Chapter 7: Defamiliarization, Alienation, Dialogism, and Montage Flashcards
Who was Ferdinand de Saussure and what did he contribute to 20th century and contemporary literary theory?
How does he understand language?
Provided one of the foundations of literary theory by putting forth a new science of LINGUISTICS
Often said that 20th century literary theory originates with Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, and Saussure
Saussure’s course in General Linguistics outlines a new SEMIOLOGY, or SCIENCE of SIGNS.
He understands language as a SYSTEM of SIGNS. (Language is one of many sign systems and linguistics is only a part of semiology.)
SEMIOLOGY is the study of the life of signs within society.
What does Saussure believe about the distinction between Langue and Parole?
LANGUE is an impersonal social structure - a synchronic and self-referential system of interdependent terms
SYNCHRONIC meaning in one moment in time, versus diachronic.
PAROLE is an individual instance, an utterance or a piece of writing.
Saussure believes we must start from the interdependent whole (Langue) and not from the individual (Parole) because by himself, the individual is incapable of fixing a single value or meaning
Within LANGUE, the meaning of each and every term is determined by its environment of other terms.
Langue is purely a DIFFERENTIAL system, the meaning of each term is DETERMINED NEGATIVELY, through its diffeential relations to other terms.
LANGUAGE IS A FORM not a SUBSTANCE. Therefore, the internal structure or form matters, not the material it is made up of.
Though linguistic values are always subject to usage and general acceptance by the community, they emerge from a differential and self -referential system, therefore remain entirely relative.
Saussure distinguishes between the Signifier and the Signified.
What is the Sign and what does this imply about language?
Saussure distinguishes between the signifier (the sound pattern of the spoken word)
and the signified (concept or meaning)
The coupling of the two is the SIGN.
However the bond between the signfier and signified is arbitrary and is not fixed, given, or primary.
(Signifieds do not PREEXIST the differential system of language but ARE SHAPED by it.)
Saussure claims that: “thought - apart from its expression in words - is only a shapeless and indistinct mass”
“without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula”
Concepts “emanate” from the linguistic system.
(Without language, thought and meaning could not exist.)
How does Saussure distinguish between syntagmatic and paradigmatic (or associative) relations?
Syntagmatic:
each syntagm has a fixed number of elements presented in succession and thus form a chain
“This is a cool t-shirt.”
Paradigmatic:
occur neither in a fixed number nor in a definite order (associative chains that link words that have something in common).
the same signifier can give rise to multiple series of assoicative chains.
While syntagms are in presentia and are actual, associative chains are virtual and constructed by the interpreter of a syntagm (in absentia).
What is Saussure’s Copernican Revolution in language?
Saussure treats language not as a mirror of reality, but as
itself CENTRAL to society
a central social institution embodying and even constructing social perspectives and social meanings
