Chasing the Ordinary Way of Meaning: Amongst Language-Games and Everyday Practices

Abstract

In this article, we attempt to develop an essay on the concept of “ordinary meaning,” initially proposed by Michel Pêcheux. The concept, however, was not fully developed due to the French philosopher’s premature death in 1983. Thus, this essay aims to conjecture what this “ordinary way of meaning” might be. To do so, following Pêcheux’s suggestions, we will explore the “analysis of ordinary language,” as proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, and its culturalist reinterpretation by Michel de Certeau in everyday practices. At the end of the path, we arrive at two hypotheses: the first is that the “ordinary way of meaning” would not configure an “aspect” of meaning (or the inclusion of new objects, such as conversations, etc.), but a new paradigm to practice Discourse Analysis based on a “practical materialism”; the second is that thinking about meaning in its ordinary way causes Discourse Analysis to take into account discursive practices and their diagrams of action. Finally, as a simple homage to the more than 660,000 victims of COVID-19 in Brazil, the discussion around language-games and everyday practices will be guided by the reading of a Memorial Inumeráveis post in one of its social networks.