Saussure
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language tool of representation (language is a structured system of representation)
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one way to think about language as
representation = signs
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linguistic sign
unites as a concept (signified) and sound-image (signifier)\
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(linguistic sign) the relationship between
signified and signifier is arbitrary
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Language only
a system of pure value : ideas and sounds
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Language is not nomenclature, it allows us to perceive the reality
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Language is a form connecting sound and thought
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Language is a
system of INTERDEPENDEN term in which the value of each term results solely
from the simulataneous presence of others
o
Signs combined like links in 2 ways
o
Syntagmatic: all units present in articulation
o
Associative: related present in mind but absent
from actual sequence
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In language there are only differences that are
positive
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Ways in which value can be determined (how is value different from signification):
o
Dissimilar things exchanged for determined
values
o
Similar things compared for determined value
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Saussure’s linguistic distinction between
language or the whole system as it exists on the abstract level (Langue and
Parole)
Nietzsche
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Is language full and adequate expression of all
realities?
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Account of languages role in human cognition
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Gap between first metaphor is big (subject and
object)
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Concept comes into being by making equivalent
that is non equivalent
Poe
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Words or even letters are signifiers – creating poetic
effect
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Language shapes experience
Derrida
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Thinks about metaphysics included in the
language
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Deconstruction not a theoretical metalanguage – western metaphtsics do binary
opposition and hold one privileged over the other
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Refute the idea that there is only one meaning –
deconstruction; there are multiple meanings in the text, often opposite; for
example in dissemination, he talks about Plato’s Phaedrus; recorded
conversation between King and the God who gives writing as told from Socrates
to ponder about writing and speech and in Plato’s phonocentricism, Derrida
notes the irony that supremacy of speech is only told through writing (spoken
signifier can contain the essence of its signified is logocentrism)
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Il n’ya pas de hors-texte (there is nothing
outside the text)
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Supplement: talks about writing and supplement;
why would we need it? (ie.// preface in the
book) – copy and original (when you read the text, your experience is repetition, copy of text; through copy original is defined
book) – copy and original (when you read the text, your experience is repetition, copy of text; through copy original is defined
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Trace and difference
o
Signifier (image-sound) works as a trace that
gives the impression that a signified was prior to it
o
Difference - verb to defer and to differ – shows the temporal structure of language – always changing
in more than one way
o
Signifier
points to other signifiers
Lacan – agency of
letter in unconscious
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Conducted psychoanalysis using Saussure’s method
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Unconscious is structured like language
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Signifier can change you; signifier used as treatment
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Signifier priority over signified why? Because this
sound-image structures out existence, so by talking you change something about
yourself.
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Language can
transform meaning language is capable of deception
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Language is
possible of distorting meaning through 2 ways
o
Metaphor associated
with resemblance – condensation (love like a rose)
o
Metonymy associated
with no resemblance – replacement of something entirely different (sails/ hand)
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Signifier
replace one signifier with another
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While Derrida says we can’t arrive to truth
because one signifier other signifier, Lacan says opposite that since signifier
can signify another signifier, we can arrive to truth. (or your truth exists
somewhere)
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