From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism (Deconstruction)

Constructions of Meanings and Their Radical Uncertainty (2014 S)

Reading Notes• The Basics:

– Poststructuralism vs. Liberal Humanism p. 118– Poststructuralism: the Cretan paradox p. 119

–or the paradox between subject of enunciation and tne enunciated; e.g. Auto-biography

– The illusion of presence p. 122– In defence of absence 124 – (including

definition of Différance)– Binary oppositions revisited 128-– Literary deconstruction 131 – Implication 135

Reading Notes

Beginning Theory •“Structure, Sign and Play”•“There is nothing outside the text” •Comparison of Structuralism and Poststructuralism •Poststructuralism: methodology

Notes on Oran’s Presentation

• Differences between structuralism & poststructuralism

• Difference – differentiation and postponement of presence

• Death of the Author – you agree? • Discourse and Power • e.g. Huckleberry Finn

Quotations (1): traces of other words

(Basics 125) Derrida argues that the sameholds for words: every single word contains traces of other words– theoretically of all the other words in the language system: the signified concept is never present in and of itself, in a sufficient presence that would refer only to itself. Essentially and lawfully, every concept is inscribed in a chain or in a system within which it refers to the other, to other concepts. (Derrida [1982] 1996: 30)

Quotations (2): Différance

Meaning, then, is the product of difference and it is also always subject to a process of deferral. In fact, a word’s – or sign’s –relations to other words and to words that will follow are a condition for meaning – without those relations meaning wouldnot be possible. As Derrida puts it:.

Quotations (2): Différance …the movement of signification is possible only if each so-called ‘present’ element, each element appearing on the scene of presence, is related to something other than itself, thereby keeping within itself the mark of the past element, and already letting itself be vitiated [contaminated] by the mark of its relation to the future element, this trace being related no less to what is called the future than to what is called the past, and constituting what is called the present by means of this very relation to what it is not (“Différance”)

Outline

• Structuralism: A Brief Review (two examples)• Poststructuralist Views of Language & Reality

– Language (Polysemy) and Reality– Jacque Derrida: (1) Différance– Jacque Derrida: (2) Transcendental Signified

• Deconstruction: Practice: – e.g. Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”;

Keats’ “Ode on Melancholy” – e.g. “

Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London”

• Derrida in Context; Self-Conscious/Deconstructing Texts

Key words for Structualist and Semiotic approaches:• I. Following language as a model • II. Disclosing the deep/basic structure of a

text, which is a (combination or selection) system of meaning composed of basic basic elementselements such as:– -- binaries, or semiotic rectangles, – -- roles/actant and functions, – -- mytheme, – -- narrator- narratee, – -- signs or signification on different levels -- signs or signification on different levels

(signifier and signified).(signifier and signified). Roland Barthes’ Semiotics

Semiotics –Some Key Concepts

• Culture is composed of different languages, or systems of signs;

• Myth (or connotation) is constructed by emptying out or distorting the signs’ original meanings (denotation);

• Myth is seductive, and its is apparently natural and innocent.

Examples for analysis: gender & identity

TOYOTA-VIOS 1.6-目光吸引篇 1. Signs? Objectification of the Woman? 2. Myth vs. Reality?

Two More Examples for analysis: gender & identity

TOYOTA-VIOS 1.6-目光吸引篇 1. Main idea: “What do you wantwant?” “Vios, it’s

everythingeverything.”2. Signs: 1) the car: Silver gray colors, in a clean but empty city with

glass buildings; easy, fast and smooth driving luxury and power (The whole city is emptied out.)

2) Objectification of the Woman? A woman larger than life (with the power of T.V. wall+glass building) the woman’s flowing hair, gaze and smile are signs of the man’s self-projection of power, ease and desirability.

1. Distorted: city, the woman an ad and its interpellation( 召喚 ) in disguise

2. Symptom Revealed: spectacle/image society; “The TV is watching us.”

Two More Examples for analysis: gender & identity

. 國際VISA組織-VISA在手盡其在我-羅拉(完整)篇

1. Signs? Connotations? Distortion?2. Is the woman all powerful?

Two More Examples for analysis: gender & identity

. 國際VISA組織-VISA在手盡其在我-羅拉(完整)篇1. Signs: frame within the frame1) of the Gothic: woman in a cape; old

mansion/computer game parlor; a secret pass;2) of electronic game -- virtual reality with a

woman presented in double;3) sci-fi: strong woman in black tight-fit dress, 1. Is the woman all powerful?

– Apparently, the two women empower each other; – Actually, the visa card is power.

2. Distortion: money = power; game = reality3. Symptom Revealed: everything is constructioneverything is construction,

but the power of money and electronic game is stronger than anything else.

Poststructuralism

Keywords: constructionism floating signifier

-- a major theoretical school in the postmodern age which radicalizes structuralist views of language by seeing signified as signifier, and separating signs from ‘reality.’

-- in conflict with many other theoretical schools such as Marxism, Feminism and Postcolonialism, but also get to be combined with them;

-- the areas of its influences range from arts, politics to popular culture.

Poststructuralism Keywords: constructionism floating signifier

Poststructuralism: Theory

Major Questions 1. How does poststructuralism de-center

traditional authorities?2. Why is the author dead? Why is there nothing

outside the text? Why is reality ‘textual,’ and individual, ‘a product of social and linguistic forces. . . ‘a tissue of textualities” (64-65)?

3. Why is signifier ‘floating,’ meaning disseminated, and text, “an endless free play of meanings”(66)?

(1) How does poststructuralism de-center traditional

authorities?• the traditional centers or foundationscenters or foundations of our lives

-- e.g. Truth, Humanity, Family, Nation, History, Reality, God, Creativity, Author Author and their stable meanings

Physical analogyPhysical analogy: the ground beneath our feet; fixed landmark – with which we feel stability and measure the other things;

With their views of languagelanguage’’s fluiditys fluidity, all the above fixed meanings are destabilized.

Physical analogy:Physical analogy: our perception on a moving train of another moving train//multiple signifying chains intersecting with one another textuality

(2) Why is the author dead?

Why is reality ‘textual,’ and individual, ‘a product of social and linguistic forces. . . ‘a tissue of textualities” (Beginning 64-65)?

1. Self: No longer a unified self; in a system of relations with multiple Subject Positions

Our social existence is modeled after language as a system of relations (e.g. kinship; gender)

different languages (discourses) provide us with different subject positions. There are meanings in a text which its author is not aware of. polysemy; e.g. 吹皺一池春水

(2) Why is the author dead?

Why is reality ‘textual,’ and individual, ‘a product of social and linguistic forces. . . ‘a tissue of textualities” (64-65)?

2. Text: From work, to text to (inter)textuality; “There is nothing outside of text” No fixed boundaries; no stable meanings;

– e.g. Internet and the world of ads

(2) Why is the author dead?

3. “The death of the author.” The birth of the Reader4. Readings of Meaning and Reality: 1) deconstruction – to read against the

grain; to find textual undecidability &

2) postmodern self-reflexivity –everything is representation and in need of interpretation (more examples later)

Q 3: -- Why is signifier ‘floating,’ meaning disseminated, and text, “an endless free play of meanings”(Beginning 66)?

Note: metaphors of dandelion or seeds

Which of the following statements are not

ambiguous?• I am 40 years old. • The Republic of China was born on Oct.

10, 1911. • I love you till the end of the world. • 多吃蔬菜﹐有益健康。• 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。• 你要做和事佬﹐真是吹縐一池春水。• The experience of the earthquake

yesterday was quite uncanny.

Which of the following statements are not

ambiguous?• I am 40 years old. Who is this “I”?• The Republic of China was born on Oct. 10,

1911. born? • I love you till the end of the world ( 現代啟示錄 can be a store name.) love? • 多吃蔬菜﹐有益健康。 insecticide?

Vegi with blue cheese? • 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 中國人？

Syntagmatic/Combination

(narrative structure:

roles + actions);

metonymy

Language/Literature as Language/Literature as an enclosed system

Parad

igm

atic/Selectio

n:

Thematic structure: Motifs, mythemes, metaphors, etc.

Polysemy caused by context Polysemy caused by context

Syntagmatic/Combination P

aradig

matic/S

election

: －中國人﹐華人Chinaman

－刻苦耐勞／現實／斤斤計較／不懂得人生樂趣

+ more stereotypical descriptions, or a father’s advice to his son, etc.

中國人生性刻苦耐勞。

Why is language ambiguous?• Why are meanings undecidable &

slippery? 1. Polysemy: Traces of other signs,

other meanings. (e.g. national “birthday”; 干卿底事 )

2. Multiple Context; Reference Undecidable. (e.g. “The end of the world” )

3. Meaning is not “present” in language; it happens “in between” signifiers.

4. (intention and the unconscious)

Multiple Context: 吹縐一池春水

• 謁金門 馮延巳風乍起，吹縐一池春水。閒引鴛鴦香徑 ，手挼紅杏蕊。�鬥鴨闌干獨倚，碧玉搔頭斜墬。終日望君君不至，舉頭聞鵲喜。

• 中主李璟很欣賞很欣賞這首詞，便對馮延巳說：「吹皺一池春水，干卿底事？」「吹皺一池春水，干卿底事？」馮延巳答道：「怎及你的細雨夢回雞塞遠，小樓吹徹玉笙「怎及你的細雨夢回雞塞遠，小樓吹徹玉笙寒呢？」寒呢？」

（ http://203.198.70.29/subject/chlt/tangci.htm ﹚

Male poet and Waiting woman.

吹縐一池春水（ random samples from

Internet﹚• 東元聲寶合併 吹縐一池春水吹縐一池春水 .

中時電子報 03:59• 免費下載音樂軟體是否侵犯智財

權 , NAPSTER 吹縐一池春水吹縐一池春水 , 受質疑 .

• 她愛笑，笑得很野，有時不經意的把眉輕鎖，落在河表哥心中，就如吹縐一池春水吹縐一池春水 (source)

Traces of other usages

Derrida: Outline -- Jacque Derrida: 1. Prologue: Instability of Meaning

(discussed) 2. Writing as Différance 3. ‘Center’ as Transcendental Signified and

Binarism 4. Deconstruction: Literary Practice

Language in movement (1) “Spacing”

• Movement from one Signifier to another-- Meaning changed when the

context is further revealed. Comic effects in standup

comedians’ show 相聲 : old traces vs. newly defined meanings. (e.g. 政府官員，很持久 )

The traces of the old meanings are both present and absent.

Writing and DifféranceLanguage a system of difference of

Différance.* While structualists had treated binary

oppositions as stable termsstable terms in a formal structure, Derrida sees them as organized in unstable disequilibrium.in unstable disequilibrium. because of the presence/absence of traces

* Derrida sees the signifiedsignified’s also in a relation of difference, and they are turned into signifiers floating floating signifiers. signifiers. (Textbook: chap 6: p. 123; 28)

Writing and Différance (2)Différance: • To differ; A sign is defined by its binary

opposition to another sign.

2. To defer.2. To defer.The signifier (black) that is

distinguished from the other one (white) is not completely erased; it is only deferred, bracketed or merely deferred, bracketed or merely “put under erasure“put under erasure.”.” It can subvert the fixed meaning of the sign.

Writing and DifféranceThe chain of signification:

(1) symbolization or mythologizing

Signifier 1Signifier 1

((rose)rose)Signified Signified 11

((flower)flower)

Signified Signified 22

((love)love)

Signified Signified 22((rose=lovrose=love)e)

Signified 3(rose=woman in love)

Signified 4(rose = weak, vain & dependent woman in love)

1. Signifier Signified 2 Signified 3

The other Americans

Other Skin colors Other Racial Features What they did

Writing and Différance: chain of signification (1)

Asian People Yellow Exotic (Evil or Weak)

White Americans WhiteInnocent, Strong

and Civilized

White Man’s Burden

Manifest Destiny

God

Writing and Différance: Chain of Signification (2)

Re-contextualization; traces kept. e.g.

1. Pharmakon: 1). poison, 2). Pharmacy

2. 〈幌馬車之歌〉 ;吹皺一池春水

Questions• Do you agree that meaning is always uncertain

and slippery? What does Derrida’s views of language shed light on our communication?

• What is wrong with binarism(either . . . or), which structuralism sees as basic to our thinking?

• Why are poststructuralist views of reality radical or de-stablising? Are they then destructive?

The Transcendental Signified

1. (Textbook: p. 124) transcendental signified: source of meaning and center of existence; foundations; the external point of reference, whose definition should not be changed, should not be relational.

2. The “unmoved mover” e.g.

God (transcendental signified)

The Bible (transcendental signifier)

The Transcendental Signified and Binaries

They are the upper terms in hierarchical binaries: e.g.

ManMan LightLight ReasonReason CultureCulture The The Public;Public;

West, West, etc.etc.

WomanWoman Dark-Dark-nessness

EmotionEmotion NatureNature The The Private; Private;

East, East, etc.etc.

Critique of Metaphysics: logocentrism, & phallogocentrism

• Traditional binaries are hierarchical.hierarchical. Should be reversed or questioned.

• Logocentrism: Logo as center, source, or founding presence of knowledge and human beings.

• Phallogocentrism: the hierarchy of Man/Woman= sun/moon, reason/emotion, Subject/Object, etc.

Ways of Questioning the Hierarchical Binaries

1. The two terms are actually mutually determinant. e.g. The West has to define itself by having/rejecting an “Other” which is different.

2. The weak term is not really weak.

3. Mutually implicated: One term implies its opposite term.

Deconstruction: practices

1. Open texts A text that deconstructs its own unity or “author.” (contemporary self-reflexive texts)

2. Reverse the text’s binariesbinaries or expose its undecidability or multiple meanings

3. Study the process of signification of a the process of signification of a sign or a textsign or a text and find out what it tries to erase. (e.g. Scarlet Letter; Barthesian studies of commercials)

Deconstruction: practices (2)

4. Find where the text differs from itself. (critical difference)(critical difference) ambiguity and undecidability

5. Radical contextualization to find out its intertextual references and thus undecidability of meanings.

Deconstruction: example (1)process of signification

– Wordsworth’s poems:“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”; – I = cloud ([Dorothy]) + daffodils dancing

([daffodils weary]) – Daffodils = milky way ([real flowers])

I saw – Daffodils in glee ([the waves]) I

recollect them in my mind’s eye =bliss of solitude ([the actual experience]).

Deconstruction of Binary Opposition: Example

(2)“Ode on Melancholy” Binaries: 1.1. No to activeNo to active pursuits of sleep or suicide

( drowns the soul, turns it passivepassive); 2. Savor the contraries and transience in

life; 3. 1. “She” (activeactive) dominates where all the

senses are quickened; you He ‘burst’ joy’s grape against his palate;

‘hung’ as one of his trophies (passivepassive) When senses are active, the poet seems

powerless and passive.

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

Never until the mankind makingBird beast and flowerFathering and all humbling darknessTells with silence the last light breakingAnd the still hourIs come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the roundZion of the water beadAnd the synagogue of the ear of cornShall I let pray the shadow of a soundOr sow my salt seedIn the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.I shall not murderThe mankind of her going with a grave truthNor blaspheme down the stations of the breathWith any furtherElegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,Robed in the long friends,The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,Secret by the unmourning waterOf the riding Thames.After the first death, there is no other. 

Undecidability: example 3

• ““Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London”(Beginning app 2)1.Verbal -- paradoxes; 2.Textual – no fixed context in this poem; 3.Linguistic (contextual) – against‘a grave truth’ (or all the received (cliché) ways of mourning) but then the poem still uses its rhetoric

Undecidability: example 4A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

  <Gap><Gap>

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

(William Wordsworth )

Undecidability: example 4

past

life

the human

fear

present present

death death

the cosmicthe cosmic

peacefulness and peacefulness and regularityregularity

“A slumber did my spirit seal” -- Contradictions between

Gap: What happened in between the present and the past?

Whose peacefulness is it? Whose death and when?

Derridian Deconstruction in Context

1. Anti-Foundationalist & de-centering; 2. Like New Critics, deconstructionists read

closely to find out the contradictions and gaps in a text, but without reconstructing them back to a unity.

3. Other usages of “différance”: desired object in unattainable, constantly deferred and replaced; colonial mimicry disseminate/de-center colonial authority.

4. “différance” and temporary closure.

Self-Conscious Texts in Contemporary Popular

Culture• Challenge the author e.g. Icicle

Thief; Truman Show; • Exposing the (TV) frames: “Money

for Nothing” (Dire Strait); Ferris Beuler’s Day Off (1, 2); MTV channel’s commercials (parodies)

• Reality and illusion: Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive

• Parody: Moulin Rouge, 全民亂講

Works Cited

• [textbook] Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 2nd Ed. Bressler, Charles E. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.

• Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Peter Barry.