie, of Hégémonie and social stratification.

The Word lampoonist

In addition to contributing to the field of the sociocritic studies, Angenot is also regarded as one of the pioneers of the Rhétorique of the Pamphlet and, more largely, of the speech Polémique. It is that to which the recent publication to a collective entitled the word testifies polemizes (G. Declercq, Mr. Murat and J. Dangel, to dir., Paris, Champion, 2003) which wants to be a homage to Marc Angenot who had published in 1982 a reference book in the field: the word lampoonist .

This theoretical sum constitutes a vast company of discursive Typologie which clarifies the various argumentative strategies and figurales implemented during one century of lampoonist production (of Rochefort to Debord). With this later work and its work, Angenot dissociated the argumentative analysis of its canonical corpora (Littérature, Conversation, Publicité) to apply it in particular to the speech to the “superiority of the women” ( champions of the women , 1977), with the socialist and anarchistic speech with the turning of the XXe century ( socialist propaganda , 1996; Rhetoric of anti-socialism , 2005) and, finally, with the speeches of the Utopians, Anti-semites, Marxist Progressists and two centuries last ( the Utopia collectivist , a Jew will betray , the Marxism in the Great accounts )

Discursive history: “Great militant accounts”

Jointly with its research in socio-discursive analysis, Angenot also developed a related research field - “discursive history” - where it proposes to examine what it names, following Jean-François Lyotard, “Great accounts”. Far from the Postmodernisme and “crepuscularism” to which this concept remains often attached, Angenot speaks about “Great accounts” in the context of the Modernité. In fact, he prefers the expression of “Great militant accounts” (which succeed the Révolution historically and, therefore, with the democratization and the liberalization of the Europe at the XIXe century).

Consequently, it is a question for Angenot of questioning the speeches (Idéologies) which emergent of this new punctuated economic situation of Révolutions and social struggles. The “Grands accounts” are articulated around thinkers emblematic and ideologists such Auguste Count, Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Pierre Leroux, Proudhon, the Belgian Colins, Jules Guesde, Sorel, etc Angenot notes that these discursive Formations is characterized by complex argumentative diagrams and “cognitive cuts” which, generally, prohibit any form of Dialog and lead to “dialogs of the deaf” (such is the case between Socialists and anarchists with the turning of the century).

Resentment and idea of progress

Today, if the exhaustion of the " is noted; large récits" , one observes also the emergence of " microphone-récits" identity, nationalist or Community. These speeches are conveyed by bunches which often tend to be folded up on themselves and with “réifier” in Idéologie or, more precisely, in “ideology of the Ressentiment”, to take again the expression of Angenot.

If these " Large récits" remained dependant on the idea of Progrès and a “principle hope ( das Prinzip Hoffnung )” (Ernst Bloch), but this confidence in the future dissipated themselves and was beaten in breach by holding of the Postmodernisme. Whereas “the idea of progress” ( breaks up From which come? Where let us go? , 2001) and that émiette logic progressist, the inflation of the claims identity, cultural, local, microphone-contextual, etc, according to Angenot, must lead us to rest the famous question: “That to make? ”.

In a world where " microphone-récits" and the answers all-make do not amount more, it is with this question, seems it, that returns last work of Angenot. And the challenge is not to answer it; the experiment of the “Great accounts” too often showed the inadequacy of the answers and the drifts practical which they caused; it is only a question of finding the conditions which allow, at least, of posing it all while maintaining “a glance sober”.

Publications

  • Champions of the Women. Examination of the speech on the superiority of the women , 1400-1800. Montreal: Presses of the University of Quebec, 1977,194 p.
  • the Word lampoonist. Contribution to the typology of the modern discourses . Paris, Payot, 1982,416 p. (Price Biguet 1983 of the French Academy).
  • Critical of the semiotic reason. Fragment with pine up . Montreal: Presses of the University of Montreal, 1985,134 p. with Traduit into American: Critical off Semiotic Reason . With year Introduction by Marie-Christine Leps. Translated from French by F. Hakes. Edited by Raymond Morris. New York, Toronto & Ottawa: Legas, 1994. 130 p. (Collection “Language, Media, and Education Studies”, # 2).
  • what one says of the Jews in 1889 . review and increased. Preface Madeleine Rebérioux. Paris, Presses of the University of Vincennes, 1989,192 p. (Collection “Culture and Company”).
  • the Vintage and faisandé: sex, social speech and literature at the Beautiful Time . Brussels: Labor, 1986,202 p. (Collection “Files of the future”).
  • Thousand eight hundred quatre-vingt-neuf: a state of the social speech . Montreal/Longueuil: Editions of the Preamble, 1989,1.176 p. (Collection “Universe of the speeches”)
  • the Centenary of the Revolution . Paris: French Documentation, 1989, XVI boards inset plates & 64 p. (Collection “Media and the Event”)
  • Topography of French socialism, 1889-1890 . Montreal: Social speech, 1990. 210 p. (Collection “social Speech: Monographs”) with the Second pulling, re-examined and corrected: Social speech, 1991. 284 p.
  • the poetic Work of the Soap of Congo . Paris: Editions of Ashes, 1992. 76 p.
  • the Utopia collectivist. The Great socialist account under the Second International . Paris: University presses of France, 1993. 400 p
  • socialist Propaganda: six tests of analysis of the speech . Montreal: Balzac editions, 1996. 365 pp.
  • " A Jew trahira" : military espionage in antisemitic propaganda 1884-1894 . Montreal: CIADEST, 1994. (Book of research project XVIII), 132 pp.
  • ideologies of the resentment . Test. Montreal: XYZ Editor, 1996. 179 pp. (Price “Spiral” of the Test 1996).
  • Critic with the service of the revolution . Montreal: Ciadest, 1996. 394 pp. (Collection “Books of research”, XX).
  • the democracy it is the evil , Quebec, Presses of the Laval University, 2003.
  • Antimilitarisme, ideology and Utopia , Quebec, Presses of the Laval University, 2003.
  • Rhétorique of anti-socialism , Quebec, Presses of the Laval University, 2004.
  • the Marxism in the Great accounts , Paris-Quebec, the Harmattan-SWEATER, 2005.

Distinctions

Internal bonds

External bonds

- For the best seen many publications and research of Marc Angenot, one will consult with profit his Internet site:

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