Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 43, Issue 1, 2008

This study examines the relationship between grammaticised aspect (GA) and the information structure of events in discourse. The aim is to test the hypothesis about the influence of grammaticised aspect on event conceptualization processes. The data studied consist of narratives by speakers of Swedish (−GA) and speakers of Spanish (+GA). The segmentation, selection and perspectivation of events carried out by these groups were studied through audiovisual tests. Analyses of the narratives reveal cross-linguistic differences as to information structure: the speakers of Swedish prefer holistic event presentations and verbalize a high number of closed events, whereas the speakers of Spanish show a greater sensitivity towards the phasal structure of the events, manifested in a finer eventive resolution focusing on progressive aspect.

Humorous discourse overlays conventional discourse, providing both a humorous surface interpretation of reality, and a serious or standard underlying one. This paper attempts to show how humorous discourse in printed advertising usually produces a deviant understanding due to the fact that there is normally an incongruous sign or icon that distorts our vision of things. There is a transgression of common norms that transforms familiar things into weird and bizarre, creating a playful message. We distinguish various humorous procedures: irony, sarcasm, parody, pastiche, wit, absurdity, rarity and paradox. These procedures are categorized in three main functions: (a) amusement, when humor is seen as entertainment; (b) cynicism, when it is provocative; and (c) criticism, when it is understood as reproof. Humor must produce an unexpected, but pleasant, relationship with the recipient, who is always prompted to make firstly a common sense interpretation. In that way, recipient’s cooperation is necessary to obtain the humorous effect.

This article gives an account of the specificity of competing uses of pas and non (pas) in corrective sequences of the [Neg X (mais) Y] or [X (mais) Neg Y] types. With respect to the corresponding properties of negation markers, we show that there are, indeed, two clauses, even if they are averbal ones, in corrective sequences. And we also show that the choice of the marker is related to the syntactic and pragmatic relation between these two clauses: the use of pas marks an enunciative coordination, whereas non (pas), specialized in expressing contrast, marks an enunciative subordination. The use of the latter is more constrained as it underlines, in the sentence where it occurs, a conflicting link between the syntactic level and the enunciative organization.

Medieval French proverbs are often introduced by characteristic structures, which we study here from a polyphonic and semantic point of view. These evidential markers include a speech verb and concern the sources of the proverb, the person or entity to whom the information is attributed : l’en dit que ; li vilains dit an son respit que, etc.. However, the proverb is not necessarily introduced by a marker. The proverb as such has its origin in traditional wisdom and this feature is characteristic of its semantics. The utterance of a proverb always includes, in an explicit or implicit way, a marker such as on sait que, on dit que, voirs est que which is an integral part of the proverb. The actual presence of the marker only stresses an intrinsic property of the proverb: it mentions the multiple previous utterances of the same sentence, it refers to a consensual wisdom linked to a linguistic community.

This article will examine the uses of Paul Ricœur’s theory of narrative identity for the study of Simone de Beauvoir’s L’invitée (She Came to Stay) and will show that there are significant parallels between the two writers’ philosophical perspectives. The notion of identity is central both to Beauvoir’s novel and to Ricœur’s philosophy. As an existentialist, Beauvoir is inspired by a notion of identity based on action and practical experience rather than on any essentialist premise. Similarly, Ricœur’s philosophy is generally regarded as a “philosophy of human action”, an interpretation which foregrounds the importance of intersubjective interaction in his approach to self and identity. By means of a close reading of the main character’s identity crisis, with reference to Ricœur’s reflections, this article proposes to shed new light on the way in which the battle for selfhood is inextricably interwoven with the recognition of otherness in Beauvoir’s first novel.

The twins’ myth, whose origins go back to times immemorial, has always been a popular motif for fiction. It generally reflects the idea of “duality”, alienation and the search for Self and for the Other, which always end in an impasse. Self and for the Other, which always end in an impasse. With his novel Les Météores, portraying the twins Paul and Jean, Michel Tournier breaks away from this idea of “duality” and substitutes it with the idea of a “couple” through a mythic, metaphysical and symbolic approach whose outcome is sublimation. Initiation in a work of fiction by means of myths and symbols leads to something whose ethical dimension is realized by joining together difference and fraternity and by holding to the difference. It endeavours to carry out the transmutation of metaphysics in the work of fiction and the change from profane to sacred, from myth to the imaginary and to poetry.

The article analyses and discusses the concepts of symbol and allegory in relation to Jean Baruzi’s classic study of the poetry of St. John of the Cross, Saint John of the Cross and the Problem of Mystical Experience. These concepts have been accepted to greater or lesser degree by the majority of St. John of the Cross criticism. My reading attempts to trace the historical circumstances that conditioned Baruzi’s approach and argues for the need to reassess the reach and the pertinence of applying these aesthetic categories in the interpretation of 16th century mystical poetry, taking the conditions and unique specifics determined by the epoch and the parameters of the tradition of Christian mysticism as interpretive horizon.

This article pursues a series of studies on French expressions commonly called “prepositional locutions” whose dual goal is, first, the treatment of their lexical status and, second, the possibilities of anaphorisation by a simple suppression of their complement, operation often attributed to the procedure of ellipsis. These studies have concentrated each on the analysis of a specific semantic class of prepositional locutions: spatial, temporal and notional (more precisely, final, causal and consecutive) expressions (cf. Adler, 2006, to appear a, b). The present paper constitutes an additional stage in the puzzle already rather advanced of the analysis of the prepositional locutions, and covers other semantic subclasses: concession, opposition, addition and destination.