Cover not available
Part of
Style, Rhetoric and Creativity in Language: In memory of Walter (Bill) Nash (1926-2015)
Edited by Paul Simpson
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 34] 2019
► pp. 127–148

Chapter 8
Fact, fiction and French flights of fancy

| University of Trier

This chapter discusses a satirical novel: La septième fonction du langage by Laurent Binet, published in 2015. The book is a thriller with a deliberately absurd plot about a search for a lost manuscript which holds the secret of ultimate rhetorical power: the ability to convince anyone to do anything. Although the characters in the novel include some “real people”, such as two former Presidents of France, Stubbs argues that Binet’s characters in general embody an extreme mix of factual and fictional characteristics, and the merciless satire expressed in their mixed ontological status has left many ordinary readers and professional critics uncertain how to evaluate the novel. Stubbs employs various models of analysis, including John Searle’s observations on the logical status of fictional discourse, and contends that, while useful, this approach does not explain in full how readers distinguish fact from fiction, nor indeed how far writers can appropriately go with outrageous caricatures of living persons. In sum, the chapter shows how the novel provides textual problems which have not been solved by either literary scholars or language philosophers.

Keywords: caricature, fictional worlds, French intellectuals, intertextual references, ordinary versus professional readers, parody, satire, semiotics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The plot: Spoiler alert!
  • 3.What is the book really (sic) about?
  • 4.The intertext
  • 5.The lists
  • 6.Factual worlds and fictional worlds
  • 7.What is this chapter really about?
  • 8.Searle: A pragmatic approach?
  • 9.Eco: A semantic approach?
  • 10.Searle and Eco (and Gabriel)
  • 11.Ordinary readers
  • 12.Professional critics
  • 13.On the ethical status of fictional discourse
  • 14.In lieu of a conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.34.10stu
References
Barthes, R.
1957 Mythologies. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
1967a The death of the author. Aspen Magazine, 5/6. [First published in English, then in French, Mantéia 5, 1968, and in Barthes 1984. Also in Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana. 142–48.]Google Scholar
1967b Le discours de l’histoire. Information sur les sciences sociales, VI, 4 (août 1967): 65–75. Also in Barthes 1984.Google Scholar
1970 L’empire des signes. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
1984 Le bruissement de la langue. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
1987 Incidents [ed F. Wahl]. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Binet, L.
2015 La septième fonction du langage. Paris: Grasset. [Le Livre de Poche, 2016. Translated as The Seventh Function of Language, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2017; Die siebte Sprachfunktion, Rowohlt, 2017.]Google Scholar
Eco, U.
1980 Il Nome della Rosa. Milano: Bompiani. [Translated as The Name of the Rose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.]Google Scholar
2001 Confessions of a Young Novelist. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP.Google Scholar
Eklund, M.
2015 Fictionalism. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. N. Zalta (ed). [[URL].]Google Scholar
Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M.
2002 The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gabriel, M.
2013 Warum es die Welt nicht gibt. Berlin: Ullstein. [Translated as Why the World does not Exist, Polity Press, 2015.]Google Scholar
Gavins, J.
2007 Text World Theory. An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genette, G.
1991 Fiction et diction. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
1997 Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, R.
1960 Closing statement: linguistics and poetics. In Style in Language, T. Sebeok (ed), 350–377. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kroon, F. & Voltolini, A.
2011 Fiction. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. N. Zalta (ed). [[URL].]Google Scholar
Lahey, E.
2014 Stylistics and text world theory. In The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, M. Burke (ed), 284–296. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Le Carré, J.
2016 The Pigeon Tunnel. London: Penguin (Viking).Google Scholar
Lodge, D.
1975 Changing Places. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Nash, W.
1982 Kettle of Roses. London: Arrow.Google Scholar
1985 The Language of Humour. London: Longman.Google Scholar
1992 Rhetoric: The Wit of Persuasion. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Paglia, C.
1991 Junk bonds and corporate raiders: academe in the hour of the wolf. Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 3rd series, 1(2): 139–212.Google Scholar
1993 Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays. London: Viking.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R.
1969 Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1976 The logical status of fictional discourse. New Literary History 12 6(2): 319–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 The Construction of Social Reality. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
2010 The Making of the Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sokal, A.
1996 Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. Social Text 46/47: 217–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanzel, F. K.
1984 A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Werth, P.
1999 Text Worlds. Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. K. & Beardsley, M. C.
1946 The intentional fallacy. Sewanee Review 54: 468–488.Google Scholar
Woods, J.
1974 The Logic of Fiction. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Statham, Simon
2020. The year’s work in stylistics 2019. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:4 ► pp. 454 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.