SEXUATED TOPOLOGY AND THE
SUSPENSION OF MEANING
A NON-HERMENEUTICAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL
APPROACH TO TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
WILLIAM J. URBAN
CHAPTER 3
(POST)STRUCTURALISM
The important thing in the word is not the sound alone but the phonic differences that make possible to distinguish this word from all others, for differences carry signification [meaning]. ...[I]n language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in 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.271
[H]ermeneutics and semiology are two ferocious enemies.272
This historical survey began in Chapter 1 with a discussion of hermeneutics from the medieval period onward as this field most directly concerns itself with the appropriation of meaning. Over the centuries hermeneutics made several notable turns but none more significant than the one made when it confronted phenomenology. Initially with Husserl this was inconsequential. Although Husserl was grossly interested in meaning, his interest had more to do with how the thing meant was constituted rather than with its appropriation so hermeneutics was safely set aside and left intact. But at the hands of Heidegger hermeneutical technique suddenly became the thing itself, and this problematized the status of hermeneutics as a distinct field. Moreover, in retrospect after Heidegger it is clear that despite their vastly different approaches to meaning, Husserl and hermeneutical theory were alike in their conception of meaning qua object. With the Heideggerian ontological turn, however, meaning could no longer be conceived as an object buried deep within a text in need of appropriate techniques for its unearthing but rather as that which subsists at the level of the experience of being. Hermeneutical phenomenology thus brought about a fundamental split in approaches to the problem of meaning: while some (e.g., Betti, Hirsch, Apel, Habermas) sought a return to pre-Heideggerian epistemological methodology, others (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Bachelard) understood that if meaning was no longer conceivable as a problematic object confronting a subject, this meant that no theory of meaning per se was possible. The latter could only then entertain the quaestio facti by offering endless descriptions of their particular phenomenological projects.
But with the advent of (post)structuralism in the 20th century a new crisis ensues. This new field implicitly challenges the primacy the question of meaning enjoys in hermeneutics, phenomenology and hermeneutical phenomenology. Like Husserl it investigates the constitution of meaning but unlike Husserl no subjective factor is considered. Indeed (post)structuralism is fervently anti-humanist and so does not place the source of textual meaning with its author or with the intentional acts of its readers. Its study of the structure of language and its elements is more attuned to functionality than to answering questions regarding causality. Essentially, (post)structuralism reasons that if meaning is tied up with language, language should be, in a first approach, scrutinized as a systematic whole since this whole is deemed greater than the sum of its parts. But such a systematic study also calls for a relational conception of these parts, where the basic elements of language are examined in relations of combination and contrast to one another. The further assumption that the resulting linguistic entities are arbitrary in nature forces a focus on the functions they serve. The (post)structuralist approach consequentially removes from consideration all outer stimuli, whether that be the spontaneity of the subjective act or the claritas of being, to undertake its primary task of revealing the inner laws of the system and the internal premises of its development. From the (post)structuralist perspective, the interpretive approach to unearth meaning is thus unproductive and subject to all the vagaries of ad hoc intuitive response which abandons any serious attempt to place criticism on sure methodological footing. For its scientific approach has it that it is not man who creates meaning through language but language which speaks man. So if man does have an interest in meaning, he does best to turn his attention away from directly entertaining this question to instead examine the relational aspects of linguistic elements which account for meaning. The problem is that the experience of meaning is bought only at the expense of overlooking the formal mechanism of the signifying structure; a moment's reflection confirms that while a text is being investigated in a structuralist fashion, the meaning-effect which comes from reading the text is lost. So by being primarily drawn to investigate the structural mechanics of language, the question of meaning becomes a secondary matter to (post)structuralism. Over-against the fields examined in the first two chapters, starting with this chapter we examine fields which open up the possibility of non-meaningful domains which, nevertheless, have an intimate connection to meaning.
Section 3.1 looks at a few theorists who fall into the classical era of structuralism, which roughly dates from Saussure through the 1950s. The overriding tendency of this group is to submit language to a synchronic analysis, which ignores the historical dimension in language constitution as well as foregoing any consideration of subjectivity. Section 3.2 discusses some theorists of post-structuralism from the 1960s onward who took from structuralism its essential insight into language as a system of signs. However, they reject the centrality of structure so as not to essentialize binary oppositions. They thus supplement a static ahistorical analysis of language with a diachronic dimension. The result is an emphasis on the indeterminate and polysemic nature of semiotic codes and a new consideration for the relation of the subject to the signifying structure.
3.1 Structuralism
Certainly the question of meaning is still operative in structuralism and post-structuralism. But it is easily shown how even with Saussure, the father of structuralism, it is no longer the primary focus. His Course in General Linguistics (1916)273 marks a distinct break from all previous theories of language. Whereas previously the predominant modes of analyzing language were philological and historical, Saussure turns instead to an analysis of language as if it were frozen in a moment of time. In later structuralist terminology Saussure thus opts for a synchronic rather than a diachronic approach to the analysis of language. Now if we recall how hermeneutics has deep roots in philology and how the historical analysis of language increasingly developed through the 19th and 20th centuries to reach its limit with hermeneutical phenomenology, we can already see how at this basic level Saussure begins to turn away from meaning. For Gadamer clearly showed how meaning is inseparable from the historical dimension. Saussure also breaks away from past thinking which assumed that the existing diversity of languages descended from one original language. Without an operative historical element in his theory, he refrains from offering yet another meaningful narration of this linguistic Fall. Instead he seeks to extract a principle from this fact of diversity, taking it as evidence of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign – what he considers the functional unit of language. The sign must be carefully distinguished from the meaning-packed 'symbol,' which 'is never wholly arbitrary; it is not empty, for there is the rudiment of a natural bond between the signifier and the signified.'274 For Saussure, the linguistic sign is composed of these two entities, which he illustrates as an encircled ratio with the signified (or concept) on top and the signifier (or sound-image) on bottom. The arbitrary connection between them is based on societal convention and is not subject to change through individual intention. Nevertheless they are inseparable, like two sides of a sheet of paper and function as a unit to produce signification or meaning. But signification is not Saussure's primary focus. He turns instead to analyze 'value,' which he expressly distinguishes from signification.275 Where the signified and signifier form a unit to express signification, each of these two elements has value only in its difference from other elements at its own level. There are thus two chains of differences which diverge from each other in parallel fashion without a perfect one-toone correspondence between those terms which make up any individual unit. Extrapolating from this, we could call this the structuralist account of the ambiguity of meaning since the diverging chains effectively rend meaning so as to prevent its stable unity. At any rate, Saussure's explicit point captured in the lengthy citation which opens this chapter is that meaning is also defined by these differential chains. But as any reading of his text makes plain, the accent of his analysis clearly falls on value and not meaning. Thus he continues examining how values emanate from the system from the viewpoint of the signified and then from the viewpoint of the signifier, both of which can be described as 'purely differential and defined not by their positive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in being what the others are not.'276 Simply said, the value of the signifier 'dog' is in being neither 'cat' nor 'house,' etc.
By simultaneously considering their associated signifieds, the meaning of 'dog' can likewise be defined although here a change in terminology is warranted. Strictly speaking, one must no longer speak of difference but of opposition. So at the level of its meaning, 'dog' is opposed to 'cat.' This is so because '[a]lthough both the signified and the signifier are purely differential and negative when considered separately, their combination is a positive fact; it is even the sole type of facts that language has, for maintaining the parallelism between the two classes of differences is the distinctive function of the linguistic institution.'277 What we might call meaning-units are the only positive facts of language, holding together two differential chains of value at particular intervals. As we can see, Saussure's theory refrains from a direct examination of this positivity to analyze instead the prior level of negativity. This is a step back from a primary concern for substantive meanings and their oppositions to one another to the purely differential form which supports them. As he emphasizes, 'language is a form and not a substance.'278 He further analyses this form through his distinction between the syntagmatic relation (which refers signifieds and signifiers to other elements present in the articulated chain) and the associative relation (later called the paradigmatic relation, which refers these elements to others present in the mind but absent from the actual chain). A final notable move away from directly dealing with meaning is discernible in his overall focus on la langue [language] and not la parole [speech]. The former term names the theoretical object of Saussure's linguistic approach, one abstracted from the diversity of concrete languages. The latter, which delivers for Ebeling's word-event theology the meaningful proclamation, is not considered since individual utterances only execute possibilities already existing in la langue. The structural mechanisms of language interest Saussure the most, not carrying them out in expressions of meaning. With his work Saussure effectively sets the stage for all subsequent work in (post)structuralism, which will treat language as form and not as that which houses a mystical substance.
In the introduction to this chapter it was suggested that only by overlooking the formal mechanisms of the signifying structure is the phenomenal experience-of-meaning operative. This might be called a general truth of structuralism and is perhaps nowhere more confirmed than with Jakobson. In his essays “Linguistics and Poetics” (1958) and “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances” (1956)279 he decomposes and categorizes language to a much greater extent than Saussure. In the latter essay he for the first time discerns and sets in opposition two primordial principles of language use, metaphor and metonymy. Usually these both operate at once and are thus difficult to discern. But his analysis of aphasia (the total or partial loss of the power to use or understand words) made such discernment possible. In one type of aphasia the relation of similarity is suppressed, which makes metaphor an alien principle to those so afflicted. In another type the relation of contiguity is suppressed, which likewise results in failing to grasp the principle of metonymy.280 He also develops other principles and oppositional terms in this essay such as substitution and combination. In the former essay, he first provides us with an outline of the six basic aspects of language, which he claims are 'the constitutive factors in any speech event, in any act of verbal communication.'281 Concisely presented, through a point of CONTACT the ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE within a CONTEXT using a CODE. The six basic functions of language, which correspond to these factors, are the PHATIC, the EMOTIVE, the POETIC, the CONATIVE, the REFERENTIAL and the METALINGUAL, respectively. Without entering into a discussion of each of these factors and functions, we could readily surmise the difficulties one might encounter if these categories were strictly adhered to when setting them to task on a text. As the textual content a category is meant to capture invariably slides imperceptibly into another category, the analyst might well ask himself if he has properly grasped the meaning of each of these categories in the first place. Such a question could be seen as symptomatic of how the experience of meaning is lost when the approach to the text attempts to examine its language in a strictly technical manner. However, such a question, which glosses the entire approach and asks for clarification to ensure the proper lexical code is being used, is already reflected in Jakobson's technical schema. For this question demonstrates the metalingual function of language.282 But this is precisely the function of language with which he has the least interest. Jakobson privileges instead the poetic function, which at once reflects his deep structuralist interest in analytical descriptions of poetic language, without any concern for its evaluation, which would instead depend on the values of its meaning and creativity. We are informed that '[t]his function, by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects. Hence, when dealing with the poetic function, linguistics cannot limit itself to the field of poetry.'283 So the name of this function is rather misleading, for it operationally extends to all textual forms. But what exactly is the poetic function? Its official definition reads: 'The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination.'284 The obscurity of this definition is slightly cleared up when he tells us there is a 'diametrical opposition' between poetry and metalanguage so that where the function of the latter questions the meaning of linguistic sequences, the function of the former directly builds such sequences. This bears witness to Jakobson's awareness of that general truth of structuralism stated above, since that truth is effectively accounted for and inscribed into his theoretical framework in the form of this opposition whose privileged pole is the poetic function. By way of a general assessment, since it is never the poetic word but rather the poetic function that is at stake for Jakobson, we might say that if linguistics is to structuralism as poetics is to meaning, what is accomplished here is the annexation of poetics to linguistics. So as with Saussure there is also discernible in Jakobson a concerted effort to move away from signification toward the meaningless domain of structural mechanics.
Broadly speaking the structural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss also does the same as it sets aside the question of what myths mean to inquire instead on what they do and how they do it. But he has also recorded his thoughts on the status of writing and language. A case in point is chapter twenty-five of his Tristes Tropiques (1955), appropriately entitled "A Writing Lesson."285 But as this text is largely written as a first-person account of the journey Lévi-Strauss took through the Brazilian tropics in the late 1930s with a local native population, it is initially unclear where the intended lesson lies. However, about one third of the way into his story Lévi-Strauss embeds a text written in the third-person which strikes a decidedly theoretical tone, in stark contrast to the more emotive narrative portion of the text.286 No doubt the 'official' writing lesson lies with this two-page academic interlude, in which he covers everything from ancient civilizations (both East and West) to a Marxist analysis of the ideological role that writing plays in modern domestic and post-colonial governmental administrations. Indeed we are told that writing has historically been linked with political power from its initial days when it was used to facilitate slavery, to the modern development of compulsory education in the last centuries to better indoctrinate the proletariat into complying with the dictates of global Capital.287 This lesson is presumably to extend to the narrative portion of his text so that his description of the symbolic exchanges he observes among native individuals and groups are to be understood as so many power struggles taking place within their primitive political economy.
One recorded incident directly concerns writing and intimately involves Lévi-Strauss himself. He explains how he had previously distributed paper and pencils to the illiterate native group but evidently only the chief grasped the purpose of writing. The incident occurs when Lévi-Strauss later suggests to the chief that the symbolic exchange of gifts scheduled to be done at a later date should proceed without further delay in order to ease the relations between him, a Westerner, and the native group. What happens is that the chief for two hours perpetrated a farce on his own people, pretending to both read and write as he mediated the exchange of gifts. If we abide by the official lesson which defines writing with respect to the political-economic structuralist level, we must conclude that its purpose is strictly to serve capital and those who benefit from it the most. In the present case we break through bourgeois ideology as soon as we recognize how the chief was attempting to strengthen his power and access to capital goods through his ruse over his people. But we might extract out an alternative lesson beyond this official lesson. When the chief was originally introduced to writing, apparently he also made an effort to deceive Lévi-Strauss himself. As Lévi-Strauss recounts,
'when we were working together he did not give me his answers in words, but traced a wavy line or two on the paper and gave it to me, as if I could read what he had to say. He himself was all but deceived by his own play-acting. Each time he drew a line he would examine it with great care, as if meaning must suddenly leap to the eye; and every time a look of disappointment came over his face. But he would never give up trying, and there was an unspoken agreement between us that his scribblings had a meaning that I did my best to decipher; his own verbal commentary was so prompt in coming that I had no need to ask him to explain what he had written.'288
Lévi-Strauss clearly recognizes the breakdown of communication as one normally takes this notion, for at the level of meaning nothing is being exchanged. However, the 'unspoken agreement between us' signals that at another – structural – level the communication was indeed successful for they both did understand each other. In this way we could say that the pretense of understanding each other was itself only pretence. At any rate, the alternative lesson to take from this episode is that full meanings need not be exchanged for successful communication to occur, for there is also that understanding which takes place at the level of the symbolic exchange itself – in this case the act of exchanging pieces of paper with meaningless writing on them. Granted, this lesson is not expressly conveyed as such. But the point is that since Lévi-Strauss is a structurally-minded thinker, his text cannot but be rife with such lessons whereby the failure of communication at the level of the immediate understanding of meaning is demonstrated to be redeemed at the structural level.289 Moreover, at an even less explicit level the chief's anxious expectation for meaning to 'suddenly leap to the eye' and his constant 'look of disappointment' when it failed to do so raises the troubling prospect that there is another level not yet accounted for by either the meaningful content of a text or the structural aspects of its formal language. This possibility will be seriously entertained towards the end of the next chapter but only theoretically articulated in an explicit fashion in Chapter 5.
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