22 Theories on Language and Linguistics: Saussure, Derrida; Signs, Structures, Lapses and Faults

Ms. Nilanjana Debnath

In Roman Jakobson’s model of communication, the linear movement of message from an addresser to an addressee illustrates a classical notion of the flow of meaning. The writer uses words to construct a text which is then received by the readers. The three steps of the chain represent three viewpoints from which one may analyse a literary text. Schools of literary theories distinguish themselves based on the viewpoint that they choose to prioritise. For instance, Romantic Criticism deals with questions about the author, his life and his emotive style. Similarly, Reception Theory and Subjective Criticism emphasise the reading experience. Structuralism, like Formalism and Marxist Theories, take the text as the subject of criticism. Structuralist criticism considers the text as an entity by itself devoid of the shadow of authorial intention. And since a text is nothing but words, language and linguistic theories become the cornerstones of Structuralism.

1.  Ferdinand De Saussure: (1857- 1913)

The founder of modern structural linguistics, Ferdinand De Saussure was one of the foremost influences on the development of the Structuralist school of thought. His path- breaking work on languages was compiled and posthumously published as Course in General Linguistics (1916). Saussure viewed language as a structure, a system of signs that we use to make meaning in our daily lives. His investigation attempted to understand the object of linguistic exploration and the relationship between language and ‘other sciences’. In order to better understand Saussure’s ideas we need to look at some of the key components of his theory.

Langue and Parole: Saussure observes that in speaking a language there are two distinct parts that are used – the physiological vocal apparatus that produces the sound and the psychological faculties that produce the concept. While the sound or ‘phonation’ is an individual effort, the concept or ‘word-image’ is a socio-communal code that is beyond the individual. He refers to these two parts of language as parole and langue respectively.

Langue may be defined as a collective system of ‘conventions’ that is necessary for social transaction in a specific language. It is “a storehouse filled by the members of a given community through their active use of speaking, a grammatical system that has a potential existence in each brain, or, more specifically, in the brains of a group of individuals.” (Saussure 13-14) Parole is the individual realization of the system by using the conventions of the said language. While langue is the shared system of rules that a speaker ‘unconsciously’ (Culler 10) draws from, parole is the actual utterance of the speaker. In cleaving language into the social and the personal, Saussure reveals that language is “not a function of the speaker.” (Saussure 14) Thus, when we are reading individual literary utterances such as a poem or a novel, we are in fact delving into a larger social structure that is the langue. Saussure proposes that language as a system of signs must be understood as a complete system at any given time and not as an accumulation of meaning over time. All parole makes sense within the entire system, the langue, and not as independent carriers of meanings.

    Sign: Words, for Saussure are not symbols but ‘signs’. Each sign is made up of two parts—the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified’. The signifier is a mark – a sound-image or its graphic equivalent – while the signified is the concept.

                    signifier

    SIGN =   ———-

                  signified

This study of language as a system of signs is called semiotics or semiology. Saussure’s semiotic model of language does away with the existing notion of the ‘real object’ in language. Unlike in a symbol which refer to things in the real world, neither the signifier nor the signified are palpable ‘things’. “The linguistic sign unites,” says Saussure, “not a thing and a name but a concept and a sound-image.”  For instance, in the word ‘tree’ the black marks on paper t-r-e-e comprise a signifier which evokes the image of tree in the minds of English speakers. It is not a specific tree that we think about but the general concept of a tree.

The relation between the signifier and the signified is an arbitrary one. For instance, the signifier s-k-y conjures an image of the blue sky. However, there is no reason why such a tiny three-lettered word should be able to describe the vast expanse above our heads. It works merely because people speaking the language have agreed upon the decision to call the sky, sky. There is no relational sense in the way languages associate a signifier with a signified. This is evident by the way the different languages have different signifiers for the same concept – sky is ciel in French and himmel in German.

Thus, it becomes evident that words do not have inherent meanings but only make meaning in a system of relations and differences. To illustrate his point, Saussure used the following example,

[. . .] we feel the 8.25 p.m. Geneva-to-Paris Express to be the same train each day, though the locomotive, coaches, and personnel may be different. This is because the 8.25 train is not a substance but a form, defined by its relations to other trains. It remains the 8.25 even though it leaves twenty minutes late, so long as its difference from the 7.25 and the 9.25 is preserved. Although we may be unable to conceive of the train except in its physical manifestations, its identity as a social and psychological fact is independent of those manifestations (ibid., p. 151). Similarly, to take a case from the system of writing, one may write the letter t in numerous ways so long as one preserves its differential value. There is no positive substance which defines it; the principal requirement is that it be kept distinct from the other letters with which it might be confused, such as l, f, b, i, k.

In both these examples, it is only the relational position of the signs within a larger structure that give them meaning. It is not the materiality of the train that makes it the 8.25 express but the fact that it is not the 7.25 or the 9.25 trains. The coaches used for this express may have served another route at another time but that does not affect its meaning within the system of trains.

Binary oppositions: Language is structured through a system of binary opposition, similar to the system of trains in the above example. Everything from the smallest entity, the phoneme, to complex sentences follow these rules. For instance, the signifier cat is unique because of its phonic difference from signifiers where the vowel is altered such as cut, cot and from signifiers bearing consonant differences such as bat, sat, pat. According to Saussure, meaning of a sentence arises from the difference between signifiers along two axes of relationship—the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic. The syntagmatic is the horizontal axis of combination and the paradigmatic is the vertical axis of selection. The cat plays with a ball comprises words that make sense owing to the selective combination of signifiers. The process of arranging the subject (the cat) followed by the verb (plays), the preposition (with) and finally the predicate noun (ball) is what Saussure calls the syntagmatic axis of language. As Storey observes one can extend the meaningfulness of a sentence by still adding more parts and “[m]eaning is thus accumulated along the syntagmatic axis of language.” (117) So, we may modify the sentence by adding more words like “in the garden”, “before chewing it”, or “watching its master” to it.

The paradigmatic axis works by offering a selection of alternatives to the signifiers in a sentence. For instance, in the above example a part may be substituted so that the new sentence reads: The cat plays with a mouse. Such substitution has the potential to completely alter the meaning of a sentence. Saussure points out how two words which signify the same thing – mouton in French and sheep in English – make different sense within their respective language system. While English can offer to distinguish between sheep as the animal and mutton as the meat, French does not have any such distinctions. An understanding of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations must precede an understanding of the system of language. Storey cites an interesting example of a similar exchange:

‘Terrorists carried out an attack on an army base today.’ Substitutions from the paradigmatic axis could alter the meaning of this sentence considerably. If we substitute ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘anti-imperialist volunteers’ for the word ‘terrorists’ we would have a sentence meaningful in quite a different way. This would be achieved without any reference to a corresponding reality outside of the sentence itself.

In a sentence like this, paradigmatic selection results in a complete reversal political standpoint.

Language and reality: One can see how Saussure’s contribution marks a major break from existing conception of not just language but of reality. Saussure observes that [I]n language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of less importance than the other signs that surround it.

The ‘value’ of a word may be altered without affecting its referent in the real material world solely through syntagmatic or paradigmatic modification of a neighbouring word. Language, therefore, can no longer be considered a ‘reflection’ of the physical reality but rather “by providing us with a conceptual map with which to impose a certain order on what we see and experience, the language we speak plays a significant role in shaping what constitutes for us the reality of the material world.” (Storey 118) In structuralist hermeneutics, language is not merely a representational tool but an active structure that organizes and shapes our very existence.

The influence of Saussure’s theories of language can be seen in the works of anthropologists like Claude Levi Strauss and Mary Douglas who analyse cultural norms and practices as part of binary systems of differences. For instance, Mary Douglas explains social taboos as manifestations of non-conformity within a binary classification of things as pure and impure. Roland Barthes’s work on mythologies draws heavily on Saussurean linguistic system. He looks at popular culture from washing powder advertisements to steak eating through the lens of the semiotics. Literary criticism adopted Structuralism with the hope that it would “introduce a certain rigour and objectivity into the impressionistic realm of literature.” (Selden 87) Structuralist narratology received a great boost from Vladimir Propp who wrote Morphology of the folktale. Propp theorised a system of thirty-one ‘functions’ which form the backbone of not just Russian but almost all tales, myths and stories in general.

Structuralism looks at language as a construct which is defined by rules of oppositions, sequence and selection. However, problem arises when we try and analyse the center on which these rules are based. For instance, the structural logic of experience tells us that cause is followed by effect. Culler cites a Nietzschean example where this order is reversed. “Suppose one feels a pain. This causes one to look for a cause and spying, perhaps, a pin, one posits a link and reverses the perceptual or phenomenal order, pain . . . pin, to produce a causal sequence, pin . . . pain.” (86) In this way, we can begin to unravel the structure and ‘deconstruct’ it. It is in this area of poststructuralism and deconstruction that the French critique Jacques Derrida has made major contribution.

2.    Jacques Derrida: (1930 – 2004)

Born in a Jewish family in the French colony of Algeria, Derrida burst onto the literary scene when he delivered his lecture titled ‘Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences’ at John Hopkins University in 1966. This essay laid down the foundations of the deconstructionist school of thought. In it Derrida critiqued some basic principles of Structuralism and proposed a philosophy of questioning that ultimately dismantles all classical assumptions. He observes that for the longest time the structurality of the structures of Western science and philosophy had been neutralised by fixing a center in them which was the origin of all meaning. A structure must have a center. The explorations of coherence of the structural constituents pivot on this stable center which lays down rules or ‘grammar’ within the structure. The grammar allows a certain amount of flexibility of meaning but also restricts a proliferation of the same.

Derrida argues that the center that governs a system is presupposed to be beyond the governance of the same rules. The center is “paradoxically, within the structure and outside it.” (Derrida 248) For instance, we may observe the classical idea of man. In order to define a man, we must define some characteristics such as gender, physical particularities, and mental attributes. But to define masculinity as not-femininity we must see the flipside where femininity is constituted only through an opposition to masculinity (Saussure’s idea of language as only a system of differences without positive terms). If we consider this reversal of hierarchy, then the signifiers within the structure defining ‘man’ have centers both inside and outside of the structure. This uncertainty arising from the decentering of such classical Western structures is the foremost aim of Deconstruction. The dismantling of the center then brings about a ‘play’ into the field of the signifiers where multiple interpretations become possible but one cannot be certain of any meaning.

Derrida’s theory often seems problematic and difficult to understand. The difficulty is often owing to the unease of reading his text which is as slippery and polysemic as the decentered signifiers of his theory. For better comprehension, we need to understand the following key terms that frequently recur in Derrida’s theoretical universe.

Logocentrism: In his work Of Grammatology Derrida describes how Western knowledge is structured around the ‘word’. The New Testament opens with the line ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Derrida calls this desire for center ‘logocentrism’ (logos being the Greek for word). Logocentrism privileges the spoken word over the orthographic equivalent owing to the proximity of speech to agency. The presence of the speaker in order to deliver a speech provides an origin for meaning and hence is valued more than written word. Phonocentrism (privileging speech over writing) considers writing as an inferior, tainted form of speech. Since the ‘presence’ of agency is not a prerequisite of written or printed word it is considered to be incomplete. Derrida calls this pairing of speech and writing a ‘violent hierarchy’ within the structure of logocentrism. However, just as any other grand structures even this hierarchy can be reversed.

The superiority of speech stems from the agentiality of a speaker. The idea of agency comes from the essentialist assumption of the existence of a unified self. However, Freudian theories of psychoanalysis reveal the self to be a divided co-existence of conscious and unconscious selves. It undermines the certainty of a singular, uniform self. Moreover Freud “speculates that the very mansion of presence, the perceiving self, is shaped by absence, and– writing.” (Spivak lxi) Both speech and writing share writerly characteristics as “both are signifying processes which lack presence.” (Selden 175) After all, individual utterances are derived from langue which is outside the agency of an individual. Derrida critiques Rousseau’s view that writing is a ‘supplement’ to speech and insists that writing can replace speech as all speech is always already written. This reverses the order and makes speech a category of writing.

Différance: To explain the ‘absence’ that characterises a written sign, Derrida formulated the term différance. In French, the verb différer means both ‘to differ’ and ‘to defer’. This single word then contains within it a dual sense – difference which is spatial and delay which is temporal. Derrida uses this instance to illustrate the ambiguous nature of signs in general and explains the concept of différance. In speech, one cannot distinguish between the word différance and the actual word différence (the graphic difference of ‘a’ for ‘e’) since they sound the same in French. The phenomena of différance is characteristic of written signs where meaning arises from a system of spatial difference from other signs in the system and the meaning is also temporally deferred. Différance does not occur in phonocentrism since it presupposes the presence of a meaning-making agent.

We may understand this curious nature of différance with a simple exercise of looking up a word in the thesaurus. For instance, the Oxford dictionary entry on ‘jam’ offers several meanings like:

1.  A sweet spread or conserve made from fruit and sugar boiled to a thick consistency,
2.  An instance of a thing seizing or becoming stuck,
3. An improvised performance by a group of musicians, especially in jazz or blues

Each meaning consists of multiple signifiers – like ‘conserve’, ‘fruit’, ‘sugar’, ‘consistency’ – which in turn have their own entries in the thesaurus. Here, the meanings constituted through a system of exclusion are being postponed since the signifiers comprising the meaning can replicate the same meaning-making exercise endlessly. Différance takes Saussure’s idea of the impossibility of positive meanings of words and extends the crisis to a limitless instability of the structure of language.

The endless substitution of signifiers is however not an absolute obliteration of older meanings. In a constant attempt to achieve clarity of thought, we replace one signifier with another, placing the previous one ‘under erasure’. Derrida argues that even though we may scratch out the previous word, some residue of its meaning is carried forward in the next signifier. Spivak describes the Derridean notion of erasure as “the mark of the absence of a presence, an always already absent present.” (qtd. in Thisleton 109) All signs thus contain trace presences from other signs which blurs the accuracy of their meaning and promotes greater signification.

Bricolage: Derrida adopts the concept of bricolage from Claude Levis Strauss which he describes as “the necessity of borrowing one’s concepts from the texts of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined” (255). Since language and consequently meaning cannot claim an origin then all text must be always already written. A bricoleur is a person who 

[. . . ] uses “the means at hand,” that is, the instruments he finds at his disposition around him, those which are already there, which had not been especially conceived with an eye to the operation for which they are to be used and to which one tries by trial and error to adapt them, not hesitating to change them whenever it appears necessary, or to try several of them at once, even if their form and their origin are heterogenous—and so forth.

As is evident, the idea of bricolage has far reaching implications in modern epistemic inclinations. Interdisplinarity as a viable methodology of research in both sciences and humanities is an extension of bricolage. A subject capable of creating original discourse is now merely a “theological idea.” (Derrida 256) Unlike an engineer who takes a concept and builds a structure in accordance of it, a bricoleur makes use of concepts and ideas from different fields that serve the requirement.

     Aporia: In the Saussurean system, while the signifier is constructed through a system of differences, the signified concept still remains transcendental. Saussure’s idea of the signified as “a concept signified in and of itself, a concept simply present for thought, independent of a relationship to language, that is of a relationship to a system of signifiers” (Derrida 211) is problematic since it only allows only a partial fulfilment of the scope of Structuralism. Derrida deconstructs the essentialist idea of the ‘transcendental signified’ and arrives at the realization that “every signified is also in the position of a signifier.”

The result of Derridean deconstruction is a proliferation of signifiers with an endless deference of meaning. The pursuit for meaning may reach finality at some point but even at termination there may be confusion and no certainty. Peter Barry opines that aporia “literally means an impasse, and designates a kind of knot in the text which cannot be unravelled or solved because what is said is self-contradictory.” (78) Deconstruction throws open the chasm that Structuralism had opened up and revels in the chaos that ensues. Defining aporia simply as confusion would be unjust as the term has philosophical and poetic connotations. Like Hamlet’s question “to be or not to be”, deconstructive aporia oscillates between certainty and uncertainty, meaning and meaninglessness. Aporia is the ultimate state of deconstructed knowledge where no structure dominates and no hierarchy exists.

Language, when deconstructed, becomes unreliable and messy but this mess is preferred to the violent hierarchization of structures. In an interview with Jean Hyppolite, Derrida answered a question about a possible definition of the ‘center’ by saying,

[. . .] I am trying, precisely, to put myself at a point so that I do not know any longer where I am going. And, as to this loss of the center, I refuse to approach an idea of the “non-center”

which would no longer be the tragedy of the loss of the center—this sadness is classical. And I don’t mean to say that I thought of approaching an idea by which this loss of the center would be an affirmation.

In this sense, deconstruction is both a theory and not a theory. A theory which rejects the possibility of coherence and resists a closure, deconstruction is the supreme example of itself.

From the above discussion one can measure the impact of Saussure and Derrida not only in the field of linguistic theories but also in literary criticism. Saussure’s splitting of the sign into the signifier and the signified took language from the physical to the realm of the psychological. His concepts of paradigmatic and syntagmatic influenced studies on metaphor and metonymy. Saussure also happens to be the starting point of Derrida. A post-Derridean reading of a literary text accounts for ‘presences’ in the language that even the author may not be conscious of. The boundaries of a book dissolve as the language is given to a play of both inside and outside. There remains no signature of the author. Together, Saussure and Derrida themselves constitute a pair of binary opposites—one being the proponent of structuralism and the other of deconstruction.

References:

1. Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Second ed., Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002.
2. C. Thiselton, Anthony. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading. Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1992.
3. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. 25thAnniversary ed., Cornell University Press, New York, 2007.
4. D. Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature. Routledge Classics, New York, 2002.
5. De Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin, Columbia University Press, New York, 2011.
6. Derrida, Jacques. “Semiology and Grammatology: Interview with Julia Kristeva.” The Communication Theory Reader, edited by Paul Cobley, Routledge, London, 1996, pp. 209-224.
7. Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign, and  Play  in  the  Discourse  of  Human Sciences.” The Stucturalist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, edited by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, John Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 247-272.
8. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 40thAnniversary ed., John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
9. Selden, Raman, et al. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed., Pearson Education, Delhi, 2007.
10. Storey, John. Cultural theory and popular culture: An Introduction. Seventh ed., Routledge, Oxon, 2015.