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Abstract Since the 1980s, with the development of epistemology (especially phenomenology) and semiotic methods (mainly modal theory), the semiotic analysis of passional discourse has become one of the main research focuses of the Paris School of Semiotics as represented by A. J. Greimas. The Semiotics of Passions, from States of Affairs to States of Feeling, co-authored by Greimas and his student, Jacques Fontanille, is the most important theoretical achievement of the semiotics of passions. One of the theoretical goals of the semiotics of passions is to establish the independent status of the passional dimension of discourse, namely, to explore the ways in which passional discourse is manifested in narrative texts and the mechanisms of its operation, and to provide a formalized method for scientific analysis.
Nicolas Ruwet translated Roman Jakobson’s concept of “shifter” into French as “embrayeur” (engager). Greimas further developed this concept into two independent yet mutually complementary narrative mechanisms, i. e., disengagement and engagement. In the research of the semiotics of passions, with these two mechanisms, Greimas analyzed the narrative transformation between host discourse and passional discourse. Drawing on the works of ?mile Benveniste on the subjectivity in language, the enunciation theory and especially the instance of discourse, this paper explores the theoretical connotation of Greimas’ concepts of disengagement and engagement, and the unfolding mechanism of the passional discourse in narrative texts and its narrative indices.
By definition，the core issue of the mechanism of engager lies in the relationship between the instance of enunciation（I-here-now） and the instance of utterance. Disengagement separates the instance of utterance from that of enunciation, and thus enables the utterance to express relatively independent relations between different meanings. Through engagement, on the other hand, the instance of utterance returns to that of enunciation, leading to the communication or even clash between two differentiated instances which unleashes the tension of the narrative.
In The Semiotics of Passions, Greimas provided descriptions of the passional discourse and the host discourse of narrative. The host discourse, which can be understood at the level of “historical utterance” defined by Benveniste, is the narrator's objective depiction of external realities such as location, character relationships, and temporal relations in which the narrative takes place. To create a seemingly real narrative atmosphere, the narrator has to conceal his or her own subjective instances. What separates the passional discourse from the host discourse is the presence/absence of the subjective instances (I-here-now). As for the passional discourse, the reason why passional simulacra can be free of the constrictions from the reality is that the passional imagination only depends on the will of the subject. Only when the passional simulacra shows features of passionate subjectivity can it be characterized as a kind of passion. Since the personal pronoun “I” and the present tense are the most direct signs of self-consciousness in language, they are also the most direct discourse indices of the passional discourse.
Through disengagement, the instances of the impassioned subject are separated from that of the effective subject, leaving room for passional imagination with subjective characteristics in the narrative discourse. This is how the passional discourse unfolds. Engagement allows the instances of the impassioned subject to return to that of the effective subject. Only when the meanings expressed by the two kinds of instances begin to dialogue and even conflict with each other can the tension of passionate narrative emerge. Basically speaking, the essence of engager is the connection and transformation mechanisms of narrative meanings. Therefore, the theoretical exploration of engager is also a probe into the methodology for analysis of the passional narrative structure.
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Published: 02 December 2022
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