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Grammar education, it was connected with writing and covered a broad spectrum including the A: qawàaid al-lu©a. – G: Grammatik. – appreciation of literature. The grammateîs of F: grammaire. – R: grammatiks. – the New Testament were the ‘scribes’ (Mat 2, S: gramática. – C: yufa 4). In the Middle Ages, it became syno- Before the ‘linguistic turn’ that marked nymous with knowledge or study of Latin, many fields of study in the twentieth century, and often learning in general, especially the Gramsci understood that grammar as the type of knowledge of the learned classes. underlying structure that makes languages With the rise of the nation-state and the possible is an important political issue, vernacular languages, ‘grammar’ lost its both as a regulative social institution and a particular connection to Latin and became key element in philosophical questions of associated with ‘modern’ languages. thought and knowledge. Indeed, Gramsci One of the basic distinctions in grammar dedicated his last prison notebook (Q 29) to is between descriptive grammar and nor- grammar. There his discussion of the politics mative (or proscriptive) grammar. What is of grammar can also be seen as a grammar of known as the Port-Royal Grammar (published politics, as a metaphorical examination of in Paris in 1660) is an important historical the dynamics of hegemony. foundation of normative grammar. It used Of the many meanings and dimensions the idea of a ‘universal grammar’ shared by of ‘grammar’, the most important for all languages to further its aim of teaching Marxists is whether it is seen as the structure people not necessarily how language is used, or set of rules defining a language that is but how it should be used. The authors, ‘objective’, politically neutral and even tran- Antoine Arnauld (1612–94) and Claude scends history and culture in such ideas as Lancelot (1628–95), were Jansenists of the a ‘universal grammar’. The other alternative Abbey of Port-Royal des Champs near Paris. is that the very description of a grammar is As with an earlier work by Lancelot (1644) a political act that has social and cultural explaining in French how to speak Latin, consequences. Gramsci develops ‘grammar’ the Port-Royal Grammar was primarily a in the latter sense, showing how it inherently paedagogical tool aimed at making it easier involves operations of power and how it to learn a language by explaining its relates to ideology, authority, regulation and structure. Its philosophical position is closely hegemony. The former understanding of tied to the Port-Royal Logic (Arnaud/Nicole ‘grammar’ as, at least initially, a technical 1662) in presenting language structure as and objective structure or set of rules that the product of rational thought processes. can be described in a value-neutral way has In the tradition of René Descartes’s had much greater purchase in contemporary rationalism, the Port-Royal Grammar defines linguistics as well as in everyday language. grammar as the method by which one turns Noam Chomsky’s theory of ‘generative thoughts into verbal signs, or the art of grammar’ and his corollary search for a speaking. As Michel Foucault notes, it would ‘universal grammar’ that is ‘hard-wired’ in be too narrow to see this simply as a the human brain is the culmination of a long prescription of a legislator on how to speak. history of supposedly apolitical notions of Rather, the correct use of speech for Arnauld grammar. and Lancelot is a way to reduce the discrepancy between one’s thoughts (and 1. Grammar comes from the Greek, gram- one’s mother tongue) and the language being matikê (téchnê) – Latin: (ars) grammatica – learned (Foucault III–XVIII). This set a the word grámma means ‘letter, written, re- precedent whereby grammar had some corded’. In its earliest usage in Greco-Roman important role in turning our inner thoughts

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into their outer expression in language, historical changes in languages through which is at the heart of the connection ‘sound laws’. They focussed on how between thinking and language, logic and individual sounds and word forms changed grammar. The Port-Royal ‘normative historically within a language and across grammar’ was also important in viewing languages. The emphasis was phonetic language as a synchronic system where the and lexical rather than either semantic or histories of the words constituting it are syntactic. irrelevant. At the beginning of the twentieth The affinities between comparative century, Ferdinand de Saussure took from grammar and German romanticism waned the Port-Royal Grammar this insistence that at the end of the nineteenth century. With linguistics should not be concerned with the rise of the ‘neogrammarians [Jung- ‘reconstructing’ previous linguistic states, grammiker]’, comparative grammar took a as was the method of the historical or decidedly positivistic turn. Where Humboldt comparative grammarians of the nineteenth believed in a ‘universal grammar’ and century. Instead of diachronic analysis, the early comparativists had comparable linguistics must focus on languages as ideas about an ‘Ursprache’, the neogram- synchronic systems in order to define its marians rejected all such ideas as unscientific. subject in a ‘scientifically manageable’ way. They were also disparaging of the value In the eighteenth century, German roman- judgements that normative conceptions of ticism offered a much more historical and grammar contained. Even if such value- cultural approach to language, inspired by judgements were supposedly based on logic a fascination with the origins of language, and incontestable reason, the neogrammarian the primacy of poetry and expression not method excluded any notion of grammar solely rational but emotional, and the as normative of how people should speak. diversity of languages throughout the world. Rather, grammar, for them, was a descriptive Johann Gottfried Herder, Wilhelm von pursuit of how people actually used lan- Humboldt and others, in the context of their guage. They took the earlier comparative Enlightenment critique, provided important grammarians’ idea of ‘sound laws’ to its contributions to the study of language. Both extremes, arguing that all language change the concept of grammar and the emphasis could be attributed to such laws, without on the structure of languages were eclipsed exception. According to this view, linguistic by romanticism’s aesthetic and expressive change has nothing to do with cultural, considerations. Though Humboldt’s object political or social context. Rather, linguistic was the Diversity of Human Language phenomena could be explained scientifically Construction (1836), he subordinated it to the solely by laws internal to language. expressive and ‘active’ power of what he called ‘enérgeia’. 2. In 1911, the neogrammarians still held In the nineteenth century, the term sway when the young student, Antonio ‘grammar’ re-emerged in connection not to Gramsci, began studying linguistics at the normative or synchronic structures of University of Turin. In the same year, the language, but to the historical investigation Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, of language change and the relations among completed his last of four years of lectures Indo-European languages especially rooted in Geneva, lectures that would give birth to in comparisons between Sanskrit, Greek and structuralism. Gramsci’s linguistics professor, Latin. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, August Matteo Bartoli, hoped that Gramsci would Schliermacher and Franz Bopp developed become the linguist to refute successfully this approach labelled ‘comparative gram- the neogrammarians. But it was Saussure mar’, comparative philology or historical whose legacy was, if not to destroy the linguistics. Working from the assumption neogrammarians, at least to render them a that languages evolved like living organisms closed chapter in the history of linguistics. and that all Indo-European languages sprang In his posthumously published lectures from one original language or Ursprache, (1916), which became the famous Course comparative grammarians tried to explain in General Linguistics, he rejected historical HIMA 13,4_340_f19_392-399 11/8/05 2:17 PM Page 395

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approaches to the study of language: expanding the traditional meaning, he then language functions as a ‘system’ wherein subverts the original meaning by em- expression and meaning are constituted phasising its unavoidably political nature: through reference to and differentiation from ‘It is obvious that someone who writes each other. a normative grammar cannot ignore the There is no evidence that Gramsci knew history of the language of which he wishes anything about Saussure’s lectures. How- to propose an “exemplary phase” as the ever, his studies with Bartoli led to a similar “only” one worthy to become, in an “or- rejection of the neogrammarians. Like ganic” and “totalitarian” way, the “common” Saussure, Gramsci returned to Port-Royal’s language of a nation in competition and notion of normative grammar as a syn- conflict with other “phases” and types or chronic structure of language. Also like schemes that already exist’ (Gramsci 1985, Saussure, Gramsci criticised the Port-Royal 180; Q 29, 2). connection between ‘normative grammar’ One of Gramsci’s important points is that and ‘universal grammar’, or a direct relation normative grammar is always comparative, to some ahistorical notion of logic and in that it is based on the exclusion of other reason. Unlike Saussure, Gramsci’s critique grammars that he calls interchangeably was fundamentally based on the notion that ‘immanent’ or ‘spontaneous grammar’. This grammar is ‘history’ or an ‘historical is ‘the grammar “immanent” in language document’: ‘it is the “photograph” of a given itself, by which one speaks “according to phase of a national (collective) language grammar” without knowing it. . . . The that has been formed historically and is number of “immanent or spontaneous continuously developing. . . . The practical grammars” is incalculable and, theoretically, question might be: what is the purpose of one can say that each person has a grammar such a photograph? To represent the history of his own’ (Q 29, 2). While such grammars of an aspect of civilisation, or to change an seem to operate spontaneously, the historical aspect of civilisation?’ (Gramsci 1985, 179–80; perspective illustrates how spontaneous Q 29, 1). grammars are always tied to some phase We must ask, what is the purpose of of a normative grammar. As he explains freezing the continually changing process of elsewhere, ‘pure’ spontaneity does not exist language? As Jacques Derrida argued years in history; rather, ‘in the “most spontaneous” later, inaugurating ‘poststructuralism’, if the movement the elements of “conscious synchronic dimension is totally disconnected leadership” are simply uncontrollable, they from its diachronic roots, meaning could not have not left behind a verifiable document’ appear (Derrida 1974, 62). Where Saussure (Q 3, 48). would answer that it is only in the name of Thus, for Gramsci, there is no simple or ‘science’ and there are no political or non- strict line between spontaneous and nor- scientific motives at stake, Gramsci argues mative grammars. Normative grammars are otherwise. This is evident in how Gramsci created by codification (often written), refers the concept of ‘normative grammar’ standardisation and imposition through back to social situations: ‘The reciprocal ‘reciprocal’ censorship of grammars that had monitoring, reciprocal teaching and previously been spontaneous. And spon- reciprocal “censorship” expressed in such taneous grammars are the result of the questions as “What did you mean to say?”, fragmentation, sedimentation, habituation “What do you mean?”, “Make yourself and forgetting of previous normative clearer”, etc., and in mimicry and teasing. grammars. In this way, Gramsci connected This whole complex of actions and reactions the debates in Italian linguistics around come together to create a grammatical standardisation with his more general conformism, to establish “norms” or cultural theory of hegemony. As Franco Lo judgements of correctness and incorrectness’ Piparo has shown persuasively, it was in the (Q 29, 2). milieu of European linguistics, especially the As Gramsci often does with terms that alternatives to the neogrammarian approach, later became ‘Gramscian’ concepts, after that Gramsci came into contact with the HIMA 13,4_340_f19_392-399 11/8/05 2:17 PM Page 396

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concept of ‘hegemony’. ‘Hegemony’ was and secure relations between the ruling deployed there synonymously with concepts groups and the national-popular mass, that including fascination [fascino] and prestige is, of reorganising cultural hegemony’ (Q [prestigio] in order to explain the adoption and 29, 3). adaptation of linguistic forms throughout different social groups and communities of 3. ‘Grammar’ played a significant role in the speakers. debate between Stalin and the linguist N.Y. Gramsci did not oppose the creation of Marr. Marr’s approach dominated Soviet ‘normative grammars’. On the contrary, linguistics until Stalin’s repudiation of it in he argued that the fascists’ success was in 1950. Marr criticised the neogrammarians part due to their ability to exploit the non- for isolating language as an object of study existence of a normative Italian grammar, from society, and saw in it, instead, a permitting Mussolini to pit the northern phenomenon of the ‘superstructure’. Marr proletariat against the southern peasantry. and his followers were concerned to show As he experienced with fascist educational how, since 1917, Russian and other Soviet policies, it is precisely the renunciation of a languages, including their grammars, had normative grammar which can be eminently changed considerably with the transfor- oppressive, because it deprives the oppressed mation in the relations of production. Well of a possible competence. The type of after Marr’s death, Stalin published an normative grammar that Gramsci advocated article in Pravda rejecting Marr’s approach, for the Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I) specifically criticising the idea that language was not the imposition of one grammar was part of the superstructure. According as the only possible one. Rather, Gramsci to Stalin, language is like tools of production advocated the creation of a normative and machinery; it was developed under grammar through the various spontaneous previous historical epochs and any particular grammars provided by the dialects. language and grammar is equally as useful Gramsci argued for the formation of a for capitalism as for communism. Much of normative grammar that is self-consciously his argument relied on the rejection of any comparative. Thus, normative grammar class nature of language. Grammar was and its relationship to spontaneous gram- critical in distinguishing language proper mars move beyond linguistics and become from mere dialects and jargons of particular metaphors for political organisation. The classes or social groups that, according to politics of grammar becomes the grammar Stalin, do not have their own grammar but of politics. The process of forming a progres- borrow them from the national language sive normative grammar is the same as his (Stalin 1951). While such a distinction description of the development of the philo- between language and dialect is not unique sophy of praxis through the organisation to Stalin, it remains almost impossible to and co-ordination of the contradictory and make based on linguistic evidence. Gramsci’s inchoate elements of ‘common sense’. The critique of such static notions of grammar metaphor of grammar is also valuable in also undermines Stalin’s position. Gramsci’s explorations of how freedom The Russian psychologist, Lev Semenovich and consent can be shaped by bourgeois Vygotsky (1896–1934), concurred with hegemony in such a way that the majority Gramsci’s emphasis on the primacy of the can support their own subordination (cf. ‘historical’ in the relation between language Ives 1997, 1998). and thinking. He criticised other schools, The reference of grammar to the field of specifically the psychology of Piaget, for cultural hegemony is, however, always more not understanding that language and than metaphoric. ‘Every time that the meaning develop together historically, question of language appears, in one way both ontogenetically and phylogenetically or another, it means that a series of other (1934, 62ff.). problems impose themselves: the formation A new aspect in Vygotsky’s work, in com- and expansion of the ruling [dirigente] class, parison to Gramsci’s, is the question con- the necessity of stabilising more intimate cerning the mental correlate of grammatical HIMA 13,4_340_f19_392-399 11/8/05 2:17 PM Page 397

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structures. Vygotsky spoke of a ‘non- the most important commonality between correspondence of grammatical and psycho- Gramsci and Wittgenstein’s views of logical subject and predicate’, because ‘the language is that both are critical of élitist development of the semantic and of the or purely philosophical approaches to phonetic side of the word in the mastery of language, in favour of a focus on what in complicated syntactical structures does not Wittgenstein’s case became known as the coincide’ (304). Vygotsky distinguished ‘ordinary language’ approach. Nevertheless, between the grammar of thought (‘grammar as Wolfgang Fritz Haug has noted, Witt- of the inner language’), which operates genstein’s approach, in comparison to semantically, and the grammar of the form Gramsci’s, has less purchase (Haug 1996, of language or syntax (‘grammar of the Chapter 4). It neither offers adequate external language’). This has some simi- explanations of why language can be larities with Gramsci’s distinctions between bewildering nor accounts for the social and ‘spontaneous’ grammar, which tends to be historical contexts in which language more individualistic, and ‘normative confusions arise, which Wittgenstein grammar’. However, whereas Vygotsky nevertheless wishes to eliminate, because delved into the movement from ‘inner this approach ultimately tends to the language’ to ‘external language’, Gramsci, ‘ahistorical’: ‘If the problems of the ancient as we saw above, insisted that ‘spontaneous Greeks still engage us and there therefore grammar’ has a history in previous nor- appears to be no progress in philosophy, mative grammars. then the reason for that consists in the fact, The Russian linguist and member of the Wittgenstein noted in 1931, “that our Bakhtin Circle, Valentin Voloshinov makes language has remained the same and keeps two important points with respect to Marxist seducing us into asking the same questions”’ uses of ‘grammar’. The first concerns the (Haug 1996, 72). And the ‘notions of common relationship between grammar and style. sense’ (W 8, 512), which Wittgenstein wants Voloshinov takes heed of Karl Vossler’s to address in his critique of philosophy, argument that grammar is the solidification are, for Gramsci, precisely the point of or crystallisation of individual creative acts departure of critical philosophy which of style. While Vossler is an idealist who sublates the ‘nozioni del senso comune’ (cf. places too much emphasis on the indivi- Haug 1996, 71). dualistic and creative aspect of language to Noam Chomsky’s ‘generative grammar’ the detriment of language as a ready-made has held a dominant position within system inherited by every speaker, his notion linguistics since the 1960s. Even though that style and grammar cannot be strictly Chomsky is one of the most important separated is essential to Marxist linguistics. critics of US capitalism, his linguistic theory, He agrees with Gramsci, emphasising that which he strictly separates from his political declaring something to be grammatical (i.e. activism, runs in direct contrast to Marxist selecting certain features as the correct concepts of grammar in a number of points. grammatical structures) is a social and Chomsky uses the term ‘grammar’ political act grounded in the economic ambiguously to mean either the mental existence of the language community. To representation of a speaker’s knowledge of argue that this selection process is ‘objective’ a language or the linguist’s codification of or apolitical is a mystification. the structure of a language (cf. Wasow 1989). His theory of ‘generative grammar’ defines 4. Similar to Gramsci and Saussure, Witt- grammar as a finite set of rules that can genstein argued that it is futile to search for generate an infinite number of sentences the essence or meaning of words outside each of which can be distinguished from their use in a given sign system. ‘The mean- nonsensical strings of words. Chomsky ing of a word is its use in language’ (PI 43). distinguishes base grammar, which generates Like Gramsci (and against Saussure), he ‘deep structures’ of language, from ‘trans- insisted that language is to be understood formational grammar’, which is the set of as a social tool that humans use. Perhaps rules that turns these ‘deep structures’ into HIMA 13,4_340_f19_392-399 11/10/05 8:41 PM Page 398

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the sentences of actual language that we use. masses (Gramsci 1985, 169; Q 29, 2). Despite the vast differences in the syntactical ‘Language has not yet acquired an extensive structure of different languages, there must “historicity”, it has not yet become a national be a ‘universal grammar’ shared by all fact.... In reality, in Italy there are many natural languages, that is ‘hard wired’ into “popular” languages, and it is the regional human biology. According to Chomsky, ‘we dialects which are usually spoken in intimate do not really learn language; rather, grammar conversation, in which the most common grows in the mind’ (1980, 134). While and diffuse feelings and affects are expressed; Gramsci, with Marx (in the sixth of the Theses literary language is still, in many respects, on Feuerbach), sees the ‘human essence’ a cosmopolitan language, a type of realised in the ensemble of historically “Esperanto”, that is, limited to the expression determined social relations, Chomsky of partial feelings and notions’ (Q 23, 39). identifies it with the human brain. Chomsky In these cases, it is writing that wields explicitly criticizes Gramsci’s Marxist con- ethnocentrism over speech. ception of human nature. Chomsky falsely The role of writing versus speech raises assumes that the question of “human nature” some questions in interpreting Gramsci (cf. must be confined to the human brain which Ives 1998, 47-8 and Lo Piparo 1979, 252). It exhibits “a system of a sort familiar in the remains an open question whether Derrida’s biological world... of ‘mental organs’ based attempt to shift the pursuit of science away on physical mechanisms... that provide a from the ‘form of logic’ towards that of unique form of intelligence that manifests ‘grammatics’ can be utilised for Marxist itself in human language...” (Chomsky projects. This presumably depends on the 1987: 196–7, see also Chomsky 1976: 128–43). more general debate over the relationship Chomsky’s approach to grammar is an between Marxism and deconstruction. obstacle to any understanding of language

as a social institution integral to the formation BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. ARNAULD AND C. LANCELOT, 1969 of ideology and social reproduction as found [1660], Grammaire générale et raisonnée, Paris; in Gramsci and the semiotic Marxist ap- A. ARNAULD AND P. N ICOLE, 1996 [1662], Logic or the proaches of Volosinovˆˆ , Vygotsky, Schaff, Art of Thinking, Cambridge; N. CHOMSKY, 1987 Rossi-Landi, Ponzio, Kristeva, Williams ‘Equality: Language Development, Human Inte- lligence, and Social Organization’, in The Chomsky and others. Reader, 183–202, ed. J. Peck. New York; N. CHOMSKY, In a very different realm, Jacques Derrida 1986, Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and takes the term ‘grammar’ back to its ety- Use, New York; N. CHOMSKY, 1980, Rules and mological roots. With Of Grammatology Representations, New York; N. CHOMSKY, 1979, (1967), he conceived a science of letters and Language and Responsibility, ed. M. Ronat, New syllables, of reading and writing, which York; N. CHOMSKY, 1976, Reflections on Language, London; J. DERRIDA, 1974 [1967], On Grammatology, promised a liberation from ‘logocentrism’ tr. G. Spivak, Baltimore; M. FOUCAULT, 1969, and ‘ethnocentrism’. According to Derrida, ‘Introduction’ to A. Arnauld and C. Lancelot, the ‘metaphysics of presence’ that has Grammaire générale et raisonnée, III–XVIII, Paris; dominated Western philosophy subordinates A. GRAMSCI, 1971, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, written language to spoken language; thus eds and trs Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith, New would arise the fiction that thought contents York; A. GRAMSCI, 1973, Letters from Prison, ed. and tr. L. Lawner, New York; A. GRAMSCI, 1975, Quaderni are readily available instead of recognising del carcere (Q), Turin; A. GRAMSCI, 1985, Selections that they sedimented in innumerable from Cultural Writings, eds D. Forgacs and structures. G. Nowell-Smith, tr. W. Boelhower, Cambridge; Gramsci shows some awareness of such A. GRAMSCI, 1994, Letters from Prison (2 Vols), differences between spoken and written ed. F. Rosengarten, tr. R. Rosenthal, New York; language, but evaluates them differently. He M. HALEY AND R. LUNSFORD, 1994, Noam Chomsky, New York; R. HARRIS AND T. TAYLOR, 1989, Landmarks notes that one of the major obstacles to in Linguistic Thought: The Western Tradition from literary Italian becoming a national language Socrates to Saussure, London; W.F. HAUG, 1996, was that the literary language (together with Philosophieren mit Brecht und Gramsci, Berlin; its normative grammars), like the Latin it G. HUCK AND J. GOLDSMITH, 1995, Ideology and replaced, was inaccessible to the non-literate Linguistic Theory: Noam Chomsky and the Deep HIMA 13,4_340_f19_392-399 11/10/05 8:41 PM Page 399

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Structure Debates, London; W. VON HUMBOLDT, 1988, On Language, tr. P. Heath, Cambridge; P. IVES, 1998, ‘A Grammatical Introduction to Gramsci’s Political Theory’, in Rethinking Marxism Vol. 10:1, 34–51; P. I VES, 1997, ‘The Grammar of Hegemony’, in Left History Vol. 5:1, 85–104; F. Lo PIPARO, 1979, Lingua, intellettuali, egemonia in Gramsci, Bari; F. LO PIPARO, 1987, ‘Studio del linguaggio e teoria gramsciana’, in Critica Marxista Vol. 2:3, 167–75; F. ROSSI-LANDI, 1983, Language as Work and Trade: A Semiotic Homology For Linguistics and Economics, trs M. Adams et al., South Hadley, Mass; F. ROSSI- LANDI, 1990, Marxism and Ideology, tr. R. Griffin, Oxford; F. DE SAUSSURE, 1959, Course in General Linguistics, eds C. Bally and A. Sechehaye, tr. W. Baskin, New York; J. STALIN, 1951, ‘On Marxism in Linguistics’, in The Soviet Linguistic Controversy, 70–6, trs J. Murra et al., New York; J. STEINBERG, 1987, ‘The Historian and the Questione della Lingua’, in The Social History of Language, 198–209, eds P. Burke and R. Porter, Cambridge; V.N. VOLOSHINOV, 1986, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trs L. Matejka and I.R. Titunik, Cambridge, Mass; L.S. VYGOTSKY, 1962, Thought and Language, eds and trs E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar, Cambridge, Mass; T. WASOW, 1989, ‘Grammar’, in International Encyclopedia of Communications, 234–8, ed. E. Barnouw, Oxford; R. WILLIAMS, 1977, Marxism and Literature, Oxford; L. WITTGENSTEIN, 1958, Philosophical Investigations (PI), tr. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford.

Peter Ives

consciousness, discourse analysis, discourse theory, Enlightenment, expression, history, hegemony, historicism, ideology, language, language game, meaning, philosophy of language, philosophy of praxis, rationalism, semiotics, sign, Spirit, translation

Aufklärung, Ausdruck, Bedeutung, Bewusstsein, Diskursanalyse, Diskurstheorie, Geist, Geschichte, Hegemonie, Historismus, Ideologie, Philosophie der Praxis, Rationalismus, Semiotik, Sprache, Sprach- philosophie, Sprachspiel, Übersetzung, Zeichen