Abstract

PINCEMIN, Bénédicte. Interpretive Semantics and Textometry. Tóp. Sem [online]. 2010, n.23, pp.15-55. ISSN 2594-0619.

This article bases itself on a recurrent and informal conversation between François Rastier and the author of the article concerning the pertinence of a textometric approach toward interpretive semiotics. In a first approach, textometry seems to be condemned to an overly hackneyed representation of the text: a bag of words (which are themselves understood as simple chains of characters), eventual elimination of the hapax (that can be places of meaningful singularities), quantitative statistical treatment...Yet on the other hand, according to François Rastier himself, there is a notable experience of observing how the calculation of interval-reduction brings out, in the same text, the key forms for the interpretation of a Maupassant novel. There is also the "interpretive influence" the enriching results of Mathieu Valette´s thesis with the hyperbase and those of Damon Mayaffre. Thus, can we locate the essential adjustments between interpretive semantic theory and the founding principles of the textometric approach? The central place of the texts in all of the stages of analysis, the concern of remaining as close as possible to the text and avoid all reducing preconceptions, the determinant role of the global context constructed from the reference corpus, the differential functioning of the contrastive calculations like the selections... the wager would be to see if we can can make a balance of these strong connivances. Finally textometry recently raises some new proposals and some new developments. Without a doubt, interpretive semiotics can nurture underlying theoretical reflection and participate equally in the conception of pertinent functionalities and in the elaboration of methodological references and the finishing touches on the interfaces. Thus, it is a framework of an activity of exploring around the corpus for textometry and interpretive semantics alike and how a meaning is constructed and affirmed little by little.

        · abstract in Spanish | French     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )