The Genesis of Texts: Planning and Interior Language

Abstract: Based upon the observation of writers’ manuscripts, I set out to define the logic of textualization implemented during the writing process. I address in particular the question of the texts’ planning, as well as that of their progressive transformation within the restrictions of textual coherence which weigh upon the writer from the onset of translating. Moreover, I examine the interest of the notion of interior language for researches in the domains of genetic criticism and textual linguistics. I shall compare three approaches: the genetic approach of writers’ manuscripts, the modeling of written production according to cognitive psychology and the theory of language as explained by the Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotski. Studying the working documents of writers will allow us to understand the logic of textualization as it appears during the transformations of different language forms. We will note in particular that different stages of written production defined by cognitive psychology as conceptual planning, translating (textualization) and reviewing are intertwined and are ruled by a non-linear logic of production. We shall see that if translating occurs very early, even during the stage of planning, conversely the process of conceptualization is constantly present.