ABSTRACT

Anchored in the argument that, since the School of Port Royal, there has been a pendular circularity between Logic and Rhetoric, based respectively on a universal theory of ideas or on individualistic subjectivism, Michel Pêcheux (1982) uses relative clauses as a linguistic phenomenon to support the development of a materialist theory of discourse based on Linguistics and Historical Materialism above all. For the author, it is not always possible to define whether a relative clause is appositive or determinative, since they carry an ambiguity that can only be equated in the light of the historical conditions related to their appearance. This study focuses on the ambiguous nature of certain relative clauses, using as data cases collected by postgraduate students attending a course on ‘Discourse Theory’ and which touch on controversial social issues, because, at the very limit, they are intended to establish the “best” forms of personal action.