Citation
: Derrida, J. (1997). Writing before the Letter (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). In J. Derrida (Author) & G. C. Spivak (Trans.), Of grammatology (pp. 1-93). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP. Summary:
Jacques Derrida's primary motivation in Of Grammatology is to understand the relationship between language as symbol and the intended meaning (signifier and signified). The ambiguity between signifier and signified creates an endless chain of deferment, where the writer must adjust the symbolic forms and structure of his or her language, attempting to closer approximate his or her intended meaning. Thus, deconstruction is a method for understanding the individual's role in the creation of the signified. One needs to acknowledge the structuring of meaning and look at the structure through deconstruction to ask questions that can reveal where the power in the structure is -- who creates the structure and the consequential problems of logocentrism.
Response:
Recently, I've been reading through Peter Elbow's Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing, which proposes that acknowledging a more fluid relationship between speech and writing can help individuals become more cognizant of hearing the style in their writing and targeting audience with style. Derrida questions the idea that speech is a closer representation of thought than writing, which is one of the arguments that Elbow seems to imply in his book. Vygotsky, Langer, and Bakhtin additionally propose the same idea -- that speech is a closer representation of thought than writing. For Derrida, spoken language is as much an abstraction of experience as written language. In fact, even thought seems to be an abstraction of experience. Identifying one medium of abstraction as less abstracted than the abstraction of the abstraction makes little sense according to Derrida's theory. Language in any form reconstructs the world in binary forms. The symbol's only relationship to that which is symbolizes is the act of symbolizing. There is no fixity between experience and language, so there's no sense in proposing that one form of communication is closer to meaning than another. While Derrida's conceptualization of language makes theoretical sense to me, I have difficulty accepting the idea that speech is not closer to thought when experience tells me otherwise. It seems to me, that there's a second level of constraint that operates in writing that is not as present in speaking. While speaking still requires the speaker to symbolize with binaries, the choice of which word in what order does not seem as present as in writing, especially academically.
Connections/Questions:
Connections/Questions:
-Derrida is trying to unite Heidegger(being) and Nietsche (will towards knowing but also will toward not knowing/ignorance).
-Differance - the idea that we construct understanding by identifying where something is present and where something is absent (This happens in the inner (body) and outer (signification)) -- is remarkably similar to Pierce's concept of "thirdness." Differance is the condition of representing presence and absence through the synthesis of what one initially understands the object to be (firstness) with modifying language (secondness), resulting in (thirdness) synthesizing the signified with the signifier.
-Differance - the idea that we construct understanding by identifying where something is present and where something is absent (This happens in the inner (body) and outer (signification)) -- is remarkably similar to Pierce's concept of "thirdness." Differance is the condition of representing presence and absence through the synthesis of what one initially understands the object to be (firstness) with modifying language (secondness), resulting in (thirdness) synthesizing the signified with the signifier.
-What is the relationship between thought, speaking, and writing? Even if one is not a truer representation of experience than another, doesn't the fact that writing requires a second form of translation (thought --> verbalized thought --> visually composed thought) count for something?
