Langage de l'ébauche : parole intérieure extériorisée

Abstract

This paper sets out the linguistically relevant features of a particular kind of writing, the outline, or ébauche as Zola calls it, which is not yet a text but which is supposed to prepare for it: this function implies many self-injunctions, evaluations, interrogations. The example that is being analysed, the outline of Zola's Bête humaine, suggests several explanatory hypotheses: an "externalised inner speech", an interlocution between a writing-I and a reading-I, and a speech act through which the "I" generates a program for a world about to be created through writing. The so-called "performative" hypothesis subsumes these three approaches. According to it, the outline is a performative act, giving a tangible form to an inner discourse, involving two agencies (the writer and the reader) mirroring the splitting of the subject. At the end of the paper, this analysis of the outline is extended to cover every kind of avant-texte.

The Study of Professional Writing

“…[...] It must be a pure crime of passion, if it is to be simple and powerful. A woman gets her lover to kill her husband [...] – unless it’s the husband who kills the lover.” (for a linguistic analysis see Grésillon, 2002, p. 19). Again in the ébauche , the choice of the word “line” (as in railway line) activated a network of metaphors that was to form the framework of the entire novel.…”

5 Methodology: From speaking about writing to tracking text production

“…Flaubert's correspondence provides variegated information about the emergence of his texts (e.g., Grésillon et al 1991). The drafts of Zola's novels are full of metalinguistic comments about what has been written so far and what still is to be written: "Tout cela me paraît bon" -"This seems all good to me"; "Quand il s'aperçoit que sa femme le trompe, il faut une scène d'une violence inouïe" -"When he realizes that his wife is unfaithful to him, it takes a scene of outrageous violence"; "Pourtant, cela est à régler, lorsque j'aurai tous les éléments" -"Nevertheless, this is to be put straight, when I have all the elements" (e.g., Grésillon 2002).…”

Writing(s) at the Crossroads

“…The drafts of Zola's novels are full of metalinguistic comments about what has been written so far and what still is to be written: "Tout cela me paraît bon" -"This seems all good to me"; "Quand il s'aperçoit que sa femme le trompe, il faut une scène d'une violence inouïe" -"When he realizes that his wife is unfaithful to him, it takes a scene of outrageous violence"; "Pourtant, cela est à régler, lorsque j'aurai tous les éléments" -"Nevertheless, this is to be put straight, when I have all the elements" (e.g. Grésillon 2002).…”