Conquering Language (langage conquérant)

Merleau-Ponty's name for speech that sets up a new signification within a "language machine [machine de langage] / apparatus [un appareil]" built from old signs — an apparatus that "sometimes gives more and sometimes less than what one puts into it." The literary writer at work is the paradigm. The operative concept of *Investigations into the Literary Use of Language* (1953); foundational to MP's mature theory of expression and his constructive answer to Fink's third paradox of transcendental phenomenology. Defined at Course Summary [9] as MP's contrast to "constituted" or "exact" language; defined operatively at L2 [29]–[30] as "language of genuine communication, that also teaches the other, – language in which the one speaking [le parlant] truly is [and] with which he is identical."

Key Points

The operative thesis (Course Summary [9]): "The theory of language is usually based on its so-called exact forms [. . .] it loses sight of the heuristic value of language, its conquering function [sa fonction conquérante], which in contrast is evident in the writer at work. Constituted language should perhaps instead be considered as a secondary form of language, derived from the initial operation that sets up a new signification in a language machine [une machine de langage] constructed with old signs, and which thus can only indicate it [or] draw the reader and the author himself toward it."
The asymmetric apparatus: Language is a "machine de langage / un appareil" that "sometimes gives more and sometimes less than what one puts into it" (Course Summary [9]). The input/output asymmetry is constitutive, not noise — it is what makes literature simultaneously "exhausting and inexhaustible."
Indication, not statement: A new signification fabricated in old signs can only be indicated — "[it] draws the reader and the author himself toward it." This is why conquering language is structurally indirect (cf. indirect-language).
The writer's existential identification: L2 [29]–[30] gloss: "language of genuine communication, that also teaches the other, – language in which the one speaking [le parlant] truly is [and] with which he is identical." Conquering language is not just a stylistic achievement; the writer who realizes it identifies existentially with how they use it.
From the impostures to the conquest: The same operation that makes literary imposture possible makes conquering language possible. L6 [63]: "language exceeds us, it's confusing for us and for others, unintentional, in this sense the risk is real, – but this, which makes deception [imposture] possible, also makes conquering language possible." Chance becomes reason.
The Piaget contrast: At L2 [30] MP positions conquering language against Piaget's Le Langage et la pensée chez l'enfant — the view of language as the communication of an inert message between matured speakers. Translator's Note 27 ties this to MP's 1949–52 Sorbonne lectures.
Not Sartrean prose: Conquering language is not the "prose" of Sartre's What is Literature? (instrument-of-action). Sartre's prose/poetry dichotomy collapses, in MP's reading, into a distinction between ready-made language (which is what Sartrean prose actually is) and active conquering expressivity. Per L6 [66]–[67]: "Valéry's definitions of prose and poetry become [respectively] that of ready-made language and actual conquering expressivity. Expressivity dozes off in constituted language."
Not Mallarméan magic, either: Conquering language is not Mallarmé's "divinity of language" (which is a temptation Valéry diagnoses as an imposture). The L6 §2 Saussurean correction demystifies the operation: the "mystical union of sound and sense" is "founded in reason" because signs are diacritical and the conquering operation works at the level of differences-mapping-to-differences, not at the level of secret correspondences.
Universality without a concept: The communicative outcome of conquering language is "hyperobjective" — "universality without [a] concept" (L2 [30]) and lateral universality (L1 [20]). The reader, not initially possessed of the new signification, is "drawn toward it" by the writer's indirect operation.

What the Concept Does

The concept performs three connected pieces of argumentative work in MP's 1953 course:

(1) Re-frames the philosophy of language away from constituted-speech-as-object. Traditional theory describes the residue (constituted language as system of conventions); conquering language is the operation that produces the residue. The Saussurean diacritical apparatus is consistent with this — what MP appropriates from Saussure is not a sociological derivation of meaning, but a system in process of differentiation that the conquering operation extends, contracts, or warps.
(2) Resolves the writer's "what is literature?" by reframing it as an operation, not a content. The four paradoxes of literary writing arise from treating literature as a thing-to-be-found (truth, communication, self-portrait); they dissolve when literature is treated as an operation in which the asymmetric machine works.
(3) Provides the constructive answer to Fink's third paradox of transcendental phenomenology. Fink (1933, Kant-Studien): the phenomenologist must use "worldly expressions for non-worldly meanings"; there is a "permanent perplexity" about how transcendental insights can be communicated. MP's answer (per Smyth's Introduction): conquering language can indicate depth even though it cannot directly state it; the same operation that lets writers communicate the singular through particularity lets the phenomenologist communicate the transcendental through the mundane. The 1953 Monday course's whole apparatus (conquering language → expressivity → implex → extraordinary time) is, by this reading, MP's methodological foundation for V&I. (Smyth's framing — Fink is not named in MP's notes themselves.)

What It Rejects

Constituted-language-as-primary (the logician's / Piaget's starting-point) — see Key Points above.
Mallarméan magic / "miracle" — Valéry's own diagnosis that the union of sound and sense in poetry is a "mystical union" (a miracle, hence an impossibility). MP corrects: founded in reason, not miraculous (L6 [65]–[66]).
Sartrean prose-as-instrument — What is Literature? treats prose as the instrumental medium of free-action-appealing-to-free-action. MP at L6 [67]: prose-as-such doesn't exist; what looks like "prose" is ready-made language, the residue. Sartrean "engaged literature" misses that conquering language is already a way of living — it is in conflict with life as such, not as instrument of life.
Words-in-freedom futurism (Marinetti); also classical instrumental theories of language — L1 [21]: even Breton's automatic writing is not "words in freedom" but a thinking about the function of speech.
A consistent Valérian pessimism that takes the impostures as the final word. The dialectical turn at L6 [63] is the rejection.

Stakes

For phenomenology: makes possible a methodologically coherent reinterpretation of transcendental phenomenology in which philosophical insight is communicable without already being part of the mundane. The "extraordinary time" of expression is what lets the philosopher's text carry the transcendental into the worldly.
For the Thursday course: conquering language is the linguistic counterpart to the perceptual expressivity the Thursday course develops; both are diacritical operations on inherited systems.
For Prose of the World: conquering language names the operation MP's set-aside *Prose of the World* manuscript was trying to describe. The Course Summary's closing pointer "Prose of the world." (L2 [30] italic) signals MP's continued allegiance to that project under a new frame.
For V&I: V&I's project of writing about being "in a way that deprives [language] of its power of immediate or direct signification, in order to make it equal to what it nevertheless wants to say" (V&I 102) is the operative program of conquering language extended to ontology.
For politics: MP's writer-as-engaged-through-the-work (the L15 [145]v closing line, "Unaffiliated because he is engaged") rests on conquering language. If language can be conquered, the writer's unveiling function is engagement; if not, then Sartre's engagement continué (taking-of-position outside the work) is the only option. The 1953 break with Sartre is a break over what language can do.

Problem-Space

Three problem-spaces intersect on conquering language:

Fink's three paradoxes of transcendental phenomenology (1933 Kant-Studien) — see Stakes (1). Per Smyth, the deep target of MP's 1953 course. Not directly named by MP.
Sartre's "What is Literature?" (1947) — MP's explicit target re: engagement-vs-disengagement; the antithetic position on language that the antithetic critique of Sartre objects to.
Mallarmé / Valéry / Symbolist legacy — the "miracle" diagnosis of poetic union of sound-and-sense; MP rejects the diagnosis but retains the practice as evidence of the conquering operation.

Motif Weight & Corpus Recurrence

Heading in motifs.md: not yet a tracked motif. Conquering language is the operative concept of *ILUL*; the cross-source pattern is the term's recurrence in *PoW* ("conquering speech" makes "instituted speech and language possible," PoW 141) and *Signs* (the L2 [30] PW-pointer + ILVS essay reprinted in Signs). Weight class assessment: STRUCTURAL across MP corpus, HUB within ILUL 1953. Refresh motifs.md opportunistically; for now, see merleau-ponty-2026-literary-use-language Source page for primary attestations.

Positions

The concept does not yet have multi-source contention requiring full Positions treatment. The principal interpretive crux is whether "conquering language" is one operation in language as such (MP's stated position) or only a literary operation that doesn't generalize (a possible objection that would limit the philosophical reach of the concept). See live claim, claims#conquering-language-as-coherent-deformation-of-language.

Connections

is the linguistic-register of expressivity — L6 [67] marginal: expressivity is "the capacity that [a] certain fold [pli] of language has to indicate [. . .] [a] certain depth [relief] of the universe of thought"; conquering language is expressivity-at-work
operates through implex — the implex is what in us responds to the solicitation by which conquering language works (L6 [69]–[71])
requires implex and expressivity as operative apparatus
shares mechanism with coherent-deformation — Malraux art-criticism term; MP's L6 [70] marginal explicitly uses "coherent deformation" for what the conquering machine does to inherited language; the Thursday course applies the same operation to perception. See live claim, claims#conquering-language-as-coherent-deformation-of-language
enacts lateral universality — universality through synthesis-in-succession (Malraux at L1 [20])
is a reformulation of parole parlante / parole parlée — constituted / conquering in 1953 corresponds structurally to parlée / parlante in PhP, though MP does not call back the PhP terminology in this source. Smyth's Translator's Introduction calls the PhP distinction "well-known but, as he came to see, half-baked"
contrasts with Sartre's *engagement continué* — the writer's engagement is internal to the work (the conquering operation), not external (party-stance)
is a case of indirect language — "[the new signification] can only be indicated, not stated"
applies Saussurean diacriticality to literary expression — L6 [64]–[66]
opposed to Mallarmé's "divinity of language" — L4 [52]; treated as the second imposture

Open Questions

Does conquering language generalize beyond literature? MP's stated position is yes (the course aims at "[a] theory of language and in general [a theory] of symbolism" — L2 [30]). But the textual evidence is overwhelmingly from literature. A Wittgensteinian objection: maybe what looks like "conquest" is just the slow public-language-game extension of conventions by use, with "novelty" a retrospective illusion.
Is the Saussurean correction at L6 [65] enough? MP asserts the homology between system-of-differences-in-signs and system-of-differences-in-significations. But why should the two systems be homologous? MP gives the assertion but not the proof.
Is conquering language compatible with computational / cybernetic models? L2's "machine de langage" is not the cybernetic machine (the asymmetry is constitutive, not noise) — but the machine metaphor itself is uneasy, and Translator's Note 27 ties it to MP's Sorbonne-period engagement with information theory.
What is the relationship to MP's late "flesh of language" (V&I)? Both conquering language and flesh-of-language describe operations on inherited systems that produce new meaning; the Appendix [168]v "a-focalism" coinage explicitly foreshadows V&I's "flesh of language." Is conquering language the operational form of what flesh-of-language is ontologically? See a-focalism (open).

Synthetic Claims

This page is a Wiki home for one live claim. Live claims are cited with provisional framing per CLAUDE.md §Claims Register Format.

live claim, see claims#conquering-language-as-coherent-deformation-of-language — conquering language is the operative concept that makes coherent deformation work at the level of language; the 1953 Monday course is the language-side middle term in the coherent-deformation genealogy (Malraux art criticism → 1953 Thursday course [perceptual] → 1953 Monday course [linguistic] → 1960 Signs [universal]). Promoted to live at 2026-05-16 audit Phase 8.

Sources

merleau-ponty-2026-literary-use-language — the locus classicus. Course Summary [9] (foundational definition); L2 [29]–[30] (operative gloss + Piaget contrast + closing Prose of the world pointer); L6 [63] (turning-point: imposture-possibility = conquering-language-possibility); L6 [66]–[67] ("Expressivity dozes off in constituted language" — the prose/poetry collapse); L6 [70] marginal (explicit "coherent deformation" usage); L8 [85] (writing as not-instrument; "the action of the work is oblique").
merleau-ponty-2020-probleme-de-la-parole — Thursday companion anchor to the ILUL Monday course. Whereas ILUL develops the literary-practice register through Valéry, Stendhal, and Proust as writers, PbP develops the linguistic-philosophical register through Saussure, Goldstein, Jakobson, child language, and aphasia. Both 1953 courses operate the same operative concept. PbP's mature formulation at PbP [135v(10)]: "Telle est la parole créatrice, originaire" — "creative, originary speech" as the explicit name of the operation. PbP's cardinal anchor for the diacritical-écart side: "la signification (l'«idée» au sens de Proust) est toujours écart entre 2 ou plusieurs significations, apparition d'un vide déterminé... en se faisant docile à la «déformation cohérente» des significations acquises et des signes" (PbP [135(10)]). PbP [93(4)]: literary creation is conquering language "à son comble." PbP and ILUL are mutually reinforcing for any reading of conquering language as MP's mature theory of expression.
merleau-ponty-1973-prose-of-the-world — "conquering speech [. . .] makes instituted speech and language possible" (PoW 141, trans. modified per Smyth note 27). The set-aside manuscript whose operative concept the 1953 course explicitly inherits ("Prose of the world." at L2 [30] is MP's reaching back).
merleau-ponty-1964-signs — "Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence" (June–July 1952 Les Temps Modernes, then Signs) is contemporaneous with the course and supplies its public face; the L6 lectures on Valéry are the philosophical-pedagogical extension of the Signs essay's argument.
merleau-ponty-2010-child-psychology-pedagogy — the 1949–52 Sorbonne lectures are the Piaget-context for the L2 [30] critique of constituted-language (per Translator's Note 27).
merleau-ponty-2020-sensible-world-expression — the Thursday course is the perceptual counterpart; the diacritical operation works in both registers.