Social Compass

Linguistics is currently placed in an uncomfortable position between its colleagues in the social sciences who continue to think of linguistics as a model discipline and those who, in the process of separation, return linguistics to the criticism of its own ideology.

The use of linguistic models and concepts in sociology poses problems on several levels : that of the origin of the Linguistic School of terms used, that of the degree of acceptability of a term taken as analogy, that of the pertinence of the concept for the sociologist. Two illustrations from recent sociological works show the difficulty for the linguist to recognize the use of linguistic concepts by the sociologist and make him some times doubt their proper application. But criticism of the separatist sociologists and semioticians sometimes shows a mistrust, both of the whole of the linguistic drift, and the conditions in which these concepts have been elucidated in this discipline.

Suggestions are made for introducing new concepts when it is a question of analysing speech, a task for which linguists as well as sociologists are invited to participate.

The sermonizing in the Catholic Church aims at producing a speech which participates in the ritual moment in which it is produced and the universe of meaning of those to whom it is addressed at the same time — to clarify : the faithful united in congregation. It is a question of bringing to light several aspects of semiotic and sociological logic to work in this pro duction. The sermonly production is registered, in a dominant way, in an asymmetrical social relation around the couple clergy/laymen. The former is the legitimate producer of a sociopolitical knowledge of which the legitimacy of production passes across the mediation of religious knouledge. This is, in effect, the only one to be perceived, by the producers of speech, as capable of furnishing to speech itself a legitimacy, and thus as capable of reaffirming the asymmetric position in the pro duction process.

Following the important institutional moment that was the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has seen the socio-cultural changes that were crystallized in the often con flicting changes of its system of authority.

In addition, during a period of profound changes the positions taken by the levels of authority have reinforced institutional weight; that is why the study is concerned with the speech that the superior level of authority of the religious Catholic group produces about itself. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is linked to an observation of the teaching system which is precisely one sector of social life where authority is strongly questioned. These thoughts have guided the author to formulate the hypotheses concerning the model of authority in the Roman Catholic group.

To enter into this universe with the work hypotheses, the author presents an analytical grill of texts of which the key does not rest on a regrouping of different themes treated by speech ; it is these speeches themselves which give the key and, more precisely, their literary mechanisms brought to light by a study of pedagogical speech made by Jean Dubois.

The conclusions of the analyses conclude by the speeches themselves, the existence of various arbitrary cultural insti tutions in the Catholic ecclesiastical institution, without that diversity being, all the same, accepted by the superior level of this institution. More than this statement, it is the method itself of the study which rates attention.

The authors are making a comparative analysis of two pon tifical documents : the encyclical « Rerum Novarum » (1891) of Pope Leo XIII, and the « Letter to Cardinal Roy » (1971) of Pope Paul VI. The two Roman texts are analyzed on the basis of hypotheses formulated by J. Matthes concerning the institutionalized doctrinal production. The authors are working principally on two lexical theories : ideology and socialism on one hand, and the Church, Christians, on the other.

The authors can verify the hypothesis that, beyond the stylistic variations, which analysis of the two documents bring to light, the effort of the Church to maintain and extend its hold on its members in retaking into account the practices and now problems of its members, by linking the problems con sidered and the actions envisaged to the official recognition.

The Cazzada Report (Milan, 1967), which deals with cer tain points of doctrine of the Dutch New Catechism, presents in one document the writings of two groups of theologians : the first delegated by the Holy See, the second delegated by the Episcopate of Holland. The initial step of the present work consists in a semio-logical analysis, realized with the aid of the conceptions of Julia Kristeva. This author studies the text from the partical point of view, i.e. as a significant pro duction. For her, the semiological level of such a practise is drawn out by the formalisation of its dialectic rapport with regard to other social texts. The document of Gazzada is thus submitted to such an analysis of intertextuality. Follo wing this initial step is the actual sociological analysis of the « Dutch » text. According to the concept of « sociologème », this discursive application is seized upon as anticipative and concurrent sacerdotal legitimation. The concrete object being in this way translated into a sociological problematic, it is then connected to specific explanatory factors: the position of the laity in the ecclesiastical pedagogical system on the one hand, and the change from cultural legitimacy into the matter of a symbolic universe on the other hand.

This article proposes the analysis of a religious discourse from the sociological point of view, employing the aid of linguistic methods. To this end, the document « Declaration on Abortion by the Bishops of Belgium » was chosen, since it is situated in a precise conjuncture. With this in mind, it constitutes a document from wich it is possible to draw the social, especially political, implications. From the perspective in which we place ourselves, we aim to point out in the text on the one hand the representations which are contained therein and which the authors are striving to make shared, and on the manner in which it is said. We are centering particularly on the proposed images of womanhood and of abortion, and on the rapports between the Bishops and the public opinion and more generally the political field.

The authors are trying to review the pertinent sociological questions that might arise in the analyses presented in this issue of « Social Compass ». First of all, they examine the implications of a linguistic procedure in comparison with the sociology of culture. The merit of linguistics and semiotics is to awaken the sociology of culture by helping it to reformulate its theoretical object. But the use of linguistic models assumes that the sociologist takes a distance from them and also assumes a critical work beforehand. In addition, it assumes the use of a conceptual apparatus capable of making an analysis of the imminence of speech come out in order to make the sociological significance (sign ification) appear.