Metaphor and metonymy

Jakobson sees metaphor and metonymy as the characteristic modes of binarily opposed polarities which between them underpin the two-fold process of selection and combination by which linguistic signs are formed . . . .

Thus messages are constructed, as Saussure said, by a combination of a 'horizontal' movement, which combines words together, and a 'vertical' movement, which selects the particular words from the available inventory or 'inner storehouse' of the language. The combinative (or syntagmatic) process manifests itself in contiguity (one word being places next to another) and its mode is metonymic. The selective (or associative) process manifests itself in similarity (one word or concept being 'like' another) and its mode is metaphoric. (Hawkes, pp. 77-8.)

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Phonology and linguistics

Linguistics thus wishes to be the science of language.

Let us set aside all the implicit decisions that have established such a project and all the questions about its own origin that the fecundity of this science allows to remain dormant. Let us first simply consider that the scientificity of that science is often acknowledged because of its phonological foundations. Phonology, it is often said today, communicates its scientificity to linguistics, which in turn serves as the epistemological model for all the sciences of man. Since the deliberate and systematic phonological orientation of linguistics (Troubetzkoy, Jakobson, Martinet) carries out an intention which was originally Saussure's, shall we, at least provisionally, confine ourselves to the latter. Will the argument be equally applicable a fortiori to the most accentuated forms of phonologism? The problem at least be stated.

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Formation of form as a linguistic movement

Nothing stands outside the system of differences.

Only the formation of form.

But it is on the other hand the being-imprinted of the imprint. It is well-known that Saussure distinguishes between the “sound-image” and the objective sound. He thus gives himself the right to “reduce,” in the phenomenological sense, the sciences of acoustics and physiology at the moment that he institutes the science of language. The sound-image is the structure of the appearing of the sound [l'apparaître du son] which is anything but the sound appearing [le son apparaissant]. It is the sound-image that be calls signifier, reserving the name signified not for the thing, to be sure (it is reduced by the act and the very ideality of language), but for the “concept,” undoubtedly an unhappy notion here; let us say for the ideality of the sense.

“I propose to retain the word sign [signe] to designate the whole and to replace concept and sound-image respectively by signified [signifé] and signifier [signifiant].”

The sound-image is what is heard; not the sound heard but the being-beard of the sound. Being-heard is structurally phenomenal and belongs to an order radically dissimilar to that of the real sound in the world. One can only divide this subtle but absolutely decisive heterogeneity by a phenomenological reduction. The latter is therefore indispensable to all analyses of being-heard, whether they be inspired by linguistic, psychoanalytic, or other preoccupations.

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New landscapes of philosophy

Semiotics is still an obsession of literary theory, but clearly only one of many approaches to meaning, and may indeed be fading now from the American philosophy scene.

Very few of its ten thousand professional philosophers are rattling the bars of the prison cage of language. Linguistic philosophies continue, but in addition to the traditional fields — philosophy of existence (ontology), meaning (epistemology) art (aesthetics), morals (ethics) and political history — there is increased emphasis on new fields: computer issues, applied ethics, feminism, rights of parenthood, etc.

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Semiotic literay criticism

Later semiotic approaches to literature have not been systematic (or, in some special cases such as Roland Barthes's S/Z, they have been so specifically and exhaustively systematic as to render the possibility of a complete literary semiotics doubtful).

As structuralist linguistics gave way to a post-structuralist philosophy of language which denied the scientific ambitions of the general theory of signs, semiotic literary criticism became more playful and less systematic in its ambitions. Still, some authors harbor more scientific ambition for their literary schemata than others.

Later authors in the semiotic tradition of literary criticism include Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Michael Riffaterre, and Umberto Eco.

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Kristeva vs Barthes

Julia Kristeva sees that for Saussure linguistics is only part of a general science of signs and proposes that linguistics in due course will merge in a universal science or, more colourfully,

"La sémiotique se construira alors à partie du cadavre de la linguistique, d'une mort . . . à laquelle la linguistique se résignerait après avoir preparé le terrain à la sémiotique."

At the other extreme, Roland Barthes asserts the unquestioned primacy of language from which all other sign systems must be derived.

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Semiosis and production of meaning

Semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. Peirce was interested primarily in logic, while Saussure was interested primarily in linguistics, which examines the functions and structures of language.

But both of them recognised that there is more to significant representation than language in the narrow sense of speech and writing alone. So they developed the idea of semiosis to relate language to other sign systems both human and nonhuman. Today, there is disagreement as to the operating cause and effect. One school of thought argues that language is the semiotic prototype and its study illuminates principles that can be applied to other sign systems. The opposing school argues that there is a metasign system and that language is simply one of many codes for communicating meaning, citing the way in which human infants learn about their environment before they have acquired language.

Whichever may be right, a preliminary definition of semiosis is any action or influence for communicating meaning by establishing relationships between signs which are to be interpreted by an audience.

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Hypertextual-mind problem as illusory

Does the structure of an hypertext work like our spirit? It seems that it is not the best way to cope with the problem. Each attempt to answer the mind-body problem encounters substantial problems.

Some philosophers argue that this is because there is an underlying conceptual confusion. These philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers in the tradition of linguistic criticism, therefore reject the problem as illusory. They argue that it is an error to ask how mental and biological states fit together. Rather it should simply be accepted that human experience can be described in different ways - for instance, in a mental and in a biological vocabulary. Illusory problems arise if one tries to describe the one in terms of the other's vocabulary or if the mental vocabulary is used in the wrong contexts. This is the case, for instance, if one searches for mental states of the brain. The brain is simply the wrong context for the use of mental vocabulary - the search for mental states of the brain is therefore a category error or a sort of fallacy of reasoning.

Today, such a position is often adopted by interpreters of Wittgenstein such as Peter Hacker. However, Hilary Putnam, the inventor of functionalism, has also adopted the position that the mind-body problem is an illusory problem which should be dissolved according to the manner of Wittgenstein.

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