WEBVTT 00:01.330 --> 00:06.110 Prof: Well, last time we saved theory from 00:06.107 --> 00:09.887 the clutches of Knapp and Michaels, 00:09.890 --> 00:14.370 and we did so by saying that there really is a difference 00:14.370 --> 00:16.770 between language and speech. 00:16.770 --> 00:21.710 That's a claim that I want to continue investigating in 00:21.713 --> 00:28.363 today's concluding lecture, but in the meantime when I say 00:28.360 --> 00:33.770 we saved theory, you may well be asking by this 00:33.772 --> 00:35.342 time, "Well, okay, 00:35.340 --> 00:37.650 so you saved it, but for what? 00:37.650 --> 00:39.250 Why?" 00:39.250 --> 00:43.910 We began to suggest last time that in a certain sense, 00:43.910 --> 00:48.820 especially in view of neo-pragmatists' claims about 00:48.823 --> 00:52.463 the agency of language and speech-- 00:52.460 --> 00:54.690 understood to be one and the same thing-- 00:54.690 --> 01:00.820 in view of claims of this kind, do we have to conclude that 01:00.822 --> 01:03.362 theory is impractical? 01:03.359 --> 01:08.459 That is, that it can't have anything to do with pragmatist 01:08.456 --> 01:09.616 objectives? 01:09.620 --> 01:13.730 That, too, is something I want to worry a little bit about 01:13.732 --> 01:14.312 today. 01:14.310 --> 01:20.510 Why do we bother to save literary theory? 01:20.510 --> 01:24.560 Well, it has something to do plainly with communication. 01:24.560 --> 01:31.070 Speech, as we said last time, is unquestionably for--that is 01:31.072 --> 01:35.932 to say we have made it for--communication. 01:35.930 --> 01:39.360 So the old, frankly incredibly tired question, 01:39.361 --> 01:42.491 "How well do we communicate with each 01:42.489 --> 01:43.709 other?" 01:43.709 --> 01:47.489 is unfortunately, in a way, not irrelevant to 01:47.486 --> 01:50.486 what we're trying to get at here. 01:50.489 --> 01:53.519 I want to say a couple of things about what the French 01:53.516 --> 01:56.766 during the existentialist period called la manque de la 01:56.772 --> 01:58.032 communication. 01:58.030 --> 02:04.530 In a way, they're not really connected. 02:04.530 --> 02:06.770 First of all, I want to say that we actually 02:06.766 --> 02:08.116 communicate rather well. 02:08.120 --> 02:10.840 Congratulations to us, in other words! 02:10.840 --> 02:15.160 I think that many of the conventional ways in which 02:15.157 --> 02:19.907 people worry about whether or not we can understand each 02:19.908 --> 02:23.038 other-- many of those ways of thinking 02:23.037 --> 02:26.227 about the problem are actually exaggerated. 02:26.229 --> 02:29.489 My own feeling is that perhaps a good deal of the time we 02:29.491 --> 02:33.221 understand each other all too well, and > 02:33.220 --> 02:37.360 that it might be better, in a way, if we didn't have 02:37.361 --> 02:41.831 quite such an acute sense of where each of us are coming 02:41.829 --> 02:42.559 from. 02:42.560 --> 02:49.910 It probably would improve human relations rather than otherwise, 02:49.910 --> 02:53.590 and this may have something to do with what I take to be a 02:53.589 --> 02:57.589 certain measure of bad faith in the ways in which we try to get 02:57.592 --> 03:00.822 together and raise each other's consciousness. 03:00.818 --> 03:03.808 Our supposition is that the whole problem is that we don't 03:03.812 --> 03:06.752 communicate well enough, and we don't understand each 03:06.747 --> 03:08.857 other's subject positions well enough. 03:08.860 --> 03:11.760 As I say, I'm not completely convinced of that, 03:11.764 --> 03:15.054 so there's a certain sense in which I say, "Hey, 03:15.046 --> 03:16.306 speech is great. 03:16.310 --> 03:18.550 It's doing just fine. 03:18.550 --> 03:19.260 Don't worry. 03:19.258 --> 03:23.538 We're communicating perfectly well, possibly too well." 03:23.538 --> 03:26.998 So why on earth should theory come along and say, 03:26.997 --> 03:29.947 "Well, there's sort of a problem with 03:29.950 --> 03:31.680 communication"? 03:31.680 --> 03:37.350 The problem is this nagging entity called language 03:37.348 --> 03:43.318 which keeps poking up through the communication process, 03:43.318 --> 03:46.478 getting in its way, impeding communication, 03:46.479 --> 03:48.979 as the Russian formalists suggested-- 03:48.979 --> 03:51.409 all for the better, as they saw it-- 03:51.410 --> 03:53.780 that language does. 03:53.780 --> 03:56.210 Why should it matter? 03:56.210 --> 03:57.480 What's at stake? 03:57.479 --> 04:02.019 As Knapp and Michaels might say, what's at stake in calling 04:02.021 --> 04:05.861 attention to the way in which language does impede 04:05.860 --> 04:07.270 communication? 04:07.270 --> 04:09.350 In other words, we communicate fine, 04:09.352 --> 04:11.792 but what we really mean in saying that is, 04:11.792 --> 04:14.532 we communicate fine for everyday purposes. 04:14.530 --> 04:18.370 Speech has a rough and ready efficacy, 04:18.370 --> 04:20.970 and anybody who denies that, as I say, 04:20.970 --> 04:25.570 is simply exaggerating problems that may exist on grounds other 04:25.572 --> 04:28.172 than difficulty of communication. 04:28.170 --> 04:32.760 So speech is really fine up to a point. 04:32.759 --> 04:37.899 Part of the function of theory is precisely to interrogate the 04:37.903 --> 04:42.793 degree to which speech in an unimpeded way communicates and 04:42.793 --> 04:47.773 the level of accuracy and detail at which speech can ever be 04:47.769 --> 04:50.299 expected to communicate. 04:50.300 --> 04:53.920 These are the sorts of questions that we might expect 04:53.916 --> 04:56.566 theory to ask, and if you say, "Well, 04:56.569 --> 05:00.499 I'm still not very convinced that that's an important aspect 05:00.495 --> 05:04.085 of one's intellectual life," I don't blame you. 05:04.088 --> 05:07.888 I hope to have convinced you over the next forty-five minutes 05:07.894 --> 05:11.764 or so that it's pretty important in a variety of ways and that 05:11.762 --> 05:13.732 it's worth keeping in mind. 05:13.730 --> 05:16.190 In the meantime, just to start on this issue 05:16.190 --> 05:19.760 tentatively, we can understand theory--and 05:19.759 --> 05:22.819 of course, we began the semester by 05:22.817 --> 05:25.607 defining it, by trying to distinguish 05:25.608 --> 05:29.488 between theory and philosophy; theory and methodology; 05:29.490 --> 05:33.190 perhaps even those sorts of approaches to literature that 05:33.194 --> 05:36.244 Knapp and Michaels call "poetics"; 05:36.240 --> 05:40.460 maybe even to distinguish between theory and hermeneutics, 05:40.464 --> 05:44.104 because after all, the whole drive and function of 05:44.095 --> 05:47.055 hermeneutics is to discover meaning. 05:47.060 --> 05:50.340 There is a certain sense, as we have come sadly to 05:50.343 --> 05:52.823 realize, in which theory is more 05:52.821 --> 05:56.761 interested in the way in which meaning is impeded, 05:56.759 --> 06:01.399 so it may be--as we suggested, as I say, 06:01.399 --> 06:05.409 at the beginning of the course--that as to theory, 06:05.410 --> 06:07.020 if we're to get comfortable with it at all, 06:07.019 --> 06:10.279 we have to keep in mind that it's not philosophy. 06:10.278 --> 06:12.308 That is to say, even though you're good at 06:12.307 --> 06:14.627 theory and you understand the purpose of theory, 06:14.630 --> 06:16.510 you can still be a system builder. 06:16.509 --> 06:20.179 That is to say, you can still have a sense of 06:20.182 --> 06:24.942 explaining the totality of things that philosophy needs if 06:24.942 --> 06:29.282 it's going to function as philosophy or as philosophy 06:29.283 --> 06:31.123 properly should. 06:31.120 --> 06:34.150 You can still, as Knapp and Michaels say, 06:34.149 --> 06:38.079 engage empirically with questions of literary data 06:38.077 --> 06:42.247 summarized in such a way as to amount to what we call 06:42.245 --> 06:44.165 "poetics." 06:44.170 --> 06:49.040 You can do all these things, and you don't really have to 06:49.043 --> 06:54.093 feel as though theory is somehow or another standing on the 06:54.093 --> 06:58.973 sidelines sort of shaking its fist at you and wagging its 06:58.968 --> 07:00.098 finger. 07:00.100 --> 07:04.400 Theory doesn't have to be understood as a watchdog. 07:04.399 --> 07:08.509 At least in my opinion, and not everyone agrees with 07:08.505 --> 07:11.815 me, theory really lets us go our 07:11.824 --> 07:18.004 own way and simply reminds us that there are certain limits or 07:18.002 --> 07:22.662 reservations that need to be kept in mind, 07:22.660 --> 07:25.310 that one is perhaps wisest to keep in mind, 07:25.310 --> 07:30.020 as we think through problems of interpretation and meaning. 07:30.019 --> 07:34.449 So theory I would define as--and I've used this word 07:34.446 --> 07:37.046 "negation" a lot-- 07:37.050 --> 07:42.430 I would define theory as a negative movement of thought 07:42.428 --> 07:47.008 mapping the ways in which it is legitimate-- 07:47.009 --> 07:50.189 as opposed to the ways in which I have suggested it's perhaps 07:50.194 --> 07:53.074 not legitimate-- but mapping the ways in which 07:53.072 --> 07:56.522 it is legitimate to be suspicious of communication. 07:56.519 --> 08:02.399 Theory is an antithetical counterforce to that which is 08:02.396 --> 08:07.256 commonly supposed to be true, posited as true, 08:07.259 --> 08:11.139 and--here of course one comes to the point-- 08:11.139 --> 08:15.839 spoken as true: enounced, articulated, 08:15.839 --> 08:18.189 spoken as true. 08:18.189 --> 08:23.189 So if that's the case, why the fuss about language? 08:23.189 --> 08:27.709 Why do we so quickly narrow the issue down to language? 08:27.709 --> 08:31.889 What I said last time about language and the relationship 08:31.891 --> 08:36.521 between language and speech may have seemed unconvincing to you 08:36.523 --> 08:38.693 because it was so narrow. 08:38.690 --> 08:42.570 I want to broaden today, considerably broaden, 08:42.566 --> 08:46.956 the sense of what I mean by "language." 08:46.960 --> 08:51.880 It seems to me that theory encourages a measure of 08:51.880 --> 08:58.110 suspicion about the efficacy of speech, that which is spoken as 08:58.109 --> 09:00.519 true, in three ways. 09:00.519 --> 09:05.689 Last time I mentioned one, but now let me emphasize three. 09:05.690 --> 09:10.960 The first and the one I did mention last time is the way in 09:10.956 --> 09:14.766 which language obtrudes itself as sound. 09:14.769 --> 09:18.459 In other words, if we think of the efficiency 09:18.460 --> 09:23.410 or functionality of speech as a medium of communication, 09:23.408 --> 09:27.568 we're forced to ask ourselves, even as we engage in speech, 09:27.570 --> 09:31.920 how and why it is that speech is so much burdened in ways that 09:31.921 --> 09:35.561 are of no use whatsoever to us for the most part. 09:35.559 --> 09:36.949 Sometimes they are of use. 09:36.950 --> 09:40.260 One of the pre-freshmen asked me last time, 09:40.264 --> 09:44.924 "Well, isn't sound a reinforcement of meaning?" 09:44.918 --> 09:48.338 I told you when we did the New Criticism that all of you had 09:48.340 --> 09:50.660 done the New Criticism in high school. 09:50.658 --> 09:53.718 That's the way you learned literary interpretation. 09:53.720 --> 09:56.900 Well, this was a perfect embodiment of a bright person 09:56.904 --> 09:59.074 coming out of high school saying, 09:59.070 --> 10:02.750 "Interpretation just is the New Criticism and 10:02.745 --> 10:05.825 I've been taught that sound reinforces sense. 10:05.830 --> 10:08.950 That's what it says in Perrine's handbook about 10:08.950 --> 10:10.510 understanding poetry. 10:10.509 --> 10:13.179 Sound reinforces sense." 10:13.178 --> 10:16.588 Well, it often does, of course, and on those 10:16.585 --> 10:21.095 occasions we can revel in the complexity of an intentional 10:21.099 --> 10:26.089 meaning or intentional structure that is augmented by the way in 10:26.087 --> 10:28.937 which sound patterns are used. 10:28.940 --> 10:32.740 At the same time, as the Russian formalists 10:32.741 --> 10:36.001 discovered, working through materials that 10:36.004 --> 10:39.334 weren't perhaps so much materials like John Donne's 10:39.331 --> 10:43.191 "The Canonization" or texts of the kind that lent 10:43.188 --> 10:45.228 themselves, to a degree, 10:45.234 --> 10:50.734 readily to the New Criticism; but rather alliterative verse, 10:50.730 --> 10:56.190 folklore and folk verse in the Russian tradition, 10:56.190 --> 11:02.130 verse embodying proverbs--what they noticed in studying these 11:02.131 --> 11:07.381 materials is that there is simply no way of grasping a 11:07.380 --> 11:11.600 semantic purpose, a purpose having to do with 11:11.595 --> 11:15.055 meaning, in the sound elements that are 11:15.057 --> 11:15.957 involved. 11:15.960 --> 11:22.200 I think that as we recognize the way in which there is a 11:22.202 --> 11:29.242 strange pull in our spontaneous speaking toward repetitiousness 11:29.240 --> 11:32.530 of sound, it's not just that we 11:32.530 --> 11:35.510 all speak iambic pentameter without knowing it-- 11:35.509 --> 11:37.849 which, by the way, is by and large and true. 11:37.850 --> 11:39.160 It's not just that. 11:39.158 --> 11:42.918 It's that there is an extraordinary amount of 11:42.923 --> 11:47.803 alliteration and rhythmic determination in what we say. 11:47.798 --> 11:51.668 Jakobson has an interesting point in "Linguistics and 11:51.668 --> 11:54.448 Poetics" about that moment when we're 11:54.451 --> 11:58.661 nearby and an accident takes place or something like that. 11:58.658 --> 12:01.418 He says in effect, "You could call a person 12:01.423 --> 12:03.603 in a situation like that anything, 12:03.600 --> 12:07.920 but we call that person an innocent bystander, 12:07.918 --> 12:10.718 and the reason we do so is metric." 12:10.720 --> 12:13.970 A person is an innocent bystander not because that 12:13.971 --> 12:17.891 expression has any particular meaning or semantic valence as 12:17.886 --> 12:21.866 over against other expressions but because it's catchy, 12:21.870 --> 12:25.900 because it sort of sticks in our mind, 12:25.899 --> 12:30.899 perhaps for mnemotechnical reasons, 12:30.899 --> 12:34.669 as catchy. 12:34.668 --> 12:38.638 Eisenhower won the election against Stevenson because 12:38.644 --> 12:42.704 "I like Ike" is a more efficient sort of way 12:42.697 --> 12:47.277 of engaging with the repetition of sound than "Madly for 12:47.283 --> 12:48.663 Adlai." 12:48.658 --> 12:51.808 Jakobson doesn't go into that, but I think an interesting 12:51.807 --> 12:53.997 political analysis could be made of, 12:54.000 --> 12:57.780 as I say, the greater efficacy of "I like Ike." 12:57.779 --> 13:02.889 All of these functions of sound or, I should say, 13:02.886 --> 13:09.476 appearances of sound in speech are what an economist might call 13:09.484 --> 13:11.084 irrational. 13:11.080 --> 13:13.700 They're there, they're doing a job, 13:13.695 --> 13:17.915 but it's not really a job of anything that we could call 13:17.924 --> 13:19.314 communication. 13:19.308 --> 13:25.888 The job they're doing is sort of free spirited on the part of 13:25.893 --> 13:27.103 language. 13:27.100 --> 13:32.140 It's just there in an arbitrary relation with the semantic 13:32.140 --> 13:33.910 pattern of speech. 13:33.908 --> 13:37.688 So much then for sound, but it's not only that. 13:37.690 --> 13:41.630 If it were only that, if literary theory were only 13:41.634 --> 13:45.824 about the first two or three years' worth of research 13:45.818 --> 13:49.118 performed by the Russian formalists, 13:49.120 --> 13:54.320 we probably wouldn't be having an introductory survey course in 13:54.316 --> 13:55.486 the subject. 13:55.490 --> 14:00.470 Speech is impeded by language in two other ways. 14:00.470 --> 14:04.320 First of all-- second of all, I should say, 14:04.320 --> 14:11.200 I suppose--speech is disturbed by the way in which language 14:11.203 --> 14:18.923 produces in what's being said an uncontrollable semantic drift. 14:18.919 --> 14:20.589 That's what I want to call it. 14:20.590 --> 14:25.740 In other words, the language of an utterance is 14:25.735 --> 14:30.095 crafted to say some particular thing. 14:30.100 --> 14:33.870 Actually, it was Saussure, in a work of his that's less 14:33.870 --> 14:37.710 known than the Course in General Linguistics, 14:37.710 --> 14:43.430 who published a monograph on the way in which you can find 14:43.432 --> 14:49.662 acronyms of various kinds buried or embedded in Latin verse. 14:49.658 --> 14:52.208 In other words, there is meaning within meaning 14:52.211 --> 14:55.101 which can't possibly have been planted there and yet, 14:55.097 --> 14:57.537 miraculously enough, you can find there. 14:57.538 --> 15:01.198 You can recite a well-known poem--the one that we took up 15:01.198 --> 15:04.728 last time because it was the example given in Knapp and 15:04.727 --> 15:07.927 Michaels' "Against Theory"-- 15:07.928 --> 15:09.608 you can recite a poem while reading this: 15:09.613 --> 15:11.763 [referring to what is written on the chalkboard: 15:11.759 --> 15:16.969 A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: 15:16.970 --> 15:19.890 She seem'd a thing that could not feel 15:19.889 --> 15:22.429 The touch of earthly years. 15:22.429 --> 15:29.089 No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; 15:29.090 --> 15:33.010 Roll'd 'round in earth's diurnal course 15:33.009 --> 15:37.189 With rocks, and stones, and trees. 15:37.190 --> 15:41.350 Now you can see that to write the poem in this way is to 15:41.346 --> 15:45.796 perform an exercise which is essentially what Joyce is doing 15:45.804 --> 15:47.774 in Finnegan's Wake. 15:47.769 --> 15:51.329 As a matter of fact, as I transcribed the poem out 15:51.328 --> 15:53.678 of my notes [gestures to board]-- 15:53.678 --> 15:58.068 as you can see, I transcribed it--I kept saying 15:58.068 --> 16:00.578 to myself, "You know what? 16:00.580 --> 16:01.970 This could be in Finnegan's Wake." 16:01.970 --> 16:03.540 I was actually quite pleased with myself, 16:03.539 --> 16:04.289 as you can imagine. 16:04.289 --> 16:08.669 > 16:08.668 --> 16:11.188 Notice that I have used all words. 16:11.190 --> 16:16.700 There's nothing in these eight lines which is not a word. 16:16.700 --> 16:20.840 I have certainly engaged in a certain amount of anachronism, 16:20.840 --> 16:25.540 but I have also used punctuation, and I have worked 16:25.541 --> 16:29.961 out ways in which this discourse makes sense. 16:29.960 --> 16:32.920 I could have just left it at nonsense-- 16:32.918 --> 16:35.028 like Lewis Carroll's "'Twas brillig, 16:35.029 --> 16:36.849 and the slithy toves / did gyre and gimble in the 16:36.846 --> 16:39.986 wabe…"-- which is another way in which 16:39.985 --> 16:44.355 language is affected by uncontrollable semantic drift. 16:44.360 --> 16:48.910 The point of Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense verse is that we 16:48.908 --> 16:53.608 all think we know what it means: "'Twas blusterous and the 16:53.609 --> 16:57.779 slimy toads did leap and frolic in the waves." 16:57.779 --> 17:00.489 We think that it means something like that, 17:00.490 --> 17:05.490 but semantic drift--which is what Lewis Carroll deliberately 17:05.486 --> 17:10.006 introduces to it-- prevents us from in any secure 17:10.011 --> 17:13.791 way drawing any conclusions about that. 17:13.788 --> 17:17.028 I, of course, am making no claims for this 17:17.026 --> 17:21.596 transcription of Wordsworth's "A Slumber Did My Spirit 17:21.604 --> 17:25.764 Seal" at all, but maybe this can show us the 17:25.756 --> 17:29.336 ways in which there is semantic drift. 17:29.338 --> 17:33.238 Let's say that you were a person not really, 17:33.240 --> 17:37.140 as Stanley Fish would put it, in the interpretive community 17:37.135 --> 17:39.685 to which all the rest of us belong, 17:39.690 --> 17:43.520 and you don't really know what a poem is. 17:43.519 --> 17:48.229 Somebody recites in your presence what I just recited to 17:48.234 --> 17:48.754 you. 17:48.750 --> 17:51.240 Well, if you were quick at writing and you transcribed the 17:51.239 --> 17:53.339 thing, you might very well produce something like 17:53.335 --> 17:54.815 that [points to board]. 17:54.818 --> 17:59.268 In other words, it wouldn't just spontaneously 17:59.268 --> 18:04.308 occur to you that what Wordsworth wrote was what you 18:04.309 --> 18:08.669 were hearing, and that's because the kind of 18:08.665 --> 18:13.645 semantic drift that I'm talking about really is inescapably 18:13.647 --> 18:17.167 present in any utterance that we make. 18:17.170 --> 18:20.850 The utterance is not often mistaken because we're really 18:20.853 --> 18:23.603 actually good at understanding context. 18:23.598 --> 18:26.848 That's one of the reasons why the so-called problem of 18:26.847 --> 18:30.707 communication isn't as great as people sometimes claim it is. 18:30.710 --> 18:33.420 We're really good at understanding context. 18:33.420 --> 18:37.970 Hence, we're not likely to go badly wrong, but certainly there 18:37.971 --> 18:41.181 are occasions on which we go badly wrong. 18:41.180 --> 18:43.420 As we all know, that's the irritating thing 18:43.422 --> 18:44.492 about spell check. 18:44.490 --> 18:47.060 You put on spell check, you write your term paper, 18:47.063 --> 18:49.693 you don't bother to edit it, and you turn it in. 18:49.690 --> 18:53.420 It's full of howlers because, of course, the language is full 18:53.421 --> 18:57.091 of homonyms, and spell check always gives the wrong word. 18:57.088 --> 18:59.818 You're in the soup, frankly because, 18:59.815 --> 19:04.485 of course, your teacher is just kind of slapping his knee and 19:04.486 --> 19:06.896 guffawing while reading it. 19:06.900 --> 19:10.550 > 19:10.548 --> 19:12.988 In short, don't use spell check, but spell check is 19:12.990 --> 19:14.260 > 19:14.259 --> 19:19.929 a phenomenon that shows you the way in which semantic drift 19:19.934 --> 19:21.994 permeates language. 19:21.990 --> 19:24.570 But it's not just that either. 19:24.568 --> 19:30.228 There's a third way in which language impedes speech. 19:30.230 --> 19:34.220 Saussure never says this in so many words, but this is 19:34.218 --> 19:37.528 definitely what he means by langue. 19:37.529 --> 19:40.199 Remember I said that language, langue, 19:40.200 --> 19:44.750 is a virtual entity because we could never actually 19:44.749 --> 19:48.659 encounter it written down in any codified form. 19:48.660 --> 19:52.200 Yes, it is: the dictionary, the lexicon, 19:52.202 --> 19:52.932 right? 19:52.930 --> 19:55.150 But that's only part of it. 19:55.150 --> 19:58.770 So far, notice that we've only been talking about the lexicon 19:58.773 --> 20:01.013 when we talk about semantic drift, 20:01.009 --> 20:04.489 but in addition to the lexicon, language, 20:04.490 --> 20:07.940 langue, is a set of rules--rules of 20:07.939 --> 20:11.949 grammar and syntax, rules by means of which, 20:11.953 --> 20:17.013 and only by means of which, speech can make sense. 20:17.009 --> 20:20.189 In other words, language has this sort of 20:20.190 --> 20:25.360 bearing on the choices that we can make while producing speech. 20:25.358 --> 20:30.508 Unfortunately those rules can be a little bit slippery. 20:30.509 --> 20:35.189 When we talked about the innocuous expression "It is 20:35.192 --> 20:38.042 raining" as an illustration of 20:38.035 --> 20:41.375 Jakobson's six sets of the message, 20:41.380 --> 20:45.630 just as an example, we were brought up short by the 20:45.626 --> 20:50.126 meta-lingual function of "It is raining." 20:50.130 --> 20:53.220 We suddenly asked ourselves, "What on earth is 20:53.215 --> 20:54.385 ‘it'?" 20:54.390 --> 20:58.670 In other words, there is a kind of grammatical 20:58.666 --> 21:04.116 and syntactical permissibility, obviously, in the expression 21:04.123 --> 21:08.573 "It is raining," but at the same time we really 21:08.568 --> 21:09.838 have no idea. 21:09.838 --> 21:17.188 It can lead us in strange directions, this "it": 21:17.194 --> 21:21.324 Jupiter Pluvius, God, the cosmos, 21:21.324 --> 21:23.264 the clouds. 21:23.259 --> 21:27.669 Some of it is plausible but none of it is definite. 21:27.670 --> 21:31.780 We realize that "it" is a kind of placeholder in the 21:31.779 --> 21:34.609 sentence that is not doing its job and, 21:34.608 --> 21:36.278 believe me, it's not just in English. 21:36.279 --> 21:38.819 As I said before, it's a phenomenon that you can 21:38.820 --> 21:41.390 find in any language, even in the expression "It 21:41.391 --> 21:43.051 is raining"-- il pleut, 21:43.051 --> 21:45.371 es regnet, and so on. 21:45.368 --> 21:48.238 In all of those expressions, "it" 21:48.240 --> 21:52.800 is not doing its job, so that's another way in which, 21:52.797 --> 21:56.947 if we lean on a speech, we have to realize that we're 21:56.950 --> 22:00.300 in the presence of what the economists again would call 22:00.304 --> 22:01.364 irrationality. 22:01.358 --> 22:08.118 That has to do with the way in which predication works in 22:08.121 --> 22:09.451 language. 22:09.450 --> 22:12.820 As I said before, an assertion, 22:12.816 --> 22:18.986 a statement of truth-- an assertion of any kind is the 22:18.990 --> 22:23.860 utterance of a metaphor, because the deep structure of 22:23.855 --> 22:25.865 any assertion is that A is B. 22:25.868 --> 22:29.048 That is an assertion by definition; 22:29.048 --> 22:32.878 but--"A is B," and of course when that 22:32.882 --> 22:36.802 construction is grammatical-- in other words, 22:36.796 --> 22:41.506 when it makes what the grammarians call a copula-- 22:41.509 --> 22:44.319 when the construction is grammatical, 22:44.318 --> 22:48.598 well, that's fine because we understand that the relationship 22:48.604 --> 22:52.534 between A and B is not a relationship that's insistently 22:52.530 --> 22:56.260 one of identity; that a connection is being 22:56.255 --> 23:00.135 made--a connection which de Man, for example, 23:00.140 --> 23:04.290 would call metonymic--in predication. 23:04.288 --> 23:08.248 The problem is that any sentence which declares that A 23:08.253 --> 23:10.883 is B metonymically-- that is to say, 23:10.881 --> 23:14.371 as a grammatical proposition-- is at the same time, 23:14.371 --> 23:18.101 if we simply look at the sentence for what it is, 23:18.098 --> 23:24.228 which is a metaphor, an insistence that A is 23:24.230 --> 23:28.750 B in the sense that A is A-- is a metaphor, 23:28.753 --> 23:31.713 in other words which doesn't stand on all fours. 23:31.710 --> 23:34.260 No metaphor does. 23:34.259 --> 23:39.659 It has an element of what's called catachresis in it, 23:39.660 --> 23:42.420 and therefore in a certain sense, as we read the sentence, 23:42.420 --> 23:46.660 necessarily undermines the sentence's grammatical 23:46.660 --> 23:47.720 structure. 23:47.720 --> 23:52.600 This is the point that de Man is making in "Semiology and 23:52.603 --> 23:55.813 Rhetoric," that there is a perpetual 23:55.806 --> 24:00.446 tension in any utterance between grammar and rhetoric. 24:00.450 --> 24:02.360 There is no utterance that's not grammatical, 24:02.358 --> 24:04.108 there's no utterance that's not rhetorical, 24:04.108 --> 24:08.838 but unfortunately grammar and rhetoric are always rather 24:08.836 --> 24:12.616 openly or subtly at odds with each other, 24:12.618 --> 24:17.878 just in the way that metaphor and predication really have to 24:17.875 --> 24:20.455 be at odds with each other. 24:20.460 --> 24:24.170 In other words, there isn't a sentence in which 24:24.169 --> 24:29.169 the rules of grammar and syntax are not subtly interfering with 24:29.169 --> 24:32.959 what you might call the rules of rhetoric-- 24:32.960 --> 24:35.280 the ways in which tropes, in other words, 24:35.279 --> 24:39.849 deploy themselves, ways which can be distilled in 24:39.849 --> 24:44.039 an understanding of what we call metaphor. 24:44.038 --> 24:48.258 So every sentence, as I say, is shadowed not just 24:48.258 --> 24:53.498 by the vagaries of sound, not just by semantic drift, 24:53.497 --> 24:58.947 but by the incompatibility of grammar and rhetoric, 24:58.950 --> 25:05.140 and all of that is implicit in what Saussure and his tradition 25:05.144 --> 25:06.774 call language. 25:06.769 --> 25:09.339 Those are the ways, in other words, 25:09.338 --> 25:13.968 in which language, if I can put it this way, 25:13.970 --> 25:20.910 speaks through speech, the ways in which anything that 25:20.913 --> 25:27.993 we say on any occasion is shadowed by another voice. 25:27.990 --> 25:34.410 We've understood this in social terms as Bakhtinian polyglossia. 25:34.410 --> 25:39.030 We have understood this in psychoanalytic terms as the 25:39.027 --> 25:43.207 discourse of the otherness of the unconscious. 25:43.210 --> 25:48.660 We have understood this in purely linguistic terms as 25:48.661 --> 25:52.331 language, but we can, I think, 25:52.327 --> 25:59.097 metaphorically speaking, understand it now as well as a 25:59.098 --> 26:01.038 kind of speech. 26:01.038 --> 26:06.438 Language is an unintentional speech. 26:06.440 --> 26:11.660 Language is just that speech which, we recognize--having gone 26:11.655 --> 26:16.605 through the sort of analysis that I've been attempting--is 26:16.611 --> 26:19.221 not governed by intention. 26:19.220 --> 26:22.550 Keep in mind: nobody--no theorist, 26:22.548 --> 26:27.578 nobody in his right mind--would ever try to resist the claim 26:27.580 --> 26:32.880 that speech is intentional, that we intend what we say. 26:32.880 --> 26:38.180 That's the way in which Knapp and Michaels are right and give 26:38.179 --> 26:43.209 us a bracing reminder about things where our skepticism is 26:43.212 --> 26:44.452 misplaced. 26:44.450 --> 26:49.680 The idea that speech is somehow not intended--what could that 26:49.679 --> 26:50.289 mean? 26:50.288 --> 26:55.298 Speech just is intention, but I've been trying 26:55.304 --> 26:59.964 to argue that there is a speech, the "speech of 26:59.955 --> 27:02.705 language," which is unintentional, 27:02.710 --> 27:04.530 which is just there. 27:04.529 --> 27:06.269 It can't be factored out. 27:06.269 --> 27:10.779 It can be bracketed, but it can't be set aside as 27:10.775 --> 27:13.305 though it were not there. 27:13.309 --> 27:15.089 It will always come back. 27:15.088 --> 27:20.868 It will always confront us at some point if we take the arts 27:20.874 --> 27:24.604 of interpretation seriously enough-- 27:24.598 --> 27:29.048 if, in other words, we really do bring some 27:29.045 --> 27:33.905 pressure to bear on the things that people say: 27:33.914 --> 27:39.784 not just a pragmatic pressure, which I think works just fine 27:39.776 --> 27:43.466 for most of us, but a pressure that goes beyond 27:43.465 --> 27:47.845 the pragmatic and notices what's really in a sentence, 27:47.848 --> 27:53.008 what's really in anybody's utterance. 27:53.009 --> 27:58.499 Language speaks through speech partly as its origin. 27:58.500 --> 28:01.140 In other words, the way language gets into 28:01.142 --> 28:04.822 something that you or I might say is a reminder to us that 28:04.815 --> 28:07.195 what we say comes from someplace. 28:07.200 --> 28:11.250 It has an origin and its origin is precisely language. 28:11.250 --> 28:13.700 Language keeps saying, "Oh, oh, 28:13.703 --> 28:15.673 here I am," your origin, 28:15.667 --> 28:16.367 right? 28:16.368 --> 28:20.048 The birth of what you're doing, in other words, 28:20.046 --> 28:24.676 way back before you discovered that language was useful for 28:24.681 --> 28:25.801 something. 28:25.798 --> 28:29.968 Remember what we said about that last time: 28:29.973 --> 28:35.443 you have to discover that fire is useful for cooking. 28:35.440 --> 28:37.680 Fire is not "for" cooking. 28:37.680 --> 28:39.930 A cave is not for dwelling. 28:39.930 --> 28:43.450 A prehensile thumb is not for grasping. 28:43.450 --> 28:47.850 You have to discover the ways in which this is the case. 28:47.848 --> 28:52.418 Language is there in what we say to remind us that it wasn't 28:52.417 --> 28:57.537 always the case, to remind us that it's just the 28:57.539 --> 29:04.959 origin of a history of conscious expression during the course of 29:04.960 --> 29:11.790 which we began the never-ending process of trying to master 29:11.790 --> 29:13.440 language. 29:13.440 --> 29:16.310 That's, of course, what it is to be a writer. 29:16.308 --> 29:19.488 You try to wrestle language into submission. 29:19.490 --> 29:24.110 That's the ambition of all of us, whether we're writing the 29:24.107 --> 29:27.927 great American novel or revising a term paper. 29:27.930 --> 29:32.070 We're wrestling language into submission, and we all know it's 29:32.071 --> 29:32.821 not easy. 29:32.818 --> 29:37.048 I'm just trying to explain some of the reasons why it's not 29:37.048 --> 29:37.558 easy. 29:37.558 --> 29:42.178 So language speaks through us as the origin of speech, 29:42.182 --> 29:46.022 but it also speaks as the death of speech. 29:46.019 --> 29:50.749 It speaks, in other words, as the moment in which the 29:50.750 --> 29:56.120 purposeful agency of speech is finally called into question, 29:56.116 --> 29:59.206 in a certain sense undermined. 29:59.210 --> 30:02.140 I think it's appropriate, I think it's fair, 30:02.140 --> 30:05.880 to call language--again metaphorically-- 30:05.880 --> 30:11.770 the epitaph of speech, the way in which in any given 30:11.770 --> 30:19.160 speech the end of its own agency is inscribed even as that agency 30:19.163 --> 30:21.593 is going forward. 30:21.588 --> 30:27.148 Now I want to test this example and also show you a little bit 30:27.147 --> 30:30.517 more about the way semantic drift-- 30:30.519 --> 30:34.509 but even more than that about the way the perilous 30:34.506 --> 30:39.466 relationship between grammar and syntax and rhetoric works. 30:39.470 --> 30:43.000 I want to actually try out on you a couple of epitaphs. 30:43.000 --> 30:47.410 If language is the epitaph of speech, why not talk for a 30:47.405 --> 30:49.645 little bit about epitaphs? 30:49.650 --> 30:56.610 Now my favorite epitaph by far: probably-- 30:56.608 --> 31:00.818 well, we won't speculate about where such an epitaph might be 31:00.817 --> 31:04.157 found, but if and when you come across 31:04.155 --> 31:09.185 it walking through a cemetery, it'll probably elicit a chuckle. 31:09.190 --> 31:11.880 On the gravestone it says, "I told you I was 31:11.881 --> 31:12.611 sick." 31:12.609 --> 31:15.329 > 31:15.328 --> 31:22.128 Now this is a very interesting expression for a number of 31:22.134 --> 31:23.354 reasons. 31:23.348 --> 31:28.648 For one thing, and one should pause over this, 31:28.651 --> 31:34.781 one can infer speakers speaking efficaciously, 31:34.777 --> 31:37.837 not just one but many. 31:37.838 --> 31:40.888 There's plenty of precedent for this in Emily Dickinson and in 31:40.890 --> 31:41.690 other writers. 31:41.690 --> 31:45.200 The most obvious speaker is the dead person speaking from the 31:45.201 --> 31:48.371 grave: "there I was, sitting in the corner all those 31:48.371 --> 31:50.151 years telling you I had a headache. 31:50.150 --> 31:55.460 You never listened to me" and so on. 31:55.460 --> 32:00.200 That is the most obvious identification of a speaker, 32:00.200 --> 32:02.660 but of course the speaker could be somebody else, 32:02.660 --> 32:05.560 and I'm not introducing a measure of skepticism in 32:05.556 --> 32:06.276 saying this. 32:06.278 --> 32:10.688 When we posit an intention, we just decide which of these 32:10.690 --> 32:12.030 speakers it is. 32:12.028 --> 32:16.668 The speaker could be an apologetic relative, 32:16.670 --> 32:22.280 someone acknowledging that they hadn't listened, 32:22.278 --> 32:25.988 but with a sense of humor, and so putting in the voice of 32:25.991 --> 32:29.411 the dead person the complaint, "I told you I was 32:29.413 --> 32:31.943 sick" as a form of apology: "Yes, 32:31.940 --> 32:34.880 I know you did, and unfortunately I had to go 32:34.875 --> 32:36.805 to the grocery store." 32:36.809 --> 32:40.879 > 32:40.880 --> 32:44.020 That, too, can be the speaker. 32:44.019 --> 32:48.789 Well, on the other hand, it could be someone simply 32:48.785 --> 32:53.395 moralizing over the grave, which is a frequent habit of 32:53.398 --> 32:55.898 the eighteenth century-- one of my periods, 32:55.903 --> 32:57.093 so I'm familiar with it. 32:57.088 --> 33:00.458 It could be a philosopher--right?--saying, 33:00.458 --> 33:03.658 "Well, this is the human condition, 33:03.663 --> 33:05.803 > 33:05.799 --> 33:07.109 as I kept telling you. 33:07.108 --> 33:12.318 I published thirteen books, the whole purport of which was 33:12.319 --> 33:13.599 'I am sick.' 33:13.598 --> 33:17.048 I'm Dostoevsky's Underground Man. 33:17.049 --> 33:18.469 I am a sick man. 33:18.470 --> 33:19.980 I am a very sick man. 33:19.980 --> 33:22.190 Well, let it get worse." 33:22.190 --> 33:27.360 It could be in this mode that a philosopher is moralizing over 33:27.355 --> 33:31.755 the grave, or again it could be a cultural critic. 33:31.759 --> 33:36.669 It could be someone in a kind of an allegorical mood 33:36.671 --> 33:41.681 inscribing on the gravestone the death of culture. 33:41.680 --> 33:47.560 Civilization has been in a bad way for a long time and here 33:47.563 --> 33:49.393 finally it lies. 33:49.390 --> 33:52.820 The way to communicate this would then be, 33:52.818 --> 33:56.608 "I told you I was sick: civilization has ways of 33:56.613 --> 33:59.823 letting us know that all is not well with it: 33:59.821 --> 34:05.521 we didn't pay any attention, and here is the result." 34:05.519 --> 34:10.989 I would say that all of those ways of reading the epitaph are 34:10.985 --> 34:13.805 consistent with hermeneutics. 34:13.809 --> 34:19.139 They are consistent with the way in which we can try to come 34:19.143 --> 34:23.033 to terms with the intention of a speaker; 34:23.030 --> 34:26.260 but suppose we say that "language" 34:26.260 --> 34:30.770 must be obtruding itself in this utterance like any other. 34:30.769 --> 34:32.259 What would that be? 34:32.260 --> 34:35.320 You see, that isn't just a question of sound. 34:35.320 --> 34:37.610 It isn't even a question of semantic drift, 34:37.610 --> 34:38.430 in this case. 34:38.429 --> 34:42.859 It's a question of our suddenly coming to understand the 34:42.858 --> 34:47.848 sentence in a way that perhaps no individual speaker would want 34:47.851 --> 34:49.061 to give it. 34:49.059 --> 34:54.329 It's an allegory, precisely, cleverly introduced 34:54.333 --> 35:00.283 by language, about the inefficacy of speech. 35:00.280 --> 35:03.680 That's just the problem with speech, isn't it? 35:03.679 --> 35:07.819 "Again and again and again I tell you something and you 35:07.817 --> 35:10.927 don't listen"-- that's the problem with being a 35:10.931 --> 35:12.491 lecturer, > 35:12.489 --> 35:17.299 that sort of "I told you I was sick and you--" 35:17.302 --> 35:18.792 "Oh, well. 35:18.789 --> 35:23.379 He's just joking." 35:23.380 --> 35:29.490 So it is--according to the allegory introduced by language 35:29.490 --> 35:34.960 at the expense of speech--with speech in general. 35:34.960 --> 35:40.560 It's an allegory about the limits of communication because 35:40.556 --> 35:43.156 that's, after all, what the 35:43.163 --> 35:47.693 speaker--insofar as there is a speaker inscribing this 35:47.690 --> 35:51.770 expression on the gravestone-- is concerned about. 35:51.768 --> 35:56.048 This person sitting in the corner, complaining bitterly 35:56.047 --> 35:59.847 about nobody ever listening to her or to him, 35:59.849 --> 36:05.059 is actually an allegorist telling us that that's the way 36:05.061 --> 36:06.201 speech is. 36:06.199 --> 36:10.199 Speech, in other words, has its limits. 36:10.199 --> 36:13.149 In a sense then, when I say language is the 36:13.152 --> 36:16.212 epitaph of speech, we realize that if we 36:16.208 --> 36:19.438 understand this utterance as an allegory, 36:19.440 --> 36:21.900 it is precisely speech that's lying here-- 36:21.900 --> 36:26.240 the end, as I suggested, of speech's powers of 36:26.242 --> 36:31.362 communication as announced or declared by language. 36:31.360 --> 36:38.270 Well, let's try another one: "Here lies John Doe," 36:38.273 --> 36:42.143 probably the Ur-epitaph. 36:42.139 --> 36:48.299 Supply your own name: "Here lies John Doe." 36:48.300 --> 36:53.430 Well, let's not even pause over the speaker there. 36:53.429 --> 36:58.219 Let's get immediately to the problems posed by language. 36:58.219 --> 37:04.599 In the first place, John Doe obviously does not lie 37:04.597 --> 37:09.187 precisely "here," right? 37:09.190 --> 37:14.660 In fact, if you think about it, it's altogether possible that 37:14.657 --> 37:19.487 John Doe could be absolutely anywhere except precisely 37:19.489 --> 37:23.679 "here," because where the sentence is 37:23.681 --> 37:26.691 we know John Doe not to be. 37:26.690 --> 37:30.680 He could be anyplace else, as I say. 37:30.679 --> 37:35.449 So any epitaph is therefore a self-declared cenotaph, 37:35.449 --> 37:40.959 an inscription on a place where the body isn't, 37:40.960 --> 37:42.920 which of course tells us a lot, too, 37:42.920 --> 37:45.910 about the arbitrary nature of language. 37:45.909 --> 37:48.259 Language does not hook on to the real world. 37:48.260 --> 37:49.920 It doesn't hook on to the body. 37:49.920 --> 37:54.510 The one place where language is not is on the body. 37:54.510 --> 37:59.310 The one place where language is not is on things. 37:59.309 --> 38:00.579 Speech is on things. 38:00.579 --> 38:06.189 Speech can be inscribed on a piece of rock. 38:06.190 --> 38:10.530 So "Here lies John Doe," except not here, 38:10.530 --> 38:13.800 anyplace but here--which is why, of course, 38:13.800 --> 38:16.090 the interest of the word "lies" 38:16.092 --> 38:17.242 is so interesting. 38:17.239 --> 38:19.289 > 38:19.289 --> 38:26.809 The utterance is a lie, but it's not John Doe who lies. 38:26.809 --> 38:29.199 Poor John Doe is just lying someplace. 38:29.199 --> 38:32.819 John Doe is not lying, right? 38:32.820 --> 38:36.260 It's language > 38:36.260 --> 38:44.840 that's making speech lie, and it's doing it on any number 38:44.842 --> 38:48.982 of levels, as we've seen. 38:48.980 --> 38:53.430 It's a funny thing about epitaphs, and this has been 38:53.431 --> 38:58.581 noted by certain authors writing in the tradition of what we 38:58.583 --> 39:01.993 loosely call "deconstruction": 39:01.987 --> 39:07.227 the epitaph is a particularly fruitful locus for the study of 39:07.226 --> 39:11.326 the ways in which language challenges, 39:11.329 --> 39:17.059 undermines, and displaces speech, and as I say, 39:17.059 --> 39:23.569 these two examples show more or less the way that works. 39:23.570 --> 39:30.610 So speech lies everywhere except here-- 39:30.610 --> 39:33.760 I don't mean here!--speech lies 39:33.760 --> 39:37.510 because it can never stop being language, 39:37.510 --> 39:44.320 and therefore we can never really possibly mean exactly 39:44.315 --> 39:46.075 what we say. 39:46.079 --> 39:50.209 We can mean what we say, but we can't mean exactly what 39:50.210 --> 39:50.900 we say. 39:50.900 --> 39:56.350 That's probably the most commonsensical way of putting 39:56.351 --> 39:57.691 the matter. 39:57.690 --> 40:00.780 When Stanley Cavell poses the question in the title of one of 40:00.777 --> 40:02.937 his books, Must We Mean What We Say? 40:02.938 --> 40:04.378 > 40:04.380 --> 40:07.750 he is actually offering us the possibility that maybe that's 40:07.751 --> 40:11.411 not the be all and end all of speaking, > 40:11.409 --> 40:16.759 that the speech-act situation is more complicated than that. 40:16.760 --> 40:22.560 Sure, we all have it at heart as an objective to mean what we 40:22.561 --> 40:25.001 say, but at the same time in 40:25.003 --> 40:28.073 speaking we are performing, we're acting, 40:28.070 --> 40:30.530 as the neo-pragmatist would suggest, 40:30.530 --> 40:33.810 and we're doing all kinds of things besides meaning. 40:33.809 --> 40:37.309 That really needs to be taken into account, 40:37.306 --> 40:41.216 even in understanding what speech can do, 40:41.219 --> 40:45.549 let alone in understanding what speech can't do. 40:45.550 --> 40:51.940 So it's plausible to say that yes, we can mean what we say; 40:51.940 --> 40:55.730 but it's a question--indeed, it's a very insistent 40:55.733 --> 40:59.763 question--whether we can mean exactly what we say. 40:59.760 --> 41:05.790 Now you ask--you must ask, because after all it's been our 41:05.786 --> 41:09.286 constant guide-- you ask, "Does language 41:09.289 --> 41:11.689 speak in Tony the Tow Truck?" 41:11.690 --> 41:16.420 I know this has been on your mind, and so of course we have 41:16.416 --> 41:17.716 to address it. 41:17.719 --> 41:19.839 I think there are a few interesting things to be said 41:19.840 --> 41:20.370 about that. 41:20.369 --> 41:26.029 I spoke earlier in the semester about the parade on the vertical 41:26.028 --> 41:30.698 axis, of that vertical axis, called "I." 41:30.699 --> 41:34.239 As you read the text, there it is, 41:34.242 --> 41:36.822 > 41:36.820 --> 41:39.930 sort of out of Lacan, out of Lacanian feminism, 41:39.927 --> 41:43.167 however you look: the phallogocenter right there, 41:43.170 --> 41:44.050 I. 41:44.050 --> 41:49.170 But now I is never the first word spoken by an infant. 41:49.170 --> 41:51.680 That's another lesson of Lacan. 41:51.679 --> 41:55.699 I is what you have to learn how to be-- 41:55.699 --> 41:58.989 maybe to put it in Judith Butler's terms-- 41:58.989 --> 42:01.039 so that I, insofar as it is this 42:01.043 --> 42:03.863 incredible upright pillar starting one sentence after 42:03.855 --> 42:05.905 another in Tony the Tow Truck, 42:05.909 --> 42:09.859 is a promise of, precisely, agency: 42:09.864 --> 42:16.114 the promise of the kind of identity which stands upright, 42:16.110 --> 42:21.050 which is a successful simulacrum of what is seen in 42:21.047 --> 42:24.837 the mirror, and which then develops into 42:24.838 --> 42:27.988 what Freud called, referring to the way in which 42:27.989 --> 42:30.259 infants begin to get their way in the world, 42:30.260 --> 42:32.710 "his majesty the ego." 42:32.710 --> 42:36.240 So the I has that function, but as I've said, 42:36.242 --> 42:40.472 it's a story about friendship, and the I disappears. 42:40.469 --> 42:44.689 This, too, I think, can be communicated as relevant 42:44.686 --> 42:49.826 to the infant in ways that at the functional level of language 42:49.831 --> 42:52.701 can't really be called speech. 42:52.699 --> 42:57.719 For example, the friendship exists between 42:57.724 --> 42:59.444 Bumpy [pron. 42:59.440 --> 43:02.060 BUM-py] and Tony [pron.TO-ny], 43:02.059 --> 43:06.129 uh-oh: long before the baby says 43:06.126 --> 43:09.736 "I," it says "uh-oh," 43:09.740 --> 43:14.800 and that "uh-oh" resonates in the friendship of 43:14.800 --> 43:16.880 Bumpy and Tony. 43:16.880 --> 43:17.880 Why "uh-oh?" 43:17.880 --> 43:22.870 Because Tony is stuck and Tony's natural response to being 43:22.869 --> 43:26.019 stuck would be, "Uh-oh." 43:26.018 --> 43:29.338 Along comes Bumpy and--"uh-oh"--not only 43:29.340 --> 43:33.070 recognizes the problem but takes care of the problem. 43:33.070 --> 43:36.930 Now on the other hand, the problem of self, 43:36.929 --> 43:41.649 the problem that's caught up in this vertical I, 43:41.650 --> 43:47.340 comes into focus for the infant as the awareness of otherness or 43:47.342 --> 43:49.332 that which is alien. 43:49.329 --> 43:55.289 That which is irreducible to the self begins to come into 43:55.291 --> 43:58.081 focus, and a way of expressing this is 43:58.079 --> 44:00.439 to say, "e-e-e-e," 44:00.440 --> 44:06.020 which is perhaps in some way or another a mask or a simulacrum 44:06.023 --> 44:08.773 of "he-he-he-he." 44:08.768 --> 44:13.278 I think it's for that reason that the two antagonists of the 44:13.277 --> 44:16.867 story, the unassimilable others who do not help, 44:16.869 --> 44:19.009 are called Speedy [pron. 44:19.010 --> 44:20.770 SPEE-dee] and Neato [pron. 44:20.771 --> 44:22.041 NEE-to]. 44:22.039 --> 44:25.319 In other words, that sense of otherness-- 44:25.320 --> 44:31.810 of that which is intractable, that which cannot be reduced 44:31.809 --> 44:37.159 effectively to self-- is I think articulated in 44:37.161 --> 44:39.241 "e-e-e." 44:39.239 --> 44:41.729 In other words, what the infant speaks is not 44:41.726 --> 44:42.626 speech, is it? 44:42.630 --> 44:44.840 It's language. 44:44.840 --> 44:49.150 If you want to hear language in speech, just listen to a baby. 44:49.150 --> 44:54.500 That's why nonsense verse has such appeal to young children. 44:54.500 --> 44:56.270 They're still hearing language. 44:56.268 --> 45:00.448 It's a way of putting Wordsworth's "Intimations 45:00.447 --> 45:01.427 Ode." 45:01.429 --> 45:06.799 They're still hearing the mighty waters rolling evermore. 45:06.800 --> 45:15.750 They're hearing "ohm" where we're all hearing speech. 45:15.750 --> 45:20.290 As I say, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. 45:20.289 --> 45:23.859 The history of the human species is a history of coming 45:23.864 --> 45:26.644 to terms with speech, mastering speech--or, 45:26.643 --> 45:29.693 I should say, perhaps, mastering language. 45:29.690 --> 45:31.810 Well, so it is in the individual. 45:31.809 --> 45:37.009 The individual who is hard wired--isn't he?--for language 45:37.005 --> 45:42.655 must somehow or another wrestle that hard wiring in to what we 45:42.664 --> 45:44.154 call speech. 45:44.150 --> 45:47.010 So the first thing we hear in an infant, 45:47.010 --> 45:50.360 and maybe what is most predominant in stories for 45:50.358 --> 45:54.138 toddlers and in nonsense verse, is language, 45:54.135 --> 45:58.585 which you don't reduce semantically, 45:58.590 --> 46:00.140 you don't parse it semantically. 46:00.139 --> 46:04.639 Sure, I've just interpreted it into a kind of meaning, 46:04.639 --> 46:10.559 but it's a meaning which comes simply from the observation of 46:10.561 --> 46:16.191 feelings and noticing what children actually say on actual 46:16.188 --> 46:19.958 occasions, which can't really be called 46:19.958 --> 46:24.778 speech but is rather a kind of experimentation with language 46:24.782 --> 46:27.482 dragging itself toward speech. 46:27.480 --> 46:31.640 It's not anything that one would ever really confuse with 46:31.635 --> 46:36.085 speech, yet partly an imitation of what is heard in the adult 46:36.086 --> 46:36.826 world. 46:36.829 --> 46:39.149 That's where you get "uh-oh." 46:39.150 --> 46:41.740 But when the adult occasionally says, 46:41.739 --> 46:44.669 "Uh-oh," there's nothing like the 46:44.673 --> 46:49.013 investment in it that there is in the child for whom it is very 46:49.005 --> 46:51.585 often the first articulate sound. 46:51.590 --> 46:57.240 It is the encounter with otherness and the attempt to 46:57.237 --> 47:01.027 master otherness, as in Freud's story of 47:01.025 --> 47:05.165 fort/da, that this "uh-oh" 47:05.172 --> 47:07.292 seems to be expressing. 47:07.289 --> 47:08.289 All right. 47:08.289 --> 47:09.839 So much for Tony. 47:09.840 --> 47:16.020 I'd just like to confuse--I'd like to conclude 47:16.018 --> 47:18.538 with three theses. 47:18.539 --> 47:22.839 Well, you have to speak very carefully or language obtrudes. 47:22.840 --> 47:26.000 I had to say very carefully "three 47:26.003 --> 47:27.553 theses," right? 47:27.550 --> 47:31.400 And of course I made a mistake just before. 47:31.400 --> 47:33.820 I didn't want to say "confuse," 47:33.815 --> 47:34.295 did I? 47:34.300 --> 47:35.300 > 47:35.300 --> 47:38.630 Notice that "confuse" was not just anything getting 47:38.626 --> 47:40.286 in the way of communication. 47:40.289 --> 47:42.299 It was precisely what I did not want to say 47:42.295 --> 47:43.355 > 47:43.360 --> 47:44.760 --precisely. 47:44.760 --> 47:47.390 I could have said anything else, but I said 47:47.391 --> 47:48.771 "confuse." 47:48.768 --> 47:51.488 That is the Freudian slip that I've been talking about. 47:51.489 --> 47:52.949 Well, anyway, > 47:52.949 --> 47:57.539 three theses about language. 47:57.539 --> 48:00.269 First, it never makes sense. 48:00.269 --> 48:03.779 Language does not make sense. 48:03.780 --> 48:05.460 It's arbitrary. 48:05.460 --> 48:10.660 It is a system of arbitrary signs that are not natural 48:10.664 --> 48:11.454 signs. 48:11.449 --> 48:14.559 You make sense, not language. 48:14.559 --> 48:18.979 You make sense by invoking an intention-- 48:18.980 --> 48:22.060 that is to say, by having an intention-- 48:22.059 --> 48:26.119 and wrestling language into speech: that is, 48:26.119 --> 48:30.039 commandeering language for your purposes. 48:30.039 --> 48:33.659 Language doesn't make sense; you make sense. 48:33.659 --> 48:37.759 Language in itself, secondly, says nothing about 48:37.759 --> 48:41.509 reality just because it is a system, a code, 48:41.509 --> 48:44.299 a system of arbitrary signs. 48:44.300 --> 48:47.990 I want to put it two different ways to show you what's going 48:47.987 --> 48:48.297 on. 48:48.300 --> 48:54.560 You come to terms, as we say, with reality. 48:54.559 --> 48:58.719 That is to say, you find the words for reality 48:58.724 --> 49:00.394 as you grasp it. 49:00.389 --> 49:04.769 Another way to put it is you figure it out. 49:04.768 --> 49:06.598 In other words, you come to understand what 49:06.603 --> 49:09.143 language is, "I figured it out," 49:09.143 --> 49:11.553 but of course in rhetorical theory, 49:11.550 --> 49:13.960 "figure" is precisely a figure of 49:13.961 --> 49:14.661 speech. 49:14.659 --> 49:20.929 You bring to bear figures just as you come to terms. 49:20.929 --> 49:24.439 You bring to bear figures on reality. 49:24.440 --> 49:27.410 You figure it out. 49:27.409 --> 49:31.989 Finally, to adapt an expression with which you're probably 49:31.994 --> 49:35.454 familiar, I'll conclude simply by saying 49:35.454 --> 49:39.534 that the road to reality is paved with your 49:39.532 --> 49:42.442 intentions, be they good or bad. 49:42.440 --> 49:47.300 Thank you very much. 49:47.300 --> 49:52.000