The Generative Trajectory in Soccer. A Contribution of Semiotic Theory to the General Theory of Language

The problem of the generative trajectory is acute in the theory of language. Currents clash. Noah Chomsky, one of the forerunners of generative models in linguistics, has developed a model of this phenomenon based on a symmetrical system of units deployed on two levels: surface level and deep level. These two levels which operate in the syntactic sphere of discourse are complemented by two components that characterize them: the semantic component (which deals with semantic interpretation) and the phonological component (which deals with phonological interpretation). Chomsky's model emphasizes that the semantic component is associated with deep structures while the phonological component is associated with surface structures, so that the generative trajectory of meaning is formed from the idea that « the surface structure is not relevant for semantic interpretation and the deep structure is not relevant for phonological interpretation » (Greimas and Courtés, 1979: 158). For Greimas and Courtés, this model poses a problem. It is equivalent to the idea that, from the semantic point of view, a sequence of syntactic transformations provides no additional meaning (other than stylistic) in the production of utterances. In this sense, a surface form is semantically equivalent to a deep form. This is difficult to conceive, since we know that the semantic level can play on two registers. Not only can it rise to the surface (in the case of phonological significance), it can also deepen the deep structures themselves (in the case, for example, of derivations).
These divergences show that, as Greimas and Courtés acknowledge, the generative trajectory of linguistic inspiration, which moreover can be transposed to other practices such as games, hardly work, dispite of numerous research undertaken, in the way of producing a coherent general theory of language. Our contribution is precisely at this level. By analyzing certain language productions such as the gestuality that prevails in the game of soccer, we see even a model of meaning that further elucidates the generative trajectory in the production of utterances. Deep forms (such as modalization systems) and surface forms (gestures produced from these modalization systems) seem to offer a whole model of generative reading inspired by the theory of meaning. These semiotic structures play at least on three levels: level of semio-narrative structures (modalities); levels of discursive structures (gestures produced), level of textual structures (the transcription of these gestures on recording materials, such as the media).