A Marxist Philosophy of Language

Historical Materialism #12

by Jean-Jacques Lecercle

The purpose of this book is to give a precise meaning to the English is the language of imperialism. Understanding that statement involves a critique of the dominant views of language, both in the field of linguistics (the book has a chapter criticising Chomsky's research programme) and of the philosophy of language (the book has a chapter assessing Habermas's philosophy of communicative action).
The book aims at constructing a Marxist philosophy of language, embodying a view of language as a social, historical, material and political phenomenon. Since there has never been a strong tradition of thinking about language in Marxism, the book provides an overview of the question of Marxism in language (from Stalin's pamphlet to Voloshinov's book, taking in an essay by Pasolini), and it seeks to construct a number of concepts for a Marxist philosophy of language.
The book belongs to the tradition of Marxist critique of dominant ideologies. It should be particularly useful to those who, in the fields of language study, literature and communication studies, have decided that language is not merely an instrument of communication.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Politics, Language, Nonfiction

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Jean-Jacques Lecercle is Professor of English at the University of Paris at Nanterre. 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.

Reviews

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically an elaboration and extension of Althusserian interpellation theory of ideology into the field of language, opened with an engagement with Chomskyian linguistics and Habermasian communicative theory both critiqued as representatives of the dominant ideology of language as communication

[Ravi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read an absolutely scathing review of this book in a critical realism journal denouncing it for its Althusserianism (and I am certainly not qualified to comment on Althusser) I found it quite entertaining. Its critiques of Habermas and Chomsky's linguistics seem apt and unlike said reviewer I enjoyed the digressions analyzing Deleuze and Guattari. I also enjoyed the discussion of David McNally's Bodies of Meaning. Whether the book made an enormous contribution to constructing a Marxist theory of linguistics I am not certain. And the constant use of asides in brackets was irritating at times. But to a lay reader the book comes across as at the very least learned, as well researched and as passionate even if interpellation as a methodology is not an advance.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite discussing Stalin's 'Marxism and Problems of Linguistics', and other authors linguistical approaches (Voloshinov, Deleuze, Habermas, Bukharin, Gramsci, Pasolini, Guattari, Milnar, etc.), Lecercle ends up theorizing that language is political praxis (ignoring completely Stalin's text).

I cannot understand why people have the urge to idealize and mistify language when it is a tool for communication (that of course evolves and depends of the material conditions, but not the other way around!).

[Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lecercle combines useful synthetic assessments of thinkers in the Marxist tradition writing about language with compelling critiques (most influenced probably by Althusser) of the individualism of Chomskian universal grammar linguistics and the politically pacified Habermasian communicative theory of language. Lecercle is a bit chatty and perhaps overfond of organizing things into series of propositions, but the book reads smoothly. Above all, it is productive.