THL2601 Study Guide 2008, University of South Africa PDF

# 2008 University of South Africa All rights reserved Printed and published by the University of South Africa Muckleneuk, Pretoria THL201A/1/2009±2012 98310143 THL822-STYLE  Contents PREFACE (iv) Study unit 1 INTRODUCTION...

# 2008 University of South Africa All rights reserved Printed and published by the University of South Africa Muckleneuk, Pretoria THL201A/1/2009±2012 98310143 THL822-STYLE  Contents PREFACE (iv) Study unit 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Study unit 2 THEORY OF THE SIGN 11 Study unit 3 FROM SIGN TO STRUCTURE 59 Study unit 4 FROM STRUCTURALISM TO SEMIOTICS 107 Study unit 5 READING, RECEPTION AND INTERPRETATION 171 iii  Preface ABOUT THIS STUDY GUIDE In the first-level modules of the Theory of Literature course, we focused upon the broad issue of the definition of the aesthetic in order to introduce you to the type of concerns which characterise literary and cultural theories. We saw that the attempt to discover a means of distinguishing aesthetic objects or of demarcating a field of study specific to the aesthetic involves a consideration of intrinsic and extrinsic features of aesthetic objects, and of the actions of individuals and the societies in which they act. We explained the function of theories: they are efforts to provide answers to questions about literature or the literary object, as well as the cultural object. Theories can provide more effective descriptions and explanations of these objects in order to answer such questions. We also noted the requirements for an acceptable and reliable theory, namely it has to have a clear object of study, it has to define this object clearly, the terms of its theoretical language must be unambiguous and it has to provide new information. Now it is time to focus on specific theories in order to see how they deal with the challenges of providing systematic accounts of the nature of literary texts and other cultural objects. For this guide we have selected theories which are informed by the theory of language proposed by the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. These theories Ð structuralism and semiotics Ð started off by enquiring whether a better understanding of language would provide the foundation for a better understanding of literature and the cultural sphere. This line of enquiry proved fruitful, and sometimes provocative, to the point where it would seem that literature in fact teaches us something about language. Owing to constraints of time and space, we have had to be selective about the information presented in the study guide. Several aspects of the theories have been left out of the study guide, and any list mentioning all of them would simply become too long. Those of you who have read more than just the guide and the prescribed texts in the reader for THL201A, will have become aware of the scope and limitations of the theory of the sign for literature and culture. One unexplored area remains the connection between structuralist, semiotic and poststructuralist theories, and the type of literature, theatre, film, art and music which was being produced at the time they were at their peak. The theory and practice of these art forms are very closely related: modernist and avant-garde art practices broke with prevailing conceptions of the arts, and called for different modes of understanding and interpretation, to which the theories responded. The art practices then in turn responded to the type of theoretical accounts which began to emerge, and often incorporated their views and insights. This is a very interesting topic for further investigation. Since the current understanding of the term ``global village'' Ð in South Africa as well as, to a large extent, worldwide Ð is that it refers to a sphere of cultural and literary diversity, many of the theories concerning the sign in language and culture may be restricted in their claims to be valid and in their usefulness as instruments for description, analysis and criticism because of iv their association with particular types of literary writing linked to specific places and cultural, social and educational infrastructures. Although we will not be devoting a study unit to this issue, one ought to keep this in mind. The theories under discussion also constituted a challenge to the prevailing modes of criticism and interpretation. Critics and interpreters are now far more conscious of the theoretical assumptions that they make. The nature of criticism and interpretation has changed dramatically during the course of the last century, and another interesting topic unfortunately omitted in this study guide is the history of criticism. However, issues concerning criticism do emerge in parts of the study material. In the course we expect you to think critically for the following three reasons. Firstly, we ask you not to treat theories as facts but as what they are: theories or proposals which have to be tested and questioned. Secondly, we aim to give you the means to look critically at literature and culture in your own milieu and in global society as a whole. Are our own assumptions about literature and meaning acceptable? Thirdly, we will be asking critical questions of the theories themselves as theories. Some critical questions are put by the guide. Together, you and I will work through the material covered in the guide and the questions raised. The guide is not aimed at teaching you what questions to ask, nor does it give you the answers to the questions. It seeks only to make suggestions about both. It wants to encourage you to ask your own critical questions, to follow your own instincts and experience, and to formulate these as clear critical questions about theories, literature and the literary institution. One could claim that the theories which we are going to look at, and the historical backdrop against which they developed, are Eurocentric or Western, and therefore of scant relevance to us in South Africa today. This is a hasty and harmful conclusion for the following reasons: To dismiss a set of ideas because of its historical or geographical origin is not a particularly effective way of refuting those ideas. A theory is not necessarily inappropriate simply because it has local or cultural links. There are other yardsticks for determining the validity of theories. One could Ð and should Ð attempt to indicate where and why a particular theoretical proposal and method are valid and if not, why not. These theories have been enormously influential in developing theories of postcolonialism and evolving a discourse on gender issues, and are directly relevant to people working in the cultural field in South Africa. You will find them in most books on cultural studies Ð books such as readers and general textbooks on literary and cultural studies. A good way of testing various theories is by investigating whether they can be applied to different cultures. Insofar as it is our aim to gain a better understanding of the cultural v  environment, there is no reason why we should not avail ourselves of insights and ideas that have been developed elsewhere, and find out whether they are useful or not. It is true to say that analytical concepts strive for universality (even though they may never achieve it in practice); to exclude any nation's literature or culture from one's analysis would be a form of discrimination. Similarly, to exclude views in opposition to those implied by the theories with which one is dealing would also be discriminatory. Such exclusion may lead one to evolving an incomplete or flawed theory because not all aspects of its object of study have been taken into consideration. An original concept or proposal may well be incapable of fully accounting for the new facts, in which case it should either be modified or else replaced by a new concept. Concepts are a little bit like workers: in order to measure their real value, one has to know what they can do, not where they come from. THE STUDY MATERIAL FOR THL201A Your study material for THL201A consists of. this study guide, ``Theories of the sign in literature and culture''. a reader containing a selection of articles or extracts from books. a series of tutorial letters, starting with Tutorial Letter 101, which contains all the technical details, the assignment topics and information on anything else you may need to do in this course We could not find one specific book which could serve as a textbook so please treat the study guide as a textbook. We will recommend good textbooks in the Tutorial 101 letters. You do not have to buy them. The recommended books mentioned in Tutorial Letter 101 are important. You should also consult the references we make to specific books and theorists in the various study units and in the bibliography. This will help you to decide what recommended books are particularly important and which ones you should try to buy. You will see that the books by Thwaites and some introductions to literary studies, such as those by Selden and Culler, will be most useful for this course. Although the study guide cannot provide all the appropriate detail on the different theories we cover, it is more than a general introduction. It is a selection of relevant theoretical arguments which are presented as clearly and precisely as possible in order to allow you to deal with them with confidence and clarity and to use them effectively in whatever practical context you may want to do so. You will notice that this guide concentrates on single texts and single cultural objects in developing descriptions and explanations, and in respect of practical activities. The reader for this course contains primary material, as well as applications of the theories and some commentaries. The articles and extracts contained in the reader are an integral part of your study material. The activities in every study unit are likewise an integral part of your study vi material. They are intended to ensure that you truly understand the new concepts and terms, that you know how to use them in practice and that in this way you develop the skills the course intends and promises to develop. The material in this study guide is designed to accommodate a variety of students. As a distance teaching institution, Unisa often has students from different countries and continents, and from different educational, cultural and social systems with different histories. The purpose of the way the course is presented is to allow you to decide on your own level of work. Some of you might find certain activities tedious whereas others might find them difficult. Some of you might find the information in the ``boxes'' interesting and necessary whereas others might find it too complex to deal with immediately or even later. Our approach to the work requires students to see details in a broad perspective and to think critically about them. This may be new to some but common to others. We have made every effort to allow for these differences and expect that you will use the guide in terms of your own needs, abilities and interests. HOW TO DEAL WITH THE GUIDE The study guide contains some sections which are optional. These are contained in the boxes and, here and there, subsections of study units which are marked ``Read only''. These sections contain further information on components, and the implications and/or criticisms of the theories. Some- times they provide additional information which you may skip if you wish. They will, however, help to increase your insight and critical and practical abilities and this will show in your assignments and examinations. The boxes deal with additional background or interesting information. The content of boxes will not be covered in assignments or tested in the examination. This guide contains many activities. The activities really are the entries into the material. To a large extent, long explanations and chunks of information have been replaced by these activities. A clear grasp of, a real interest in and a genuine insight into what the guide deals with is what the activities are meant to generate in you, the reader and student. You will not hand them in, but an answer book will be provided in the form of a study letter at the beginning of your semester course. You may send your work on activities that you find difficult to me by e-mail or, preferably, you could put it on the website for THL201A on myUnisa. I can then respond to it, ``mark'' it or comment on it for the benefit of all students who use the internet and who access myUnisa. ``Reflections'' are like interludes. They raise what to me seemed interesting points, and encourage you to take aspects of the work a bit further and to relate them to your own experience. Study unit I, ``Some background'' is a read-only study unit. You will not be asked to do assignments or answer examination questions on it. This guide is quite long, mainly due to the activities, diagrams and illustrations. Do not let the length scare you. If necessary, we may from time to time decide to concentrate on specific study units. This will be made clear in Tutorial Letter 101. vii  In all cases where the guide refers to Thwaites, the page numbers referred to are those from his book cited in the bibliography, and not from the extract of his book in the reader for THL201A. Substantial parts of this guide were originally written by Annamaria Carusi for a previous THL201A guide. In the present guide, they appear in a revised and edited form. The rest of the writing, the revision, the design of the activities and the selection of visual material and the editing was done by Marianne de Jong. viii STUDY UNIT 1 Introduction (Read only) 1 WHAT ARE THEORIES? Most of us talk about the books we read or hear about, just as we discuss the TV shows or soapies we watch. We have opinions about TV, magazine articles or books. What we do not realise is that the opinions we express are actually the beginnings of theories, and require further thought as one does with a theory. We are usually convinced about our own opinions although we have not tested them against facts or evidence. In the first level course, the Introduction to Theory of Literature, we made a distinction between assumptions and theory. One of the effects of studying the theory of art, culture and literature is to discover how to replace opinions (which are assumptions) with observations and conclusions based on observation and argument. What are theories? This question was dealt with in the first-level course mentioned above. Theories are the explanations we need in order to solve problems. In that course we used the example of a car that breaks down. The various explanations which we might try out Ð from an empty petrol tank to a malfunctioning distributor Ð are basic theories and we will test all of them to see which one offers the best explanation for the problem. For the theories which we will deal with in this study guide the car could serve as metaphor. These theories are known as structuralism and semiotics and they are derived from theories of language developed early in the previous century, predominantly from the theory of language as a sign system developed by the French-speaking Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Used to explain and describe how literature works as a sign system, structuralism and semiotics could be compared to lifting the bonnet of a car's engine and looking into this engine to establish how it functions. In this guide the theories are presented both as theories and as practice. The two aspects cannot be separated since most of the theories have been developed in order to explain features of poems or stories and narrative, and have been tested on actual literary texts, even when the level of abstract description and systematics is fairly dense and complex. You will be working with examples of literary objects, and here and there also cultural objects, all the time. 2 MAPPING THE THEORIES Although it seems obvious that theories of literature are closely linked to theories of language, many theories used to explain and analyse literature and to define the literary object are not based on language. You will already have come across some of them in the first-level course. The field of Theory of Literature is vast, and it is useful to page through a reader-friendly introduction and overview of it, such as Culler's Literary theory: a very short introduction (1997), to gain insight into its scope. Theories dealing with the author or sender (the creative ``genius'') were popular in the 18th and 19th 1  centuries. Context-centred theories such as Marxism, theories of ideology, theories of discourse and the sociology and history of literature have always played a strong role in literary studies. During the 20th century, theories concentrating on the text and the reader have renewed and changed literary studies. These are the theories offered in this course. Theories themselves have contexts, and to trace them we will briefly ``map'' the literary theories we will be dealing with. A geological map will show that the theorists responsible for these ideas came mostly from middle and Eastern Europe Ð (the city of Tartuf in Russia) and what today is Tschechia (the city of Prague). The theories became known in Western Europe as a result of the diaspora of these theorists. Some settled in Paris in France, some such as Todorov in the USA. The reception of these theories was strongest, firstly, in Paris and then among linguists and anthropologists before they were picked up by literary theorists. Today structuralism and, especially, semiotics is known and used all over the world. Can we then say that these theories are defined by their place of origin and the space of their first reception? Looking at a cultural map of these theories, we can see they originated in societies with a high level of literacy or at least a strong intellectual, artistic and writing class. Their spread was firstly to and through academics and universities in Western Europe, England and the United States, through exchange between scholars and students who were looking for new approaches and new solutions to problems in their fields. In Africa these theories have elicited reading and responses, for example in the form of articles by Wole Soyinka in Nigeria and in the work of literary scholars working on various languages in South Africa. This was despite the fact that Marxist theory had been more popular with African students and scholars of literature before because it was felt that Marxist theories could better explain the social context of literature and art in Africa, where artistic and literary activities are perceived to be affected by oral and traditional culture, and by social distress and needs. A cultural map of theories would show up artistic developments and fashions which might have contributed to the interest in structure and systems which is encapsulated in the theories we are presenting here. The communist and socialist movement, which gained momentum in Europe in countries such as Germany, Italy, Russia, France and elsewhere, gave rise to expressionistic art which played with form, distorted it (as in Picasso's work although he was not part of this particular movement) and also saw the rise of experimental expressionistic and Dadaistic poetry. The drive to abstract art was not dependent on political movements, however, and carried over to the modernist art of the middle and late 20th century. Its equivalent was experimental prose and plays such as the work of Pirandello and Samuel Becket (Waiting for Godot) and the great innovation of high modernist fiction such as the work of James Joyce (Ulysses) and William Faulkner (The sound and the fury). In these texts the conventional discourse of the novel is distorted by means of a stream of consciousness technique, that is, by a discourse written as if it were the subconscious world of impression, associations, thought bytes and words expressed on the pages without mediation. The conventional time structure of stories was changed around or time itself was made into the key to the structuration of the novel. These maps tempt one to ask: Of what relevance are these theories to continents and cultures and languages that did not share the social, political and artistic movements the maps illustrate? In the Preface we maintained that geocentrism and, for that matter, ethnocentrism as cultural centrism is not a 2 good argument against a theory. Theories have to be countered as theories, that is, in terms of arguments. We could add that exchange between different geocultural spaces has become such a global phenomenon that theories of art and literature have effects in defiance of borders and boundaries. Today you will find structuralists or semioticians and reception studies in India and Japan. These theories seem able to provide answers to questions on literature, culture and art worldwide. Students and scholars far from the centre of origin of these theories find their methods useful. The ideas which strike you as strange will probably strike other students in distant parts of the world in a similar way: Form defining meaning in literature? Functionalism as a measure of literary quality? You might want to remember that we do not offer these theories as the best or the most outstanding theories, or as if they provide all the answers. On the contrary, our intention is to offer them to you in such a way that you will ask questions of these theories, and read them in your own context and in terms of the history of the literature that you associate with or regard as ``your'' literature and its history. Africa, it is said today, is now in its own alternative era of modernism. We are observing new and different ``modernities'' of which Africa is one. Not everyone agrees with this. Africa's economic and cultural history differs from that history which made Europe, England, the USA, and perhaps also Japan, centres of modernity and which gave rise to the artistic and literary ``high modernism'' with its interest in technique, function, experiment and self-questioning. Some very interesting work has been done that straddles African and Western culture, for example the essay about the figure of the trickster by Henry Louis Gates, a prominent Afro-American literary scholar (Gates 1984). Efforts to compare African oral culture and its literary qualities with the histories of Western European, English and other literatures have been made by South African scholars of medieval literature, and recent work by Isabel Hofmeyr at the University of Witwatersrand as well as David Attwell, formerly of the University of Natal, now in York, England, also straddle literary and theoretical cultures effectively. The main motivation for this course, as well as any course on theories of literature that we offer, is that the ability to work with theory and knowledge about relevant theories empowers one. The ability to deal with theories firstly empowers one in any career or work one might do. Skills in theories of literature empower one to take part in debates, to form and influence opinions and policy, whether these directly deal with literature, art and culture or with other issues in sociocultural and sociopolitical reality. Personally, I believe that it enables one to understand and defend the arts and culture in general, and literature in particular. We live in a continent or continents where the threat of censorship and silencing is always present. We live in political times of cultural difference that has not yet been overcome Ð I am thinking of Christianity and Islam, for example. In Africa, despite the strong oral and social tradition, literary writing is also the voice of the single and singular individual, or of the marginalised, and sometimes of groups, as the abundance of collections of narratives in South Africa in recent times show. Not all these narratives strive to be ``literary'' and they need not do this either. However, we will always be in need of readers who know that literary discourse is not the same as social, political or religious discourse, and that this difference in discourse has to be defended and protected. These qualities of readers need to be conveyed to viewers of TV and of the media too. We are, as some scholars have put it, moving from the graphopshere (the sphere or world of letters) to the videosphere (the world of visual products). 3  Along with the theories, we introduce you to the so-called ``linguistic turn'' in literary studies and related subjects, from linguistics itself to anthropology, communications and philosophy. In the course of these study units we will move from structure to meaning and, with meaning, to the reader, in a section called ``the reader's turn''. The theories we deal with here eventually gave rise to poststructuralism and late-semiotics and, with these, to what has now become known as the ``political turn'' in literary studies. Today interest in the cultural and political field in which literature emerges and operates is predominant. However, that work is left for courses on the third level. 3 THE LINGUISTIC TURN: THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE Few of us would disagree with the statement that language is an immensely important part of our experience of both the social and the physical world. To understand something about how language works requires a good under- standing of our experience of social and physical matters. This is particularly the case in the cultural sphere which forms the subject matter of literary and cultural studies. Since we live in a multifaceted world and in a multicultural society, it is appropriate to ask you the following: What comes to your mind when you hear the word ``culture'' and what comes to your mind when you hear the word ``language''? It is unlikely that your answer will cover the theory of either culture or language. It will probably be based on your own observations and experiences of both. You would be unable to understand or even question particular theories without using your own particular experiences and knowledge as a basis. Two theories of language are of central importance to cultural theorists. The first is linguistics and the second is the philosophy of language. 3.1 A ``LINGUISTICS'' VIEW OF LANGUAGE Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the founders of modern linguistics, describes it as follows in his seminal work, Course in general linguistics (1959:62): ``The subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech.'' In other words, De Saussure sees the subject matter of linguistics not only as fluent coherent speech, but also as the first ``faulty'' words which a baby utters when starting to speak, the efforts of speakers to use a foreign language correctly or the creative twist poets and performers give language, and so forth. The aim of linguistics is (1) to describe and trace the history of all observable languages, which amounts to tracing the history of families of languages and reconstructing as far as possible the mother language of each family (2) to determine the forces that are permanently at work in all languages, and to deduce the general laws to which all specific historical phenomena can be reduced (3) to delimit and define itself, in other words to establish its object of study, 4  how it should describe the object of study and the kinds of questions it wishes to answer Whilst it is true that the subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech, it is important to point out that linguistics is the study of natural languages, that is, specific languages spoken by various communities around the world. Linguistics asks questions such as the following: What are the phonological, semantic and syntactic characteristics of a language and how do they interact with one another? Insofar as linguistics studies natural (spoken or observable) languages, it is an empirical science. By contrast, the philosophy of language is not restricted to the empirical domain. 3.2 A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF LANGUAGE There are many different reasons why philosophers are interested in language, and many different ways in which language is dealt with in philosophy. Therefore, it is far more difficult to give a brief exposition of the philosophy of language than it is to give one of linguistics, and this will not be attempted here. The following diagram (derived from Blackburn 1984:3) should help us to find our bearings in this potentially confusing terrain: DIAGRAM 1.1 speakers (mind) language world This triangle illustrates the basic elements which any philosophical description of language will attempt to account for. Blackburn (1984:3) explains the relationship between the three elements of the triangle as follows: The speaker uses the language. With it, he or she can put themselves into various relations with the world. They can describe it, or ask questions about it, issue commands to change it, put themselves under an obligation to act in various ways, offer metaphors, images, jokes about what it is like. Philosophers of language emphasise certain aspects of the triangle to explain how meaning in language works. They may ask: ``Can and should meaning in language be explained by the world, that is, by the things we talk about?'', or ``Can and should it be explained by the person who uses the language, that is, by the `subject' or `agent' of language, or can and should it be explained by language itself?'' Philosophers of language tend to ask questions such as the following (you may add your own ideas about these questions if you want to): 5. What kinds of meaning are there? Is there any difference between emotive and cognitive meaning, for instance between the type of meanings elicited by a lyrical poem and those elicited by a science textbook?. Is there a similarity between the elements and structure of linguistic expressions and the elements and structure of what those expressions are about?. What is the relation between language and the mind? (Sentences are generally used to express thoughts, beliefs, wishes, desires and so on. These are all mental states, and pertain to the mind. Is it so that subjective mental and emotive states can explain meaning in language? Is there more to the meaning of a sentence than the mental state that it expresses? Does the language we use affect the thoughts, beliefs, and so on that we entertain about the world? If so, how? Are mental states fundamentally independent of language?) Strictly speaking, literary and cultural theorists do not propose linguistic or philosophical theories of language. Rather, they apply linguistic insights to literature as a field of study, and sometimes the proposals they make about the language of literature have philosophical implications. 3.3 WHY DOES LANGUAGE MATTER TO THEORIES OF LITERATURE? To answer this question, the guide will cover specific questions such as the following: (1) What is the difference between language and literature? (2) What is the relationship between language and literature? (3) When does mere language become literature? (4) Is there is a relationship between art forms such as literature, film, fine arts and music? Why does language matter to the theory of literature? The answer may seem obvious: literature is made up of language, or uses the medium of language. Therefore, insights into the nature and functioning of language are likely to be relevant to the theoretical study of literature. Cultural objects often use language, and cultural and social discourses are examples of language use. In what way does language matter to literary and cultural theory? A literary theorist aims to propose a theory which accounts for the distinctive features of literature and a cultural theorist aims to do the same in the case of culture. Therefore these theorists cannot simply apply linguistic principles to literature. Their application will tell us in what ways literature and culture are similar to other ways in which language is used and what distinguishes literary and cultural language from other uses of language. Linguistic principles can be used as a background against which the particularity of literary and cultural language emerges. In other words, linguistic theory allows us to determine what the linguistic characteristics of literary language are. In this guide we will first focus on the theory of literature since we argue that the theory of the sign as it was developed by theory of literature influenced the use of the theory of the sign in theories of culture. As we saw in the first-year course in the theory of literature, the domain in which the literary theorist is interested overlaps significantly with that of cultural objects, particularly those which are 6. aesthetic objects such as painting, dance forms or music. endowed with meaning, or which are meaningful such as crafts, clothing and dress, national or religious symbols, and products of the media such as advertisements You will probably agree that meaning is not always expressed by verbal or linguistic means, as is evident when we consider visual art forms. Sometimes we are interested in the meaningfulness of aesthetic objects in a sense which goes beyond their linguistic nature. Consider the following questions:. How do literary objects acquire their meanings?. Do literary objects have different types of meaning?. Are literary objects forms of communication?. If so, what type of communication?. How does a novel or film represent the external world? The answers to these questions imply that there is a similarity between the concerns of the literary or cultural theorist, and those of the philosopher of language. We need to explore the nature of the human sciences further in order to understand fully the second reason why language is important to literary and cultural theory. 4 THE HUMAN SCIENCES AND MEANING In section 1.5.2.1 of the study guide for THL801U we saw that the aim of theories is to define, describe and/or explain phenomena. We looked at some of the differences between the natural sciences and the human sciences. You may recall that we said that the human sciences study human behaviour. That means that the person who carries out the behaviour, or who is the agent of the behaviour, is of central importance in the human sciences. Human agents are different from the natural phenomena studied by the natural sciences in at least one respect: they themselves have a view, or an understanding, of their own behaviour. Atoms and molecules, planets and stars, plants and rocks obviously do not themselves have a view or understanding of the way in which they behave. In fact, the words ``have a view'', ``understand'', or ``behave'' are anthropomorphic descriptions of natural phenomena: that is, we project human characteristics onto nonhuman natural phenomena when we describe them in this way. The fact that human sciences deal with beings (human beings) who are critical of their own acts, whereas the natural sciences deal with objects (often alive) that are not capable of self-criticism or reflection, has important consequences for the nature of the human sciences. In this section, we consider one of these consequences, namely the different status of laws in the natural and in the human sciences. 4.1 THE NATURE OF LAWS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES It is important to remember that the laws of the natural sciences express a 7  regular connection between conditions of a particular type and events of a particular type. It is in so far as this regular connection holds true that general principles express the reason or cause for the occurrence of the phenomenon to be explained. This is obvious when we consider the way in which general principles are formulated: GP: Whenever conditions of type x occur, events of type y also occur. General principles (GPs) are laws, or express a law-like connection between conditions of a particular type and events of a particular type. They are laws because they state something which invariably holds true. Theoretical explanation, in the case of the natural sciences, is founded on the positioning and explanation of laws of this form. In the natural sciences, the explanation of a particular phenomenon may be considered complete when the law which applies to the phenomenon has been discovered. In the human sciences this is not the case. 4.2 THE NATURE OF LAWS IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES Consider the following example: a stream of traffic regulated by traffic lights displays a high degree of regularity. If we wish to explain the phenomenon of a motorist coming to a halt at a red light, we might invoke the following law: L1 Whenever the traffic light is red, motorists come to a halt. Imagine that an alien is trying to understand why motorists behave the way they do. Is simply remarking on the regular or law-like connection between red traffic-lights and coming to a halt a good enough explanation? The answer, of course, is that the alien will not have understood why any particular motorist comes to a halt when the traffic light is red, unless it also understands one other thing. The alien must also understand that ``red'' means ``stop'' to the motorist. This shows that, in the human sciences, explanation requires interpretation, or an understanding of the meaning of the first part of the law (ie the antecedent clause) in respect of the agent or agents in question. Therefore, in order to arrive at a genuine explanation, we must understand what the reasons for the behaviour mean to the agent, and not what they mean to us, or to the viewer. The alien in the above example could have given red an entirely different meaning which would also, in the alien understanding of things, have resulted in motorists coming to a halt. For the alien, ``red'' could have meant ``pause for the duration of one moment'', which just happens to be the time it takes for the light to change. However, if the alien ascribed this meaning to ``red'', it would still have failed to understand the behaviour of the motorists. This point is important because it tells us something about the nature of interpretation in the human sciences. Often, the human scientist must begin with an intuitive understanding of the behaviour in question. This means starting off with an understanding of the reason she herself would behave in a 8 particular way. This results in a very subjective mode of understanding. Theories, however, aim at objectivity. For the findings of the human scientist to have any validity, they must be grounded in objective reality. Some commentators have claimed that objectivity is impossible in the human sciences because it relies on subjective intuitions. We need not accept this conclusion however: it may well be the case that subjective intuition is one of the human scientist's tools, but the results of this subjective intuition must be checked against the agent's past and future actions, his or her own description of his or her behaviour, and so on. Because of the role meaning plays in explaining human behaviour, the theories put forward in the human sciences resemble the different philosophical theories of language more closely than they do the natural sciences. This is because of the conceptual nature of the wellsprings of human behaviour. Hence a third reason why language is important to literary and cultural theory is to be found in the fact that, as in the human sciences, language and meaning are the central focus of explanation. These reasons have not all informed literary and cultural theories in a uniform manner. One or other of the reasons may play a greater role or lesser role at different times, depending on the nature of the theory in question. In these two sections, we have looked at some of the conceptual issues which have an impact on literary theory as a discipline. The first-level guide on Theory of Literature (THL801U), introduced you to part of the history of Theory of Literature, when, for example, it discusses the Russian formalists and the questions with which they were confronted and that they tried to answer. At about the same time, De Saussure was developing his ideas on linguistics and on the proper object of linguistics as a theory. De Saussure's ideas were to provide the foundation for modem linguistics as the scientific study of language. You should have noticed that De Saussure's description of linguistics in his Course in general linguistics (quoted above) fit the naturalistic model of scientific theories. In other words, De Saussure thought of his work as being as exact and objective as the natural sciences were deemed to be, and as able to explain universal laws. Given the remarks made in the discussion of the human sciences, do you think it is wise for a theory of language and meaning in language and culture to try to be like the natural sciences? The reason why Saussurean linguistics was initially utilised by literary theorists is that it seemed to offer a firm basis for a scientific study of literature, the dream of the Russian formalists. If linguistics is the scientific study of language, then the application of linguistic principles to literature would provide a scientific way of distinguishing between literary and nonliterary language. But why this obsession with science in a discipline which many would say is not best served by the principles of science? We must remember that, since the time of Isaac Newton, the sciences have enjoyed a period of unprecedented success. The 19th century was a time of tremendous scientific activity, during which numerous discoveries and inventions were made. Darwin's theory of evolution profoundly shook 9  humankind's understanding of itself, and of its place in the scheme of things. In particular, it seemed to be a devastating challenge to religious thought. Science seemed to provide the perfect model for obtaining objective knowledge about the world around us, and it was, into the bargain, progressive and glamorous. In this context, it is easy to see why the desire to be scientific was so strong, and why it swayed so many thinkers. Subsequently this desire, as it was manifested in literary studies, came to be called the ``scientistic dream''. Both the pretensions of science to provide the only objective knowledge of the world, and the idea that literary studies should aspire to be scientific, have since been criticised. This is a very small part of the historical background against which the theories which you will study during the course of this year were developed. The theories covered in this guide (structuralism, semiotics and reception or reading) derive primarily from the use of the linguistic model in literary and cultural theory. 5 SOME FINAL REMARKS Do we have to exclude all beliefs and spontaneous responses because they are not seen as objective? Can we reject a theory on the grounds of religious, political or other beliefs? What does it mean to use theories in a normative way and why can normative theoretical statements be problematic? How can theories be universally true and fully objective when culture and society affect them? We invite you to think about these questions. The aim of this course is to develop real skills and capabilities. Here are some of the outcomes we had in mind when compiling the guide:. You will be able to explain the theoretical arguments and to use the basic terms related to certain theories.. You will be able to do this in a clear way.. You will be able to do this with ease and confidence.. You will be able to use what you have come across in this course in a practical way.. You will be able to think about the arguments discussed in a critical way and to form your own opinions on the theoretical arguments.. You will be able to state your own arguments and opinions in an informed way and substantiate them. By ``substantiated'' we mean that you will be able to give supporting arguments and proofs, examples and facts which put the structuralist and semiotic to the test. 10 STUDY UNIT 2 Theory of the sign ``The word `dog' does not bark!''1 Louis Althusser 2.1 INTRODUCTION In the previous study unit, we mentioned the founder of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure. In this study unit we will discuss the basic ideas of his description of language as a system of signs. As explained in study unit 1 we will actually be dealing with linguistics. We will describe and explain the propositions of De Saussure's theory, the arguments presented to support these propositions, which will mostly be examples from language and other sign systems, as well as some problems arising from the propositions which gave raise to further theoretical propositions so that De Saussure could present his theory as a coherent whole. We will note that many other objects of culture and art can be described as sign systems. Therefore you will find various types of examples in this study unit Ð ordinary language use, literary language use, cultural objects such as advertisements, traffic signs, and other examples of sign systems at work, according to the theorists of the sign. We live in a world of signs, and we all know them and know how to interpret and use them. Have a look at the following examples: DIAGRAM 2.1 @ H ? , 11  Signs also differ from icons: cultural icons such as pop music or rap icons Icon of the 1950±1960's http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Marilyn-Monroe-Poster-C10048116.jpeg Icon of the 1950Ð60's Icon of the past http://www.jimbrittphoro.com/legends_ali.html Icon of the past ACTIVITY 2.1 Try to pinpoint differences between signs, symbols and icons by first reading the notes on signs and the relationship between word and world in study unit 1......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... A KEY to understanding the linguistic sign: The word ``money'' is not determined by the thing it is " about, namely money. Test this by holding out your hand and saying ``ten thousand rand.'' 12 2.2 THEORY OF LANGUAGE AS A SIGN SYSTEM: DE SAUSSURE 2.2.1 STUDYING LANGUAGE Box 2.1 Historical background to De Saussure and the ``discovery'' of the sign _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ De Saussure's lectures on linguistics were delivered at the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911. These lectures marked the inception of an entirely new way of studying language. Before De Saussure, the study of language was dominated by normative, philological or comparative studies. Normative studies of language try to establish the correct use of language. Philological studies are historical studies which concern themselves particularly with ancient languages such as Ancient Greek and Latin, and with the development of modern languages from earlier languages. One could also describe this as an historical approach to the study of language. Comparative studies, or what De Saussure calls ``comparative-philological studies'', aim ``[t]o illuminate one language by means of another, to explain the forms of one through the forms of the other'' (De Saussure 1960:2). An example of a comparative philological study is that of Franz Bopp, whose comparison of Sanskrit and German, Greek and Latin showed that they all belonged to the same family of languages. At the beginning of the 20th century, De Saussure concluded that the study of language and literature had failed because it did not ``seek out the nature of its object of study'' (De Saussure 1960:3). Instead, it treated language as though it was a sort of natural organism. For example, comparative philologists would say things like ``Language does this or that'' (De Saussure 1960:5). It seems that the studies were unable to define what their object of investigation in fact was, and, as we saw in the first- level module, if a theory is unable to define its object, it is unable to define itself as a theory. The questions for De Saussure are not: how should language be used, or where does language come from or what are the most general features of languages, but: how can we study language as an object? How can we establish what this object 2 actually is? De Saussure begins his own discussion of the nature of linguistics and its object of study by introducing two important distinctions. The first is the distinction between language (langue) and speaking (parole); the second is that between synchronic (nonhistorical) and diachronic (historical) studies. Langue, parole and diachronic and synchronic studies are theoretical terms with specific meanings and are still being used today. 2.2.2 LANGUE AND PAROLE In French, langue means ``language'' and parole means ``word'', ``speech'' or ``utterance''. The difference between langue and parole is the difference between language in the abstract or language ``as such'' (eg the English language) and the concrete use of the language each time a speaker says or writes something. The concept of langue cannot be clearly explained when it is simply translated as ``language''. This is why up to today we maintain the French terms, which we write here in italics because they are words from a foreign, non-English language. 13 ACTIVITY 2.2 1 Randomly open a dictionary (if you do not have one, visit the library) and look critically at all the words it contains. All the words in the dictionary are langue. 2 Visit a friend and describe your day to her or him. The conversation or sentences that you use " to describe your day are instances of parole. So, langue is the language which a number of speakers have in common and through which they communicate; parole is the use to which the language is put by actual speakers, in actual utterances, in actual situations. Langue is abstract; parole is actual or concrete. That is why parole is connected to utterances. Utterances are the actual verbalisations of language. Langue is the abstract system of language; parole is concrete, real use. De Saussure tried to discover and define this abstract system, and we will deal with the system of language as De Saussure described it in this study unit. It was langue, or the abstract system of language, which for De Saussure should be the object of linguistic study. In other words, he believed that we have to try to describe the langue in order to be able to explain what language is. However, langue is also social. Langue is social; parole is individual. Langue is social because it refers to a knowledge of the way in which a specific language has to be used which is shared by all the speakers of that specific language. This may include its vocabulary or its rules of use. Parole is individual because it refers to the specific, individual way in which one speaker uses language. The speech of specific speakers may consist of dialect or slang; it may be expressive or consist of other features not included in the abstract system of language. ACTIVITY 2.3 Are the following texts examples of langue or parole? Give reasons for your answer. (a) Hounded like wild animals From the realms of original opinion Beside the poisoned folds of the academic gowns They must teach what they're paid to teach All they need do is cram Bow, kow tow, and from original thoughts: scram: Then surely they become elevated by the scruff To the sublime post of prof... (Nnimmo Basey in Emenyonu 2000:297).................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... (b) ``Universities undermine the abilities of students to form original opinions, since they force them to accept as correct and right that which the professors regard as correct and right.''.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... " 14  Box 2.2 More about langue: how do we learn a language? ___________________________________ According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, the knowledge of how to use language in order to speak, write and communicate meaningfully (ie in a way which makes sense to other people) is learnt by children when they begin to learn to speak. It is not a knowledge we learn at school nor is it dependent on any kind of study. It is acquired through imitation and exercise or practice. The knowledge gained is a knowledge of the abstract system of the language (the langue) and the rules for using language meaningfully. This abstract knowledge is learnt spontaneously, according to Wittgenstein. To put it simply, one learns the system and rules of a language precisely by learning how to speak the language. This explains why one may call language a ``social institution'', as Pettit does in the quotation below. Note that Wittgenstein does not work on language as a sign system, but writes on the philosophy of language. Yet Wittgenstein's work confirms De Saussure's notion of the social aspect of langue. When learning our mother tongue as toddlers we begin to build up a linguistic competence, usually without even realising this as such. Ludwig Witgenstein January 16, 1969 www.nybooks.com Think about this: to learn a language is to learn how to use it. When you go to school, you already know how to use your mother tongue Ð you do not have to learn this at school. Schools teach us refinements and correct use! Pettit (1975:4) clarifies the distinction between language and speaking as follows: The distinction between language and speaking is better known in the French terms as the distinction between langue and parole. To draw the distinction quickly, speaking is something we do individually, language is something we have in common that enables us to speak. Speaking therefore represents one's personal freedom, language a social institution. According to Pettit, De Saussure chose langue as the object of linguistic study not because he believed that langue is independent of speakers but because unlike speaking, it is relatively stable and does not shift with the personal style of speakers (Pettit 1975:4). In De Saussure's (1960:14±15) own words: Language is not a function of the speaker; it is a product that is passively assimilated by the individual. 15  Speaking, by contrast, is an individual act. It is wilful and intellectual. To summarise, these are the characteristics of language: (1) Language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts... It is the social side of speech, outside the individual who can never modify it by himself; it exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community. (2) Language, unlike speaking, is something that we can study separately.... We can dispense with the other elements of speech; indeed, the science of language is possible only if the other elements are excluded.3 As we mentioned in study unit 1, in the course of this guide we will be speaking about the competence of readers, or the knowledge that readers bring to texts and the specific kinds of knowledge they bring to literary texts. We shall investigate how the langue or system of literary texts can be described and we will try to find out whether such a type of literary analysis is useful Ð what does it show? How can it be deployed? In the process we will see to what extent we can criticise cultural processes once we understand them as if they were social institutions functioning like language. 2.2.3 SYNCHRONIC AND DIACHRONIC STUDIES OF LANGUAGE Language is not as stable as De Saussure seems to assume in the comments quoted in the previous section. An interesting aspect of our own history in South Africa is the question of actual language usage. For our purposes we can equate this with parole. For example, South African English is different from the English spoken in America or Britain, partly because of the influence different African languages, including Afrikaans, have had on it. The South African English spoken today evolved over a long period of time. Languages are not frozen at a particular point in time, never to undergo any further changes; they are vital and dynamic. One of the oldest languages spoken on the African continent, the San language or its remaining dialects was (and still is) threatened by extinction, yet during 2003 it started its own radio service. It has now been acknowledged as a mother tongue to be used and taught at school. Languages respond not only to the influences of other languages, but also to technological developments, and to the social and political contexts in which they are used. Should one study the factors which cause languages to change, one would be doing a diachronic study. According to De Saussure then, there are the following two ways of studying language: (1) The diachronic study of language which focuses on the historical development of language. In other words, diachronic studies look at language as it developed over a particular historical period. (2) The synchronic study of language which focuses on the functioning of a language at a particular time. In other words, synchronic studies take a sample of specific language usage and look at the way it works. De Saussure held that linguistics should be synchronic and not diachronic since diachronic studies (1) do not explain how language is used to communicate (2) presuppose the synchronic study of language 16 Do you agree with this? We cannot study the history of a language unless we understand the language, in other words unless we know how it works in ordinary communication. How can you study the history of a language if you do not understand it? With respect to (1), De Saussure's aim was to discover the general principles which govern the use of a language. These general principles enable speakers to use the language in order to communicate with one another. The principles may well have developed over time, but this does not explain their function in a language as it is used to communicate messages now (ie at a particular point in time).4 In today's technologically dominated world, it stands to reason that one should find out how something works Ð we all have experienced that we have to come to grips with cell phones, with the sending of SMSs, with using a computer. With synchronic study De Saussure meant something more than just knowing how something works Ð he intended to find out the langue. Compare this to the situation most of us are in with computers: we know how to work them, but we do not know how they work (we know the rules of use, but not the underlying system or langue). To understand what theory is trying to do here, think about the following: " REFLECTION__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Consider the fact that the various organs of the human body developed through the process of evolution from earlier forms of life. Now ask yourself, will the study of the way in which the heart, or the liver, or the brain developed over time keep a human body alive? If we want to understand the function of the heart or the brain in keeping a human body alive, studying the way in which they developed over time will not answer our questions. We are by no means suggesting that this sort of study is devoid of any interest and value, but I am sure that you will agree that its value is restricted. With respect to (2) above, in order to do a diachronic study, one must have more or less a clear idea of the beginning and end points of a particular development. In order to establish what these points are, however, one must presuppose that they function autonomously and coherently at a particular point in time. To return to the analogy of the organs of the human body: if we want to study the way in which the human brain evolved from the brains of more primitive forms of life, we must be able to individuate specific stages of that development. In addition, changes in language occur slowly and almost imperceptibly. Changes never affect the system as a whole, but only a few of its elements at any one time. Changes occur against the background of the whole. So the unity of language as a whole is presupposed by diachronic studies. 17  The atom: a ``vertical'' slice www.atomicarchive.com/Physics/Physics2.shtml Atoms are the basis of chemistry. They are the basis for everything in the Universe. Matter is composed of atoms. The atom: a ``horizontal'' slice 18  Here we already see that the synchronic analysis should show the different elements of which the object analysed is made up, how these elements are related to one another and what their function in the object as a whole is. People have compared this to analysing the structure of the atom. They also remind us of what the New Critics said of literary texts Ð that they are ``organic wholes''. In the study of genres in other courses offered by Theory of Literature you will discover the structural components that are typical for poems, fictional narrative (or stories) and plays (theatre) respectively. These components have been found by way of synchronic analysis and to do a structuralist analysis is to do a synchronic study. Summary: Synchronic studies focus on a frozen time-slice of language usage, rather than on shifting usage over a lengthy period of time. A synchronic study of language uses a specific case in point in order to establish the general language principles that De Saussure speaks of as they operate in actual speech or language use. De Saussure's preference for a synchronic study of language has several implications for the understanding of the nature of language. Firstly, it implies that language is a unified whole at any particular point in time: ``Language is not an agglomeration of separate facts but a closed system, in the sense that the function of each element depends entirely on its position within the whole'' (Jefferson & Robey 1986:49). Secondly, it suggests that language is self-sufficient and functions autonomously or independently of its historical development: ``[F]or the Saussurean linguist, each language is complete and adequate at every stage of its historical development'' (Scholes 1974:18). Thirdly, it implies that language is a structured system. When we talk of parts and wholes, or of elements within a whole; when we talk of a whole which is ``closed'', ``autonomous'' and ``self-sufficient'', we are beginning to speak the language of structuralism. This is an aspect we are going to explore further in the next few sections. ACTIVITY 2.4 1 Which of the three instructions below is asking you to do a synchronic analysis? a Describe the way in which Nelson Mandela's autobiography, A long walk to freedom, came into being. b Describe the views of freedom expressed by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography, A long walk to freedom. 19  c Describe the meaning of the word ``freedom'' as acquired in the course of Nelson Mandela's autobiography, A long walk to freedom................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Is the book A long walk to freedom an example of parole?.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 The following extract is from a discussion of Bassey's poem quoted in the previous section. Is the person commenting on Bassey's poem undertaking a diachronic or a synchronic study of the work (ignoring for the moment that his comments are not aimed at a Saussurean structural or semiotic study)? In Nnimmo Bassey we find poetry of prose statement and colloquial idiom.... If a poetic line is a line where linguistic elements achieve their optimal arrangement, this poem is evidently a good poem. Yet it contains a minimum of poeticisms Ð the simile (``like wild animals''...; ``poisoned fold of the academic gowns'') and the ``cram/scram'' rhyme... and ``scruff/prof''. Its effect depends on its powerful imagery and its compactness, which make it easily memorable (Okere 2000:297)........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Certain of the statements in the extract above are not part of a synchronic study or analysis since they are evaluative. Which are they?5............................................................................................................................................................. "............................................................................................................................................................. 2.2.4 THE SIGN (I): THE TWO PARTS OF THE SIGN (ACCORDING TO DE SAUSSURE) The idea that words and the things they are about are the same has a long history in various cultures. Indeed, in certain ancient forms of writing the signs that stood for certain things imitate the form of the thing they stood for. Yet even if the sign for dog in some ancient script looked like a dog, it Ð the sign, not the dog Ð can still not bark! 20  Meroitic Writing System The Meriotic script is very similar to the Egyptian Writing System. It was used by the Meroe people, a civilization of the Sudan. The system is written from right to left, unlike the Egyptian system which can be written right to left, left to right, and vertical. www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Amharic In many cultures the use of the name of a very important or respected person is forbidden. Does this not indicate a belief that the name and the person named are concretely linked? De Saussure begins his discussion of linguistic signs as follows: Some people regard language, when reduced to its elements, as a naming- process only Ð a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names. For example: 21  DIAGRAM 2.2 ARBOP EQUUS etc etc (De Saussure 1960:65) To De Saussure's examples from Latin we may add the following: DIAGRAM 2.3 English Afrikaans TREE BOOM HORSE PERD 22  Zulu Southern Sotho UMUTHI SEFATE IHASHI PERE De Saussure rejected this view and instead proposed that language is made up of signs. According to him (1960:66), ``[t]he linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image''. This is illustrated as follows: DIAGRAM 2.4 ! Sound-image Concept ! (De Saussure 1960:66) The above diagram represents the two components of the sign, according to De Saussure. It shows that the sign is made up of two entities, one of which is physical (the sound-image) and the other of which is mental (the concept), that is, in the mind. The terms he used for these two separate entities are signifier and signified respectively. This may be illustrated as follows: DIAGRAM 2.5 sound-image signifier " " concept " " signified As you have seen, the physical aspect of the sign is the sound that is emitted 23  when words are said; when they are written, the physical aspect is the graphic mark. For example, say the word ``man'' out loud. What you hear is the signifier. Now look at the following word: MAN What you see is another instance of a signifier. Signifiers have no meaning in themselves. They are purely physical. The meaningful aspect of the sign is the concept associated with the signifier. In our example, the concept ``adult male'' is associated with the signifier ``man''. The concept is the signified. This may be illustrated as follows: DIAGRAM 2.6 ``man'' " " signifier adult male " " signified The signifier and the signified together make up the sign. According to De Saussure, they cannot be separated. A signifier without a concept attached to it cannot communicate anything and does not signify or mean anything. A concept without a sound image or graphic mark in spoken or written language does not exist. Even the word ``non-existent'' has a sound-image and can be written. Try to use this concept without a signifier. Instead of words, we should, according to this theory, speak of signs. All words in a language can be treated a signs. The most basic definition of a sign is something that stands for something else Ð we saw this in the examples given at the beginning of this study unit. However, this description of the sign leads to a mistake which is commonly made, namely to associate the signifier alone with the sign, and the signified with the thing for which the signifier stands. To repeat: DIAGRAM 2.7 Yin-Yang model of the sign Signifier Signifier 24  For De Saussure, you cannot speak of the signifier without also speaking about the signified: the signifier and signified form a closed unit in which the two components are linked to each other in a one-to-one relationship. In practice this means that if the signifier changes, then the signified does as well: DIAGRAM 2.8 Circle Yin/Yang B B B B B R R R R R B B B B B B R RRat R R R R B Bat B B B B B B R R R R R R R B B B B B R R R R R a rat a bat ACTIVITY 2.5 It is easy to see how meaning changes with the form of the signifier as in ``b-a-t'' and ``r-a-t'', but let us test this principle of the sign on another type of text: This is just to say I have eaten the plums which were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were delicious: so sweet and so cold (William Carlos Williams, in Culler 1975:175). We will treat this piece of text as a sign and rewrite it, for example: This is just to say I have eaten the plums which were in the icebox And which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, They were delicious: So sweet and so cold Does the meaning of this piece of text change? Can you mention one aspect of change and explain how the signified changes because the signifier has changed? " Many readers find the term ``signified'' vague. Let us take ordinary nouns as an example: If the signified of the noun ``man'' is a meaning but this meaning is not the same as the thing ``man'' in real life, that is, the object in the non- linguistic world, what is this meaning then? We return to this in the section on the referent, but for the time being consider why it might have been necessary for De Saussure to disconnect meaning from the world and from specific objects of things and to make it a part of a sign:. ``Come here, man!''. ``He is a tall, dark and handsome man.''. ``This is a man, not a woman.''. ``Be a man, my son!'' ACTIVITY 2.6 Does the word ``man'' in the above examples refer to the same object in the concrete world? Does it have the same meaning in every sentence? " 25  De Saussure does not tell us what linguistic signs actually stand for, in other words he does not tell us to which thing/feeling/idea or to which object in non-linguistic reality the sign refers. This has caused many of the followers of his theory to accept that signs do not stand for something in the world or, in more theoretical terms, that signs do not have referents. We will return to this later when we discuss the question of the sign and the referent. For the time being, a key to the understanding of the signified is the following: The signified is that meaning we think ``into'' or ``with'' the signifier when we recognise the sign. In the following activity, we will again regard a complete poem as a sign, and not just a single word. Those of you who have studied the literature of a specific language, say English, Zulu, French or Afrikaans, might already have come across the distinction between form and meaning in literary texts. What aspect of the sign coincides with form and what coincides with meaning? (Remember that this question does not imply that the components of the sign are precisely the same as form and meaning.) ACTIVITY 2.7 1 Taking this whole poem as a sign, what do you think are the signifiers in the poem? To give you a clue, let us say that the direct address of the township Alexandra is a formal feature of the poem and can be called one of the signifiers. Can you list any more? Amen! Alexandra Ð Mongane Wally Serote Alexandra, I, and many others who know you we who have seen you firm on your feet like the earth your back soaking the chilly winds and rains, and we stood beneath your wings, having learnt the sacred secrets of silence as the winds and the rains the tears and last gasps of those we knew and loved fell on our flesh like shock falls on the heart; and Alexandra you are a thunder clap, that froze in our hearts like a moment which becomes a cruel memory, now that you form clouds of dust in the sky, above roars of a bulldozer, we nod, like we have for so long ago in time, we nod, for we have nodded for worst moments (from Chapman 1983:22). 2. However, according to De Saussure, the signifier and the signified are related one-to-one to each other to form a sign. In this poem the township ``Alexandra'' is directly addressed as if it were a human being. Change this direct address, for example instead of ``you'' use ``she''. Can you state in a sentence how this changes the meaning of the poem?..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... " 26 2.2.5 THE SIGN (II): THE ARBITRARINESS OF THE SIGN The big question about language is: How does it come about that physical phenomena such as the sounds emitted when we speak or the marks made when we write have meaning? As pointed out, as speakers we often simply assume that language makes sense because it is about things in the non- linguistic world. However, De Saussure shows that the relationship between a language's physical and meaning components, or between the signifier and the signified, is arbitrary or unmotivated. A motivated sign is one which shares some of the properties of the thing(s) it designates. For example, an arrow ? indicates a particular direction by pointing in that direction. An arrow is a motivated sign6 because the relationship between the signifier and the signified does not depend on conventions but has been chosen for a specific reason. The arrow is a motivated sign because it imitates the way in which we point at things, for example with a finger. For this reason it is close to (but not the same as) the iconic signs to which this guide will return later. The vast majority of linguistic signs are unmotivated.7 They are arbitrary to the extent that they are unmotivated. The arbitrariness of the sign is illustrated by the fact that different languages use different signifiers for the same signifieds. For example English: man French: homme Sotho: monna are all associated with the same concept, namely that of an adult male. This shows that the signified does not determine which signifier will be associated with it. If it did, all human beings would speak the same language (insofar as they share the same concepts). (Diagrams 2.2 and 2.3 have actually demonstrated this already.) In short, the signified ``horse'' does not explain why the signifier has the sound or graphic form H-O-R-S-E. You may ask: Is it not rather so that the word ``horse'' is not explained or motivated by the thing it refers to or stands for? Since De Saussure does not himself speak of the referent but only of the sign and its two components, we do not explain it like this although the same lack of motivation is of course evident between word and thing. Why the term ``unmotivated''? The fundamental point about the arbitrary nature of the sign is that signifiers do not sound like or imitate any of the properties of the signified. Box 2.3: Debates about the meaning of ``arbitrary'' or ``unmotivated'' ___ Sometimes De Saussure explains the arbitrary nature of the relationship between the signifier and the signified by saying that there is ``no natural connection'' between them (eg in De Saussure 1960:69). In many of the commentaries on Saussurean linguistics which you might be reading, you will find this as an explanation of arbitrariness. Since it is difficult to understand what a ``natural'' connection between sounds/marks and concepts would be anyway, this is not a particularly helpful description, so please don't get confused by it. Another ``explanation'' which you will sometimes come across is that there is ``no reason'' 27  for a particular signifier to be connected to a particular signified. Commentators who cite this as an explanation are confused about what would count as a reason: they seem to think that the only acceptable reason for the association between signifier and signified would be one which shows that the signifier is motivated by the signified, just as an arrow is motivated by direction. When we look at the great cultural symbols of our world, we can see that symbolic meaning can be ``motivated'' in quite another way. The most acceptable description of the term ``unmotivated'' would be that there is no causal link between the signified and the signifier. Note the meaning of ``cause'': cause = the factor which makes something happen or makes something be the way it is (Eg the cause of the fire was a burning match thrown into the cornfield by a smoker.) Obviously language functions conventionally. This means that the sign ``horse'' does not today mean what ``horse'' as animal normally means and tomorrow something completely different, for example cow. De Saussure explains this with the notion of the code. There must be something that ``compensates'' for the arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified. This is the code. The code determines that particular signifiers are associated with particular signifieds. The reason why English, French, Zulu, and so on, have different signifiers for the signified ``adult male'' is that each of these languages is governed by a different code. ACTIVITY 2.8 UNMOTIVATED, PARTLY MOTIVATED AND MOTIVATED RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SIGNIFIER AND SIGNIFIED 1. Are the following signs motivated or not, and why? a i in a cell phone message (SMS) to indicate the weather as in ``I... you''........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2. Can we say that the underlined signs in the following sentences are motivated or at least partly motivated? The cows are mooing in the field. Shhhh! The baby is asleep. Stop mee-aau-ing like a cat!.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3. Are the rhythmic effects in the poem quoted below motivated? Write down two to three examples of lines which to you have strong rhythmic effects and then answer this question for each one of your examples. Explain your answers. 28  The Child Who Was Shot Dead by Soldiers at Nyanga Ð Ingrid Jonker The child is not dead the child lifts his fists against his mother who shouts Afrika! shouts the breath of freedom and the veld in the location of the cordoned heart The child lifts his fists against his father in the march of the generations who shout Afrika! shout the breath of righteousness and blood in the streets of his embattled pride The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville nor at the police station at Phillipi where he lies with a bullet through his brain The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers on guard with rifles, saracens and batons the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere the child grown to a man treks through all Africa the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world Without a pass " (from Chipasula (ed) 1995:191). 29  2.2.6 (III) SIGNS AND CODES The term which is often used to indicate the special nature of linguistic conventions is ``code''. The following is a preliminary definition of the term ``code''. A code is a system of rules which connects words with their meanings. Codes explain how words are linked to certain meanings because there is no causal or motivated relationship between words and their meanings. In other words, there is no link between a word and the object to which it refers. Compare this to the discussion of partly motivated signs such as an arrow that indicates a direction. The arrow is partly motivated by the real direction in which the viewer has to go. When we measure somebody's body temperature because he or she seems to have a fever, the reading on the thermometer is directly caused by the actual physical temperature of the body. The linguistic code stipulates that a certain signifier has a certain signified or, if you want, that a certain word has a certain meaning. It makes up for the arbitrariness or unmotivated nature of the sign. Think of some non-linguistic codes such as the traffic system. There is no reason why ``red'' should mean ``danger'' except that we have as a community of road users agreed that it is so. However, this meaning of the colour red has become such a strong convention that it almost seems to be the ``natural'' meaning of the colour red. Think about Morse code where different combinations of dots and dashes have different meanings. Maya Writing & Iconography This image is from page 59 of the Dresden Codex http://pages.prodigy.net/gbonline/ancwrite.html The basic formula for a code is quite simple. The formula is: X stands for Y For example: Nodding one's head stands for agreement or affirmation. Red stands for stop. stands for love In each of these examples, the item that stands for something (the first item) is called a sign. A simple definition of signs in general is: A sign is anything that stands for something. 30 The ``stands for'' relationship is not something that just happens to be the case, as in many social conventions. Neither is it the same type of relationship that exists between the markings on a thermometer and temperature, which, as we saw, is a causal relationship. Rather, it is a fixed and stable relationship, arising from the fact that the code determines the relationship. A code is a determinative rule, in that it determines for any sign X that it stands for Y. In other words, a code is a constitutive rule which determines that a sign X stands for Y. The relationship between a person's body temperature and the markings on a thermometer is causal since the body temperature causes the mercury in the thermometer to move to the position which correctly indicates the body temperature. In the same way, the dress a woman chooses to wear may be the direct consequence of the fact that she will be wearing it at a wedding ceremony. ``STAND FOR'' The term ``stands for'' is not a perfect way to describe the linguistic sign. It creates the impression that the sign represents the object for which is ``stands''. The relationship between signs and objects is a matter of the referential function of the sign. This is discussed towards the end of this study unit. Signs which directly represent specific objects are called iconic signs, and form a special category of signs. The philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, put forward the theory on such signs, and not De Saussure. When you use the expression ``the sign stands for...'', remember that the connection between the linguistic signs and what they ``stand for'' is made possible and is ruled by codes. 2.2.7 MORE CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE AS A SIGN SYSTEM 2.2.7.1 THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AS ``SEMIOLOGY'' We can conclude that the words of a language may be treated as signs, that codes organise meaning in language and that language is but one of many sign systems. This is the innovation for which De Saussure is most famous. By treating language as a system of signs, semiology (or semiotics)8 was introduced to the human sciences. This is the way in which De Saussure described the new ``science'' of semiology: Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, et cetera. But it is the most important of all these systems. A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable;... I shall call it semiology (from Greek semeion ``sign''). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts.... The task of the linguist is to find out what makes language a special 31  system within the mass of semiological data... [I]f I have succeeded in assigning linguistics a place among the sciences, it is