ORIENTATION REVERSAL
The argumentative orientation of an utterance U towards a conclusion C is reversed when a small modification of its form, Ux provokes a reversal of its argumentative value from A to not A.
The argumentative orientation of an utterance can be redirected by substituting one morpheme for another, e.g., the adverb little for a little, see orientation; orienting words. The adverb precisely, can also produce a reversal of argumentative orientation, in one of its uses,
S1: — Peter doesn’t want to go out, he’s depressed.
S2: — Well, precisely, he would breathe the clean country air, it would clear his head.
The argumentative orientation of a statement A towards a conclusion C is reversed when a small modification of its form, Ax provokes a reversal of its argumentative value from C to not C.
The reversal of orientation is based on the letter of what the S1 says; S2 replies to S1 “Your argument does not support your claim, it even points to the contrary; you give arguments against your position”. S2 contradicts his own statement to S1 his or her own saying. This can be, as a typical response “to the letter” (ad litteram), a strategy of discourse destruction, see matter; destruction; objection; refutation.
Classical rhetoric has identified many phenomena of inversion with the same effect, such as irony:
Everything is possible with the SNCF (French Railway Company), that is the best slogan you have ever found!
Said by a passenger to a train conductor when the train was stopped for two hours between two stations .
The slogan is oriented towards “the SNCF is capable of being incredibly positive and pleasant for you”; the circumstances show that “the SNCF is capable of being incredibly negative”, see irony.
Some of these strategies have been identified and named in classical rhetoric:
— Exploiting the different acceptances of a term to reverse its argumentative orientation: antanaclasis.
— Inversion of an expression, to the same effect: antimetabole.
— Reversing the qualification of an action: antiparastasis.
— Reversing the orientation of a term by substituting another quasi-synonymous term or description: paradiastole.
1. Antanaclasis
Antanaclasis is the phenomenon of the repetition of a polysemous or homonymous term or expression in such a way that in its second occurrence, the term has a different meaning and a different orientation than in its first occurrence.
In other words, the signifier S0 has the meanings Sa and Sb. In its first occurrence S0 has the meaning Sa with the orientation Oa and, in its second occurrence the meaning Sb with the orientation Ob.
The resumption of the signifier S0 must take place in the same discursive unit, be it a statement, a paragraph, a turn or a pair of turns. It can be performed either by the same speaker in the same discursive unit or by a second speaker in a second turn.
Within the same-speaker intervention, the antanaclasis introduces ambiguity because the same word is used to denote different things. In a syllogism, the antanaclasis actually introduces two terms under the cover of the same signifier S0, and thus produces a syllogism not of three but of four terms, i.e, a paralogism.
In interaction, the two meanings of the term are used in two successive turns of speech, the second of which invalidates the first. The antanaclasis is a kind of ironic echo and aggressive retaliation. The word tolerance refers to a virtue; the French expression maison de tolérance, “house of tolerance”, refers to a legal, licensed, tolerated brothel:
S1: — A little tolerance please! (tolerance is a virtue)
S2: — Tolerance! there are houses for that (tolerance allows vice).
In French une foire means “a fair”, a commercial exhibition; or “a mess”, a state of general noise and confusion.
S1: — We could not book a hotel for you, all are fully booked, there is a fair in town
S2: — It seems that there is often la foire in town. Fr. foire = “mess”
In the example, the second term turns what was said as an excuse into a reproach: “you can’t get organized”; this word-for-word restatement undermines S1’s speech.
The use of derived words makes such maneuvers possible. Anyone who finds his work alienating (as in “the work on the assembly line work alienates the workers”), is accused of being an aliéné (F), that is a madman:
The ideological policeman of collectivism can say almost the same thing to the opponent: “For those who come to protest against alienation, in our society we have asylums for the insane. Thierry Maulnier, [The Meaning of Words], 1976[1])
The reorientation of antanaclasis differs from that of precisely. This adverb takes a statement that is oriented toward a given conclusion, grants the statement (accepts the information), and transforms it in order to make it back toward the opposite conclusion. In the preceding case, it could be “Well, precisely, the fair was announced a long time ago, you should have taken precautions.” The antanaclasis does not take the excuse seriously, it disorients the discourse.
2. Antimetabole
Like antanaclasis, the antimetabole is a linguistic trick used to dismantle the opponent’s speech. The discourse is taken up and syntactically restructured in order to make it lose its orientation, or even to give it an opposite orientation. Dupriez cites determined / determining permutation mechanisms « N0 + N1= N1 + N0 » by which a discourse on “the life of words” can be ironically destroyed by the affirmation of a preference for “the words of life” (Dupriez 1984: 53-54 ):
We do not live in a time of change, we live in a change of time.
The effect of these announcements (F. effets d’annonce) are quickly reduced to ineffective announcements (F. annonces sans effets)
S. Refutation; Prolepsis; Destruction; Converse.
3. Antiparastasis
This word refers to the theory of stasis. An accusation is made against someone; the accused acknowledges the fact of which he is accused, affirms the reason why he did it, and, on that basis, rejects the blame:
L: — You killed him!
L: — At his request, I ended his suffering.
The first statement is an accusation, “Shame on you, you deserve to be condemned!”; the second statement introduces an argument that cancels this orientation: “What I have done is an act of courage”, or even reverses the accusation: “What I have done deserves every respect”, see motives and good reasons.
This form of counter-argumentation gives two opposite orientations to the same fact . The antanaclasis is a pseudo-acceptance and an implicit reversal, while the antiparastasis explicitly reverses the negative orientation given to the fact by the opponent.
This choice of defense gives the speaker a militant or rebellious ethos. Such situations based on radically opposed values have a high dramatic potential, for example, the confrontation between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ play Antigone enacts such a situation of antiparastasis.
4. Paradiastole
The term paradiastole comes from a Greek word that expresses a movement of expansion and differentiation. In a monologue, the paradiastole “establishes a system of nuance and precision, generally developed on the basis of parallel statements” (Molinié 1992, Paradiastole). The Latin term distinguo refers to a similar operation. The paradiastole refines the definition of a concept or establishes a distinction between two close concepts that, from the speaker’s point of view, should not be confused: “sadness is not depression”. In a dialogue, the paradiastole rejects a partner’s word as inadequate, and replaces it with another, contextually more appropriate word that reorients the discourse. Depression and sadness may be semantically close, but they can still be contrasted, as in:
L1: — I’m depressed, I need to see a psychiatrist.
L2: — No, you’re not depressed, you’re sad, and sadness is not a disease.
Discourse constantly builds up such anti-oriented pairs, S. Orienting words.
All lovers, as we know, boast of their choice; […] the chatterer [is] good-humored; the silent one maintains her virtuous modesty (Molière, [The Misanthrope], 1666[2])
(What is presented as) the true strongly negative description of a person as a chatterbox or a stupid person contrasts with how she appears in the eyes of her lover, respectively as being good-humored or maintaining her virtuous modesty. The following example shows that this situation is generalized to discourse, where paradiastole no longer operates strictly between two terms, but between two discourses, opposing two points of view:
L1: — He’s brave.
L2: — I would not say that. He knows how to face danger, okay, but it seems to me that to be really brave you also need a system of values, a clear sense of what you are fighting for… maybe he is more of a hothead?
Starting from a mere nuance, paradiastole can develop into a permanent opposition:
L1: — This is just ignorance
L2: — No, it is simply bad faith.
[1] Thierry Maulnier, Le sens des mots, Paris: Flammarion, 1976, p. 9-10.
[2] Molière, Le Misanthrope, II, 4. Quoted from Moliere, The Misanthrope. Ed. by, Girard KS: E. Haldeman-Julius, 1922, p. 26-27. https://archive.org/details/misanthropecomed00molirich (11-04-2017).