Come on come all! Join me in my quest to make sense of the following statement:
"In language there are only differences without positive terms."
So one of the big ideas in structuralism is this obsession with value and meaning. Meaning in itself is considered to be both arbitrary and relational. When we talk about relational or relative meaning, we are saying that meaning itself cannot exist without some sort of opposite. We define sadness and happiness by what the other is not - otherwise, what makes them distinguishable? We spoke in class about how words give our world meaning. Without language to describe it, how do we comprehend happiness? How do we know we're depressed unless someone slaps the label onto us? Or gay or straight?
Words construct meaning and that meaning is only clear through difference, the structuralist argues. A positive term cannot exist because no single word can stand on its own, unpolluted by others. The fact that we need to use words to define other words suggests a huge relational necessity in language. Values and terms can never be positive. Happiness has unstable meaning, and how do we balance that out? Sadness. Paired opposites are where structure is founded (Take notes kids, this is kinda important).
So how does this change the way I think of language? In terms of the statement above, because meaning is unstable and necessitates an opposite it kind of rejects the notion of objectivity. Without positive terms there is no objectivity, which means there is only subjective meaning. Apply this idea to art or the world and it really is liberating. Speaking of structuralism more broadly, and not limited to the above quotation, it has made things seem more possible. The world seems bigger, because where it once felt like there was a name for everything is now seems like there is so much that people are missing. It also makes the world feel less intimidating, because I now have this knowledge that language constitutes a kind of reality as opposed to a SOLE reality. During one of our lectures, I wrote "We don't see that which isn't named." Having read that again, the world grew 100 times its size, as did my curiosity to really 'see' it.
this might be me
what it is to be alive
The man behind the Mask
- Marcus
- Where was I? I forgot the point that I was making.
4 comments:
I think that at the end, you really start connecting to "meaning is arbitrary". Those connections help me understand structuralism more.
I love what you wrote down in class. It does blow the mind to think that we think this way. Something amazing could exsist in our world, but we would not be able to recognize it because our language has not identified it yet!
I think that this post shows that you really understand what Saussure is saying, and you have helped me understand it more as well as giving me some good food for thought. Thanks!
I like this entry, it shows that we're still figuring this whole theory thing out and that there's a reason we're doing this (because we need to pass the class AND because it's fun to learn! yay!) Also, the end reminded me of the grinch
I really enjoyed the section of your post when you stated that through an understanding of Structuralism the universe is free and limitless.
I didn't necessarily connect those thoughts with Structuralism, I did however with Post Structuralism, which is why I was interested reading your blog and read that you had that connection a little earlier.
At first I disagreed, but then I began to see it differently, and theory has a whole differently, and that in any theory really, the results are limitless and free.
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