The Powers of Speech, Jean-Luc Nativelle
Introduction: What justifies questioning the Power of Words, particularly today, is perhaps that we are overwhelmed by words. Modern communication tools allow all of us, at any time, to express ourselves on anything and everything, and to say anything at all. If, in our time, it is more important to have something to say than to have something to say, it is undoubtedly urgent to return to the power of words to create the world around us and to build the human being within us. This requires questioning the very meaning of language for human beings, which is not simply to allow them to exchange words, but to nourish them with a vitality inherent to their humanity.
Outline:
I. Creating the World 15:04
II. Building the Human Being 31:49
III. Talking in the Post-Truth World
a - Horizontal Structure 54:52
b - Conspiracy Theories 1:01:50
c - Populism 1:06:31
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Illustrative Texts:
"Children learn what they can and cannot say, according to their language. The world they discover is already categorized by it, and signs are collectively organized by it. To this extent, language shapes representation. Each person pays less attention to what their language does not name."
Claude Hagège, The Man of Words, Gallimard coll. Folio Essays
"Each language corresponds to a reorganization, which can always be unique, of the data of experience (...). A language is a prism through which its users are condemned to see the world; and... our vision of the world is therefore determined, even predetermined, in the language we speak."
Georges Mounin, Keys to Linguistics, Seghers
"Language only begins to emerge on the basis of a set of designating behaviors, which presupposes a specific biological maturation, and is established not through a direct encounter between the child and the thing being designated, but rather through a dual affective connection to the thing and to the person of attachment. And it is in this way that the thing can become the 'object' of designation; the subject of a vocalization that regularly accompanies pointing. Neurological and ethological prerequisites are necessary for access to language to be opened, but affective prerequisites are also required! The behavioral system that 'supports' speech and brings it about presupposes the presence around the child of some other being to whom to speak, for whom to speak; one's own speech must be answered by another's."
Boris Cyrulnik, The Birth of Meaning, Hachette coll. Plural
"Man, capable of speech, is thus endowed with a prophetic dignity. Faced with an uncertain future, speech formulates an anticipation; it traces, amidst the indecision of circumstances, the first outlines of what is to come. In his personal universe, man intervenes with a power of creative initiative. The man who gives his word speaks for himself, and announces himself, according to the meaning he has chosen, mobilizing all his resources to bring about a reality commensurate with his existence. From this moment on, by virtue of the word once spoken, something has begun to be that did not exist before. Speech changes the nature of the situation; it is the pledge and the commitment, the signing of a contract that may appear to be an alienation of freedom, but which, in fact, consecrates man's accession to a new freedom through the virtue of obedience."
Georges Gusdorf, The Word, PUF coll. Quadrige
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