Category: Saussure

Barthes and Saussure

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 18, 2012

Barthes and the problem about the “Author”

Is hard to put in just one piece of “text” (to use Barthes´s concept) three different texts that are quiet interesting by separate. So, I will try to put in a kind of “union” a short reflection about Roland Barthes`s texts. I think that “The death of the author” and “From work to text” are two argument of the same idea: there is no relation or link between text and author. The main focus of Barthes is on the reader. According to his own words: “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author”. Is precisely that idea the one that leads the distinction between “work” and “text”. The first have a filiation to his creator, the author, who, according to Barthes, points a determination on the “piece of work”. Barthes (if we follow his rules I can´t use the word “author”) thinks that the text can be read without the “guarantee of his father”. For him, the “author” of a text is just one more character (for example in a novel), and there is no relation between “him” and the text.

One of the main arguments of Barthes to say this is the quality of “multiple” that a text has. As he says at “The death of author”: “We know that a text is not a line of words releasing a single “theological” meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash”. This idea means, in other words, that there would be no creation in something related to language. Everything was previously “said”. So, would art or “creation” mean just a “new way” to put things together?

What Barthes does in his book Mythologies is an interesting exercise of analyzing different kind of texts. I would like to refer to the part of Einstein´s brain as an interesting case. As the author says (roll in your tomb), there is huge “myth” around Einstein´s brain (when he died, his brain was stolen by someone from the hospital and cut in slice to be studied). His brain become a kinf of “icon” of intelligence. The interesting part, more than the “case”, is what Barthes does “reading this phenomenon as a text”. He says that after Einstein`s dead people thought that the secret of the universe closed to them, the only one who was able to reveal the “truth” about the universe has gone. In this example we can notice that appears one of the main characteristic of the text, there is no author. Is “just there”, reality as a text to read.

Finally, I would like to say that I disagree about the maun issue of Barthes. I do think that there is a link between text and author. But is not a relation in terms of “the last meaning” of a text, is a relation in terms of space-time. If we “kill” the author we are destroying the relation of a discourse with it’s context, and I think that knowing what is “out” of a text (what leads to the interesting discussion about “in” or “out” of a text” and the problem of a “border” in a text) we can open the debate about it. I don’t think that linking text and author we are forced to look for “the real interpretation” of a text. Barthes says that the author means a “limit” to the text, I think that “the author” opens a wide range of possibilities of interpretations instead of close them.

Saussure

Saussure`s text is probably one of the most important text in the western tradition of the 20^th Century. Is also, a foundational text. Even when the text was well known after a few decades of his original publication, is doubtless the starting point of most of the scholar reflection about language across the past century. His proposal is very precise: There is something call “the sign” that has two different parts, but, both of them constitute it. The first one is called “signified” and the other “signifier”. The first one, refers to the “sound image” of what we usually call “a word”, and the other one, to the concept that it refers to.

I liked the idea he exposed about “Two classes illustrated by Comparisons”. There, he exposed about two ways of approaching to the study of a language, synchrony and diachrony. Is interesting because, at the end, he is not choosing one of them, just exposing that there are this two ways of deal with the study of language. Anyway, he recognizes that to language is always a matter of “state” or “moment”. That’s why he uses the comparison of language and chess. This means that language is always “contextual”. There is no option to attribute to the language some kind of “eternal meaning”. Language is a system that changes constantly. So, we can make the study of language in a “certain moment” or state, or try to figure out the transformation that have been experimenting in time. In his own words: “synchrony and diachrony designates respectively a language-state and an evolutionary phase” (p. 64).

I think we can link this idea to Bakhtin`s proposal. Both agree in the constantly moving of the language and it’s internal and external transformation. Also, we can find a relation between Saussure’s idea of opposition and Bakhtn`s idea of dialogue inside the language. In both cases, there is a interaction of the element that compose the system. We can read the ideas of “arbitrary” and “opposition” in Saussure’s text, as a dialogue inside the system. There is always this dialogue and interaction among the different part of the systems, is precisely that dialogue that turns language into a constantly moving object of study.

Barthes Saussure

Saussure and Barthes

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 17, 2012

Saussure

Language as arbitrary and differential: implications for literature

Saussure insists that language is “form and not a substance”. Unlike speech, language is not a function of the individual speaker as it belongs in the public sphere where the speaker only passively assimilates it. As a social product, language is “a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others”. For Saussure, words are about ideas not objects, so a word as signifier does not name things but conveys a plurality of meaning that is both momentary and fluid.

There are two sides to the relationship between the signified and signifier. First, it is arbitrary as there is no natural link between words and object. Secondly, it is differential because a sign is not linked to other signs naturally. We cannot know a thing positively as a thing that just is. We can only know it negatively by what it isn’t in relation to all other terms in a particular language system.

Here language as synchrony and speech as diachrony form a thought/moment relationship that allows us to ‘know’ things by what they are not in a conventional context. Signs do not function through their intrinsic value but through their relative position to others. The value of a sound can only be determined by its context.

The paradox, as Saussure points out, is that if a dissimilar thing can be exchanged for another thing (a toonie for a muffin), but can also be compared with similar things (a toonie and a loonie), then its value is not fixed. “Its content is really fixed only by the occurrence of everything that exists outside it.” Following Saussure’s argument then, language is never fixed in time by an individual speaker. On the contrary, the ability to communicate an idea depends on those who are receiving the communication. In this way meaning is constructed from any utterance by its context, by who is speaking to whom at which moment in time. This “momentary” character of language has interesting implications for our understanding of art, in all its forms, which seeks dialogue with an audience, whether an observer, listener, reader, etc…

If we apply Saussure’s argument to literature, the author cannot communicate an individual interpretation of the world to the reader because the reader’s interpretation at a particular moment of time also creates the “message”. In other words, a text does not have meaning in itself and separate from the reader.

Therefore, we can say that a piece of literature is not an object of art but a continually morphing “language”.

Another idea I find very interesting is that if we can only know things by understanding what they are not, perhaps this is how we create our own identity within a conventional space. We construct identities by establishing what we are not. I am female because I am not male, or I am white because I am not black. Paradoxically, I need the ‘other’ to create my identity.

Barthes

Signs infinitely deferred: the death of the author

“Language knows a ‘subject’ not a ‘person’, and this subject, empty outside of the very enunciation which defines it, suffices to make language ‘hold together’, suffices, …to exhaust it.”

For Barthes, the notion of the author as creator of meaning in a text is dead as it is a multiplicity of writings that make up a text which is interpreted and given meaning by the reader in the “here and now”. In other words a text is never original and never reveals a fixed meaning.

This idea corresponds with Saussure’s conception of language as dependent on ‘momentary’ context; however, wouldn’t Saussure include the author’s voice in the production of language? Also, Bakhtin does not wholly do away with the author, whose ‘style’ is always evident in a text. Perhaps they would view the author as co-author with the reader rather than originator/genius of the text.

Interdisciplinarity and the epistemological slide: Barthes’ propositions on the relativization of writer reader and critic.

Barthes differentiates between the work as a fragment of substance that displays reality and can only be moderately symbolic, and the text, a methodological field that demonstrates the real and is radically symbolic.

Unlike the work, the text cannot be contained in a hierarchy as it is continuously being created and therefore experienced only in the act of production. Thus, text is language that subverts dominant discourse

Coinciding with Saussure’s definition of language, text is always paradoxical for its creation depends on the differences between discourses. As Bakhtin observes, the text cannot exist with a unified voice. The infinite deferment of the signified relies on the play of readings that abolishes the distance between writer and reader.

In this playing, or jotrissance, the writer becomes a guest reader who adds to the palimpsest of perspectives that form an irreducible and metonymic/stereographic plurality. Not organic or hermeneutic, this irreducible quality is due to the overlapping of difference produced in the act of reading. Moreover, the difference is only repeatable as difference and therefore the experience is semelfactive.

In other words there is no Father of the text, which is a network that is repeatedly being broken through the practical collaboration between readers. The separation between reader and author in a work reduces it to a product for consumption whereas a text produces a space of pleasure where circulating languages blur the lines between reader, writer and critic.

Hello interdisciplinary studies!

I’m very interested in the notion that if ideas are handed to us on a platter, so to speak, we are not creatively engaged and therefore not producing meaning. With a simple wooden toy a child can be creative; however, a complex toy that requires no imagination to operate soon becomes boring. Similarly, when all the actors have fringes in a film about Caesar, we are being told that they are Roman. In other words, someone is doing the interpreting for us. The sign is confused with the signified.

Saussure

Impressions on “Course in General Linguistics” by Saussure

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 17, 2012

In Course in General Lingusitics Saussure separates language from speaking. While language does not depend on the speaker, speaking is an individual act. For Saussure, language is a well-defined concrete homogeneous object that can – and must – be studied separately from the other elements of speech.

Language is a social institution since any relation between an object and its designation by a sound is arbitrary. There is no logical or natural reason that, in English, a tree is actually called a tree, it could as well be called an animal if everybody in a given linguistic community agreed on it. It is from this observation that Saussure concludes that language is social. I find interesting that Saussure announces the invention of a science – semiology – before it has been developed. Usually, it seems that intellectuals develop ideas and theories, and way later a science emerges from this work.

Anyway, semiology – ‘‘the science that studies the life of signs within society’’ – can now grow. Saussure develops a terminology that is at the foundation of semiology ; signified, signifier and sign. A signified is the idea, concept or object to be designated. A signifier is the sound (or drawing) produced to identify the signified. A sign is the association that is made between the signified and the signifier and which meaning is shared by a community. By example, a red circle with a red line crossing it is nothing else than that : a red circle with a red line crossing it. It is only when it is associated with the concept of ‘DO NOT DO SOMETHING’ (the signified) that it carries meaning and becomes a sign. From that, we can easily see that language is a social construction.

When Saussures discusses the concept of value, we can see from where the term Structuralism comes. Each sign finds its value and its limits in the relation to other signs. Therefore, ‘‘language is a system of interdependent terms’’ ; it is structured. The text gives these examples : redouter, craindre et avoir peur are synonyms where each carries a meaning through its opposition to the others. The same is true for inflections and tenses in languages.

This leads to other evidence that language is social. If language was pre-determined, there would not exist differences amongst them such as for inflections and tenses. The idea of past, by example, would be represented in the same way in each language ; which is not the case.

Something that wasn’t clear for me was the extent of Principle II ; it is so ‘‘obvious,’’ that I’m not sure I understand it…

In conclusion, I believe it is worth remembering that this text was created by some of Saussure’s students, that is, not written by Saussure directly. This poses the possibility of bias in the source.

Saussure

Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 15, 2012

Language vs. Speech

Ferdinand de Saussure was one of the most influential figures of 20^th century linguistics. He believed language (langue) to be “a product that is passively assimilated by the individual” (59) as opposed to being a function of the speaker and speaking (parole) to be an “individual act”. Language and speaking are thus separate entities. In other words, language is a set of socially shared rules whereas speech is simply the verbal mode of communication. Speaking is premeditated but language is in a way conventionally determined by the members of a society (this is the social side of speech that cannot be modified). He makes an important distinction between speech and language: speech is heterogeneous whereas language is homogenous. Saussure defines language to be a “system of signs that express ideas” and that is made up of a union of meanings and sound-images that are both psychological. Speech is composed of several different elements since the speaker can express his thoughts in various different ways. Although Saussure defines language to be a “social institution”, he regards it as being systematic – the association between an auditory image and a concept (as opposed to a thing and a name). He calls this semiology – “the science that studies the life of signs within society” (60).

What is a sign?

Language according to Saussure is not a simple naming process. It involves a rather complex operation whereby a concept and sound-image “are united in the brain by an associative bond” (61). It is precisely this combination that is defined as a sign. A sign is a double entity, comprised of both a signifier (signifiant) and a signified (signifié). The signifier refers to the sound image (psychological concept, spoken word, linguistic part of the sign) whereas the signified refers to the concept (mental image). Like two sides of a sheet of paper, these are inseparable.

Key Principles

Saussure names two fundamental principles: the arbitrary nature of the sign (Principle I) and the linear nature of the signifier (Principle II). Principle I states that signs are arbitrary, meaning there is no particular reason why a signifier is linked to a signified. There is no natural connection between the two. And in fact, because of the unmotivated nature of the sign, the relationship is thus based on convention. That is why a sign cannot be changed once it has been established by a particular community. The word “cat” refers to a four-legged animal that “meows” only because this has been agreed upon by the members of a society and not based upon a natural link between the mental image of cat and the succession of sounds c-a-t. One problem is the issue of onomatopoeia and interjections. Saussure dismisses this however by citing examples such as the English bow-wow and the French oua-oua, illustrating that both are conventional imitations of one another. The argument against interjections is very much the same. Principle II states that the signifier represents a span that is measurable only in the dimension of time. In other words, auditory images have duration and are linear. As stated by Saussure, this is obvious when signifiers are represented in writing.

Synchrony vs. Diachrony

Synchrony refers to “everything that relates to the static side of our science” (AB axis) whereas diachrony refers to “everything that has to do with evolution” (CD axis) (64). Saussure compares the functioning of language to the game of chess in aims of stressing the importance of synchrony or the language-state. Essentially, he argues that language is always momentary and varies from one position to the next. In chess, the rules of the game exist throughout the entire game and are based on unchangeable conventions (this is much like language in that rules have been equally agreed upon). Furthermore, by joining the game at any moment, one can still play based on the pieces positioned on the board. Thus, there is no benefit for knowing how the pieces came to be arranged in a certain way or by following the entire match. The chess metaphor stresses Saussure’s desire for studying language as a complete system at any given point in time. This makes sense since speakers generally perceive language in its current state and do not have access to its history.

Linguistic Value

The value of a sign is dependent upon all other signs in the language. From a conceptual viewpoint, terms are interdependent, deriving their value from other terms. One example Saussure uses are the French synonyms “redouter” (to dread), “craindre” (to fear) and “avoir peur” (be afraid) to show that these words have their particular meaning as long they are contrasted with each other. By removing two of the words, the remaining word has no point of reference and thus, becomes nebulous. This is why signs cannot exist alone; their value is determined by their environment. The same argument can also be applied to grammatical entities. From a material viewpoint, it is not only the sound but also the phonic differences that make it possible to distinguish one word from all others. Signs used in writing are arbitrary (the writing of the letter “t” is arbitrary with respect to the sound that it makes), the value of the letters are negative and differential (“t” can be written in different ways), the forms depend uniquely on the limitations imposed by a given system and the means of sign production is irrelevant (engraved, pen, chisel etc.).

Last word

Saussure states that in language, “there are only differences without positive terms” (70). Signs are purely differential, not defined positively by their content but rather negatively by contrast with other signs within the same system. There are no positive preexisting ideas within a linguistic system. However, why then do we have something positive if the sign is considered in its totality?

Saussure

What I get from Saussure

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 15, 2012

According to Saussure language is the social aspect of speech in the sense that it is not a natural function of the speaker and it can’t be created nor modified by an individual but only assimilated. It is a system of signs in which the essential thing is the union of concepts and sound-images (the “formal” representation of a concept). One aspect that is constantly stressed throughout the text is the psychological quality of these two entities that form the sign which are joined in the brain by an “associative bond”.

Saussure continues to explain that one of the main problems of the common use of the word “sign” is the perception that it only designates a sound-image and forgetting that it always carries with it a concept. These two terms are like two sides of one page, he says. To further differentiate (and the same time relate ¿?) these two terms and with the purpose of creating a proper terminology for the study of the sign, Saussure renames them as signified (concept) and signifier (sound-image). It is important to note that the relation of the two and the sign created as a consequence is a product of arbitrariness. That is, there is no actual reason behind the connection between the sign and what it designates, not even in the case of onomatopoeia or interjections, it is mere convention. It is all in our minds.

For Saussure the most important thing is to understand that language is a system and the sign only has value as part of that system which can be analyzed synchronically (in its present state) or diachronically (through its evolution). Going back to the value of the sign, it should not get confused with its signification. Two words can have the same signification but not the same value. For example, dedos in Spanish has the same signification as fingers in English, however when referring to the wiggly appendages on your feet, English uses toes while Spanish still uses dedos, it has a double value. Furthermore, the value of a word may be modified without affecting its meaning or idea but because another term of the system’s been modified. Value is completely determined by the environment.

In terms of the material value of a word, written or spoken, it is completely arbitrary, negative and differential; we know an R is an R because it is not a T as easy as that, or at least that is how I understand it.

It is made evident that the differential characteristic is true for most linguistic relations; the signifier and signified exist in opposition to each other and even when the product of these two creates the sign, something that Saussure considers positive, it only exists in opposition to other signs in the system. If this is true, then language doesn’t have the capability of actually apprehending reality because it can only be defined in terms of its relationship with it itself. This is probably what Saussure means when he says that “language is only form and no substance”.

*I apologize for this entry. I realize it is more of summary than an actual commentary on the reading. I’m still having trouble fully understanding the text, however after Tuesday’s seminary I promise I’ll have something better to share.

Saussure

Course in General Linguistics

Post author By Syndicated User
Post date September 15, 2012

Saussure, one of the fathers of 20th century linguistics, said:” The linguist must take the study of linguistic structure as his primary concern and relate all other manifestations of language.” Language is a social product passively assimilated by the individual. Saussure raised the idea of setting up a science that studies the life of signs within society –semiology. Language is a part of the general science of semiology, it’s not a process of naming those ready-made ideas, but a system of signs that express ideas, the essential part of all similar systems.

The linguistic unit (sign) is a double entity formed by the associating of two psychological systems –a concept (signified) and a sound-image (signifier). The concept is abstract, the sound-image is sensory, language signs are inevitably psychological. All the information and signification expressed by signs only exist in the mind of language users. And we can summarize the other characteristics of language: it is a social side of speech, its social nature is inherent; it could be studied separately; language, as well as language sings, is concrete and changeable. Saussure proposed to retain the word sign to designate the sound-image, the concept and the word.

The sign has two principles: Principle I is arbitrary nature. One signified could have many signifier in different languages; signifier is unmotivated, the connection between signified and signifier is arbitrary. Even though Onomatopoeia and Interjections could be raised as objections to Principle I, Principle I still dominate all the linguistics of language and its consequences are numberless. Principle II is linear nature. Although sometimes this principle is not obvious, it’s fundamental and its consequences are incalculable. The signifiers have at their command only the dimension of time. Their elements are presented in succession; they form a chain.

Then Saussure spoke of synchrony and diachrony that designate respectively a language-state and an evolutionary phase. Synchrony has both the autonomy and the interdependence, through a comparison between the functioning of language and a game of chess, we found each linguistic term derives its value from its opposition to all the other terms; values depend above all else on an unchangeable convention in the changing system. Studying the language from the viewpoint of language-state, synchrony is more important than diachrony because of its reality.

Linguistic value is doubtless one element in signification. We all know the concept is the counterpart of the sound-image, however, sign itself is the counterpart of the other signs of language, since language is a system of interdependence, terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others. To solve this paradox, we can exchange a dissimilar thing for the thing of which the value is determined or compare the similar value of the same system with the thing. So word can be exchanged to a different idea or another word. The value of term is accordingly determined by its environment. The concept is only a value determined by its relations with other similar values. Both the conceptual and the material sides of value are made up of relations and differences with respect to the other terms of language. For example, phonic differences have their signification, signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position, even lots of linguistic signs changed in the history, their value didn’t change.

The linguistic signifier is constituted not by its material substance but by the differences that separate its sound-image from all others. Although the pronunciations of two phonemes are same, they could be taken as the same, they have different meanings and values. The signs used in writing are arbitrary, the value of letters is negative, differential, values function only through reciprocal opposition within a fixed system that consists of a set number of letters, the sign doesn’t affect the system at all, it still have the same signification.

Saussure’s ideas laid a foundation for the development of linguistics, I noticed that it’s important and meaningful to compare the similarities and distinctions between different languages and to study their structures. However, Saussure’s opinions may have epochal character and limitations, as he said, “Changes in the system are unintentional and fortuitous”, we should develop a more comprehensive research on linguistics.