Semiology And Rhetoric:

“Reference, about the non verbal “outside” to which language refers, by which it is conditioned and upon which it acts” (1365). The first thought that comes to mind when reading this is the gesture and deliverance from the utterance of the statement in order for the interpreter to determine the intended meaning, whether it is metaphorical or factual. In distinguishing the difference when the phrase is being read is literary text, where gestures are, or are not, stated by a narrator leaves the critic to their own devices in making the decision. The gaps left in literature in where subliminal messages are communicated enter a territory where “rhetoric” haunts “grammar” and therefore turns the interpreter into a text detective.

PDM states, that grammar and logic are considered to have a strict set of universal rules and are widely known and accepted in their form as “facts”, with little room for interpretation. With grammar-there is little room for interpretation. With rhetoric there is a universe of interpretation and meaning. Rhetoric is the art of discourse and the tools used by a writer to persuade and impress their audience. A tool to convey a message to an audience and what the audience gets from the deliverance is subject to how layered and clever both parties are. Grammar is defined as the whole system and structure of language in general, usually having to do with syntax, morphology and sometimes phonology and semantics. The structural format of a sentence within language usually associated with a set of rules specific to the language.

To distinguish the epistemology of grammar from that of rhetoric is a daunting task and as PDM says, “on an entirely naïve level, we tend to conceive of grammatical systems as tending towards universally and as simply generative as capable of a single model without the intervention of another model that would upset the first” (1369). Rhetoric, on the other hand, “radically suspends logic and opens up vertiginous possibilities of referential aberration” (1371). Therefore as stated by Prof. Allred as a “haunting relationship in which grammar is the clearly structured and reasonable pattern and “rhetoric” is the thing that passes through grammar and deranges is but cant be seen or touched itself”.

The “gut” feeling has when presented with symbolic metaphors within in a text to mean so much more than the actual deciphering of the sentence. In order to decipher the meaning within the layers of the text-it must be presented with the authority that engages the interpreter to want to dig deeper. The structure in which it engages this “authority” is done so through grammar. The differentiation and deciphering of the message intended to convey is done so through rhetoric.

When PDM speaks of “voice”, as a metaphor inferring by analogy the intent of the subject from the structure of the predicate. The confusion and wordy description of the reader being fooled by the narrator who is telling them one thing while meaning another, being deconstructed into another by the reader at the same time following a set of grammatically structured sentences to further the rhetoric intended to the writer for the reader. Which results in an emotional reaction to language- in both structure and rhetoric.

Barbara Johnson analyzes critical reception of Melville’s Fist by linking together an idea of language to the set up of the main characters. Billy is designed to be the innocent, good man while Claggart is the untrustworthy, questionable man. Now, most people who read this story would assume that a mutiny or murder would be committed by the man who’s described in a negative light from the very beginning, but the author turns that on its head and makes the wrong doer of the story be the ‘good man’. The discrepancy between the characters’ personalities and their doings in the plot confuse literary critics because of the large shade of gray it casts on the point or construct of the book.

The first approach I found very intriguing was Johnson’s interest into the meaning of the story itself. She first looks at it as “read as the retelling of the story of Christ” (page 2261). Can it really be considered that deep? In my own personal analysis, I could see how perhaps Billy and Claggart’s switch could represent the fall of Judas, the angel suddenly betrays the qualities of goodness he has and is ultimately punished for it. This approach made me wonder what others in the class may think of such an analysis.

Johnson then brings us to the linguistic element of the story. By questioning human nature in correlation with the actual acts of humans, she brings us to the theory of Saussure’s signifier and signified. Instead of the communication being verbal, it becomes physical in this story. Being becomes the signified and the actions or doings become the signifier. By using this view, she questions human nature with human actions. The entire plot runs on the characters actions, and she even mentions how one character only acknowledges and has a verbal communication to the other only once. The actions in relation to the character and how those play against others becomes the linguistic function of the story.

The character becomes the signified, or the concept or material of the signifier, the material or sound, image, written word, or in this case- an action. This partially confused me, since I expected the signified and the signifier to have a relation. Could her theory be challenged by the same problem most critics presented: the character acts out of character? If the signified, the character, acts out of character, or the signifier, doesn’t this exclude the possibility of this linguistic principle being used? Or does it get a pass because it is in response to what the signified/character feels?

In Semiology and Rhetoric, Paul de Man brings up a comical instance of rhetoric with Archie Bunker talks to his wife Edith. After Edith asks Archie his preference on how he would like his shoes to be laced over or under Archie replies “Whats the difference?”. (1370) PdM explains that this statement can either be literally asking what the difference is or the statement being there is no difference. For the show to get a few laughs Edith goes on to explain the difference and Archie becomes enraged. I believe that this moment shows not that Edith is misunderstood but it is Archie that is. This might sound a bit crazy but if you look deeper into this conversation we can see that the anger Archie expresses is valid. The couple if not mistaken were married for years and after all that time would someone be so dimwitted enough to actually reply to there spouse with an answer to that kind of question? I don’t believe they would. But when Edith does reply she so shows how much she does not understand Archie. When Archie gets upset he isn’t upset about the situation but upset that after all that time his wife doesn’t understand him. “The very anger he displays is indicative of more impatience; it reveals his despair when confronted with a structure of linguistic meaning that he can not control and that holds the discouraging prospect of an infinity of similar future confusions. (1371) I believe PdM brings to light the anger that Archie feels in regard to the structure of language and his unique use of it to be understood. Instead of being able to use language in a creative way we are restricted to the rules and guidelines set by it and rhetoric is this cog in the machine that disrupts these rules.

PdM says “Confronted with the question of the difference between grammar and rhetoric, grammar allows us to ask the question, but the sentence by means of which we ask it may deny the very possibility of asking. For what is the use of asking, I ask, when we cannot even authoritatively decide whether a question asks or doesn’t ask.”(1371) This shows the failure of grammar rules because it can’t clearly distinguish  the context in which the statement is being made. Let say instead of a television show where you can hear tone and facial expressions and we turn this interaction into dialog. In a book we don’t know the tone of voice the character has. We also do not know the character’s true intent. We can’t know if Archie is asking a question or making a statement through a question. The point I’m trying to make is that it wouldn’t be funny if we were reading this interaction because we would not understand the joke therefore we the reader would be the one who misunderstood. I also wanted to bring up that sarcasm also falls into this category of not fitting into the linguistic system. If we don’t know a person it is hard to distinguish if they are being serious or joking. This is especially apparent in text where we don’t have any facial expression or tone of voice to guide us to a choice.

No, it’s not a man with three buttocks.  It’s three things you need to know for our class.  To wit:

1. Our third blog post is due tomorrow.  As always refer back to my post on best blogging practices to guide your writing.
2. Speaking of blogging, if you submitted a post #2, you should have received a link to a Google Doc with comments as of Monday at noon.  If you did, and you haven’t, check in via email and I’ll resend.
3. A student asked an excellent question re: de Man over the weekend, so I thought I would (anonymously) share the questions and response on the blog in case others had similar questions:

The student had argued in class, re: de Man’s argument, “that [for de Man] grammar cannot be used to decipher meaning.” S/he felt that I didn’t really respond and, moreover, explained that “grammar, or the syntax, cannot be used to decipher which context the sentence is meant.. therefore rhetoric ‘works against’ grammar.. making it in a sense paradoxical.”  Then the student said, “I am wondering why you did not say anything in response to my comment. Am I misunderstanding what happened in class? Also, can’t la langue/parole be comparative to grammar/rhetoric?”

Here’s my response:

Hi [name witheld],

Great question, and sorry I got distracted from your line of questioning here, but the reanimated roach kind of got me out of my game there.

I think it’s not quite right to say that “grammar cannot be used to decipher meaning” as a general principle.  PdM’s point is that critical approaches that subsume all of signification under “grammar” (by which he means something like “the systematic producing of meaning via structured differences”) fail in the end, since they don’t account for the strange feature of language that he calls “rhetoric.”  Rhetoric in his sense is much more extensive than the “rhetorical question” or “the stuff that makes a political speech effective.”  By “rhetoric,” he means the subtle signals that tell us to read a given expression differently than is grammar would otherwise dictate.  Crucially, this signal is absent from the “grammar” itself: thus Edith has no way of knowing whether Archie is sincere or ironic except via some kind of extragrammatical “tone.”

Thus with literature: literary writing is full of such “rhetoric” (unlike, say, lab reports or news articles, which are relentlessly “grammatical”).  So we readers are often suspended between interpretive choices in which “grammar” says one thing but “rhetoric” another, with no definitive way to decide.  This propensity to create such “forks in the road” is for de Man what the “poetic” mode is for Jakobson: for de Man, “literature” is not a mode of communication in which the “message” calls attention to itself, but a mode in which “rhetoric” haunts “grammar” and creates “aporias” or interpretive gaps.

So grammar can be used to decipher meaning in all kinds of texts, but often not in “literary” texts, which feature a dynamic tug of war between “grammar” and “rhetoric” in which neither side wins.  Or both.

And grammar/rhetoric is not the same as la langue/la parole.  In the latter, “langue” names a structure and “parole” a set of moves/gestures/utterances enabled by that structure.  For grammar/rhetoric, I would say it’s more like a “haunting” relationship like I said before, in which “grammar” is the clear, structured, reasonable pattern and “rhetoric” is the thing that passes through grammar and deranges it but can’t quite be seen or touched itself.

I hope this helps everyone else review a bit of de Man before we do so more systematically tomorrow.  With no roaches, I hope.

An analysis of “Mythologies: Photography and Electoral Appeal”
With examples drawn from “The Eiffel Tower” text

During the period of races to win the election then and today, we have become familiar with the tactic of photographs and images that candidates release in order to express their ideals heavily. We may see him surrounded by locals who act in admiration of him, we may see him having dinner with his wife, children, and dog, and we may even see him playing some sort of sport to make him appear humane. The candidate has to commit to becoming a national symbol to expectations, or as Barthes mentions – he represents the ideologies. All too many times we have been fooled by these images because they fail to express the candidates in authentic moments. The artificiality of race elections is an issue because we tend to become attracted to the most put-together runner of the race. At least according to the images we are allowed to see. These images have to therefore be memorable. It is a display of irrationality by appealing to the emotions of the public eye.

“The types which are thus delegated are not very varied. First there is that which stands for social justice, respectability …” (“Mythologies”, p. 1321)

Photography plays a crucial role for the voters who have to make a decision based only on the information they have been given and the images that they see, while neglecting to realize that the photographers’ responsibility is capture the moments of honesty and naturalness that is essentially not actually there. It is essential to understand that these candidates are trained and so they are no different from one another. However, it is not always the case that the candidate is insincere and it is unfortunate because the winner is based on a popularity contest. It is unfortunate because one may miss the authenticity of one candidate by becoming convinced with the artificiality of another. In other words, some people are just able to play the part better than others and so their “mythic powers” as mentioned in the Eiffel Tower reading are interpreted much stronger. To further the metaphor, candidates must act as the Tower of a nation with similar functions. They create a utopian dream that almost feels possible to the irrational mind. Whomever is the better poser becomes the better choice for the world view, but those who are able to identify it. All too many times we fall into the traps of the candidate who can represent the government, while he will not be the only one to make the decisions. He is a symbol for the decisions the general public idealizations that go up to a point when they get false hope. The photographs are symbolic of this movement where all is fair and fair is to all, while we are subjected to perceive only what are in the photographs and none of the truths that go beyond.

Candidates in an election are a work of art similar to worldwide monuments, like the Eiffel Tower. They are there to help the people “perceive, comprehend, and savor a certain essence of [a nation].” (” The Eiffel Tower”, p. 241)

The philosophical treatment of the act of viewing is one with profoundly deep roots. Within this submerged history, there is the longstanding platonic understanding of Forms—and viewing was the process which often insufficiently got at the true nature of them. In the aftermath of Kant, and his analogous concern with the impenetrable thing-in-itself (and the kinds of thinking within aesthetics bolstered by himself and Hegel), there appears to be a sense of how the viewer or spectator of an aesthetic object is not engaged in a one-way process and actually captured within a reflexive flow of thought: the Glance, or Gaze, the act of viewing itself, is more than just a casual observance but a deliberate act which contributes to the Object’s imbued social meaning—just like language could be called a currency that strengthens as it is more actively circulated within speech-communities—and in turn, as a reward for participation, the thing being viewed gives a certain thing back to the Viewer.

Barthes shares in such a tradition, with a natural springboard coming from Sausseurian semiotics, and maps the method of sign-reading to apply beyond just the written word. What we are given in “Mythologies” is an analysis of the political campaign photograph, which is perhaps just the likeness of someone running for office but, to Barthes, can be also viewed as a condensation of a multitude of cultural and social cues in which the viewer might recognize themselves, albeit “clarified, exalted, superbly elevated into a type” (1320). The photograph denotes not just the human but its corresponding set of preferences and prejudices, the notion of the idealized world that floats around it, a body of moral values—which we, if the ad campaign is effective, too see within ourselves and affirm through the viewing of the image. Here lies a cue to what in my title I have referred to as hidden reflexivity.

Barthes makes this point in an admirably jocular manner:

“It is obvious that what most of our candidates offer us through their likeness is a type of social setting, the spectacular comfort of family, legal and religious norms, the suggestion of innately owning items of bourgeois property as Sunday Mass, xenophobia, steak and chips, cuckold jokes, in short, what we call an ideology” (1320).

The politician’s image can be considered a Cultural Signifier, referring not to pure linguistic meaning, but to a certain way of the world whose look in return reaffirms the pairing. Consider the arena of the cocktail party, where one makes conversation full of terse references to artists seen and authors read; we can imagine that, often, these individuals are referred to only by their last names—“How about Habermas? Fish?”— in anticipation of them being recognized and in turn, our being appraised as being well-read and well-seen. When we use these signs, we aren’t just using them to denote to a particular author in conversation—a soft diffuse light from the lionized names of authors that we are acquainted with reflects back onto us, affirming us, and situating us within a historical context, a set of material circumstances (education and lofty thoughts are for the select few), imbuing us with the indomitable power and strength of the Western intellectual tradition and what it means (reflexively) to participate in it.

Sorry for my tech panic today, folks.  Below you’ll find the slides I was hoping to show today.  They emphasize:

1. The interplay of Jakobson’s linguistic functions. We didn’t discuss this enough, but virtually all uses of language combine emphases on different functions in different amounts, so RJs schema gives us ways to think about how different genres and texts combine functions.
2. The broader issue of how, “by promoting the palpability of signs, [the poetic mode] deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects”  (1264).  I’ve given a couple of quotes from poets describing how poetry works this out by, again in RJs words, “projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection onto the axis of combination” (1265).  Pound tells us that CONDENSARE = DICHTUNG, for example.  “Dichtung” means “poetry” in German, but it also means “tighten” (as in “watertight”), which is one of the corollary meanings of “condensare,” “to condense,” in Latin.  Pound’s point is that the soul of poetry is the way it eliminates aspects of syntax that are merely there to allow for the “rapid passage over words” (as Valery puts it) and creates a “condensed,” “tight” mode of discourse that readers must unpack.

Here’s the slideshow:

Roman Jakobson attempts to establish the importance poetics plays in linguistics in “From Linguistics and Poetics.” Poetics on a basic level involves how messages become  art. The separation, that Jakobson claims exists, is to him nonsensical. Poetics involves verbal structure and linguistics is the very science of verbal structure and thus “poetics may be regarded as an integral part of linguistics”(1145). He also gives examples of how poetry has been transformed into other modes of art and uses this as a way to prove that aspects of poetry make it viable in studying linguistics but also semiotics. The only circumstance when removing poetics from linguistics is appropriate is when examining grammar alone. Language must be studied for all of its functions and to only study language an  messages from the view of the information it gives us “arbitrarily reduces the informational capacity of messages (1148).”

To further establish the centrality of poetics in language he divs deeper into how verbal communication works. He explains both the factors present in all verbal communication and the functions  of this communication including a poetic function which is the “dominant, determining function” of verbal art. The factors of verbal communication are: addresser(1) who gives a message(2) to the addressee(3). The message involves a certain context(4), the who, when, what, or where. The message involves some form of contact(5), made through a specific channel with a given code(6) understood by both the addressee and addresser, usually the language. These factors are intricately connected to the functions of verbal language and can not be removed from verbal communication. Diversity within verbal communication is rooted in the hierarchy, meaning the emphasis or focus, of the functions in a given statement. In these instances the other functions become accessory to the dominant function. The emotive function focuses on the addresser and their emotional state. An example where emotive function would be dominant is when the addresser expresses pain with “Ouch!” In the conative function, the addressee is the focus and this function involves giving a command to the addressee. Referential function involves the context, the phatic function pertains to maintaining and creating contact between the addressee and addresser. Metalingual function deals with understanding the code and poetic function is dominant when the message in verbal communication calls the most attention. Understanding the variety of ways language is used gives better context of the importance of the poetics. For Jakobson, poetic function plays a crucial part in further separating signs from their objects in verbal communication which is a major part of linguistics. So, to limit the poetic function to poetry is “delusive oversimplification.”(1150).

In his essay, “Course in General Linguistics”, Ferdinand de Saussure describes the foundation of semiotics as the relationship between the “signifier” and the “signified”. He compares the dynamic of language itself to that of a sheet of paper: “thought is the front and the sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; likewise in language, one can neither divide sound from thought nor thought from sound” (857). To provide context, the signifier represents what Saussure coins the “sound-image”, an interpretation of a concept (written-word). By contrast, the signified is the concept itself (the actual object itself) that the signifier illustrates through language. According to Saussure, the combination of thought and sound results in a “form” (857), meaning that without the thought, the sound loses its meaning in language (and vice-versa). As a result, the form would be lost.

Likewise, in the relationship between the signifier and signified, without one the other is lost. To give an example of this dynamic, take the term “apple” and the red-skinned fruit that the term represents. The signified is the red-skinned fruit, while “apple” is the signifier. Without the term “apple”, the red-skinned fruit would be nameless, without any connotation. As Saussure states, the signifier is “the psychological imprint…the impression that it makes on our senses” (853). Without any term to express it through language, the red-skinned fruit ceases to have any sort of meaning. This also applies in the case of the lack of red-skinned fruit that the term “apple” would have been linked to in semiotics. Without the object or concept, the term itself loses meaning. In other words, the concept/object and the sound-image are only important when linked together to create a sign that designates both sides of the combination (Saussure, 853).

The idea of langue (French for “language), as Saussure puts it, is arguably critical towards the relationship between the signifier and signified. Saussure states that langue is, “homogenous…a system of signs in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and sound-images, in which both parts of the sign are psychological” (850). Essentially, the sound-image itself isn’t impactful, but rather the psychological mark it leaves when carrying an idea. In order to register that mark, one would need to understand the language that a particular image belongs to. By that rule of langue, one understands the relationship between signifier and signified as per “contract”; if a mono-lingual English-speaker overhears a conversation between two Chinese people discussing about an apple in their native tongue, he/she will not understand the sound-image of “apple” in Chinese. As a result, the concept of the apple (the object itself) referenced in the Chinese-spoken conversation does not register with the English-speaker, since the signified and signifier are linked. Essentially, in relation to langue, my theory is that having the signifier and signified locked inseparably is only half of the way to understanding concepts through language (or semiotics for that matter). Not only does a concept need a sound-image to make said concept existent, but also one needs to be part of the contract set by langue in order to understand the sound-image, and link it to the concept it represents.

In his essay “On Truth and Lying In a Moral Sense” Nietzsche states that language, specifically words, is what we use to express the mental images we receive from stimulus for the environment; they are not representations of the thing-in-itself (766-7). With this concept in mind, I would like to refer to Ferdinand de Saussure who narrowed down my previously mentioned concept to just the structure of language itself in his book: Course In General Linguistics.Saussure states explains a language is a system of signs. Signs are composed by comcept and sound-images. More importantly, he emphasizes that the relationship between this concept and sound-images is arbitrary and linear in principles I and II of linguistics.

One of Saussure’s most important point is that language is not a naming system but a relation between concept and sound-image. Language is a system of sign divided into signifier and signified. The signifier is the sound-image we express; it is like the material form of language such as word either spoken or written. The signified is the concept; the thought and idea behind the signifier. There is no concept or thought without words, just a “uncharted nebula” (Saussure 256). At the same time, words without thought are just meaningless noise (Saussure 256). What Saussure is trying to tell us with this is that neither concept nor words can exist without the other. They are like two sides of a coin: they are both created at the same time; they exist together and you cannot separate them. But this ideas and definitions are just the introduction; he then starts talking about the principle I of linguistics and things get very interesting.

Saussure then states that the relation between signified and signifier is arbitrary.  He says that the “linguistics sign is  arbitrary” because there is no rule that links a signified with a specific signifier (Saussure 854). That is to say, the bond between a signified and a signifier is randomly established by the community that speaks a language. Using Saussage example, we can notice that here is no specific signifier for the idea of “sister” (854). All languages have a different word and sound for the same concept and the selection of signifier among language is arbitrary.  Another example is when a Chinese man had to bow nine times to salute his emperor. the signifier has no natural connection to the concept. They were just bonded randomly, and therefore, became a sign in the chinese languange.

But this ideas is not only for signifiers, it also applies for the signified. Let’s consider the word “nigger:” historically, this term was used to refer to African Slaves and it was considered an offense. But nowadays, it refers to friends and acquaintances of African descendancy and it is considered a sign of friendship. This example also support the principle of the arbitrary nature of  signs. Even though the signifier is the same, the signified has changed because there is no rule or natural connection between both elements; their bond is arbitrary and the signified can simply change as the society evolves.

Besides the arbitrariness of signs, Saussure talks about the linear nature of signs. This principle may sound complex, but it is actually very simple. Unlike visual signifiers, which can convey many ideas simultaneously, auditory signifiers, such as syllables and words, can only express one message in succession (Saussure 855). In other words, there is a line draw by time in which the elements appear one after the other. To make this clear, let’s use a typewriter as an example. This sound-image or signifiers is connected to the concept of a machine that help us type letters faster with a nice typography. But we understand this sign only when we read or listen the syllables and the two words in the order they are one after another. That is to say, we understand the sign when we hear the signifiers one after another in the form of a line “in the dimension of time.”

I have to say that Saussure broke down each of the elements of language to the most possible to have a better understanding of language itself. His ideology of words as a system of signs, that can be broken into signified and signifiers with several principles, enlighten us about human psychology.