The logical grounds of interpretation have gone entirely—especially when we deal with the literary text, which is “above the norm” in rhetorical meaning.Both logic and grammar are questionable when we read a literary text. Grammar assumes a simple logical one-to-one relationship between language unit (word, sentence, etc.) and meaning. Rhetoric contests that assumption. Logic postulates the possibility of universal truth (a concept that independently of its objects remains unchangeable, eternal and unaffected by rhetoric). We know from de Saussure that such a concept has no place in a system like the language system, which provides meaning only through the values that the differences between signifiers allow.
In other words, when we make meaningful statements we do so by acting on the combined resources of difference and rhetorical substitution. This gives us considerable freedom but at a cost—we can no longer hope to control or to limit the structures of linguistic meaning and the multiple possibilities of confusion that always threaten.
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See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts
