Title: From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism (Deconstruction)
1From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism
(Deconstruction)
- Constructions of Meanings and their Radical
Uncertainty
2Outline
- 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. Wordsworths 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
Assignments
3Key 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 elements such
as - -- binaries, or semiotic rectangles,
- -- roles/actant and functions,
- -- mytheme,
- -- narrator- narratee,
- -- signs or signification on different levels
(signifier and signified). ? Roland Barthes
Semiotics
4Semiotics 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.
5Examples for analysis gender identity
- TOYOTA-VIOS 1.6-?????
- Signs? Objectification of the Woman?
- Myth vs. Reality?
6Two More Examples for analysis gender identity
- TOYOTA-VIOS 1.6-?????
- Main idea What do you want? Vios, its
everything. - 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. wallglass
building) ? the womans flowing hair, gaze and
smile are signs of the mans self-projection of
power, ease and desirability. - Distorted city, the woman? an ad and its
interpellation(??) in disguise - Symptom Revealed spectacle/image society The
TV is watching us.
7Two More Examples for analysis gender identity
- .??VISA??-VISA??????-??(??)?
- Signs? Connotations? Distortion?
- Is the woman all powerful?
8Two More Examples for analysis gender identity
- .??VISA??-VISA??????-??(??)?
- Signs frame within the frame
- of the Gothic woman in a cape old
mansion/computer game parlor a secret pass - of electronic game -- virtual reality with a
woman presented in double - sci-fi strong woman in black tight-fit dress,
- Is the woman all powerful?
- Apparently, the two women empower each other
- Actually, the visa card is power.
- Distortion money power game reality
- Symptom Revealed everything is construction, but
the power of money and electronic game is
stronger than anything else.
9Poststructuralism
- 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.
10Poststructuralism
- Keywords constructionism ? floating signifier
11Poststructuralism Theory
- Major Questions
- How does poststructuralism de-center traditional
authorities? - 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)? - Why is signifier floating, meaning
disseminated, and text, an endless free play of
meanings(66)?
12(1) How does poststructuralism de-center
traditional authorities?
- the traditional centers or foundations of our
lives -- e.g. Truth, Humanity, Family, Nation,
History, Reality, God, Creativity, Author ? and
their stable meanings - Physical analogy the ground beneath our feet
fixed landmark with which we feel stability and
measure the other things - With their views of languages fluidity, all the
above fixed meanings are destabilized. - ? Physical analogy our perception on a moving
train of another moving train//multiple
signifying chains intersecting with one another?
textuality
13(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)? - 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. ??????
14(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
15(2) Why is the author dead?
- 3. The death of the author.
- ? The birth of the Reader
- 4. 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)
16Q 3 -- Why is signifier floating, meaning
disseminated, and text, an endless free play of
meanings(66)? Note metaphors of dandelion or
seeds
17Which 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.
- ??????????
- ??????????
- ????????????????
- The experience of the earthquake yesterday was
quite uncanny.
18Which 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
- ? (????? can be a store name.)
- ? love?
- ??????????? insecticide? Vegi with blue cheese?
- ??????????? ????
19Language/Literature as an enclosed system
Paradigmatic/Selection
-
- Syntagmatic/Combination
- (narrative structure
- roles actions)
- metonymy
Thematic structure Motifs, mythemes, metaphors,
etc.
20Polysemy caused by context
??????????
Paradigmatic/Selection
more stereotypical descriptions, or a fathers
advice to his son, etc.
-??????Chinaman -????/??/????/???????
21Why is language ambiguous?
- Why are meanings undecidable slippery?
- 1. Polysemy Traces of other signs, other
meanings. (e.g. national birthday ????) - 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)
22Multiple Context ??????
Male poet and Waiting woman.
- ??? ???
- ???,???????
- ???????,??????
- ??????,???????
- ???????,??????
- ??????????,?????????????,???????????????????????
,?????????? - (http//203.198.70.29/subject/chlt/tangci.htm ?
23??????(random samples from Internet?
- ?????? ??????. ????? 0359
- ???????????????, NAPSTER??????, ???.
- ???,????,??????????,???????,???????? (source)
Traces of other usages
24Derrida Outline
- -- Jacque Derrida
- 1. Prologue Instability of Meaning (discussed)
- 2. Writing as Différance
- 3. Center as Transcendental Signified and
Binarism - 4. Deconstruction Literary Practice
25Language in movement (1) Spacing
- Movement from one Signifier to another
- -- Meaning changed when the context is further
revealed. - Comic effects in ?? old traces vs. newly defined
meanings. (e.g. ????,???) - The traces of the old meanings are both present
and absent.
26Writing and Différance
- Language a system of difference ? of Différance.
- While structualists had treated binary
oppositions as stable terms in a formal
structure, Derrida sees them as organized in
unstable disequilibrium. ? because of the
presence/absence of traces - Derrida sees the signifieds also in a relation
of difference, and they are turned into
signifiers? floating signifiers.
(Textbook chap 6 p. 123 28)
27Writing and Différance (2)
- Différance
- To differ
- A sign is defined by its binary opposition to
another sign. - 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 put
under erasure. It can subvert the fixed meaning
of the sign.
28Writing and Différance
- The chain of signification
- (1) symbolization or mythologizing
Signifier 1 (rose) Signified 1 (flower)
Signified 2 (love) Signified 2(roselove)
Signified 3 (rosewoman in love) Signified 4 (rose weak, vain dependent woman in love)
29Writing and Différance chain of signification (1)
- Signifier Signified 2
Signified 3
Asian People
Yellow
Exotic (Evil or Weak)
Other Racial Features What they did
Other Skin colors
Innocent, Strong and Civilized
White
White Americans
The other Americans
30Writing and Différance Chain of Signification (2)
Re-contextualization traces kept. e.g. 1.
Pharmakon 1). poison,
2). Pharmacy 2. lt?????gt??????
31Questions
- Do you agree that meaning is always uncertain and
slippery? What does Derridas 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?
32The Transcendental Signified
- (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. - The unmoved mover e.g.
- God (transcendental signified)
- The Bible (transcendental signifier)
33The Transcendental Signified and Binaries
- They are the upper terms in hierarchical
binaries e.g.
Man Light Reason Culture The Public West, etc.
Woman Dark-ness Emotion Nature The Private East, etc.
34Critique of Metaphysics logocentrism,
phallogocentrism
- Traditional binaries are 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.
35Ways of Questioning the Hierarchical Binaries
- 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.
36Deconstruction practices
(textbook p. 131)
- Open texts ? A text that deconstructs its own
unity or author. (contemporary self-reflexive
texts) - Reverse the texts binaries or expose its
undecidability or multiple meanings - Study the process of signification of a sign or a
text and find out what it tries to erase. (e.g.
Scarlet Letter Barthesian studies of commercials)
37Deconstruction practices (2)
- 4. Find where the text differs from itself.
(critical difference)? ambiguity and
undecidability - 5. Radical contextualization ? to find out its
intertextual references and thus undecidability
of meanings.
38Deconstruction example (1)process of
signification
- Wordsworths poems
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
- I cloud (Dorothy) daffodils dancing
(daffodils weary) - Daffodils milky way (real flowers) ? I saw
- Daffofils in glee (the waves) ? I recollect
them in my minds eye bliss of solitude (the
actual experience).
39Deconstruction of Binary Opposition Example (2)
- Ode on Melancholy
- Binaries
- No to active pursuits of sleep or suicide (?
drowns the soul, turns it passive) - Savor the contraries and transience in life
- 1. She (active) dominates where all the senses
are quickened you ? - He burst joys grape against his palate
hung as one of his trophies (passive) - When senses are active, the poet seems powerless
and passive.
40Undecidability example 3
- Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child
In London - Verbal -- paradoxes
- Textual no fixed context in this poem
- Linguistic (contextual) against a grave truth
(or all the received ways of mourning) but then
the poem still uses its rhetoric
41Undecidability example 4
- A slumber did my spirit seal
- I had no human fears
- She seemed a thing that could not feel
- The touch of earthly years.
- ltGapgt
- 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 )
42Undecidability example 4
A slumber did my spirit seal -- Contradictions
between
- present
- death
- the cosmic
- peacefulness and regularity
Gap What happened in between the present and
the past? Whose peacefulness is it? Whose
death and when?
43Derridian 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.
44Self-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 Beulers Day Off (1, 2)
MTV channels commercial - Reality and illusion Vanilla Sky, Mulholland
Drive - Parody Moulin Rouge, ????
45Assignments
- "The Blind Man"
- 2. Chap 6 (123-33)
- 3. Into the Woods