A Short Course in Post-Structuralism

A Short Course in Post-Structuralism Author(s): Jane Tompkins Source: College English, Vol. 50, No. 7 (Nov., 1988), pp. 733-747 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/377671 Accessed: 06/12/2010 09:20 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ncte. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to College English. http://www.jstor.org Jane Tompkins A Short Course in Post-Structuralism Introduction: The Post-Structuralist Challenge Post-structuralism might be described as a challenge to the accepted model of reading and of criticism. The traditional "application" model of literary criticism (reflected in the title of this conference), puts in the number one spot the reader; in the number two spot, the method, or approach; in the number three spot the text (what we read); and in the fourth spot, the reading (or what comes out the other end). To give these terms somewhat different, more philosophical or exalt- ed, names, we might call the reader the "subject" or the "self," the "I-who- reads"; the method could be called "the interpretive framework"; we could call the text "the object," so it sounds more philosophical and abstract; and we could call what comes out the other end, when the subject takes the framework and applies it to the object, the "interpretation." Such an understanding of read- ing, as a process of application, implies that critical modes can be assumed, ap- plied, and then dropped: post-structuralism on Monday, reader-response crit- icism on Tuesday, cultural criticism on Wednesday. The reader is thus a dramatic persona who picks up each one of these systems, like a pair of eye- glasses, and looks through it at the text to filter the interpretation. In other words, there are four discrete entities: the reader; the method (post-struc- turalism, feminism, Marxism, psychoanalytic criticism, cultural studies, etc.); the text (Heart of Darkness, or whatever you happen to be reading); and what emerges as an interpretation. Now, the significance of the post-structuralist model is that it collapses all four of these entities into a simultaneity, into a single, continuous act of inter- pretation so that, instead of four discrete items in a row-subject, method, ob- ject, interpretation-all are part of a single, evolving field of discourse. In effect, post-structuralism collapses position one (the reader) into position two (the crit- Jane Tompkins teaches English at Duke University. She is the author of Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work ofAmerican Fiction, 1790-1860 (Oxford UP). She studies the relationship of literature to its cultural and political context. She is currently working on the way Western novels and films have formed thought and behavior in the twentieth century. This essay is the transcribed, edited version of a talk delivered at the NCTE Summer Institute on the Teaching of Literature entitled "Contemporary Criticism," Myrtle Beach, SC, June 1, 1987. Some of the ad hoc syntax and repetitions that mark an oral presentation have been allowed to stand in the hope that they may be helpful in conveying ideas that are, under any circumstances, difficult to articulate and to grasp. College English, Volume 50, Number 7, November 1988 733 734 College English ical stance), and then both into three-which is also four. It does this by assert- ing that we-you and I, the reader or subject and the "text," or any object "out there"-are not freestanding autonomous entities, but beings that are culturally constituted by interpretive frameworks or interpretive strategies that our culture makes available to us, and these strategies are the only way that we have of con- ceiving who we are, of thinking or of having a "self." The objects of our gaze are likewise constituted by these interpretive strategies. The things that we see, the things that are given to us, are already articulated according to some pre- existing interpretive framework or system of differentiation. This is the post-structuralist territory, more or less, for which we are headed, and it is necessary first to establish a way of talking that allows you to under- stand what it means to say things like "discourse reproducing itself," or "a reader who is constituted," or "objects that are constituted by an interpretive framework." In order to see how post-structuralism arrives at such a conclu- sion, I am going to read closely two texts: Saussure's Course in General Lin- guistics and Derrida's "Differance." I will now turn to the first of these. I. Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics Saussure is where post-structuralism starts; everything follows from his Course in General Linguistics. Saussure begins by laying down some general principles: "Some people regard language, when reduced to its elements, as a naming- process only-a list of words, each corresponding to a thing that it names" (65). For example, everybody assumes that "tree" means something growing out there, just as "dog" refers to a four-legged animal. This is the model of language that pretty much everyone still carries around in their heads, whether they've been studying post-structuralism for twenty years or have only begun to study it today. We all act on the assumption that language is made up of words, and words refer to things; the words are there, they are perceptible, we know what they are and can point to them on the page, and the things referred to are there too. You can indicate them: tables, chairs, rugs, microphones, and so forth. This commonsense understanding of what language is and what the world is like is the one that we normally operate with, indeed, have to operate with. It is this idea of things in themselves and words in themselves that the Course in General Linguistics wants to undo. The founding principle of Saussurean lin- guistics-the principle that acts as a wedge into this commonsense idea and which, when driven far enough, will break it up completely-is, as Saussure tells us very clearly, "the arbitrary nature of the sign." The arbitrariness of the sign is the one principle from which everything else in Saussure follows. What is a sign? A sign as Saussure defines it is a concept (or what he calls a "signified"), plus a sound image (that is, the psychological image of the sound that the word makes when we pronounce it, or the "signifier"). When he talks about the arbitrariness of the sign, Saussure means that there is no natural rela- tionship between the concept and the sound image-"the bond between the sig- nified and the signifier is arbitrary" (67). He says: The word arbitrary ... calls for comment. The term should not imply that the choice of the signifier is left entirely to the speaker (we shall see below that the in- Course in Post-Structuralism 735 dividual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established in the linguistic community); I mean that it [the signifier] is unmoti- vated, i.e. arbitrary in that it actually has no natural connection with the signified. (68-69) In other words, there is nothing about the tree that necessitates that it be repre- sented by t-r-e-e, as we well know, since in French it's arbre, in Italian albero, and in Latin arbor, and so on. So there is no necessary connection between the concept "tree" and the sound used to designate that concept. The only connec- tion between the signifier and the signified is convention-not logic or ra- tionality; there is no rule, no way to deduce a binding method from anything. Rather, it's usage, tradition, that connects the sound image to the concept. However, this is not to suggest that the speaker can choose to assign freely any signifier-sound to any concept-signified: The signifier, though to all appearances freely chosen with respect to the idea that it represents, is fixed, not free, with respect to the linguistic community that uses it. The masses have no voice in the matter, and the signifier chosen by language could be replaced by no other. (71) That is, although the bond is unmotivated, arbitrary, and although there is no natural connection between the sound image and the concept, it is nevertheless fixed within an individual system of language. From this initial observation, that the sign is arbitrary, Saussure takes a very important step. He talks about language as a system of pure values: This distinction has to be heeded by the linguists above all others, for language is a system of pure values which are determined by nothing except the momentary ar- rangement of its terms. A value-so long as it is somehow rooted in things and in their natural relations, as happens with economics (the value of a plot of ground, for instance, is related to its productivity)-can to some extent be traced in time. (80) Saussure contrasts what he calls a system of pure values, in which there is no necessary relation between the value of an item and anything else in the world- it's just defined by convention-with a natural concept of value, which he repre- sents by the idea of a piece of ground having some value connected naturally to it by the extent to which it is productive. It is a very important distinction.' In language, values are not natural in the sense that they are already implied in a pre-existing object; they come about only by convention, are stipulated from the start. Saussure gives some illustrations of what he means by arbitrary value in language when he talks about the way in which we, for instance, distinguish the singular from the plural. He talks about the way in which the plural of the word "foot" is formed. At one time the difference between "foot" (singular) and "feet" (plural) was indicated in the following way: "fot: *foti" (83). Over the course of time the singular comes to be distinguished from the plural in a dif- ferent way: singular fot, plural fet, or what we now call "foot/feet." This is an illustration of the arbitrary or unmotivated character of the sign in the sense that 1. Later, post-structuralism will challenge the naturalness of the very distinction Saussure invokes to establish the character of the arbitrary or conventional (i.e. the nature-culture distinction), but this move presupposes and derives from the initial Saussurean insight. 736 College English the opposition between fot and foti on the one hand, is no better than the later fot and fet on the other, enabling us to distinguish the singular from the plural. Thus there is no natural value of the plural built into a particular sound. It is only "the opposition of two terms [that] is needed to express plurality" (85). Linguistic value is a matter, then, that is determined by the ways in which some- thing can be distinguished from something else, and not by virtue of the particu- lar character of the things examined. Saussure offers another example of exactly the same kind: the nominative singular in Czechoslovakian for woman is lena, the accusative singular is ienu, the nominative plural is zeny, and the genitive plural is Zen. (The genitive plural of this word has a zero inflection; that is, there is no ending on the end.) Saussure comments: "We see then that a material sign is not necessary for the expression of an idea; language is satisfied with the op- position between something and nothing" (86). So what it is that allows us to es- tablish the value of the genitive plural, sen, is not anything that is there; rather, it is the difference between lena and zen. The nothing that is there, so to speak, allows us to distinguish the genitive plural from zena. The key concept here is opposition. Language works-gains meaning, carves things up, articulates the world-through opposition. Any opposition will do. Part II, "Synchronic Linguistics," is the essence of Saussure's theory. Saus- sure begins Part II by reminding us that the sign is dual-it has two parts-, and that it comes into being through the association of two things-the concept (sig- nified) and the sound image (signifier). Sound images alone, just signifiers or "pure sound," in other words, are not language. Saussure believes that "A suc- cession of sounds is linguistic only if it supports an idea" (103). That is, in order for language to be language, it has to signify something. The next Saussurean concept to be grasped is the question of linguistic identi- ty, how a unit of language can be distinguished: "The linguistic mechanism is geared to differences and identities, the former being only the counterpart of the latter" (108). Now, what is it that enables him to say this at this point? The way that the plural "feet" is distinguished from the singular "foot" depends on the difference in those two items, not on the essential nature of feet or of foot. The identity of the plural in any case is a function of its difference from the singular, and only a function of its difference from the singular. In language, therefore, identity is a function of difference. Linguistic identity, in other words the signs, the words, the items of language that you perceive, does not exist indepen- dently, in and of itself, but only in relation to other such entities. And at this point Saussure gives perhaps his most effective illustration of the principle of lin- guistic identity, his notion that in language identity is only and always relational, with his great example of the 8:25 Geneva to Paris trains: For instance, we speak of the identity of two "8:25 p.m. Geneva-to-Paris" trains that leave at twenty-four hour intervals. We feel that it is the same train each day, yet everything-the locomotives, coaches, personnel-is probably different. Or if a street is demolished, then rebuilt, we say that it is the same street even though in a material sense, perhaps, nothing of the old one remains. Why can a street be com- pletely rebuilt and still be the same? Because it does not constitute a purely mate- rial entity; it is based on certain conditions that are distinct from the materials that fit the conditions, e.g. its location with respect to other streets. (108-09) Course in Post-Structuralism 737 In other words, the relationality of the street is what makes it the "street" and not the stones of the pavement. Saussure continues, "Similarly, what makes the express is its hour of departure, its route, and in general every circumstance that sets it apart from other trains" (109). In other words, what identifies the ex- press is its relationship within its system to other elements of that system. Saus- sure goes on, "Whenever the same conditions are fulfilled, the same entities are obtained. Still the entities are not abstract since we cannot conceive of a street or train outside its material realization" (109). Keep in mind this notion of identi- ty as exemplified in the illustration of the 8:25 Geneva-to-Paris train, which is the same every day even though there is a different locomotive and a different engineer, different passengers and different personnel. It is the same because it occupies the same position in a system of relationships. It differs in the same way from all other elements in the schedule. In order to make this example even clearer Saussure contrasts this to its op- posite, in an illustration of the way we normally conceive of identities either of words or things: Let us contrast the preceding examples with the completely different case of a suit which has been stolen from me and which I find in the window of a second- hand store. Here we have a material entity that consists solely of the inert sub- stance-the cloth, its lining, its trimmings, etc. Another suit would not be mine re- gardless of its similarity to it. But linguistic identity is not that of the garment; it is that of the train and the street. (109) Linguistic identity does not reside in substance; it resides in relationality. It re- sides in position-in-relation-to-something, and that position is defined within some system. In the case of the train, the system is the equivalent of the train schedule, different hours of departure, different destinations, and different hours of arrival. Identity therefore is a function of positioning within its system. The train's timetable is a system which is itself organized, a principled way of mak- ing distinctions. So language then, by analogy with the train schedule, is a do- main of articulation, a way of dividing things up, a principled way of making dis- tinctions. Linguistic identity or value does not depend upon substance or essence, on the sameness of the locomotive. It does not consist of the union of a particular concept with a particular sound; the particularity of the sound has nothing to do with it. The linguistic identity of a word doesn't depend on the "thing itself"; rather, it depends on its difference from all the other words in the language. Saussure further demonstrates how value is constituted with another exam- ple, the game of chess: Take a knight, for instance. By itself is it an element in the game? ["By itself' means taken out of the game, carried in your pocket.] Certainly not, for by its ma- terial makeup---outside its square and the other conditions of the game-it means nothing to the player; it becomes a real concrete element only when endowed with value and wedded to it. (110) And how does something become endowed with value? When it is a part of the system within which it becomes articulated in relation to other elements in the system. So that when a knight is taken out of a game of chess, it loses its value 738 College English as a piece in the game. But of course it could acquire another value, say, as a carving, a beautiful carving, in which case its value would not be self-starting or autonomous either, would not reside in the thing itself but in its relationship to other carvings within the game called art (a game which works by its own rules of differentiation). The point of the chessman example is that, pushed to its ulti- mate conclusion, everything has value, but the value of anything depends upon the particular framework or game within which it is being seen. That is, as long as it is part of the chess game, the knight has the value of a piece that moves for- ward one and over two or forward two and over one, and so forth. Taken out of the chess game and looked at next to some other carving, it then acquires its identity, its distinctness from other objects, according to the way we look at and judge and identify carvings, and so on. Similarly, to go back to the game of chess: if, for example, a dog cam