Linguistic Events and «The School Door»: A Reflection on Static and Moving Values in the Work of Emmanuel Hocquard

In this article we reflect on pairs of language facts that can have both a static and a moving value. Taking as points of departure selected texts by Emmanuel Hocquard (especially Ruines à rebours, 2010; Voyage à Reykjavik: Chronique, 1997; and Les Coquelicots: Une Grammaire de Tanger III, 2011) and in relying on studies on language and grammar (especially Maingueneau 1999), we observe how certain indicators («inside/outside»; «before/after»; «close to/ far from») are not only spatiotemporal markers but, in the words of Hocquard, «signal flow, direction, acceleration, slowing down, speed, and breathing» (Hocquard, 2010:23). In order to better appreciate the importance of these language facts, we first of all consider them as diachronies. After that, we reflect on the stakes of subjective systems of reference points in the field of utterance before considering the relationship between extra-discursive reference and that which is contextual. Within this study of writers and manipulators of language facts, we can better situate our broadened appreciation of the role of shifters.