Interdiscourse and memory

the metaphor and the metonymy in Pêcheux/Herbert

Abstract

Based on the observation that the concepts of interdiscourse and memory are sometimes overlapped and become almost equivalent, and understanding that they cover different discursive functions, I intend to examine the issue by using the concepts of metaphor, metonymy and transversal discourse, as theorized mainly by Michel Pêcheux (2011 [1984]) in Metaphor and Interdiscourse and Thomas Herbert (PÊCHEUX, 1995a) in Remarks for a General Theory of Ideologies. I will hold the hypothesis that interdiscourse refers to metaphor, as displacement of the pre-constructed from one discursive region to another, while metonymy, as the imposition of another effect from a “part” of the discursive object, organizes, through transversal discourse, another meaning-relation network and, therefore, another axis of memory. For developing the argumentation, I will take the cases of ‘mole’ and ‘fire’ (from Michel Pêcheux) as a basis and discuss the case of ‘God’.