WEBVTT 00:01.130 --> 00:03.190 Prof: So I'm going to be pointing to the board, 00:03.185 --> 00:03.995 at least in theory. 00:04.000 --> 00:09.040 I suppose I expect to be pointing to the board a little 00:09.040 --> 00:12.120 bit more today than ordinarily. 00:12.120 --> 00:14.350 The usual function of my [chalk] 00:14.350 --> 00:18.880 equivalent of Power Point isn't quite the same today because I'm 00:18.884 --> 00:23.064 taking an interest in some of these diagrammatic matters as 00:23.058 --> 00:26.758 well and, as I say, I will be pointing to 00:26.757 --> 00:27.247 them. 00:27.250 --> 00:28.040 All right. 00:28.043 --> 00:32.493 So to begin I'm actually going to postpone something that 00:32.488 --> 00:35.978 you're probably already wondering about, 00:35.980 --> 00:38.890 although it will come into this lecture on a couple of 00:38.886 --> 00:40.826 occasions-- that is to say, 00:40.825 --> 00:45.235 the full relationship in terms of the influence of both 00:45.236 --> 00:49.166 movements-- between the Russian formalists 00:49.168 --> 00:53.908 and Saussure's notion of semiology and semiotics-- 00:53.910 --> 00:58.930 until next week when we discuss Roman Jakobson's essay, 00:58.930 --> 01:01.350 "Linguistics and Poetics," 01:01.354 --> 01:05.374 where I think the relationship between the two movements in 01:05.373 --> 01:09.323 which he himself was involved will become clearer and will 01:09.322 --> 01:13.552 come into focus more naturally than if I tried to outline what 01:13.549 --> 01:17.429 the connection between the two movements is now. 01:17.430 --> 01:21.360 So that is an aspect of our sequence of lectures, 01:21.355 --> 01:25.935 beginning with the last one, that will be postponed until 01:25.935 --> 01:27.075 next week. 01:27.080 --> 01:34.070 Now semiotics is not in itself a literary theory. 01:34.069 --> 01:37.099 As we'll learn from Jakobson next week, 01:37.099 --> 01:39.979 literature can be understood--or what he calls the 01:39.976 --> 01:42.556 study of literature, "poetics"-- 01:42.560 --> 01:47.230 can be understood as a subfield of semiotics, 01:47.230 --> 01:51.070 but semiotics is not in itself a literary theory. 01:51.069 --> 01:53.409 In other words, perhaps to your frustration, 01:53.405 --> 01:56.445 what you read today has nothing at all, in and of itself, 01:56.447 --> 01:58.237 to tell you about literature. 01:58.239 --> 02:01.499 This isn't the last time this will happen during the course of 02:01.503 --> 02:03.663 the syllabus, but then of course, 02:03.661 --> 02:07.561 our job is to bring out the implications for literature of 02:07.563 --> 02:11.333 texts that we read that don't have any direct bearing on 02:11.330 --> 02:12.700 literary study. 02:12.699 --> 02:17.869 The important thing about Saussure and the discipline of 02:17.870 --> 02:23.040 semiotics is the incredible influence that it has had on 02:23.038 --> 02:28.208 virtually every form of subsequent literary theory. 02:28.210 --> 02:30.010 That's what we need to keep in mind. 02:30.008 --> 02:32.388 Semiotics evolves into what is called 02:32.388 --> 02:36.158 "structuralism," which we'll be considering next 02:36.155 --> 02:36.745 week. 02:36.750 --> 02:40.380 That in turn, as it were, bequeaths its 02:40.383 --> 02:45.263 terminology and its set of issues and frameworks for 02:45.259 --> 02:51.459 thinking to deconstruction, to Lacanian psychoanalysis, 02:51.461 --> 02:56.581 to French Marxism, and to binary theories of race, 02:56.580 --> 03:00.020 colonization and gender-- in other words, 03:00.022 --> 03:04.442 to a great deal that we will be studying subsequently on this 03:04.437 --> 03:05.317 syllabus. 03:05.318 --> 03:10.288 So while again, what we read for today is not 03:10.292 --> 03:15.482 in itself literary theory, it is nevertheless crucially 03:15.479 --> 03:19.369 formative for a great many of the developments in literary 03:19.367 --> 03:21.617 theory that we'll be studying. 03:21.620 --> 03:26.800 Now as an anecdotal or conjectural aside-- 03:26.800 --> 03:29.910 I've always found this so fascinating I can never resist 03:29.908 --> 03:35.518 talking about it-- there are various texts in our 03:35.515 --> 03:37.985 field-- the history of criticism, 03:37.989 --> 03:40.669 literary theory-- texts that are considered 03:40.670 --> 03:43.630 foundational but which curiously enough, 03:43.628 --> 03:48.128 a la Foucault, don't actually have an author. 03:48.128 --> 03:53.128 Aristotle's Poetics we know actually not to have been 03:53.133 --> 03:57.803 one of the texts written by Aristotle but rather to be a 03:57.797 --> 04:02.967 compendium of lecture notes put together by his students. 04:02.968 --> 04:06.898 This is one of the reasons why in the golden age of Arabic 04:06.900 --> 04:11.180 scholarship in the Middle Ages, there was so much dispute about 04:11.175 --> 04:14.245 the Poetics. The manuscripts we find from 04:14.250 --> 04:17.290 this period are full of marginal notes where the scholars are 04:17.293 --> 04:19.473 chiding each other and saying, "No, no, 04:19.473 --> 04:19.633 no. 04:19.625 --> 04:21.295 It can't be that way." 04:21.300 --> 04:24.560 In other words, in a way it's a disputed text 04:24.557 --> 04:28.257 and it is not written by Aristotle, but it's also a 04:28.259 --> 04:29.889 foundational text. 04:29.889 --> 04:33.799 Aristotle is considered the "father of criticism," 04:33.800 --> 04:36.720 and yet he is also what Foucault would call a 04:36.718 --> 04:39.368 "founder of discursivity." 04:39.370 --> 04:43.560 Well, the odd thing is it's exactly the same with Saussure, 04:43.560 --> 04:47.300 who can be considered the father or patriarch of a certain 04:47.300 --> 04:50.650 kind of literary theory as I have just indicated. 04:50.649 --> 04:55.829 Saussure's Course in General Linguistics is not something 04:55.831 --> 05:00.361 written by Saussure but is a compendium of lecture notes 05:00.355 --> 05:05.205 written by his students in a series of lectures that he gave 05:05.208 --> 05:09.808 from 1906 to 1911 and then gathered together in book form 05:09.814 --> 05:14.014 by two of his disciples who were linguists. 05:14.009 --> 05:20.569 Now it's odd that this text does have the same formative 05:20.567 --> 05:21.877 function. 05:21.879 --> 05:25.729 Scholars who go to Geneva go for a variety of reasons when 05:25.728 --> 05:28.158 they look at the Saussure archive. 05:28.160 --> 05:32.300 Some of them are predisposed to dislike Saussure and to hope 05:32.300 --> 05:36.300 that they can somehow discredit him by learning more about 05:36.298 --> 05:40.508 things that he thought that aren't actually in the text. 05:40.509 --> 05:43.689 Others like Saussure and feel that he needs to be rescued 05:43.694 --> 05:45.064 > 05:45.060 --> 05:48.880 from his compositors, and yet others go in an 05:48.877 --> 05:53.907 attitude of worship and hope that the archive will yield to 05:53.908 --> 05:58.938 them full confirmation of the integrity of the text we call 05:58.942 --> 06:03.022 the Course in General Linguistics; 06:03.019 --> 06:06.409 so that in a way, the study of the Saussure 06:06.411 --> 06:09.131 archive, given the volatile relationship 06:09.129 --> 06:12.199 of that archive with the actual text that we have, 06:12.199 --> 06:17.199 is a kind of map that, if one were to study it, 06:17.199 --> 06:20.659 one could associate with the history of thinking about 06:20.656 --> 06:23.456 literary theory in the twentieth century. 06:23.459 --> 06:25.969 This is really all neither here nor there. 06:25.970 --> 06:29.650 I just find it interesting that two people who are incontestably 06:29.654 --> 06:31.064 > 06:31.060 --> 06:35.020 founders of discursivity in the field that we study are in fact 06:35.023 --> 06:38.543 not strictly speaking authors, > 06:38.540 --> 06:43.710 somehow or another confirming the insight of Foucault in the 06:43.708 --> 06:46.598 essay that we began by reading. 06:46.600 --> 06:47.890 Anyway, enough of that. 06:47.889 --> 06:51.489 We have to try to figure out what Saussure is up to. 06:51.490 --> 06:55.120 Let's move on to begin to do so. 06:55.120 --> 06:59.180 What is semiology? 06:59.180 --> 07:03.440 It's the study of existing, conventional, 07:03.435 --> 07:05.985 communicative systems. 07:05.990 --> 07:09.070 All of these systems we can call "languages," 07:09.071 --> 07:11.421 and "language"-- that is to say, 07:11.422 --> 07:14.032 the words that we use when we speak to each other-- 07:14.029 --> 07:16.739 is one of those systems. 07:16.740 --> 07:20.550 Other systems: the gestures that mimes use, 07:20.550 --> 07:25.270 semaphores, railroad semaphores and a stoplight--red, 07:25.267 --> 07:29.257 green, yellow--are all semiotic systems. 07:29.259 --> 07:31.859 In other words, all of them are modes of 07:31.860 --> 07:34.530 communication with which we function, 07:34.529 --> 07:39.349 the intelligibility of which allows us to negotiate the world 07:39.346 --> 07:40.306 around us. 07:40.310 --> 07:45.790 Semiotics has expanded into every imaginable aspect of 07:45.786 --> 07:46.816 thought. 07:46.819 --> 07:51.639 There is a Darwinian semiotics, understanding the relationships 07:51.644 --> 07:54.294 among species in semiotic terms. 07:54.290 --> 07:59.680 There is, in other words, a semiotics of virtually every 07:59.682 --> 08:05.862 imaginable thing understood as a language made up of a system of 08:05.860 --> 08:08.980 signs-- signs we'll be getting to in a 08:08.978 --> 08:11.158 minute-- but in the meantime, 08:11.156 --> 08:15.616 it's important to understand what semiology actually is. 08:15.620 --> 08:17.980 That's what it is. 08:17.980 --> 08:19.460 Oh, I meant to ask you. 08:19.459 --> 08:24.249 How many of you did not bring the passages that I sent to you 08:24.252 --> 08:26.092 by e-mail last night? 08:26.089 --> 08:26.859 All right. 08:26.860 --> 08:29.780 We have them here and they'll be passed around. 08:29.778 --> 08:33.008 We have about twenty-five copies, so don't take one if you 08:33.011 --> 08:33.921 don't need it. 08:33.918 --> 08:40.928 I am going to be turning to the second passage on the sheet in 08:40.932 --> 08:46.572 which something about the nature of these systems, 08:46.566 --> 08:50.126 I think, can be made clear. 08:50.129 --> 08:53.229 "Language," says Saussure, 08:53.232 --> 08:57.402 "is not a function of the speaker." 08:57.399 --> 09:00.329 Here of course he is talking about human language. 09:00.330 --> 09:03.660 09:03.658 --> 09:08.208 "It is a product that is passively assimilated by the 09:08.211 --> 09:09.731 individual." 09:09.730 --> 09:11.410 Now what does this mean? 09:11.408 --> 09:16.398 The fact that human language is not my language-- 09:16.399 --> 09:19.039 that is to say, the fact that it doesn't 09:19.042 --> 09:21.812 originate in me, the fact that it's not, 09:21.812 --> 09:25.182 in other words, my private language--suggests, 09:25.181 --> 09:28.271 of course, a certain loss because it means 09:28.265 --> 09:31.875 that when I speak, when I use language in speech, 09:31.875 --> 09:35.475 I'm using something that is not strictly my own. 09:35.480 --> 09:39.710 It's conventional--that is to say, it belongs in the public 09:39.711 --> 09:43.291 sphere to all of us, and there's perhaps a certain 09:43.288 --> 09:45.768 sort of Romantic loss in that. 09:45.769 --> 09:50.009 Wouldn't it be nice if language in some sense were my own? 09:50.009 --> 09:54.589 But the incredible gain which makes language something like 09:54.585 --> 09:59.235 the object of science that Saussure is hoping to secure-- 09:59.240 --> 10:01.260 this is one of the things, obviously, 10:01.259 --> 10:03.059 that he has in common with the formalists-- 10:03.058 --> 10:06.838 the incredible gain is that if language is not private, 10:06.840 --> 10:09.800 if it's not my own, if it's not something that I 10:09.802 --> 10:13.762 can make up as I go along, and if, in other words, 10:13.761 --> 10:17.571 it is conventional, belonging to all of us, 10:17.567 --> 10:22.247 then that's precisely what allows it to be communicative. 10:22.250 --> 10:25.400 It is a system of signs, in other words, 10:25.399 --> 10:30.259 that we can make use of, that we recognize as signs 10:30.263 --> 10:35.903 precisely because they exist among us as something that can 10:35.904 --> 10:38.244 be shared in common. 10:38.240 --> 10:44.960 This then is the object of Saussure's attention as a 10:44.956 --> 10:49.166 linguist and as a semiotician. 10:49.168 --> 10:56.988 Now what's implied in this idea is that language is something 10:56.985 --> 10:58.805 that we use. 10:58.808 --> 11:04.998 The best way to say it and the quickest way to say it is that I 11:05.001 --> 11:07.301 don't speak language. 11:07.298 --> 11:12.878 Language as something that exists as an aggregate all at 11:12.878 --> 11:15.758 once, arguably--and this is something 11:15.764 --> 11:19.584 that's going to come up again and again as we come back to 11:19.577 --> 11:23.587 these coordinates that we'll be touching on from time to time 11:23.591 --> 11:26.221 today also-- arguably, language as an 11:26.216 --> 11:28.196 aggregate is something virtual. 11:28.200 --> 11:32.310 You remember that Freud said we have to infer the unconscious 11:32.313 --> 11:35.403 from the erratic behavior of consciousness. 11:35.399 --> 11:37.429 There's got to be something back there, so we're going to 11:37.427 --> 11:38.657 call it "the unconscious" 11:38.658 --> 11:40.178 and we're going to try to describe it. 11:40.178 --> 11:42.878 It is very much the same with language, or "langue" 11:42.875 --> 11:43.905 as Saussure calls it. 11:43.908 --> 11:48.708 What we do is speak, and when we speak, 11:48.710 --> 11:51.610 of course, we say correctly that we "use" 11:51.613 --> 11:53.833 language, but we still need to know what 11:53.832 --> 11:56.522 language is and we need to understand the relationship 11:56.524 --> 11:58.104 between language and speech. 11:58.100 --> 12:02.690 Now we can understand language as a kind of aggregate of 12:02.687 --> 12:05.687 everything that's in the lexicon, 12:05.690 --> 12:09.930 in the dictionary, together with everything that 12:09.926 --> 12:15.336 would be in some sort of ideal or utterly systematized set of 12:15.335 --> 12:21.825 rules of grammar and syntax, but there is no real aggregate 12:21.827 --> 12:23.467 of that kind. 12:23.470 --> 12:26.910 In other words, it exists, it's there to be put 12:26.913 --> 12:31.113 together partly as a matter of experiment and partly as a 12:31.105 --> 12:34.245 matter of conjecture by the linguists; 12:34.250 --> 12:39.430 but as a composite thing existing in a spatial 12:39.428 --> 12:43.328 simultaneity, synchronically, 12:43.331 --> 12:48.021 language is something that in a very real sense, 12:48.019 --> 12:49.569 as is the case with Freud's unconscious, 12:49.570 --> 12:50.990 we infer from speech. 12:50.990 --> 12:52.720 Now speech is what we do. 12:52.720 --> 12:57.820 Speech is the way in which we appropriate, deploy and make use 12:57.820 --> 13:02.670 of language, and Saussure calls that "parole." 13:02.668 --> 13:06.958 Parole is the unfolding in time of a set of 13:06.958 --> 13:13.238 possibilities given in space, that set of possibilities being 13:13.235 --> 13:17.715 what Saussure calls "langue." 13:17.720 --> 13:22.550 Now language is a system of signs. 13:22.549 --> 13:24.999 What is a sign? 13:25.000 --> 13:29.600 Saussure's famous diagrams make it clear enough. 13:29.600 --> 13:34.110 [Gestures to board.] We have above the line a 13:34.105 --> 13:39.325 concept and we have below the line a sound image. 13:39.330 --> 13:44.110 In other words, I think of something and that 13:44.109 --> 13:49.429 thinking of something corresponds to a sound image 13:49.431 --> 13:53.451 that I have ready to hand for it. 13:53.450 --> 13:57.880 That can be understood in terms of thinking of the concept 13:57.884 --> 14:01.404 "tree"-- that's why this is in quotation 14:01.403 --> 14:05.663 marks, I speak Latin--and knowing that 14:05.663 --> 14:11.603 the sound image correlative to the concept tree is 14:11.597 --> 14:15.107 "arbor," right, 14:15.110 --> 14:17.220 I can think of > 14:17.220 --> 14:21.570 something like that [drawing of a tree], something in some way 14:21.573 --> 14:22.863 resembling that. 14:22.860 --> 14:27.130 By the same token--I still speak Latin--the sound image 14:27.129 --> 14:30.529 corresponding to it is "arbor." 14:30.528 --> 14:34.278 I may or may not get back to this today, 14:34.279 --> 14:35.339 but in this question mark [on the board next to a sign diagram 14:35.335 --> 14:36.295 in which the signified tree is written over the signifier 14:36.304 --> 14:37.014 arbor, neither of them in quotation marks] 14:37.014 --> 14:37.694 is the secret of deconstruction, 14:37.690 --> 14:40.760 all right?-- just > 14:40.759 --> 14:44.209 to keep you poised and on tenterhooks. 14:44.210 --> 14:46.870 In the meantime, what Saussure is doing with 14:46.869 --> 14:49.899 this relationship above and below the line is, 14:49.899 --> 14:54.259 he is saying that there is an arbitrary relationship 14:54.260 --> 14:57.420 between the concept and the sound image. 14:57.418 --> 15:01.618 The concept he calls a "signified" 15:01.623 --> 15:07.003 and the sound image he calls a "signifier." 15:07.000 --> 15:13.130 A sign, in other words, is made up of two sides in, 15:13.129 --> 15:18.299 as it were, a thought moment: a relationship between that 15:18.302 --> 15:22.832 which is signified and that which signifies it. 15:22.830 --> 15:27.130 It's to be understood that we have to think of them together. 15:27.129 --> 15:28.539 They're not divisible. 15:28.538 --> 15:33.638 Their relationship is necessary but, as we'll see in a minute, 15:33.643 --> 15:36.993 arbitrary, and each sign is like that. 15:36.990 --> 15:42.440 The way in which we put signs together is to take these 15:42.438 --> 15:45.668 bundles, these binary relationships 15:45.669 --> 15:48.769 between a concept and a sound image, 15:48.769 --> 15:52.949 and adjust them in an unfolding sequence. 15:52.950 --> 15:53.860 That's how we speak. 15:53.860 --> 15:58.000 That's how we make a sentence. 15:58.000 --> 15:59.120 All right. 15:59.120 --> 16:04.690 So in a way the idea that a signifier, 16:04.690 --> 16:08.970 a sound that I make, arbor, 16:08.966 --> 16:15.316 refers to a concept and by implication, 16:15.320 --> 16:18.380 by a very powerful and strong and necessary implication, 16:18.379 --> 16:24.429 not to a thing--is not in itself new. 16:24.428 --> 16:29.628 The idea that a word signifies an idea and not an object is 16:29.625 --> 16:34.635 already fully developed in John Locke's Essay on Human 16:34.644 --> 16:40.024 Understanding and is more or less commonly agreed on ever 16:40.019 --> 16:44.339 afterwards and is, as I say, in itself a 16:44.336 --> 16:49.676 conventional thought that Saussure adapts and makes use 16:49.676 --> 16:50.266 of. 16:50.269 --> 16:57.189 But what is new in Saussure and what really is foundational in 16:57.187 --> 17:03.877 semiotics as a science is two things that Saussure then goes 17:03.879 --> 17:07.169 on to say about the sign. 17:07.170 --> 17:13.790 The first thing he has to say is that the signified-signifier 17:13.794 --> 17:18.214 relationship, as I said, is arbitrary. 17:18.210 --> 17:23.670 And the second thing he has to say is that the way in which we 17:23.673 --> 17:29.613 know one sign from another-- either studying language in the 17:29.611 --> 17:34.511 aggregate, whereby clusters of signs exist 17:34.509 --> 17:39.439 in associational relation to each other, 17:39.440 --> 17:44.430 or studying it in speech acts, in speech, 17:44.430 --> 17:49.370 whereby signs exist next to each other in a sequence-- 17:49.368 --> 17:54.468 the way in which we understand what a sign means is 17:54.467 --> 17:56.707 differential. 17:56.710 --> 18:00.610 So that what's new in Saussure's thinking about the 18:00.605 --> 18:05.275 relationship between signified and signifier is that the sign 18:05.280 --> 18:10.580 tied up in this relationship is both arbitrary and differential. 18:10.578 --> 18:10.968 Okay. 18:10.967 --> 18:14.917 This is a first walk through some essential ideas. 18:14.920 --> 18:18.650 I want to go back to the distinction between language and 18:18.651 --> 18:22.051 speech and refer you to the first passage which-- 18:22.048 --> 18:25.738 now all of you have it--is on your sheet, 18:25.740 --> 18:30.880 because like the Russian formalists, 18:30.880 --> 18:36.970 Saussure is chiefly concerned in outlining what he means by 18:36.971 --> 18:42.221 "semiology" to establish the semiological 18:42.223 --> 18:44.853 project as a science. 18:44.848 --> 18:47.718 Like the Russian formalists--and in a way like 18:47.718 --> 18:49.648 the New Critics-- talking about their 18:49.645 --> 18:50.925 "academic" colleagues, 18:50.930 --> 18:56.150 Saussure is vexed by the messiness and lack of system in 18:56.154 --> 18:58.724 the study of linguistics. 18:58.720 --> 19:02.260 This is what he says in this first passage. 19:02.259 --> 19:07.109 He says: If we study speech from several viewpoints 19:07.112 --> 19:10.792 simultaneously, the object of linguistics 19:10.789 --> 19:15.579 appears to us as a confused mass of heterogeneous and unrelated 19:15.576 --> 19:16.346 things. 19:16.349 --> 19:17.849 This is speech. 19:17.848 --> 19:18.928 [Gestures towards the horizontal axis of the 19:18.931 --> 19:20.361 coordinates on the board.] I'm a linguist and so what do I 19:20.364 --> 19:20.544 do? 19:20.538 --> 19:23.218 I study speech, I study speeches, 19:23.218 --> 19:27.068 and if I do so, and if I keep thinking about it 19:27.067 --> 19:31.337 in a variety of ways, all sorts of frameworks jostle 19:31.336 --> 19:33.006 for attention. 19:33.009 --> 19:37.459 Saussure continues: This procedure opens the door 19:37.461 --> 19:41.971 to several sciences, psychology, anthropology, 19:41.968 --> 19:46.378 normative grammar, philology and so on which are 19:46.383 --> 19:51.393 distinct from linguistics but which claim speech in view of 19:51.390 --> 19:56.570 the faulty method of linguistics as one of their objects. 19:56.568 --> 20:00.658 As I see it, there is only one solution to 20:00.657 --> 20:03.947 all the foregoing difficulties. 20:03.950 --> 20:06.490 From the very outset [and this is > 20:06.490 --> 20:09.360 a really peculiar mixed metaphor] 20:09.355 --> 20:14.185 we must put both feet on the ground of language and use 20:14.190 --> 20:20.190 language as the norm of all the other manifestations of speech. 20:20.190 --> 20:23.130 It's as if he's trying to hold language down. 20:23.130 --> 20:23.570 > 20:23.568 --> 20:24.608 "Stay there. 20:24.608 --> 20:25.708 Stay there." 20:25.710 --> 20:31.680 We put both feet on the ground of language so that we have it 20:31.683 --> 20:36.893 intelligible to us as a system, as something that can be 20:36.892 --> 20:40.272 understood, precisely, differentially, 20:40.268 --> 20:45.138 that can be understood in the variety of ways in which 20:45.136 --> 20:47.706 language organizes signs. 20:47.710 --> 20:51.980 It might be worth pausing over the variety of ways in which we 20:51.980 --> 20:56.370 can think of signs in language, all of which have to do with 20:56.365 --> 21:00.445 the way in which a given sign might be chosen to go into a 21:00.448 --> 21:01.808 speech sentence. 21:01.809 --> 21:06.089 Take the word "ship." 21:06.088 --> 21:08.988 "Ship" is very closely related in 21:08.994 --> 21:11.144 sound to certain other words. 21:11.140 --> 21:14.870 We won't specify them for fear of a Freudian slip, 21:14.869 --> 21:16.849 but that is one cluster. 21:16.848 --> 21:22.048 That is one associational matrix or network that one can 21:22.051 --> 21:27.351 think of in the arrangement of that sign in language, 21:27.348 --> 21:30.378 but there are also synonyms for "ship": 21:30.384 --> 21:33.174 "bark, "boat," 21:33.170 --> 21:38.760 "bateau," a great many other synonyms-- 21:38.759 --> 21:40.249 "sailboat," whatever. 21:40.250 --> 21:44.210 They, too, exist in a cluster: "steamship," 21:44.207 --> 21:47.477 "ocean liner," in other words, 21:47.480 --> 21:49.930 words that don't sound at all the same, 21:49.930 --> 21:53.990 but are contiguous in synonymity. 21:53.990 --> 21:55.740 They cluster in that way. 21:55.740 --> 21:57.900 And then furthermore "ship" 21:57.904 --> 22:00.434 is also the opposite of certain things, 22:00.430 --> 22:03.900 so that it would also enter into a relationship with 22:03.898 --> 22:06.208 "train," "car," 22:06.211 --> 22:08.591 "truck," "mule," 22:08.593 --> 22:11.113 modes of transportation, right? 22:11.108 --> 22:14.858 In all of these ways, "ship" 22:14.856 --> 22:20.926 is clustered associationally in language in ways that make it 22:20.933 --> 22:26.243 available to be chosen, available to be chosen as 22:26.243 --> 22:31.793 appropriate for a certain semantic context that we try to 22:31.785 --> 22:34.255 develop when we speak. 22:34.259 --> 22:40.699 So that's the way a sign works in language. 22:40.700 --> 22:45.260 This is the tip of the iceberg for any given sign. 22:45.259 --> 22:50.869 By the way, in what I'm saying, I oversimplify by supposing 22:50.872 --> 22:55.132 that the basic unit of language is a word. 22:55.130 --> 22:58.870 The linguists know that that's not at all necessarily the case. 22:58.868 --> 23:02.878 Linguists can work at different levels of abstraction with 23:02.884 --> 23:03.664 language. 23:03.660 --> 23:06.060 Sometimes the basic unit is the phrase, 23:06.058 --> 23:11.088 but some other times the basic unit is the phoneme-- 23:11.088 --> 23:13.878 that is to say, the single sound unit-- 23:13.880 --> 23:18.130 or if one's studying language as a system of writing it might 23:18.125 --> 23:19.395 be the syllable. 23:19.400 --> 23:24.360 It could be the letter understood either graphically or 23:24.358 --> 23:27.338 audibly, and the variety of ways in 23:27.343 --> 23:31.903 which one can choose a basic unit in the study of linguistics 23:31.896 --> 23:35.916 means that you need a special word for that unit, 23:35.920 --> 23:39.740 which is characteristically "the tagmeme." 23:39.740 --> 23:43.730 In other words, whatever you are thinking of as 23:43.730 --> 23:47.100 your systematizing, your understanding, 23:47.101 --> 23:50.181 of language, and as the basic constituent 23:50.176 --> 23:51.896 unit-- "the word" 23:51.897 --> 23:54.257 being probably one of the less popular choices, 23:54.263 --> 23:55.553 > 23:55.548 --> 24:00.208 even though that's the one I've just used--the blanket term for 24:00.205 --> 24:02.755 that is "the tagmeme." 24:02.759 --> 24:09.439 So you can understand the associational nature of signs 24:09.439 --> 24:11.789 also as tagmemic. 24:11.788 --> 24:15.038 Then of course, since there is a certain amount 24:15.042 --> 24:18.052 of semantic payoff, let's say, even when you're 24:18.046 --> 24:21.816 talking about a phoneme-- especially because, 24:21.815 --> 24:26.065 as Saussure will say, and as I'll get back to, 24:26.066 --> 24:29.046 in the misleading onomatopoetic drift of language, 24:29.048 --> 24:31.928 perhaps a certain sound has certain connotations, 24:31.930 --> 24:37.960 meaning the sound may cluster in an associational network. 24:37.960 --> 24:42.920 But depending on the unit chosen, the associational 24:42.924 --> 24:45.214 networks will differ. 24:45.210 --> 24:48.990 But at any level they will still exist as a matrix. 24:48.990 --> 24:53.080 In other words, how else could we have any 24:53.084 --> 24:56.784 sense of systematicity in language? 24:56.779 --> 25:03.609 It is always probably the case that when I speak I won't choose 25:03.606 --> 25:05.366 just any word. 25:05.368 --> 25:05.508 e. 25:05.508 --> 25:05.648 e. 25:05.645 --> 25:09.515 cummings actually boldly experimented with this principle 25:09.522 --> 25:12.782 and he attracted the attention of the linguists, 25:12.776 --> 25:16.026 particularly a linguist named Dell Hymes. 25:16.028 --> 25:16.188 e. 25:16.190 --> 25:16.350 e. 25:16.351 --> 25:21.011 cummings wrote sentences like "He danced his did" 25:21.008 --> 25:24.858 where "did" is obviously not a word you 25:24.863 --> 25:29.523 would have supposed to be in any way involved in a relevant 25:29.519 --> 25:31.929 associational cluster. 25:31.930 --> 25:36.170 "He danced his did": that is in every sense a 25:36.165 --> 25:40.255 misfire, as one school of thinking about 25:40.257 --> 25:45.137 language would call it, and yet at the same time, 25:45.138 --> 25:50.698 cummings thumbs his nose at us and deliberately uses that word 25:50.700 --> 25:56.350 almost as though he were issuing a critique of semiotics but at 25:56.353 --> 26:01.093 the same time such that semiotics would probably have 26:01.094 --> 26:06.204 available to it its ways and means of refutation. 26:06.200 --> 26:10.360 A certain amount of ingenuity is all that's required to notice 26:10.356 --> 26:13.486 that the "d" sound or "duh" 26:13.491 --> 26:16.761 reiterates the "d," the "duh" 26:16.763 --> 26:20.793 sound in "danced," and that there are all sorts of 26:20.785 --> 26:24.255 combinatory pressures on his consciousness to choose 26:24.260 --> 26:26.920 "did" as opposed to some other 26:26.920 --> 26:29.510 seemingly irrelevant word. 26:29.509 --> 26:32.539 So in any case, you can still, 26:32.544 --> 26:36.524 even with these egregious examples, 26:36.519 --> 26:43.119 understand language even in its infinite variety nevertheless as 26:43.117 --> 26:49.717 associational and as clustering its available signs in ways that 26:49.717 --> 26:56.627 make them more readily to hand for choice than they might be, 26:56.630 --> 26:59.310 all other things being equal. 26:59.308 --> 27:02.198 Well, in any case, so language is a system of 27:02.202 --> 27:02.732 signs. 27:02.730 --> 27:07.800 The signs are both arbitrary and differential. 27:07.799 --> 27:09.579 Now what does this mean? 27:09.578 --> 27:14.458 This is actually the second thing, maybe, 27:14.460 --> 27:17.640 that we learn under the influence of what we call 27:17.635 --> 27:21.465 "literary theory" and the thinking that surrounds 27:21.474 --> 27:23.994 it about the nature of perception. 27:23.990 --> 27:28.840 If the sign is both arbitrary and differential-- 27:28.838 --> 27:32.548 that is to say, if there is no such thing as a 27:32.545 --> 27:37.365 natural sign, something that is linked by 27:37.365 --> 27:40.885 nature, by the nature of the thing and 27:40.886 --> 27:43.856 the word together with the thing-- 27:43.858 --> 27:49.828 if on one side of the border, as Saussure puts it, 27:49.828 --> 27:51.928 we look at a cow and say, "ochs," 27:51.932 --> 27:55.292 and if on the other side of the border we look at a cow and say, 27:55.288 --> 27:59.218 "boeuf," and if we cross a considerable 27:59.218 --> 28:03.958 body of water and we look at a cow and say "cow," 28:03.963 --> 28:08.553 plainly the relationship between the thing and the 28:08.547 --> 28:11.937 sign-- the matrix signifier, 28:11.940 --> 28:15.500 signified--just doesn't exist. 28:15.500 --> 28:20.250 So signs are arbitrary-- and they're also differential. 28:20.250 --> 28:24.370 I have to be able to distinguish between all the 28:24.365 --> 28:28.215 signs I use in any communicative sequence. 28:28.220 --> 28:29.640 How do I do it? 28:29.640 --> 28:33.400 By putting in signs which are not other signs. 28:33.400 --> 28:39.330 The sign is not linked to the natural world by any natural 28:39.334 --> 28:44.964 means, and the sign is not linked to other signs by any 28:44.955 --> 28:46.825 natural means. 28:46.828 --> 28:53.048 I don't know a unit of language-- which I use to 28:53.053 --> 28:57.823 communicate with you-- positively. 28:57.819 --> 29:02.089 I know it negatively. 29:02.088 --> 29:07.598 I know it only because it is not everything else. 29:07.598 --> 29:10.838 Its direct relationship with the thing that's most closely 29:10.839 --> 29:13.679 adjacent to it somehow either through similarity or 29:13.682 --> 29:16.982 dissimilarity can never be a relationship of identity. 29:16.980 --> 29:20.220 It's not that other thing, but, generally speaking, 29:20.219 --> 29:24.429 the point about a sign is that it's not any other thing. 29:24.430 --> 29:26.560 This is true even in homonyms. 29:26.558 --> 29:32.298 This is true even of seemingly identical signs, 29:32.298 --> 29:39.098 because each has its use value and is only intelligible as that 29:39.102 --> 29:44.262 which it exists to mean in a certain context. 29:44.259 --> 29:52.079 So it is always the case that I can only know what I know if 29:52.076 --> 29:58.166 it's a question of being communicated with, 29:58.170 --> 30:01.020 having something rendered intelligible for me, 30:01.019 --> 30:02.539 negatively. 30:02.538 --> 30:09.308 I can't know it because it just is that sign. 30:09.309 --> 30:11.019 I don't know it positively. 30:11.019 --> 30:15.909 I'm about to give an example of this which I hope will flesh out 30:15.913 --> 30:19.493 what I'm trying to get across; in the meantime, 30:19.487 --> 30:23.157 let's look at a couple of passages in Saussure that may 30:23.155 --> 30:24.375 make the point. 30:24.380 --> 30:30.410 Now not on the version of the sheet that I passed out today 30:30.413 --> 30:32.913 > 30:32.910 --> 30:36.060 but on the version that I sent electronically last night, 30:36.058 --> 30:41.748 there is a fifth passage, and that passage is actually a 30:41.750 --> 30:47.340 combination of formulations by Saussure that are in two 30:47.337 --> 30:50.647 separate parts of your text. 30:50.650 --> 30:56.950 The first one is on page 844. 30:56.950 --> 31:00.080 Can this possibly be correct? 31:00.078 --> 31:02.358 I > 31:02.363 --> 31:03.603 hope it can. 31:03.599 --> 31:05.689 No, it is not correct. 31:05.690 --> 31:11.190 It's page 845, the lower left-hand column 31:11.193 --> 31:15.973 where Saussure says: Language is a system of 31:15.971 --> 31:20.101 interdependent terms in which the value of each term results 31:20.104 --> 31:24.314 solely from the simultaneous presence of the others as in the 31:24.307 --> 31:28.447 diagram, [just below it]… In other words, 31:28.452 --> 31:34.092 the value of a term--I say something, I utter a sound--the 31:34.086 --> 31:39.326 value of that sound cannot be determined except by its 31:39.325 --> 31:40.605 context. 31:40.608 --> 31:44.498 I can't know it except by the way in which it differs from 31:44.501 --> 31:46.621 everything that surrounds it. 31:46.618 --> 31:51.278 He goes on to say--this is on page 847 about halfway down the 31:51.277 --> 31:54.097 left-hand column: … [A] 31:54.102 --> 32:00.362 segment of language can never in the final analysis be based 32:00.357 --> 32:06.187 on anything except its noncoincidence with the rest. 32:06.190 --> 32:09.980 Arbitrary and differential are two 32:09.982 --> 32:11.922 correlative qualities. 32:11.920 --> 32:20.520 And then again another passage on page 846, 32:20.519 --> 32:24.839 the right-hand column halfway down: "… 32:24.843 --> 32:29.433 [C]oncepts are purely differential and defined not by 32:29.432 --> 32:34.292 their positive content but negatively by their relations 32:34.285 --> 32:38.075 with other terms of the system." 32:38.078 --> 32:45.098 Now probably this is hard to accept intuitively. 32:45.098 --> 32:53.428 We feel as we process the world around us that we know things 32:53.431 --> 32:57.181 for and as what they are. 32:57.180 --> 33:00.210 I look at something and I know what it is, 33:00.210 --> 33:05.100 forgetting that possibly I only know what it is because of a 33:05.098 --> 33:10.068 context in which indeed it is not those other things that are 33:10.070 --> 33:11.480 linked to it. 33:11.480 --> 33:14.140 Now I want to take an example. 33:14.140 --> 33:19.070 I could use any example but I'm going to use something which 33:19.070 --> 33:23.920 plainly does move around among various semiotic systems. 33:23.920 --> 33:28.310 It's a piece of language but it also belongs to other sorts of 33:28.310 --> 33:31.480 semiotic systems as we'll immediately see. 33:31.480 --> 33:35.980 I want to use the example of the red light. 33:35.980 --> 33:40.040 Now in a stoplight, which is probably just about 33:40.040 --> 33:43.930 the simplest semiotic system that we have-- 33:43.930 --> 33:46.920 it only has three, one is tempted to say, 33:46.920 --> 33:49.950 variables plainly differing from each other: 33:49.946 --> 33:52.656 red, yellow and green--we have two 33:52.660 --> 33:55.570 ways of thinking about the red light. 33:55.568 --> 34:01.398 If we think that our knowledge is positive, we say 34:01.396 --> 34:06.626 "red" in a red light means stop. 34:06.630 --> 34:10.190 It comes spontaneously to us to say "red light" 34:10.190 --> 34:11.780 means "stop." 34:11.780 --> 34:18.630 Now if all we have to go on is just this semiotic system, 34:18.630 --> 34:21.830 it's going to be kind of hard to put up resistance to that 34:21.827 --> 34:24.687 sort of thinking because by the same token we'll say 34:24.688 --> 34:27.048 "yellow" means "pause," 34:27.045 --> 34:29.565 "green" means "go." 34:29.570 --> 34:35.230 These three lights with their respective colors just do 34:35.230 --> 34:38.480 positively mean these things. 34:38.480 --> 34:42.500 Everybody knows it, and I'm certainly not thinking 34:42.496 --> 34:47.326 when I approach an intersection that when the red light goes 34:47.333 --> 34:49.143 on-- I'm not saying to myself, 34:49.135 --> 34:51.205 "Oh, not yellow, not green." 34:51.210 --> 34:53.490 > 34:53.489 --> 34:56.439 My mind just doesn't work that way. 34:56.440 --> 35:00.220 All right, but still it's a red light, right, 35:00.224 --> 35:05.474 and our hypothesis is that the red light has positive value in 35:05.474 --> 35:09.264 the sense that it means a certain thing. 35:09.260 --> 35:13.450 It means, we say, "stop." 35:13.449 --> 35:20.519 Well, suppose the red light appeared on or as the nose of a 35:20.518 --> 35:21.858 reindeer. 35:21.860 --> 35:27.080 In that case the red light would be a beacon which means 35:27.081 --> 35:30.401 "forward," "go," 35:30.402 --> 35:35.912 "follow me," "damn the torpedoes." 35:35.909 --> 35:36.449 Right? > 35:36.449 --> 35:39.649 We've got to get these presents distributed. 35:39.650 --> 35:41.660 No time to waste. 35:41.659 --> 35:45.659 And we race off--perhaps risking an accident, 35:45.657 --> 35:46.567 who knows? 35:46.567 --> 35:48.837 > 35:48.840 --> 35:53.100 --we race off under the compulsion of the meaning of the 35:53.101 --> 35:55.741 red light, which is "go," 35:55.735 --> 35:56.505 right? 35:56.510 --> 35:58.790 Now by the way, there's an anecdote, 35:58.789 --> 36:01.429 the truth of which I've never been able to ascertain, 36:01.429 --> 36:05.029 that during the cultural revolution in China, 36:05.030 --> 36:08.990 Madame Mao very much disapproved of the fact that red 36:08.992 --> 36:12.652 lights meant "stop" because red is, 36:12.650 --> 36:14.200 of course, the color of progress. 36:14.199 --> 36:18.139 It ought to mean "to go forward" 36:18.141 --> 36:22.251 with everything behind it, but needless to say her 36:22.250 --> 36:25.290 thoughts on the subject were never implemented because 36:25.293 --> 36:26.733 > 36:26.730 --> 36:29.200 if one day red light means "stop" 36:29.204 --> 36:31.974 and the next day red light means "go," 36:31.974 --> 36:33.984 there might be a few problems. 36:33.980 --> 36:39.200 This, by the way, is a way of showing the fact 36:39.197 --> 36:45.227 that everything which appears in a semiotic system is 36:45.226 --> 36:48.006 conventional, right? 36:48.010 --> 36:52.220 I mean, there is an emptying out of positive meaning in the 36:52.219 --> 36:55.259 very awareness that, after all, the red light could 36:55.262 --> 36:57.442 mean "go"-- I'm about to go on and give 36:57.440 --> 36:58.090 more examples. 36:58.090 --> 36:59.960 It's conventional. 36:59.960 --> 37:05.160 Whatever the convention is within a system of differences, 37:05.159 --> 37:08.989 that's what makes the sign intelligible. 37:08.989 --> 37:09.499 All right. 37:09.500 --> 37:13.450 Just some other examples: a red light over a street door. 37:13.449 --> 37:16.029 Well, that doesn't mean "stop." 37:16.030 --> 37:19.340 That means "go in," "come in," 37:19.338 --> 37:19.878 right? 37:19.880 --> 37:23.750 And of course it exists in a semiotic relationship to a white 37:23.750 --> 37:27.750 light over a street door which means "this is my house; 37:27.750 --> 37:31.000 if you wish you can ring the bell but I'd just as soon you 37:30.996 --> 37:32.076 stayed out." 37:32.079 --> 37:35.739 This light is probably on to keep burglars away and so: 37:35.737 --> 37:37.497 "stop," right? 37:37.500 --> 37:41.930 The red light is intelligible, in other words, 37:41.934 --> 37:44.894 within that semiotic system. 37:44.889 --> 37:47.919 Now over an auditorium door--and of course we've 37:47.920 --> 37:50.760 already been gazing at that light back there, 37:50.755 --> 37:52.815 and it's not a good example. 37:52.820 --> 37:54.830 I wish it didn't say "exit," 37:54.827 --> 37:56.567 but it does say "exit," 37:56.565 --> 37:58.895 because that kind of weakens my point, 37:58.900 --> 38:05.490 but over many auditorium doors a red light just hangs there. 38:05.489 --> 38:08.169 Obviously, it doesn't mean "come in" 38:08.170 --> 38:11.210 in the sense of the red light over a street door. 38:11.210 --> 38:12.320 It means "go out," right? 38:12.320 --> 38:14.480 "This is the way out. 38:14.480 --> 38:18.300 This is the way you get out of here," not "This is 38:18.304 --> 38:20.384 the way you get in here." 38:20.380 --> 38:23.870 There are a lot of ways in which a red light means neither 38:23.865 --> 38:26.005 "stop" nor "go," 38:26.007 --> 38:29.617 but we are sort of confining ourselves so far to the ways in 38:29.615 --> 38:33.215 which a red light has something to do with locomotion or the 38:33.224 --> 38:34.514 lack thereof. 38:34.510 --> 38:39.950 In each new system, you can see it takes on a new 38:39.947 --> 38:45.837 meaning always with respect to whatever it is not. 38:45.840 --> 38:48.860 Well, we can continue. 38:48.860 --> 38:51.950 On a light-up valentine it means "don't stop, 38:51.947 --> 38:52.637 go." 38:52.639 --> 38:56.289 It has the function, in other words, 38:56.286 --> 39:01.906 of negating its own meaning in another semiotic system, 39:01.913 --> 39:07.543 in this case the semiotic system of the stoplight. 39:07.539 --> 39:13.349 On an ambulance or a police car--admittedly, 39:13.349 --> 39:16.819 many of these lights are blue these days but let's suppose 39:16.822 --> 39:18.732 that, tradition prevailing, 39:18.726 --> 39:23.806 that they are still red-- they mean "get out of the 39:23.809 --> 39:28.029 way" or "stop," right? 39:28.030 --> 39:31.110 In other words, they probably bear a distant 39:31.106 --> 39:34.396 relation to the semiotics of the stoplight, 39:34.400 --> 39:38.660 and that's probably why red was chosen for ambulances and police 39:38.659 --> 39:42.039 cars: because they put into your head the notion of 39:42.039 --> 39:43.459 "stop." 39:43.460 --> 39:47.040 But it's a notion that's complicated in this case by the 39:47.038 --> 39:50.678 equally imperative notion "get out of the way," 39:50.681 --> 39:54.001 which doesn't at all necessarily entail stopping but 39:54.001 --> 39:57.321 rather accelerating in a different direction. 39:57.320 --> 40:00.430 All of that somewhat complicates the picture, 40:00.432 --> 40:04.042 but at the same time, I think you can see that there 40:04.041 --> 40:07.651 is a connection between those semiotic systems. 40:07.650 --> 40:10.230 It's a weak system in terms of color. 40:10.230 --> 40:12.080 In the case of the ambulance and police car, 40:12.083 --> 40:13.683 it's more a question of brightness. 40:13.679 --> 40:17.849 As I say, red tends to be chosen, but then if you get lab 40:17.851 --> 40:22.321 experiments showing that that particular color of gas blue is 40:22.320 --> 40:26.860 somehow or another sort of more invasive of your consciousness 40:26.864 --> 40:30.214 than red is, then you move away from the 40:30.213 --> 40:33.583 arbitrariness of the choice of red as a color. 40:33.579 --> 40:37.099 As I say, there's a certain instability which could never 40:37.099 --> 40:40.929 apply in the semiotics of the stoplight because there it's not 40:40.932 --> 40:44.392 so much a question of the brightness of the color-- 40:44.389 --> 40:46.249 although that has been experimented with, 40:46.250 --> 40:50.440 as you know--but rather the insistence that the color is 40:50.438 --> 40:51.808 just that color. 40:51.809 --> 40:55.549 Then finally--and here is where, in a way, 40:55.550 --> 40:58.830 this is perhaps the most interesting thing because it 40:58.829 --> 41:01.099 forces us to show the complexity, 41:01.099 --> 41:04.279 to see the complexity, of semiotic relationships: 41:04.284 --> 41:07.234 a red light, just to return to the Christian 41:07.230 --> 41:10.460 holiday, a red light on a Christmas tree. 41:10.460 --> 41:15.070 Now our first thought is, Oh, aha, that has no 41:15.072 --> 41:16.582 meaning, right? 41:16.579 --> 41:20.439 It's no use talking about the negative relationship between a 41:20.438 --> 41:23.268 red light and a green light and a yellow, 41:23.268 --> 41:25.548 white, or blue one--whatever the other colors on the 41:25.554 --> 41:28.794 Christmas tree are-- because they all have the same 41:28.793 --> 41:29.323 value. 41:29.320 --> 41:31.070 They're all bright, they're all cheerful, 41:31.072 --> 41:32.822 they all say "Merry Christmas," 41:32.824 --> 41:33.704 etc., etc., etc. 41:33.699 --> 41:36.329 So what are you supposed to do with that? 41:36.329 --> 41:39.939 Here you've got a red light which doesn't seem to enter into 41:39.936 --> 41:42.806 this sense of the arbitrary and differential. 41:42.809 --> 41:46.389 Well, that's because it's actually not a gross constituent 41:46.391 --> 41:48.591 unit in a semiotic system, right? 41:48.590 --> 41:53.300 "Bright lights" is the gross constituent unit 41:53.302 --> 41:56.972 and the variety of those bright lights, 41:56.969 --> 42:01.799 which is a matter of aesthetics, is, 42:01.800 --> 42:05.570 ironically enough, neutralized by the common 42:05.570 --> 42:09.870 signifier governing our understanding of them, 42:09.869 --> 42:11.509 which is "bright lights"-- 42:11.510 --> 42:14.090 in this case, particularly on a tree or 42:14.088 --> 42:18.088 festooning another ornament that has some sort of comparable 42:18.090 --> 42:18.770 value. 42:18.768 --> 42:22.198 Once you get that, once you get the value, 42:22.199 --> 42:24.679 "Christmas tree," as opposed to "red 42:24.677 --> 42:26.407 lights," "red lights" 42:26.411 --> 42:28.891 being perhaps a part of some Christmas trees, 42:28.889 --> 42:31.969 then you see that you're back in a semiotic system and a very 42:31.969 --> 42:35.139 obvious one, because a Christmas tree is a 42:35.139 --> 42:37.919 not-menorah, not-Kwanzaa candles. 42:37.920 --> 42:40.400 A Christmas tree, in other words, 42:40.396 --> 42:44.876 is a sign that can only be understood intelligibly in terms 42:44.884 --> 42:47.984 of a certain cultural understanding. 42:47.980 --> 42:51.770 We think of course, oh, we know what that is, 42:51.768 --> 42:55.958 and of course probably we do, but we're misled in supposing 42:55.956 --> 43:00.286 that that's the key to the understanding of it as a sign, 43:00.289 --> 43:05.049 because it's very possible to imagine a circumstance in which 43:05.045 --> 43:07.975 someone wouldn't know what it was, 43:07.980 --> 43:13.420 forcing us despite its familiarity to ask ourselves, 43:13.420 --> 43:16.760 "Well, what is it and how do we know what it is?" 43:16.760 --> 43:21.750 Then we realize once again that we can only know what it is if 43:21.746 --> 43:24.776 we come to understand-- in this case, 43:24.784 --> 43:28.384 probably, it's best to say a cultural system, 43:28.380 --> 43:35.820 understood as a semiosis, within which it appears. 43:35.820 --> 43:39.780 So this last version of the red light introduces interesting 43:39.777 --> 43:43.397 complications which I don't think should confuse us. 43:43.400 --> 43:48.260 I think they should actually show us a little bit more about 43:48.264 --> 43:52.474 how we can understand the organization of the things 43:52.471 --> 43:56.431 around us and within us as systems of signs. 43:56.429 --> 44:00.199 We know that we've already learned from Heidegger and the 44:00.204 --> 44:04.454 hermeneutic tradition that we know them as something, 44:04.449 --> 44:09.369 but it remained to show how we know them. 44:09.369 --> 44:13.009 That is to say, we don't know them positively. 44:13.010 --> 44:17.300 I mean, Heidegger raises the interesting fact that we 44:17.304 --> 44:20.284 spontaneously recognize something. 44:20.280 --> 44:24.370 But that's one of the things which could be dangerous for 44:24.365 --> 44:28.885 semiotics because it would make us think or assume that we know 44:28.891 --> 44:31.501 things positively-- without thinking, 44:31.501 --> 44:33.801 in other words, "I know that that's an 44:33.802 --> 44:36.832 exit sign, I don't know that it's a white 44:36.827 --> 44:42.057 thing with red marks on it, but I know that it's an exit 44:42.061 --> 44:45.111 sign"; but I can't know that, 44:45.110 --> 44:49.780 the Saussurian argument goes, without knowing that it is not 44:49.777 --> 44:52.307 all the things that it's not. 44:52.309 --> 44:56.359 If it were all the things that it's not, 44:56.360 --> 45:00.570 or if it were identical to all the things that somehow or 45:00.574 --> 45:03.894 another it's not, then I would be in a very 45:03.889 --> 45:07.869 difficult situation because I wouldn't have any means of 45:07.871 --> 45:09.901 knowing it in particular. 45:09.900 --> 45:15.240 The very fact that I need to know it in particular is what 45:15.239 --> 45:18.799 makes me need to know it negatively. 45:18.800 --> 45:22.770 In other words, we now know two things about 45:22.773 --> 45:28.043 how we perceive things from the standpoint of this subject 45:28.041 --> 45:31.081 matter, and it's very useful to put 45:31.077 --> 45:34.857 them together, the fact that we always know 45:34.862 --> 45:38.402 things first-- but at the same time the fact 45:38.396 --> 45:42.486 that it's misleading to think that our knowing them first 45:42.485 --> 45:45.255 means that we know them positively; 45:45.260 --> 45:51.520 we know them first but we also know them negatively, 45:51.518 --> 45:55.198 in negation of other things. 45:55.199 --> 45:55.569 Okay. 45:55.574 --> 45:59.774 So let me just return once again to the way in which sign 45:59.768 --> 46:04.408 systems are intelligible because lots of- there are going to be 46:04.413 --> 46:09.213 lots of moments in a course like this in which what we seem to be 46:09.206 --> 46:11.846 saying is that, "Oh, we can't know 46:11.846 --> 46:13.636 anything," or "We don't know what we 46:13.639 --> 46:15.949 know," or "How do we know what we know?" 46:15.949 --> 46:20.349 Maybe we're skirting rhetorical questions of that kind, 46:20.347 --> 46:22.217 but we're really not. 46:22.219 --> 46:24.819 What we're talking about today is how we do know things. 46:24.820 --> 46:25.880 Right? 46:25.880 --> 46:30.180 If we take semiotics seriously, it gives us a rather 46:30.175 --> 46:34.555 sophisticated means of understanding precisely how we 46:34.556 --> 46:38.086 know things, but it insists that we know 46:38.085 --> 46:41.415 things because of their conventional nature: 46:41.423 --> 46:45.353 that is to say, because they are conventions 46:45.346 --> 46:49.886 existing within a system of conventions insofar as we 46:49.889 --> 46:53.669 recognize them-- things, signs--as existing, 46:53.670 --> 46:56.970 because if we're thinking about a thing, 46:56.969 --> 47:01.399 we're thinking about that thing as a sign in semiotics. 47:01.400 --> 47:04.290 If we don't know that, if we don't recognize its 47:04.291 --> 47:08.111 existence in a system-- if we can't think what system 47:08.110 --> 47:11.090 it belongs to, perhaps to put it in a better 47:11.094 --> 47:15.024 way--that's tantamount to saying we really don't know what it is. 47:15.018 --> 47:18.078 I think the more we think about it, 47:18.079 --> 47:21.569 the more we realize that we only know what it is if we know 47:21.565 --> 47:24.905 the system that it belongs to, which is to say, 47:24.907 --> 47:28.897 all of the things related to it which it is not. 47:28.896 --> 47:29.656 Right? 47:29.659 --> 47:30.059 Okay. 47:30.061 --> 47:33.751 So the intelligibility of sign systems is their 47:33.753 --> 47:35.283 conventionality. 47:35.280 --> 47:39.490 That's why it's impossible for anybody to come along and say, 47:39.494 --> 47:43.714 "Oh, I don't like the fact that the red light is red. 47:43.710 --> 47:45.610 It's symbolically the wrong move. 47:45.610 --> 47:48.710 Let's make the red light the symbol of 'go.'" 47:48.710 --> 47:52.000 And now with the ecological movement it would be very 47:52.001 --> 47:54.911 difficult to make the green light the symbol of 47:54.914 --> 47:57.764 "stop," and in any case all sorts of 47:57.762 --> 47:59.412 complications would arise. 47:59.407 --> 48:01.367 > 48:01.369 --> 48:01.799 Right? 48:01.800 --> 48:05.980 But in the meantime you see that we can't mess with 48:05.976 --> 48:11.316 conventional systems by imposing the individuality of our will on 48:11.320 --> 48:14.830 them and expecting anything to change. 48:14.829 --> 48:23.159 A seeming exception is the fact that sometimes individuals can, 48:23.159 --> 48:27.179 through the exertion of their influence and prestige, 48:27.179 --> 48:30.039 actually change the way we speak about things. 48:30.039 --> 48:31.329 This is a seeming exception. 48:31.329 --> 48:34.819 Think about the way Jesse Jackson almost single-handedly 48:34.820 --> 48:38.570 convinced us that we should use the expression "African 48:38.565 --> 48:41.735 American" even though it's a cumbersome, 48:41.739 --> 48:45.369 polysyllabic expression which you would think somehow or 48:45.371 --> 48:49.341 another would be intuitively rejected because it's so hard to 48:49.335 --> 48:51.595 say, but it worked. 48:51.599 --> 48:55.489 He convinced us all to say "African American." 48:55.489 --> 48:57.859 You say to yourself, "Ah ha! 48:57.860 --> 49:01.650 There is an example of somebody taking language by the scruff of 49:01.650 --> 49:04.360 the neck and changing it as an individual, 49:04.360 --> 49:08.970 exerting an individual will over against the conventional 49:08.974 --> 49:11.204 nature of language." 49:11.199 --> 49:15.549 The semiotician's answer to this is it never could have 49:15.548 --> 49:20.138 happened simply as an act of agency, as an act of will. 49:20.139 --> 49:22.509 It had to be acquiesced in. 49:22.510 --> 49:28.690 You needed the community that makes use of linguistic 49:28.686 --> 49:34.146 conventions to acquiesce in a change of use. 49:34.150 --> 49:38.370 Remember, language exists synchronically: 49:38.373 --> 49:44.503 it only exists in a moment, in a moment of simultaneity. 49:44.500 --> 49:48.470 We study language diachronically--that is to say, 49:48.474 --> 49:50.384 we study its history. 49:50.380 --> 49:53.240 We study its unfolding in time. 49:53.239 --> 49:57.739 Now this unfolding is not, according to the semioticians-- 49:57.739 --> 49:59.499 and here's another link with the Russian formalists-- 49:59.500 --> 50:03.260 is not a question of studying the way in which language is 50:03.257 --> 50:05.927 changed from without-- that is to say, 50:05.927 --> 50:08.727 studying the way in which, for example, 50:08.731 --> 50:12.461 an individual can rise up and insist on changing one of the 50:12.460 --> 50:16.380 signs; but rather a sequence of 50:16.376 --> 50:20.126 synchronic cross-sections. 50:20.130 --> 50:22.930 From moment to moment, language changes, 50:22.925 --> 50:27.295 but if we're to understand it as language we have to honor its 50:27.300 --> 50:28.520 simultaneity. 50:28.518 --> 50:31.918 In that case, we understand it as a sequence 50:31.916 --> 50:35.946 of cross-sections rather than something that somehow 50:35.945 --> 50:38.865 organically changes through time. 50:38.869 --> 50:42.359 At each cross-section, people are either willing to 50:42.360 --> 50:46.060 use a certain sign in a certain way or they're not. 50:46.059 --> 50:48.519 That's the crucial thing: if they're not willing, 50:48.518 --> 50:53.148 the use of the sign doesn't work, which confirms the idea 50:53.148 --> 50:57.858 that nothing can be changed simply by individual agency in 50:57.860 --> 50:59.350 and of itself. 50:59.349 --> 51:00.209 All right. 51:00.210 --> 51:02.610 I need to come back to synchrony and diachrony. 51:02.610 --> 51:07.130 I'll do so next time and probably in subsequent lectures 51:07.130 --> 51:11.570 because we're going to keep using these coordinates. 51:11.570 --> 51:14.380 We're going to keep using the things that exist in space, 51:14.380 --> 51:17.630 virtual or not, and the things that unfold in 51:17.626 --> 51:22.276 time in their relationship with each other as we continue to try 51:22.275 --> 51:26.325 to understand these basic principles which shape so much 51:26.333 --> 51:28.993 of subsequent literary theory. 51:28.989 --> 51:30.399 Thank you. 51:30.400 --> 51:35.000