7. Structure, sign and play in Discourse of
Human Sciences
⊳ Impact on anthropology, sociology, semiotics and literary
studies.
⊳ Any text can be read quite differently from what appears to
be saying
⊳ No single-stable meaning inside the text.
⊳ Literary criticism have been traditionally with revealing the
‘meaning’ behind the text.
⊳ If the method of Dec. is applied-no ultimate meaning)
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8. Occasion
⊳ A colloquium held at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 titled ‘The
Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man.’
⊳ ‘Play’- puns, humour.
⊳ Saussure- the sign is meaningful by its location in a system of
difference. Difference.
⊳ Derrida- the meaning is always differed-’always already’ present and
absent.
⊳ Meaning is always a matter of difference and deferring.
⊳ Language always empowers us. Words controls us. We do not go
beyond words.
⊳ There is nothing ‘outside the text’
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9. The Essay.
⊳ Problem with Levi Strauss – Double Intention 113.
⊳ Continue with Nature/culture opposition.
⊳ There is no unity or absolute source. – BRICOLAGE.
⊳ ‘The book on myths is itself a kind of myth.’ 115.
⊳ Absence of the Centre.
⊳ ‘Thus the myth and musical work are like conductors of an
orchestra, whose audience becomes the silent performers.’
115.
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11. The Essay.
⊳ Totalisation – is useless- sometimes impossible. 117
⊳ ‘If totalisation no longer has any meaning …
language and finite language – excludes
totalisation .’ 117 Ramayan - Gira anayan …
⊳ The Interpretation of the interpretation: of
Structure, sign and Play. 120
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12. The Foundations for Meaning.
⊳ The Platonic or Idealistic :- The God as the origin,
centre of the universe and guarantor of the meaning.
⊳ Humanists :- The self is at the centre of the meaning
and therefore expressed intentionally through language.
⊳ Structuralist :- The structure at the centre of the
signifying system, which is impersonal.
⊳ Deconstructionist :- It decentres all the meaning making
systems. Reveals how a given system posits (instead of
revealing) a centre from which meaning is propped. It
refers to the Structuralism as well.
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13. Structuralism.
• Plato’s Imitation, Aristotle’ s Argument
• Ferdinand de Saussure : Course in General Linguistics (1915)- Langue(Syst.) Vs.
Parole(Speech)
• Signifier(Mark) Vs. Signified(Concept)
• Sign =
• Roland Barthes
Mythologies(67)
Elements of Semiology(67)
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14. Structuralism.
⊳ Structuralist Narratology:-
⊳ Of hero and difficult task
⊳ Task resolved
⊳ Hero is recognized
⊳ False hero or villain is exposed
⊳ Villain is punished
⊳ Hero married and ascend the throne
⊳ Claude Levi- Strauss – myths ‘mythemes’
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17. The Background.
⊳ The conference ‘The Languages of Criticism and the
Sciences of Man’ at Johns’ Hopkins University,
Baltimore, in 1966.
⊳ European Structuralism
⊳ ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Human Sciences’
questions the structurality of the structure itself.
⊳ Discourse is a field of finite meanings but of infinite play.
⊳ Freeplay 17
18. “We need to interpret interpretations more
than to interpret things”.-Montaigne.
⊳ According to Ferdinand Saussure, “Language is a system of differences
without positive terms.”
⊳ From Structuralism, Deconstruction finds that, similar to Saussure’s
account of language, all signifying systems (i.e. every form of
representation) functions according to binary oppositions. Day/Night,
good/bad, culture/nature.
⊳ Deconstruction goes one step further by observing that one part of the
pair is always privileged over the other. Structures are never neutral, their
meanings are never universal. In a sense the scientific basis of
Structuralism has been questioned by Deconstruction.
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19. Binary Opposition from the Deconstructive
Point of View.
⊳ The two terms of a binary opposition cannot exist in
any meaningful way in isolation from one another; yet
neither consists essential truth, no actual grounding in
non-human world.
⊳ Deconstruction tries to dissolve the barrier between
terms to reveal oppositions to be non-oppositional and
therefore truth claims based upon one valorised term of
the pair to be unstable.
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20. Binary Opposition from the Deconstructive
Point of View.
⊳ The deconstructive process offers a means of contending
with the problem of how to critique a system(that is, come to
know it, become able to speak about it) from within the very
system that made such knowledge possible.
⊳ The probable deconstruction of the text is ‘always already’
within the text itself and no system of interpretation external
to the text(e.g. psychoanalytic, historical, biographical) is
required.
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