Linguistics with Dawn and River
Feb. 7th, 2006 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiThis is me thinking "out loud" about my critical theory class, where we did de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics so you may want to skip this. Then again, I'm going to illustrate what I mean using the Jossverse, so you may not.
Okay, we were doing well, understanding the signified/signifier nature of the sign, when somebody asked some question about whether there was a one-on-one relationship between signified and signifier. The answer is probably no, since there are some concepts which are served equally well by more than one signifier (although these are rare), but somehow we ended up considering a situation where a single signifier was linked to two or more concepts, something like this:
It took me a while to figure out why I had such a problem with this. After all, Saussure uses diagrams that look a lot similar:
I finally realized my problem was with the idea that the content of the signified manifests itself the language user's (in this case, Dawn or River's) mind like some type of image projected on a screen. I know that's how this is taught a lot of times, and it seems sort of intuitive at first, but insofar as the content of the signified is an image it isn't a signified at all, but a signifier. (I tried to explain this three different times in class and still my Professor kept on saying "No, it's a signified" as if I just got the two confused.)
What we would have would instead be something like this:
In addition to expressing the concept of vampire to River through English speech, Dawn is also expressing it to herself by imagining Darla. These are--and have to be--two separate linguistic acts. The signified itself, the concept vampire, underlies both the speech act and the visualization, and has no expressable content in itself since it can only be expressed though a signifier. Saussure's little picture of a tree isn't so much a tree, or even an image of a tree (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) as it is the quasi-Platonic form of a tree, the concept which is created and given form by language, not the other way around. Tree-ness. Thus, assuming that the signifier "vampire" is subject to the same rules in the language use of both Dawn and River, that which it signifies (the concept vampire) cannot be different since it holds no content aparts from its part in the entire sign. Within any given linguistic network there is only one variable for vampire-ness.
Okay, so far so good. Now it's time to take Kant and Wittgenstein and maybe even Plato down off the shelf to rethink how this all fits together. (The annoying thing about philosophy is I understand things one semester and forget them the next. Maybe I should keep more notes like this.)
Or maybe I should do the Derrida reading for the next class. He always has useful things to say.
ETA: I just realized that on my walk down the hill after classes, I left my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism in the Persson men's bathroom. Luckily, I just drove back up to the upper campus and there was it where I left it, in the men's bathroom in the Social Sciences building (the PoliSci floor).
Okay, we were doing well, understanding the signified/signifier nature of the sign, when somebody asked some question about whether there was a one-on-one relationship between signified and signifier. The answer is probably no, since there are some concepts which are served equally well by more than one signifier (although these are rare), but somehow we ended up considering a situation where a single signifier was linked to two or more concepts, something like this:
It took me a while to figure out why I had such a problem with this. After all, Saussure uses diagrams that look a lot similar:
I finally realized my problem was with the idea that the content of the signified manifests itself the language user's (in this case, Dawn or River's) mind like some type of image projected on a screen. I know that's how this is taught a lot of times, and it seems sort of intuitive at first, but insofar as the content of the signified is an image it isn't a signified at all, but a signifier. (I tried to explain this three different times in class and still my Professor kept on saying "No, it's a signified" as if I just got the two confused.)
What we would have would instead be something like this:
In addition to expressing the concept of vampire to River through English speech, Dawn is also expressing it to herself by imagining Darla. These are--and have to be--two separate linguistic acts. The signified itself, the concept vampire, underlies both the speech act and the visualization, and has no expressable content in itself since it can only be expressed though a signifier. Saussure's little picture of a tree isn't so much a tree, or even an image of a tree (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) as it is the quasi-Platonic form of a tree, the concept which is created and given form by language, not the other way around. Tree-ness. Thus, assuming that the signifier "vampire" is subject to the same rules in the language use of both Dawn and River, that which it signifies (the concept vampire) cannot be different since it holds no content aparts from its part in the entire sign. Within any given linguistic network there is only one variable for vampire-ness.
Okay, so far so good. Now it's time to take Kant and Wittgenstein and maybe even Plato down off the shelf to rethink how this all fits together. (The annoying thing about philosophy is I understand things one semester and forget them the next. Maybe I should keep more notes like this.)
Or maybe I should do the Derrida reading for the next class. He always has useful things to say.
ETA: I just realized that on my walk down the hill after classes, I left my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism in the Persson men's bathroom. Luckily, I just drove back up to the upper campus and there was it where I left it, in the men's bathroom in the Social Sciences building (the PoliSci floor).
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-07 11:32 pm (UTC)Yes! Like, there is no signified! Yay! Lots and lots of signifiers...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-07 11:38 pm (UTC)It;s always interesting trying to work within a system (like Saussure's) that has since been built upon. You're never sure where exegesis stops and new developments take over. It reminds me of reading Kant, or even Freud.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-08 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-08 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-01 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-01 06:25 pm (UTC)forwith me! Then no one will have to miss school!(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-08 11:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 03:01 am (UTC)