Semiotics and the Ecole de Paris: a brief history

In 1985, when speaking about the development of semiotic theory, Greimas said: 'My theoretical genius, if I can so call it, was a form of "bricolage". I took a little Levi-Strauss and added some Propp ...' He also said that as a linguist, he was more inspired by Dumezil and Levi- Strauss than by other linguists, 'with the exception of Saussure and Hjelmslev of course'.¹

It all started at the beginning of the twentieth century with the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who was the first to apply scientific theory to the study of language and to relate this science to social psychology. It was he who introduced the term semiologie, which he defined as forming a link between linguistics and psychology. Saussure viewed language as a social phenomenon. His great contribution to its study was the discovery that meaning does not reside in individual words but in a complex system of relationships or structures. His motto was: 'II n'y a de sens que dans la difference.' He pointed out that language structures could be explored by describing them in their current form (synchronically) or historically (diachronically). Saussure is perhaps best known for having divided the phenomenon of language into langue (abstract language system, language as structured system of signs) and parole (the individual utterances, or speech, making use of the abstract system). In his study of language, however, Saussure went even further. He applied the structure principle to the individual sign or word. The linguistic sign, according to him, is characterized by the relationship of its two components: the 'sound-image' or material substance which he named signi/iant (signifier) and its 'concept' or sigm/ie (signified).

If Saussure and his revolutionary findings² paved the way for structuralism and semiotics, the same can be said for the Dane Louis Hjelmslev and the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. Even without any immediate link to the Swiss linguist, Hjelmslev's theoretical approach was very close to that of Saussure, whose work he can be said to have continued. In his Prolegomena to a Theory of language (1943) he formalized language, dividing the phenomenon into 'system' and 'process'. Hjelmslev also refined the Saussurian definition of the two aspects of the language-sign by recognizing two fundamental levels or planes of language, one of 'expression' and one of 'content'. Each one of these, he believed, was possessed of a 'substance' and a 'form'. Hjelmslev's contribution to linguistics included his theory of the semiotic function which he defined as existing between the twin aspects of the signifying act - between signifier and signified (according to Saussure) or between expression and content (according to Hjelmslev). Finally, Hjelmslev extended his semiological studies to incorporate non-verbal language systems such as traffic lights or the chimes of Big Ben.

Like Hjelmslev, the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss found a new territory to which he applied a linguistic-structuralist approach. Levi- Strauss set out to identify the constituent parts of cultural behaviour, which he studied as if it were a language phenomenon. Searching for the semantic structure (the 'language system' or langue) that underpins culture, his concern focused on 'myths'. He analysed myths from different cultures and discovered a number of recurrent elements — which he called 'mythemes' (as compared to 'phonemes' or 'morphemes' in linguistics) - and functions that seemed to operate like the components of universal signifying structures.³

At the same time an earlier study by the Russian folklorist VladimirPropp appeared in English translation.⁴ Close analysis of one hundred fairy-tales had led him to establish an analogy between language structure and the organization of narrative. He identified thirty-one functions or fundamental components that formed the basis of any tale. A function in this sense is a unit of the 'narrative language', such as 'a difficult task is proposed to the hero' (25) or 'the villain is punished (30). The thirty-one functions, moreover, were distributed amongst seven spheres of action such as (1) villain, (2) donor, (3) helper, and so on. The narrative taxonomy developed by Propp, as well as his model, is still held to be valid by researchers today. Such was the groundbase that inspired Greimas to compose the founding work of what was to become semiotics: Semantique structural (Paris: Larousse, 1966). This seminal text contained the axiomatic base of a scientific theory, anticipated hypotheses for subsequent research and provided samples of semiotic practice, demonstrating its value as a tool for discovery. Nonetheless, this 'ouvrage fondateur' was only the beginning. It marked the starting point of a scientific project which is still today in the process of developing. Over many years, Greimas and a group of researchers dedicated themselves in weekly meetings to elaborating, testing, changing and refining a theory of signification. The meetings took place at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, to which Greimas had been appointed. It was there that the Paris School of Semiotics originated.

The development of semiotic theory took place in several phases. The first stage focused, within the context of structuralist thought, on the problematics of semantics as demonstrated by the very title of Greimas's Semantique structurale. Saussure's notion of meaning resulting from relationships had inspired Greimas to analyse and define specific kinds of difference. He first identified the distinctive traits of oppositions in the event producing a typology. Oppositive properties were then categorized to be used as working concepts in the elaboration of a rudimentary signifying structure. At the same time, the encounter with Propp's work encouraged Greimas to apply linguistic models to narrative. In an attempt to formulate better the elements of narrativity, he discovered that what Propp had called 'function' was in fact a verb plus actants, in other words, a complete sentence. He also found that it was possible to reduce Propp's seven spheres of action to three pairs of binary opposition (subject/object; sender/receiver; helper/opponent) that would describe any narrative structure. 

The theoretical advances made during this first stage of development concerned two apparently heterogeneous areas: on the one hand the search for an elementary structure of meaning comprising the logical classification of paradigmatic differences; and on the other, formulating a theory of narrativity which streamlined Propp's syntagmatic model into the components of a narrative grammar. During the second phase of semiotic research, in the 1970s, attempts were made to find a synthesis between these different fields in order to define a consistent general theory of the generation of meaning.

Concentrating on the surface structures of narrative, semioticians discovered that function, as represented by an action verb, was overdetermined by modalities: two virtualizing (wanting, having to) and two actualizing (knowing how to, being able to). When this discovery was pushed to its extremes, it emerged that the entire narrative grammar was in fact composed merely of modalities plus content, that is, semantics. This allowed for powerful models to be constructed. Moreover, these models could also be applied to social practices, behaviour patterns, etc. Narrativity was no longer seen to be the exclusive property of written texts. From now on it was perceived as underlying all discourse and accounting for the organization of the world.

Research during this period also showed that Propp's formula of the tale could be broken down into important sequences which together reflected the stages of all human action. The sequences - manipulation, action, sanction - were condensed into what came to be known as the canonical narrative schema. This was found to be applicable not only to stories but to a great variety of texts (legal, culinary, journalistic, etc.) and, in the end, to something as basic as man's quest for the meaning of life.

While work on the surface level of narrative structures progressed, essential findings on the abstract or deep level of signification yielded the link needed to perfect semiotic theory. Greimas proposed a visual representation of the elementary structure of meaning: the semiotic square. This is the logical expression of any semantic category showing all possible relationships that define it, i.e. opposition, contradiction and implication. It was discovered, however, that apart from illustrating opposing relationships, this square also portrays the operations they generate. In fact, it allows to retrace a process in progress or the trajectory of a subject performing acts of transformation. In other words: the semiotic square not only represents underlying categories of opposition but also gives account of surface structures of narrative syntax. At the end of the 1970s, all the semiotic findings of the previous two decades were published in an authoritative work by Greimas and Joseph Courtes: Semiotique, dictionnaire raisonne de la theorie du langage (Paris: Hachette, 1979).

The Dictionnaire appeared to be evidence of semiotic theory having consolidated: its working concepts were defined seemingly once and for all, its models ready to be applied. This was not so, however. Research continued. The major preoccupation during the years following the publication of the Dictionnaire concerned the discursive level of meaning. This level relates to the figurative and enunciative surface of an utterance which gives expression to, and is supported by, the underlying semio-narrative structures. During the 1980s and 1990s, efforts concentrated in particular on aspectualities, that is, the spatial, temporal and actorial organization of texts. Concern with aspectual problematics also lead to renewed investigation of systems of valuation. How does a being, an object, a time or a place assume value? And to whom? The last few semiotic seminars at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes were devoted to the study of Truth', 'Beauty', 'Good and Evil' and how these classic values function in language. It was discovered that the system of valuation for each one of them operated along different aspectual lines. Morality, for instance, seemed to fall within the categories of 'excess' and 'insufficiency', while the study of aesthetics revealed the aspects of being accomplished (perfect) or unaccomplished, unfinished (imperfect) as determining factors. This discovery was all the more important as the aspectual categories concerned were not oppositive or binary but gradual. It was not a question of 'either or' but of 'more or less'.

While the new findings added to semiotic knowledge, they also challenged earlier notions including the logical bases of the elementary structure of signification. In 1983, Greimas wrote an article, 'Le Savoir et le Croire: un seul univers cognitif, in which he presented for the first time a semiotic square based on gradual transformation and not on contradiction and oppositive stages.⁵ In 1986, the second volume of Semiotique, dictionnaire raisonne de la theorie du langage was published. It reflects both the large numbers of contributors now engaged in research and a science still in the process of being defined.

In his final years Greimas's semiotic concern focused on 'passions' and the thymic sphere. No longer describing passions in terms of modal structures, he and his colleagues now embarked on reinterpreting them in aspectual terms and specific discursive sequences. Simultaneously, attempts were made to define deep-level aspectualties which concern specific valorizations.

Greimas died in 1992. We have only given a very brief outline of his semiotic investigations, and of what in Paris is called basic semiotic theory. The work is by no means completed and research is still in progress. Future findings, however, or even changes if necessary, will not be able to alter the description of the scientific project Greimas set for himself and for us, that is, the study of semiotics, defined as a 'theorie de la signification. Son souci premier sera d'expliciter, sous forme d'une construction conceptuelle, les conditions de la saisie et de la production de sens [.. .].'⁶

1. Algirdas J. Greimas, 'On meaning1, New Literary History, 20 (1989), 539-50 (p. 541).

2. They are recorded in Saussure's Cours de linguistique gene'rale, which was put together from notes taken by his students of lectures delivered at the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911, and published posthumously in 1915.

3. See also Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologte structural (Paris: Plon, 1958).

4. Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958).

5. Greimas's article is reproduced in Du Sens II (Paris: Seuil, 1983), pp. 115-33.

6. 'the theory of signification. Its first concern shall be to elucidate, through conceptual construction, the conditions for the production and apprehension of meaning [...]', Dictionnaire (1979), p. 345.