The Force of Language: (Language, Discourse, Society)

The Flesh of Words: A Philosophy of Language puts forward a bold new critique of the mainstream philosophy of language, with the co-authorship of Denise Riley and Jean-Jacques Lecercle providing a fresh approach to the field. Riley's past work has suggested that modern convictions of a (supposedly) post-Saussurean bent are less adept at answering persistent questions as 'how does language express feeling?' Such questions are reworked in the chapters by Riley in a manner which recognises the inseparability of words and affect. The chapter 'Inner Speech' addresses questions which concern some operations of subliminal metaphoricity and their common but powerful effects: whether we speak language, or whether it speaks us, and how steering a middle term here may be more productive. Another chapter, 'Bad Words', discusses how verbal injury (or so-called 'hate speech') operates - what it is to be the bad speaker oneself, and how its effects may be countered. Lecercle's chapters use this as a framework for developing a philosophy of language which stresses naming, interpellation, wounding, disconnection, and the powerful impersonality of language. Lecercle examines the relation between language and psyche, the violence of language, and the question of inner speech, and gives a new critique of Chomsky - offering a new understanding of language as both historical and immediately political and collective.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; J-J.Lecercle PART ONE - D. Riley 'A Voice Without a Mouth': Inner Speech; D.Riley 'Bad Words': The Forensics of Spoken Injury; D.Riley PART TWO - J-J Lecercle Another Philosophy of Language; J-J.Lecercle The Concept of Language We Don't Need; J-J.Lecercle The Concept of Language We Do Need; J-J.Lecercle Index

About the Author :
DENISE RILEY teaches at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her most recent books are The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony and Selected Poems. JEAN-JACQUES LECERCLE is Professor of English in the University of Paris at Nanterre, France. He has published widely in the fields of philosophy of language and literary theory, and is the author of The Violence of Language, Philosophy of Nonsense, Interpretations of Pragmatics and Deleuze and Language.

Review :
'This is an absorbing and brilliant book, original in its form and far-reaching in its theoretical ambition. Writing in counter-point, Riley and Lecercle propose another philosophy of language, one that displaces the familiar but increasingly unproductive dichotomy between language as inner speech (subjectivity) and language as external system (langue). In erudite, witty, and cunning prose, the authors elegantly put flesh on the bones of the claim that language is a social praxis, specifically, a praxis of affect and force. The radical challenge their arguments present to the stale theoretical consensus on what language is will resonate through linguistics, the philosophy of language and cultural studies.' - Professor Ellen Rooney, Department of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, USA