Argumentation (2012) 26:127142 DOI 10.

1007/s10503-011-9239-2

Doxa and Persuasion in Lexis

Luisa Puig

Published online: 8 October 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This article takes a linguistic perspective of argumentation, as proposed by Marion Carel and Oswald Ducrot with the Theorie des blocs semantiques (SBT: Semantic Block Theory). This theory argues that the meaning of a linguistic entity is determined by a collection of discourses that this entity calls to mind. Describing the meaning of a word, a syntagm or an utterance amounts to specifying the argumentative linkages (enchanements argumentatifs) allowed by these cil, entities. We propose a semantic and argumentative analysis of syntagms mujer fa cil, homme facile [easy man] that, in femme facile [easy woman] and hombre fa cil/ Romance languages in particular, hold different meanings: both hombre fa cil/femme homme facile describe a mans character or nature, whereas mujer fa facile, in their most common usage, imply a certain sexual behavior. We will cil/femme compare the argumentative linkages that make up the meaning of mujer fa facile with those of other expressions that are part of the same semantic block. Also, this analysis will connect the proposed description to certain proverbial discourse about women, and it will call attention to the role that these expressions can play in a persuasive strategy. Keywords Argumentation Linguistics Semantic block Stereotype Persuasion

This work assumes a distinction between two senses of argumentation: one in a traditional sense and one taken from a linguistic perspective. These senses correspond to two approaches to argumentation that are rather different, but that can
Translated from French by Christopher Renna. L. Puig (&) Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: puig@unam.mx

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nevertheless be interrelated when dealing with the persuasive strategy shown in speech. The framework for this analysis comes primarily from the Theorie des blocs semantiques (SBT: Semantic Block Theory), which was created by Marion Carel and developed by both this author and Oswald Ducrot. The goal of this paper is to cil/femme propose a semantic and argumentative description for the syntagms mujer fa cil/homme facile [easy man].1 These descriptions facile [easy woman] and hombre fa must account for the different meanings of these expressions, particularly in Spanish and French. This issue will be dealt with in accordance to the non-referentialist postulates that stipulate: the semantic and referential functions of words and discourse are independent (Anscombre and Kleiber 2001, p. 14).

1 Linguistic Argumentation The SBT is built upon the notion of value, as developed by Saussure. A linguistic entitys meaning (be it a word, a syntagm, or an utterance) is determined by its relationship with other words, the role it plays in a discourse, the effect that it exercises upon the possible discursive continuations, the collection of discourses that it evokes (Ducrot 2004, pp. 364365). From this linguistic perspective, the term argumentation concerns the linkage between utterances. And, in order to determine which argumentative discourses are evoked by given linguistic entities, it is necessary to target certain relationships among the innite variety of possible linkages between two utterances. For the SBT, this decision stems from the postulate that the linguistic notion of argumentation must be differentiated from the logical concept of inference. As Ducrot writes, the discourses nature does not match the nature of the logical thought (1999, pp. 118119). In the case of an inference, the argument and the conclusion are independent propositions that may be intrinsically true or false. Inferences also lead to the admissionor at least the estimation of it as a probableof a conclusion because of the truth expressed by the argument. The difference between the nature of the discourse and that of the logical thought is evident with two types of argumentative linkages that are particularly favored by the SBT: normative linkages that use connectors like por lo tanto (PLT), donc (DC) (therefore)2 and transgressive linkages that contain connectors like sin embargo (SE), pourtant (PT) (however).3
1 2

From now on I will only refer to these expressions in Spanish and French.

n, Other equivalent connectors are: entonces, por esta razo por ello, es por eso que, etc. (in Spanish); alors, pour cette raison, de ce fait, cest pourquoi, etc. (in French); (so, for this reason, thus, thats why). The same relationship of conclusion can be established between two segments without an explicit connector. Conditional propositions (si entonces), (sialors), (if then) are also part of the normative group. It is also possible that the results precede the origin, in which case we can use connectors like: tant donne que, puisque (in dado que, porque, ya que, puesto que (in Spanish), vu que, parce que, e French); (seeing that, because, given that, for as much as). Lastly, the same categories encompass both relationships of conclusion and of consequence.

Connectors that also mark concession such as no obstante (que), aun cuando, incluso si (in Spanish); me malgre (que), bien que, me si (in French); (despite, though, even if) can also be used.

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In these cases and contrary to what happens with an inference the linked utterances do not possess, when taken alone, independent meaning that can be understood outside the linkage in question. So they are purely discursive linkages, incapable of being reduced to relationships between independent properties (Ducrot 2004, p. 370). In discourse, then, the segments that form these argumentative linkages bear a semantic interdependence: the meaning of the argument is understood and completed thanks to the presence of the conclusion and vice versa. The meaning of the words that make up the two segments will change as a function of the linkages in which they appear. The SBT bridges normative linkages to transgressive ones because they both construct the same representation; they correspond to the two possible ways of connecting a linkage.4 There are important theoretical implications to considering the meaning of an utterance in this manner. In discourse, the stated arguments do not accomplish, as they do with reasoning, the function of justifying the corresponding conclusions. The argumentative linkages make up semantic blocks in which the function is to represent situations, to construct a schematization, to propose a certain vision of things. Describing the meaning of a word, a syntagm or an utterance therefore consists of determining the argumentative linkages that are allowed by these entities. An argumentative aspect (be it a normative linkage with por lo tanto, donc, therefore, or a transgressive one with sin embargo, pourtant, however) can be suggested by a linguistic entity in two different ways: it can originate from either the internal argumentation (IA) or from the external argumentation (EA) of the linguistic entity. On the one hand, IAs equate to a type of paraphrasing or reformulating, which allows us to explain a given linguistic entity. On the other hand, EAs are possible continuationsto the left or to the rightthat one can imagine extending from this entity. These semantic conceptions have important repercussions for argumentation. When one considers that argumentative discourses can be found in the meaning of words, we assume that the argumentation is not added on top of the meaning, but that it constitutes the meaning itself. Hence, we establish an indissoluble connection between argumentation and language. Linguistics and argumentation are neither two disparate realms of study nor two entirely different practices. Argumentation in natural languages is not based upon inferences, but it is rooted in the lexicon itself.

cil/Femme facile and Hombre 2 Argumentative Analysis of Syntagms Mujer fa cil/Homme facile fa cil/facile I will apply this approach of argumentative analysis to the adjective fa (easy) that, when associated with the noun hombre/homme (man) (also with person, child, baby, etc.) on the one hand, and to mujer/femme (woman), on the other, have
4

The SBT calls them aspects; each aspect is dened as a group of linkages (Ducrot 2001, p. 23).

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cil/homme facile, different meanings, particularly in Romance languages. Hombre fa cil/femme facile, in its describes a nature or a persons character, whereas mujer fa most common acceptation, generally suggests a certain sexual conduct or a charnel business.5 The asymmetry were highlighting is also evident with other syntagms: mujer blica, femme publique (public woman)/hombre pu blico, homme publique (public pu ge man); for Spanish and French there is mujer ligera, femme le `re (loose woman)/ ger; and for Spanish only there is also mujer mundana/ hombre ligero, homme le hombre mundano (mundane). Some authors, such as Fabienne Baider (2004) consider that this difference in sense is due to a contamination originating in the noun femme or other nouns that come from the same paradigm, such as jeune lle, lle (young girl, girl); with dame (lady), this is the case but with an ironical nuance. In order to prove this idea, Baider traces the genealogy of this word all the way back to the use of the Latin term femina. This word began to be specialized in the sense of woman in Vulgates texts as a way of underlining the weakness inherent in the female gender. A sexual sensewith an axiological negative chargehas been progressively added to this original sense of inherent weakness that characterizes the nouns mulier and femina in Vulgar Latin. The author traces these various senses all the way up to the modern acceptation of the term (2004, p. 57). In fact, throughout time, the word that appears the most frequently in conjunction with the word sex is woman (2004, p. 57). Dictionaries can serve as sources that allow us to study this evolutionary process. The discourse in dictionaries aims, in principle, to be objective and neutral. However, and even if this objective is currently valued, dictionaries nevertheless transmit ideologies that are recorded through the choice of citations, the examples illustrating the given usages, not to mention the denitions themselves. This fact validates dictionaries not only as documents of a linguistic nature, but also as the echo of a dominant discourse. As a case in point, the entry for mujer (woman) in the Diccionario de la Lengua ola published in 1899at the threshold of Castellana of the Real Academia Espan the twentieth centurygives the following denitions: Persona del sexo femenino. // La que ha llegado a la edad de la pubertad. // La casada, con relacion al marido. // de gobierno. Criada que tiene a su cargo el gobierno economico de la casa. // del arte, de la vida airada, [], de mala vida, []. Ramera. // de su casa. La que tiene gobierno y disposicion para mandar y ejecutar las cosas que le pertenecen, y cuida de su hacienda y familia
5

cil/femme facile are common expressions (in both It is necessary to mention that, although mujer fa Spanish and in French), they dont entirely correspond to idioms, according to the conditions analyzed by Gross (1996). This author refers to semantic opacity (the meaning of a nominal group cannot be deduced from the meaning of one of its elements: for example, an English key is a particular type of key, and independent from the place where it is fabricated); the freezing (blocage) of transformational properties (passivation, pronominalization, detachment, extraction, relativization); the freezing of synonymical paradigms (a short circuit/*a brief-circuit); the non-insertion in a nominal group, of an adjective, a relative, an interpolated clause or intensifying adverbs in front of adjectives. In a sequence, there can be various degrees of crystallization (gement).

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con mucha exactitud y diligencia. // facil. La que es conocidamente fragil. // mundana, perdida, o publica. Ramera.6 To summarize, its a collection of characteristics: age, mans companion, domestic employee, governess of the house and family, and prostitute. This is squarely opposed to the denition given for hombre (man): Animal racional. Bajo esta acepcion se comprende todo el genero humano. // Varon. // El que ha llegado a la edad viril o adulta. // Entre el vulgo, marido. [] Junto con algunos sustantivos por medio de la preposicion de, el que posee las calidades o cosas signicadas por los sustantivos. n, HOMBRE de honor, de teso de valor. [] // de ambas sillas. g. El que es sabio en varias artes o facultades. [] // de armas tomar. El que tiene aptitud, resolucion o suciencia para cualquier cosa. // de bien. El honrado que cumple puntualmente sus obligaciones. []7 Laudatory expressions related with hombre are abundant: de buenas letras (welln n educated), de corazo (good hearted), de dinero (of money), de distincio (of distinction), de palabra (of his word), etc. The preceding denitions resonate with Yaguellos assertion (2006, p. 178) that, in an absolute sense, the noun femme (woman) can be equivalent to femme de mauvaise vie (wanton woman). The noun homme (man), to the contrary, is a term commonly associated with praise. cil, facile As for the single and default meaning of all kinds of adjectives like fa te ger, le `re (loose), serio(a), ge (easy), honesto(a), honne (honest), ligero(a), le rieux, se rieuse (serious), [it] describes the manner in which human beings se behave in society, and the relationship of otherness; it refers to what society expects from he or she that is a part of a given community (rules or codes to follow, prohibited behavior, what is acceptable, etc.). These adjectives refer to social values that uctuate throughout time (Baider 2004, p. 48). So we can say that they express- in their original and primary meaningcourtesy, politeness, and sociacil, homme facile. This bility which we can ascertain in the syntagm hombre fa expression possessesas an evaluative axiological adjective8 a positive evalurieux (serious man). ation, if but to a lesser extent than hombre serio, homme se
Person of the female gender.//She who has reached the age of puberty.//The wife, with respect to a husband.//Governess. Servant who has the task of administering a house.//of art, of unsettled life, [], of a bad life, []. Whore//of her house. She who has the authority and the faculty to order and to act about things that are therein, and upholds with diligence and fairness her domain and her family.//easy. She who is known for her fragility.//mundane, lost or public. Whore. Rational animal. This acceptation includes the whole human race.//Male.//He who has attained adulthood or virility.//Familiar, husband [] With certain nouns accompanied by the preposition of, he who possess the qualities or the objects signied by these nouns. MAN of honor, of tenacity, of value. []//of two hats [de ambas sillas]. Fig. He who is knowledgeable in multiple arts or dispositions. []//of great authority [de armas tomar]. He who has the aptitude, the resolution or the capacity to do anything.// good. He who is honest and who duly fullls his obligations [].
8 7 6

Kerbrat-Orecchioni proposes a classication of adjectives that account for the point of view of the speaker. This analysis seeks to specify the nature of the evaluation that these adjectives express. According to this classication, easy would be an evaluative axiological adjective. The use of this type of adjective implies a qualitative or quantitative evaluation of the object signied by the substantive that it

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But, when these adjectives are attached to mujer, femme (woman), as we have cil/femme facile noted, they take an additional sense that is fundamental: mujer fa ge blica, femme publique (just as mujer ligera, femme le `re (loose woman), mujer pu (public woman)) are expressions that carry a negative evaluation. This is the case because they refer to a sexual behavior beyond established social norms. Mujer cil, femme facile then, is opposed to the positive sexual evaluation suggested by fa te rieuse mujer honesta, femme honne (honest woman), mujer seria, femme se (serious woman) and mujer casta, femme chaste (chaste woman). nico del espan (Real Academia Espanola: Banco de ol Both the Corpus diacro ol datos (CORDE) [on line]) and the Corpus de referencia del espan actual (Real cil Academia Espanola: Banco de datos (CREA) [on line]) record the use of mujer fa with a sexual meaning from 1610 (in Luis de Gongora y Argote) up through the s, present day (in the novel El eje del compa 2002, by Gregorio Salvador Caja), even though its use is increasingly uncommon and archaic. cil/femme Proposing an argumentative description of the expressions mujer fa cil/homme facile, is a means to avoiding more traditional facile, and hombre fa approaches. These approaches might propose to interpret these syntagmsand, in particular, the adjective complement that is absent: easy man can be interpreted as easy to love, to convince, to relieve, etc.as a type of syncategorematicity.9 This perspective identies with the referentialist theses that suggest that the meaning of a word is the donation of its referent (Anscombre and Kleiber 2001, p. 15). From the non-referentialist perspective of the SBT, these ellipse phenomena can be explained by the hypothesis arguing for the existence of internal argumentations

Footnote 8 continued determines, and of which the use is thereby based on a double standard: (1) inherent in the object support of the quality; (2) specic to each speaker and it is in this way that they can be considered as subjective. The use of the adjective easy is thus relative to the object that it qualies, and also relative to the idea that the speaker has of the norm for evaluating the given category of objects. Due to the signicant imprecision of adjectives like easy, the designation of a quality by the use of this word implies a certain stance that is largely subjective: it is not possible to establish a consensus about which objects are allowed to be qualied as easy. Likewise, these termsin as much as having an axiological attribute come with a value judgment of the object indicated by the noun. This allows them to be considered doubly subjective: not only because their use will vary as a function of each speaking subject, for whom the ideology will shine through; but also because they will show the speakers stance for or against the indicated object, which is to say he or she will give or take value from the object in question (1980, pp. 83100). Syncategorematical words denote properties that require that one mentions events or actions that are not explicitly expressed in their own denitions, or that the lexical nature of such nounsin principle does not provide. Bosque gives the example of the evaluative adjective excelente (excellent), which the ola (DRAE) denes as que sobresale en bondad, merito o Diccionario de la Real Academia Espan estimacion (that which excels in goodness, merit or esteem). This denition does not account for sentences like Este cuchillo es excelente (This knife is excellent) (2000, pp. 264265). Pustejovsky (1995) has developed an approach that accounts for this problem. This author nds that lexicon is generative. His model for lexical analysis is made up of four levels of semantic representations in which the structure of qualia that accounts for different modes of possible predication of a lexical entity. The qualia correspond to four essential aspects of the meaning of words: the constitutive aspect, which has to do with the relationship between an object and its proper parts; the formal aspect, which distinguishes the object within a larger domain; the telic aspect, that indicates the purpose and the function of the object; the agentive aspect that indicates factors involved in the origin of an object.
9

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that are connected to words. The interpretive mechanism therefore consists of accessing their argumentative potential. As we have written, with the SBT, the meaning of a linguistic entity is made up of the discourses that this entity evokes. Arguing is essentially summoning whole groups of linkages that can be characterized by a semantic interdependence between the segments that are bound by a connector.10 The function of these argumentative linkages is to qualify the situations, to show a schematization, a certain vision of things. Now we will attempt to determine the discourses suggested by the syntagms cil, femme facile, and hombre fa cil, homme facile, from their internal and mujer fa external argumentations. The IAs equate, as previously mentioned, to a type of paraphrasing or reformulating that allows us to explain a given linguistic entity. cil, femme facile, allows one to advance To qualify a person as mujer fa discourses such as: Es una mujer muy accesible/abierta, por lo tanto se dejara seducir a las primeras de cambio. `s duire de quon `s Elle est une femme tre accessible/ouverte, donc elle se laissera se lapproche. (Shes a very open woman, therefore shell let herself be seduced on rst meet.) Using the SBT terminology, these linkages belong to the aspect: ser accesible PLT dejarse seducir, etre accessible DC se laisser seduire11 (open-therefore-letscil/femme facile, herself-be-seduced). They are internal to the syntagms mujer fa which means they are structurally attached to these expressions, i.e., they appear in the foreground or the background in all the uses that we make of them (Ducrot 2001, p. 23). As Carel emphasizes on the subject of her analysis (in the same issue), the presence of the normative predicate ser-accesible-por-lo-tanto-dejarse-seducir, cil/femme facile, etre-accessible-donc-se-laisser-seduire, in the meaning of mujer fa is the reason for which we sense a kinship between the judgments about Chloe in both of the following utterances: Cloe es accesible, por lo tanto se deja seducir. duire. Chloe est accessible, donc elle se laisse se and cil. Cloe es una mujer fa Chloe est une femme facile. How can we justify this description? To begin with, the constituent parts in the IA cil, femme facile: ser accesible, etre accessible and dejarse seducir, se of mujer fa
10 Interdependence based on the very fact of the argumentation: the intrinsic meaning of each element contains the indication that it is an argument for the other or conclusion of the other. (Ducrot 2002, p. 127). 11 As we will see later, in the extract taken from the love poem Marie-Madeleine ou le Salut, the adjective accessible of this linkage is also a part of the context in which Marguerite Yourcenar uses the syntagm femme facile.

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laisser seduire can be described, in turn, by their IAs. From a structural perspective, though, this cannot be the goal of the SBT that seeks only to make mention of the discourses suggested by a word, a syntagm or an utterance (without intending that one recognizes the objects that could be attributed to these entities) (Ducrot 2004, p. 368). We must also consider that describing the meaning of an expression is the same as indicating, from the outset, the argumentative functions that this expression possesses, the type of justication that it allows (Ducrot 2004, p. 363). For instance, in a scene from the lm Chicas y maletas,12 one of the characters, Chon, tells Pina about a romantic affair she had: despues de follar me dijo que si poda quedarse unos das en mi casa yo le dije que bueno pero que no le prometa nada, no quera que pensara que soy une mujer facil.13 With this remark, the speaker aims to justify her refusal to compromise herself with the man in question, and the cil very meaning of mujer fa provides this justication: indeed, it is made explicit by the argumentative predicate ser-accesible-por-lo-tanto-dejarse-seducir (open-therefore-lets-herself-be-seduced) that language attaches to this expression. cil, femme facile can be associated with other Of course, the syntagm mujer fa aspects which would reconstruct the entire argumentative capacity (or the argumentative potential) of this expression. In lexicology, moreover, any given theory can propose different descriptions for a single expression (Ducrot 2001, p. 22). For the SBT, the criteria for choosing the aspects that make up the internal and external argumentations (IA and EA) of an entity depend upon both empirical observations and the general hypotheses that found the theory. cil, femme facile by We will thus justify the proposed description of mujer fa applying a few SBT hypotheses to our empirical data. Namely, we will look at the relationships that the IA of these syntagms can establish with the IA of other expressions that seem to share the same semantic block in both Spanish and French. As previously noted, the SBT supposes that the semantic description of linguistic entities brings into play not only the IA, but also the EA. Our present interest is the latterwhere the entity gures inasmuch as the antecedent or the consequent of the cil, femme facile can bestrictly from a lexical aspect that it evokes. So, mujer fa perspectivepitted against the idea of reprehensible behavior or a bad reputation. Consequently, linkages such as: cil, su conducta es reprochable. Es una mujer fa pre Elle est une femme facile sa conduite est re hensible. (She is easy, her behavior is reprehensible.) cil, debe tener una mala reputacio n. Es una mujer fa putation. Elle est une femme facile, elle doit avoir une mauvaise re (She is easy, she must have a bad reputation.) correspond with the aspects: mujer facil PLT conducta reprochable, femme facile DC conduite reprehensible (easy-therefore-reprehensible-behavior); mujer facil
12 A humorous comedy thats part of the plot of Pedro Almodovars lm Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces). 13

After having screwed, he asked me if he could stay at my place for a few days I told him that he could, but that I wouldnt promise anything, I didnt want him to think that Im an easy woman.

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PLT mala reputacion, femme facile DC mauvaise reputation (easy-therefore-badreputation) of the EA associated with this expression. One feature of an entitys EA is that it contains an aspect and also the converse of this aspect14: mujer facil SE Neg-conducta reprochable, femme facile PT Neg conduite reprehensible (easy-however-not-reprehensible-behavior); mujer facil SE Neg-mala reputacion, femme facile PT Neg-mauvaise reputation (easy-howevernot-bad-reputation), which accounts for the same representation yet with a transgressive value: cil, sin embargo su conducta no es reprochable. Es una mujer fa pre Elle est une femme facile, pourtant sa conduite nest pas re hensible. (She is easy, however her behavior isnt reprehensible.) cil n. Es una mujer fa sin embargo no debe tener una mal reputacio putation. Elle est une femme facile, pourtant elle ne doit pas avoir une mauvaise re (She is easy, however she must not have a bad reputation.) The following extract from Marguerite Yourcenars love poem entitled MarieMadeleine ou le Salut corroborates the proposed descriptions: Jai compris plus tard que je representais pour lui la pire faute charnelle, le peche legitime, approuve par lusage, dautant plus vil quil est permis dy rouler sans honte, dautant plus redoutable quil nencourt pas de condamna tion. Il avait choisi en moi la mieux voilee des lles quil put courtiser avec lespoir secret de ne jamais lobtenir; jexpliquais son degout des proies plus accessibles; assise sur ce lit, je netais plus quune femme facile. Limpos ` sibilite ou il etait de maimer creait entre nous une similitude plus forte que ces ` contrastes du sexe qui servent entre deux etres humains a detruire la conance, ` ` a justier lamour: tous deux, nous desirions ceder a une volonte plus forte que la notre, nous donner, etre pris: nous allions au-devant de toutes les douleurs pour lenfantement dune nouvelle vie. (1982[1936], pp. 10921093)15 On her wedding night, Marie believed that her ance had jilted her because, as soon as she sat on the bed, her virtue had given way to the indecent attitude of a woman who was ready to be seduced. This made her irreparably condemnable to his eyes. She understood only later that it was impossible for Jean to love her. cil, femme facile (namely: It must be noted that, in the IA suggested by mujer fa ser accesible PLT dejarse seducir, etre accessible DC se laisser seduire (opentherefore-lets-herself-be-seduced), the second segment determines the attitude
14 This is not the case for the IA, as we will see further down: each of the four aspects that make up a semantic block corresponds to a different expressions IA (Ducrot 2001, p. 23).

Its only later that I understood that for him I represented the worst corporal offense, the legitimate sin, approved by custom, so much more dangerous since it incurs no condemnation. He had chosen me, the most veiled of maidens, to court while secretly hoping not to succeed; I accounted for his distaste of readily available prey; sitting on the bed, I was nothing more now than an easy woman. His impotency gave us a stronger bond than sexual hunger, which is so often used to justify love: both of us wanted to yield to a will more forceful than ours, to give ourselves, to be taken: we would bear every conceivable pain to beget a new life. (1994, Translated in collaboration with the author by Dori Kats, p. 66).

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indicated in the rst segment: it is a kind of attitude that facilitates sexual intimacy (and not another type of contact, be it friendly, intellectual, etc.). Similarly, yielding to seductive overtures, as is the issue in the second segment, goes hand in hand with an open behavior that oversteps social conventions (this type of seduction is not, for example, the same as one that can come from a work of art). Such is the semantic interdependence of the two segments joined by the connector. Lets now look at the discursive and argumentative relationships that we can establish between the IA of these expressions and those of others that are related to them. According to the Theorie du carre argumentatif (Argumentative Square Theory) proposed by Carel and Ducrot (2005, pp. 2762), it is possible to elaborate four aspects (with two normative and two transgressive linkages) that belong to the same semantic block (using segments A: ser accesible/etre accessible and B: dejarse seducir/se laisser seduire).

Aspects (1), (2), (3), (4) show possible descriptions of the corresponding expressions.16
16

The use of these expressions in Spanish is corroborated by both the CORDE and the CREA:

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In corner number one of the square, we put the expressions mujer libre, femme libre (liberated woman). Its IA bears the aspect: ser accesible SE Neg-dejarse seducir, etre accessible PT Neg-se laisser seduire (open-however-doesnt-let-herself-beseduced). A so-called mujer libre, femme libre is a woman who is against the cil, stereotyped vision of the mujer fa femme facile. This vision suggests: if the woman is open, then the man has a great chance of succeeding in his efforts. Hence the use of a transgressive linkage17: an open attitude does not prevent a refusal to be seduced. As for mujer sumisa, femme soumise (submissive woman), in corner number two, its IA is Neg-ser accesible SE dejarse seducir, Neg-etre accessible PT se laisser seduire (not-open-however-lets-herself-be-seduced). This description can be explained by saying that a mujer sumisa, femme soumise is a person who, given her predisposition for submission, expresses no efforts to resisteven against an act that would be contrary to her own will, true desires or wishes. Hence the use of a transgressive aspect: her refusal is not an obstacle to her seduction. rieuse (serious woman), On the other side, the expression mujer seria, femme se guring in corner number three, can be paraphrased by the IA: Neg-ser accesible PT Neg-dejarse seducir, Neg-etre accessible DC Neg-se laisser seduire (not-openrieuse therefore-doesnt-let-herself-be-seduced). The so-called mujer seria, femme se is unapproachable and can therefore not be seduced. We will illustrate these argumentative relationships with the following dialogues. Between (1) and (2) as well as (3) and (4) (just as between (2) and (1) and also (4) and (3)), there is a reciprocal relationship (the negative term of one side is changed to a positive on the other side, while the connector is maintained). This relationship can be discursively paraphrased by todo lo contrario, cest tout le contraire (its the direct opposite)18: X: -Cloe es una mujer libre. Y: -No, todo lo contrario, es una mujer sumisa. X: -Chloe est une femme libre. Y: -Non, cest tout le contraire, elle est une femme soumise.
Footnote 16 continued Fue una mujer excepcional, explico el primer secretario del Partido Socialista, Lionel Jospin, una mujer libre, apasionada, fuerte, exigente con la verdad y la autenticidad.(Diario El Pas, 01/10/1985: Fallece la actriz francesa Simone Signoret, un mito del cine europeo). (She was an exceptional woman, explained the First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Lionel Jospin, a woman who was liberated, passionate, strong and demanding of truth and authenticity.). La mala conducta de los hijos es la pena que nos persigue hasta la tumba! La alegra del corazon es n la mujer sumisa para con el esposo!(Traduccio de las mil y una noches, Vicente Blasco Ibanez, 1916). (The bad behavior of the children is sorrow that follows us to the grave! The submissive woman is the hearts rejoice for a husband!). De mi madre joven, solo sabra decir que era una mujer seria, tan comedida tan contenida, que n, pareca amargada. (Pago de traicio Marta Portal, 1983). (About my young mother, standing alone, I can only say that she was a serious woman, so moderate with so much self-restraint, that she seemed full of bitterness).
17 [] the transgression indicated by this however that means this doesnt prevent that (Ducrot 2001, p. 26). 18

In other words, not only is it false, but its the direct opposite (Carel and Ducrot 2005, p. 48).

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(X: -Chloe is a liberated woman.) (Y: -No, its the direct opposite; she is a submissive woman.) Along the diagonals, there is a converse relationship that allows movement from (1) to (4) and from (2) to (3) (or in the other direction) (the rst term is maintained in both corners, the connector is changed and the second term is changed to its opposite, be it from Neg-B to B or from B to Neg-B). This relationship is closely related to negation; consequently, it can be paraphrased by means of an expression like no, eso es falso, non cest faux (no, thats false): X: -Cloe es una mujer libre. cil. Y: -No, eso es falso, es una mujer fa X: -Chloe est une femme libre. Y: -Non, cest faux, elle est une femme facile. (X:- Chloe is a liberated woman.) (Y:- No, thats false; she is an [easy woman].) It seems that the reciprocal relationship in this semantic block pertains to the interaction between the two discourses in which the disagreement hinges upon the qualier that would best describe Chloes sexual behavior. Ys retort tries to point out an incompatibility between Chloe and the qualier that X attributes to her: cil. X: -Cloe es una mujer fa Y: -No, todo lo contrario, es una mujer seria. X: -Chloe est une femme facile. rieuse. Y: -Non, cest tout le contraire elle est une femme se (X: -Chloe is an [easy woman].) (Y: -No, its the direct opposite, she is a serious woman.) In the case of the converse relationship, on the other hand, the exchange aims to either condemn or approve of Chloes conduct (the discussion pertains to the choice rieuse) of terms used as axiological evaluative adjectives). If X asserts (3) (seria, se and Y (2) (sumisa, soumise), then Y is making a negative evaluation of Chloe. If X cil, facile) and Y (1) (libre), Ys evaluation is positive. As is the case asserts (4) (fa with both responses, though, Y runs counter to prejudices against women and thereby refutes the terms used by X (the opinions of X and Y are necessarily inversed if we switch the adjectives). X: -Cloe es una mujer seria. Y: -No, eso es falso, es una mujer sumisa. rieuse. X: -Chloe est une femme se Y: -Non, cest faux, elle est une femme soumise. (X: -Chloe is a serious woman.) (Y: -No, this is false; she is a submissive woman.)

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cil. X: -Cloe es una mujer fa Y: -No, eso es falso, es una mujer libre. X: -Chloe est une femme facile. Y: -Non, cest faux, elle est une femme libre. (X: -Chloe is an [easy woman]). (Y: -No, this is false; she is a liberated woman.) The transpositional relationship allows the movement from (1) to (3) and from (2) to (4), or visa versa (going up or down, the rst term is denied or asserted, the connector is changed and the second term is maintained). This relationship pertains to a graduality between the aspects that can be discursively paraphrased by means of connectors like en todo caso, en tout cas (in any case), or por lo menos, au moins (at least), in a downward direction; and by me (even) in an upward direction. However, the syntagms mujer libre, incluso, me rieuse, on the one hand, and mujer sumisa, femme libre and mujer seria, femme se cil, femme facile, on the other, are incompatible within femme soumise and mujer fa a single discourse: mujer libre, femme libre and mujer sumisa, femme soumise are expressions belonging to a discourse that goes contrary to prejudices against cil, femme facile and mujer seria, femme se rieuse. women, unlike mujer fa Consequently, the transpositional relationship is impossible in the case of the semantic block that we constructed with these four expressions. cil, femme facile that matches Lets now look at the other acceptation of mujer fa cil, homme facile. It seems to us that hombre up with the meaning for hombre fa cil, homme facile suggests discourses such as: fa cil n Un hombre fa es alguien que tiene la disposicio de acomodarse a los deseos de los otros, por consiguiente es una persona sociable. sirs Un homme facile est quelquun ayant la disposition de saccomoder aux de dautrui, donc il est une personne sociable. (An easy man is someone having a tendency to adapt to the desires of the Other; therefore, he is a sociable person.) Its IA is: ser adaptable PLT ser sociable, etre adaptable DC etre sociable (adaptable-therefore- sociable). As for its external argumentation, it is possible to establish a parallel with the EA cil, femme facile, in its basic sense: mujer facil PLT conducta of mujer fa reprochable, femme facile DC conduite reprehensible. Discourses like: cil, su conducta es digna de elogio. Pedro es un hombre fa loge. Pierre est un homme facile, sa conduite est digne de (Peter is an easy man, his behavior is praise worthy.) can be summarized as an aspect giving: hombre facil PLT conducta loable, homme facile DC conduite louable ([easy man]-therefore-laudable-behavior) of this expressions EA, which brings along with it a transgressive aspect: hombre facil SE Neg-conducta loable, homme facile PT Neg-conduite louable ([easy man]however-not-laudable-behavior).

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3 A Way to Conclude: Semantic Blocks and Their Persuasive Effects cil, femme facile express stereotypes It is clear that the aspects suggested by mujer fa like those that we can nd, for example, in proverbs. Indeed, the linkages: ser accesible PLT dejarse seducir, etre accessible DC se laisser seduire (open-thereforelets-herself-be-seduced), express only conventional, redundant and banal ideas, just like its proverbial counterparts. But its actually in this very quality that lays its persuasive force. By analyzing proverbial discourse, Maingueneau nds that the asymmetry between the proliferation of doxical utterances about women compared to those that refer to men is not incidental: its the masculine as such that feeds a constitutive relationship with the stereotyping of women; man circumscribes the femininity that he needs to assure an imaginary identity (2004, pp. b2b3). Without going into a detailed description of this discursive genre, we will point out a few characteristics of the proverbial stereotyping of women. Maingueneau shows that proverbial discourse about women takes place in a patriarchal sphere governed by an order that assign women their place. This order supposes a system in which men and women have different functions, a system based upon a basic opposition: inside/outside the home. The reference to a threatened norm is a rather common characteristic in sententious utterances of female stereotypes. n La mujer y el vidrio siempre esta en peligro. (Women and glass are always in danger.) Women constantly threaten to cross the homes limits, in terms of functions, by adopting those of men; or in terms of territory, by going to the town square, or to the female neighbors house: Mujer que habla latn, rara vez tiene buen n. (A woman who speaks Latin rarely has a good end.) La mujer en casa y el hombre en la plaza. (The woman in the house, the man in the town square.) According to Maingueneau, by its very enunciation, the proverb reestablishes the disorder that it suggests. Doxical utterances about women oppose law to nature. By nature, women are (in mens view) spendthrift, unfaithful, garrulous, coquette; but the proverbial expression reestablishes the order where mens law rules. Indeed, by its xed structure on a prosodic, syntaxic and semantic level, by its sententious ethos, the proverb expresses and incarnates this world order in which it is meant to participate (2004, p. b6). La mujer compuesta quita al marido de otra puerta. (The well-adorned woman takes the husband from another door.) cil, The stereotypes that the internal and external argumentations of mujer fa cil, homme facile, express correspond with this femme facile and hombre fa

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description.19 The socially acceptable availability of men is opposed to the socially inacceptable availability of women. Whats interpreted as the crossing of boundaries and a threat to established order when done by women iswhen perpetrated by mennothing more than a natural role, the maintenance of a respectable law. The different analyses of the syntagms we looked at are therefore a way of describing the words by associating them with discourses and to show that the words suggest argumentations in their very meaning. This implies that there is no discourse without argumentation. But if we consider that argumentation has a linguistic nature and that the argumentative linkages do not express reasoning, how do discourses that have persuasive ambitions achieve their objectives? According to Ducrot, when observing linguistic facts, its necessary to distinguish between what results from argumentivity and what manifests the persuasive effort (1992, p. 147). Only after that can you determine how the linguistic argumentation contributes to the persuasion. cil, femme facile and hombre The argumentative discourses contained in mujer fa cil, homme facile have a particular persuasive efciency: given that the semantic fa blocks are schematizations, stereotyped representations of reality, we bring, when speaking, these representations that are recognized as reasonable into our discourse. Thus, we are bound to the modes of representation shared throughout society; and we show, at the same time, the ethos of a reliable, trustworthy person (Ducrot 2002, p. 135). Here is a part of the response to the previous question: if, from this theoretical perspective, the logos is a pure illusion, then the constant use of argumentative linkages in discourse should satisfy another role in the persuasive strategy, namely to produce effects upon the ethos and the pathos. Even by saying simply therefore, the speaker rst and foremost justies herself for the simple reason that she appears as someone capable of expressing ideas in a just way. Thereafter, this positive image of the speaker indirectly inuences the acceptability of her conclusions (Ducrot 2002, p. 135). cil, femme facile and going beyond the To get back to the expression mujer fa discursive limits outlined by the SBT, the underlying stereotyped representation provides an argument that justies the injurious effect attached to this expression. The violence provoked by this speech act is one of it-goes-without-saying: that which is evident is violent, said Barthes, even if this evidence is represented softly, liberally, democratically; [] the natural is in sum the ultimate of outrages (1995, p. 159). This natural is justied by the argumentative linkages that are already present in the meaning of the words.

19 From other perspectives, authors like Putnam, Fradin and Anscombre distinguish between the meaning that governs the semantic function of terms in discourse and the referential function. For these authors, the notion of the stereotype also has to do with meaning and it is related to the common usage of language. The stereotypical level appears as governing the function of language in as much as how individual speakers use it. (Anscombre 2001, p. 58).

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