Michel Pêcheux (; 24 June 1938 – 15 January 1984) was a French linguist and philosopher. He is best known for his theoretical, experimental and practical contributions to the field of

discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative sy ...

, starting in the late 1960s.

Life and career

Born in

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

in 1938, Pêcheux studied philosophy at

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

(ENS) between 1959 and 1963, under the tutelage of

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser was a long-time member an ...

and

Georges Canguilhem Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular, philosophy of biology, biology). Life and work Canguilhem entered t ...

. In 1966, he started his research career in the department of

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

of the

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

. While at ENS, Pêcheux became involved with the journal

Cahiers pour l'Analyse ''Cahiers pour l'Analyse'' was a magazine published in Paris in the 1960s. Ten issues appeared between 1966 and 1969. It was "guided by the examples of Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser". Edited by a small group of Althusser ...

, where he began developing a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

approach to discourse analysis. In all of his contributions to the Cahiers, Pêcheux used the pseudonym "Thomas Herbert". Pêcheux committed suicide on 15 January 1984 in

Champigny-sur-Marne Champigny-sur-Marne (, literally ''Champigny on Marne'') is a major city in the region of Île-de-France, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Name Champigny-sur-Marne was originally called simply Champigny. The name Champigny ultim ...

, at the age of 45. At the time of his death, he was serving as a professor at the University of Paris 7.

Contributions to discourse analysis

Pêcheux is the founder of French

in which he combined concepts from

historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

, inspired by

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...

and

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...

. Between the 1960s and 1970s, Pêcheux worked with a group of researchers to theorize what he called "materiality" of discourse, giving continuity to the theoretical work of Althusser in the field of linguistics, but also, at the same time, challenging the proposal for discourse analysis of Zelig Harris. In his proposal for discourse analysis, Pêcheux conceptualized discourse as a " materiality (at once, historical and linguistic) that is informed by

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

. Pêcheux's work on discourse analysis had impact outside France after the 1980s, becoming an influential approach to language studies in Brazil, where his writings were translated into Portuguese by Eni Orlandi, a linguist from Brazil who continued his work and advanced discourse analysis in the country. The subject is part of the study of linguistics in various research institutions in Brazil, such as

UNICAMP The University of Campinas (), commonly called Unicamp, is a public research university in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Brazil. Established in 1962, Unicamp was designed from scratch as an integrated Research institute, researc ...

, UFRGS, and

Fluminense Federal University The Fluminense Federal University (, UFF, named after the state's demonym) is a Brazilian public higher education institution located mainly in Niterói and in other cities of Rio de Janeiro state. It was first established on December 18, 1960, ...

Selected bibliography

In French

* ''Analyse automatique du discours''. Paris, Dunod (1969) * ''Les vérités de la Palice''. Paris, Maspero (1975) * ''La langue introuvable''. Paris, Maspero (1981) with Françoise Gadet

Translated to English

* "Discourse: Structure or Event?", trans. Warren Montag, with Marie-Germaine Pêcheux and Denise Guback. In ''Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture'', eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana and Chicago:

University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...

, 1988, pp. 633–650. * "Ideology: Fortress or Paradoxical Space?". In ''Rethinking Ideology: A Marxist Debate'', eds. Sakari Hanninen and Leena Paldan. New York: International General/IMMRC, 1983.

References

1938 births 1984 deaths French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French philosophers 20th-century French male writers {{France-philosopher-stub