Beyond the Symbols

Jacques Derrida's work “Différance” is noteworthy because of his intended misspelling of the word difference. he claims to have done this as a form of process. To illustrate the insignificance of symbols; however upon seeing this I couldn't help but to question if his work does this successfully.

Originality and Derrida

As a class we’ve spent some time thinking about knowledge and if it can ever be fully original and organic. We’ve thought about how as an author you should be pulling from all kinds of different sources, but never settling for too long on one. That way your work is a collaboration, but in itself becomes a new piece that has a sense of originality. However, parts of Derrida’s essay made me question the idea of originality again. He speaks about trace saying that all ideas and thoughts bear the trace of other things. I began to think about what this meant for language, words, ideas and knowledge. It seems that he’s writing that no word, or idea, or thought can exist with out being shadowed by otherness. He believes that there is no substance in language, but instead all words are just a long string of different forms.

Why Can't We Communicate?

Every human being is unique. No matter if you are an identical twin with the same physical appearance as your sibling, for that is not what signifies your identity.  At your core, your soul, your inner being, you are different from every other person that has, is, and will exist in time. The way you see the world is distinct and altered from the person next to you. As a person lives their life and comes to interact in the world and gain experiences, they form distinct ideas about everything, thus creating their individualistic thought process. For John Locke, the nature of ideas begins by creating ideas through sensations and the things we experience (815). Therefore, the words we use to communicate and express ourselves are simply signs of our ideas. In the Book III excerpt from his book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke points out the extreme difficulty of communication between individuals based on the simple fact that every person is inherently diverse from the next. Since every person thinks and experiences the world differently, how can correctly communicate our ideas to others? In Locke’s philosophy, this question remains at the very core as the downfall of language.

Dear Agency,

Locke emphasizes how language affects our perception, therefore influencing our thoughts. In order to attain a specific thought, it is undeniable that a breakdown of a word must occur; once this action is achieved, those within a circuit are able to communicate effectively. Derrida understands this notion, yet it appears as though comprehension can only be met when these words are connected, as if they are within a system –language. With this in mind, I wonder if a universal agency can ever be derived from a specific word, rather than having a unique agency defined by a particular language. Can one utterance have universal agency, or does a relationship between various words, or language, need to be met in order to give means to a concept?

What I derived from Derrida....

Derrida, in Diffrance, makes the point that language is, in a sense, arbitrary. I have thought about this before, about how the English language could be made more efficient and easy-to-use through elimination of silent letters, and even elimination of entire letters, namely the letter C. (Using "K" in words like cannot and using "S" in words like essence.) I believe these observations are quite poignant because as English speakers, we don't think about the language nearly as much as we should. It is a system decided upon long, long ago and left unchanged (yet not left unaugmented) for the future generations not to alter due to the risk of looking like an illiterate erratic. Words do change, however, but the system of letters is one that takes a lot longer to change, spanning multiple generations.

In relation to Locke, I believe the two ideas can exist simultaneously. While Locke was right that clarity in language is the goal of the speaker, it doesn't look like the system is currently set up to provide the most clarity to the most amount of people. I have heard that the German language is a lot more logical and doesn't have the hidden landmines of false sounds and letters attributed to it like the English language. Yet, English is more widely spoken around the world. I wonder if there is something about the English language that made it that way or whether it is the distribution of English-speaking people that simply brought the English language along with them.

Derrida also goes into a context-heavy theory about language where his goal of clarity was somewhat a failure. In the sense of clarity, it's almost a given that the author writing a paper about the necessity of clarity in text would be more clear than an author writing about the arbitrary and fickle nature of language. A point about Derrida that I like is that a word's entire meaning can be changed simply through the alteration of one letter. One letter is all it takes for the word "bad" to be the word "bed", and one is a mode and the other is an object: two completely different things being pointed at by a slightly different signifier. Furthermore, I loved the example he makes with the words different meaning a binary opposition and difference meaning similar yet opposing in a singular thing. The human system of language is fascinating.

Challenging Structuralism

Jacques Derrida first challenged structuralism. He rejected the assumption of texts having self-referential systems and that meaning is both determinable and determinate. As a poststructuralist, he viewed the world through language. Like language, Derrida believed our thoughts, perceptions, and ideas are "generated by difference" (Derrida 278). What Derrida ultimately believes, which he attempts to explain through his theory of difference, is that nothing stands on its own. Everything is somehow related in one way or another, which he "traces." Derrida even uses the verb 'to differ' to make his point.  In doing so, the method of "deconstruction" appears. I enjoyed this reading because as Derrida views texts as intertexts, I too believe in a lack of originality and an emphasis on interrelatedness.

What Derrida's "Differance" Implies About Agency

John Locke and Jacques Derrida establish in their respective essays that the way in which we communicate and even the way in which we think is arbitrary. For Locke, words serve the purpose of recording our thoughts and communicating those thoughts, but this means that words naturally have no signification and are thus arbitrary. Language is therefore a system of arbitrary words and ideas. Derrida takes this a step further, saying that our ideas are also arbitrary, and that the only way ideas take substance is through their differences with other ideas. Derrida gives the term “differance” to define this system of differences.

Essentially, our daily lives are defined by “differance”, in our communication, knowledge, experiences, so on and so forth. What then does this say about agency and agents? Any time human beings engage in rhetoric about a subject, they engage in an exchange filled with “differance”. To have or share agency then is to be an active participant in mediating through differance, as agents try to interpret the communication and rhetoric of others.

Using the story of Sojourner Truth as an example, all agents involved in the interpretation of Truth’s speech are limited by the arbitrariness of language and ideas, according to Locke and Derrida. But, each participant in the agency of her speech is working to come to a closer understanding of Sojourner Truth’s meaning and her own ideas behind her speech. While it may be impossible to come to a complete understanding of Truth’s ideas because of “differance”, our attempt to do so makes us agents and gives us agency.

Differance therefore implies a limitation in our understanding, but it also implies that we constantly try to limit the differences between our understandings. Language, though it is flawed because words are only symbols, is our tool for doing so. This also gives a new perspective to agency. To have agency or share agency means to play a part in the attempt to synthesize complex ideas and come to a better understanding of other’s perception of the world around us.

Derrida + Locke: Language as Part & Whole

In Derrida's essay, he does not just break down language into its parts so that we may better understand the whole. Derrida goes even further with his method of 'deconstruction', which really is the best word for what this method accomplishes. Locke in his essay discusses the ways in which we use language and how most of time language manages to fall short for us. Locke begins by 'deconstructing' the concept of signs and symbols that represent words, and how words represent ideas. Derrida begins by discussing the letter 'a' of our alphabet, which shows from the beginning his thoroughness in discussing language in all of its parts.

The Power of Knowledge and Ideas

Earlier this week, I had the chance to analyze Locke's essay "From Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” For my analysis, I was tracing Locke’s theory and principle on ideas. Throughout the essay I was able to understand that Locke believes that ideas come first, before language, and language is later attached. While I understood this from his essay, there were also some conflicting viewpoints that made me question what he really thought. Derrida explains her essay her idea that knowledge is they key to all things- that it always comes first when referring to language. You cannot communicate fully unless you have a full understanding of the language and ideas that come with it.

“Who says ‘dog’ means dog?”

The idea of language and its origins and imperfections has been discussed for decades. Theorists like Locke and Derrida have committed entire essays to the concept of language. Both essays are thoughtful, complex, and frankly quite dense with information. I was struggling with grasping these concepts until I realized I already knew them. I had read about them in one of my favorite childhood books as a 4^th grader. The answers I needed were found in Frindle.

The Chicken or the Egg?

     What really came first? This question, so commonly asked of the chicken and the egg, is being subtly asked by both Derrida and Locke regarding to language and knowledge. Though they do not outright ask this question, their philosophies caused me to ask this question, to really sit and think which one comes first. Knowledge is gained by learning more and more language, more and more words; and by learning what the abstract and concrete ideas are pertaining to those words. But the older and more knowledgeable we become, the more language can make sense to us and the more language we will learn.

To know, to merely say, a word does not make one knowledgeable about that word and the ideas attached to it. But without first saying that word, one cannot become knowledgeable about its meaning. Oh the confusion!

Locke, Derrida, Johnson, Lakoff

Despite a nearly 300 year gap in their writings, by their very premises Lakoff and Johnson’s “Metaphors We Live By” (1980) and John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690) address a very similar set of problems in our conception of language and understanding. One could easily argue that in trying to identify the origins understand the effects of human language on our knowledge of the external world, Locke lays the framework for the conversation by way of ‘modes,’ ‘substances,’ ‘relations’ and characteristics of effective communication, while Lakoff and Johnson expand this basis, fulfilling Locke’s attempts to dismantle doctrines of “received truth” and innate ideas by introducing the idea that the metaphor is more than an ornamental literary device, or simple characteristic of language. “Metaphors We Live By” makes the case that metaphors, like Locke’s modes, substances and relations, “govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details.” Both seem to be in agreement that our conceptual system is an internalized system of meanings that we more or less repress, or become numb to.

Locke + Derrida

Both Locke and Derrida wrote on language. Locke focused more on the imperfections, such as inconsistent use and words not attributed to specific ideas. According to Locke, there is no imperfection in talking to one’s self, as there is no confusion. “The imperfection of words is the doubtfulness or ambiguity of their signification, which is caused by the sort of ideas they stand for.” This quote is a central premise to Locke’s argument. This seems reminiscent of Derrida’s argument about the signification of words. The transient nature of words and ideas is core to both theorists. Locke sought to regulate the ways in which words are used, so as to deter this transience. Derrida does not identify this transience as explicitly problematic and does not seek to correct it. Instead he focuses his criticism on the nature of the thought processes that are used to apply definitions to words.

"Differance" as a tool for understanding experience

While I'm not quite positive that I fully understand Derrida's essay "Differance", I'm going to attempt to deconstruct his theory of language to try to make sense of it. The entire essay is about the title, the word "differance", as opposed to the word "difference". Derrida claims that differance with an a does not actually exist as a concept or a word. He is just using it to prove some kind of point. It is a metaphor for how we look at language.

Locke and "Key"

Okay, so I remember when Professor Graban mentioned in the first few classes that blogging is when we would start to feel smart, and with Locke I am starting to feel that. Why is that??

Well, not meaning to brag (or maybe I am; I'm just excited about this), Locke's arguments about language is something I've basically been writing about since Barthes!!! My other two posts I'm just going on and on about how there is an argument by the critics that language is seen as "imperfect" (well this is Locke's term now, he helped me see it that way) because to communicate is to used agreed upon, or universal, vocabulary though it may not exactly fit said person's emotions. HA! This is so exciting because I feel like I have been on the right track with my musings. And... I'll stop "bragging" now and talk about the essay...

Derrida's DifferAnce

Before reading Derrida’s essay Differance I went over Herrick’s background about Derrida and his essay. In this background there is one quote that basically sums up Derrida’s point that he is attempting to come across in his essay, which is, “The object of Derrida’s attention is language itself, especially written language. His principal goal ‘is to remain acutely sensitive to the deeply historical social and linguistic ‘constructedness’ of our beliefs and practices’” (Derrida, qtd. in Herrick 254). I think reading this background was extremely helpful in trying to understand Derrida’s overall idea. First, I think the most important term to go over before anything else is the term differance itself. Essentially it is the difference that shatters the cult of identity, meaning that there really is no origin. The writing of differance refers to itself because it breaks down the concepts that are signified and referent.

The Difference Between Derrida and Locke (and their similarities to Lakoff and Johnson)

Jacques Derrida strives to challenge traditional assumptions about language and meaning in his essay "Differance." He claims that substantive units of language are actually determined by outside forces and that our perception of reality works in a similar way. This is a very similar critique to the one made by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in "Metaphors We Live By" where they explore how the way we think and the way we speak is heavily reliant on metaphors we have created. Derrida's views of language and speech can also be applied to Locke's ideas in that they both stress that words are incapable of holding meaning on their own, however, Derrida takes his theory a step farther and explains how it is that words come to have meaning based on their differences to all other words and meanings.

The Hang-Up on Words

An organized system of verbal speech is what separates man from other primates and lesser species. Words create and shape our reality. They make or break us. Words are an imperfect reflection of their imperfect creators. Burke would say that because man is "rotten with perfection" he devotes his life (as Derrida and Locke do) in vain to criticizing imperfect systems and attempting to better them. Locke and Derrida are both hypercritical of our flawed system of language. In many ways they make similar arguments but in many ways I believe Locke would reject Derrida's creation of "differance."

The Imperfections of Language

Locke’s “Essay on Human Understanding” and Derrida’s “Difference” almost appear to be working in opposite directions in order to unravel the complexities of language. Locke explores language more broadly in trying to unpack the it’s uses and Derrida appears to be deconstructing words to illustrate various nuances.

Language Has Not Fallen From The Sky

Jacques Derrida was a clever man. 

Among his efforts to explain his coined term “differance” (one in which he would argue is not a word, nor a concept), he concludes his essay leaving readers with an eyebrow raised. Why? The very nature of the word differance cannot answer the questions “what differs?”, “who differs?”, and “what is differance?” chiefly because in answering such questions Derrida would be discrediting his entire argument surrounding his beliefs about language. In my title I hoped to invoke thoughts about origin, and if not the sky, then where did language come from? Derrida seems to argue against the idea of ‘origin’ in its entirety, particularly in the system of language. It is this very argument of his that would challenge all the assertions about language and knowledge that his predecessors, traditional structuralists, had come to establish in their work. What Derrida fundamentally attacks is “the central assumptions of metaphysics, [that] the components of knowledge and the criteria of truth were presence, substance, essence, and identity” (Rivkin and Ryan, 258). Yet, Derrida opposes this idea that presence is produced by the essence of the thing itself. To Derrida, there is no original presence, but only a supplemental relationship between words, ones of opposition.

The One with Locke and the Scapegoat

I pondered this subject that I am about to write for quite some time because I do not fully understand John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding nor Michel Foucault's What is an author?. However, this post will examine how Locke's presentation of words and their relation to signification and how it correlates to Foucault's passage pertaining to "author-function" and overall, discourse.

The Loneliness of Meaning

While accurate in many respects, post structuralism (when applied to life as a text) can be a very lonely and daunting concept. If we examine life and ourselves through this lens, we may fall quickly into a bit of an existential crisis. We think of our lives as having meaning, as ourselves having a distinct and defined character; but within this lens, meanings are derived from how they relate to and differ from other meanings. Does that mean we have no concrete meaning on our own? Are we merely defined by other things (concepts, schemes etc.) What would we be if we existed separately? Of course that is an impossibility, as we are a part of our discourse and can not exist outside it (making this dilemma existential in nature). 

Graphic Intervention

Derrida plays with language in his text Différance. When we communicate, it is often that we come across words that sound the same, though may have different meanings. I had trouble following Derrida and his theory, however, his concept of "graphic intervention" caught my attention.

Clarity

While reading this text, I found myself referring to previous knowledge I’ve acquired from this class and others. While Jaques Derrida was attempting to explain his claim through thorough examples of why Difference with an e, which at the basic level is indicating to differ, to be of a distinction (along with many other elaborate details to support the singular word), he argued that Difference with an a, is not a word or a concept at all. Therefore making it an ineligible word for further definition. To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure the purpose of the word Difference other than in the spoken, the word distinction is inaudible, therefore it can only be recognized in written text. With this he suggests, that only the written word attempts some form of clarity.

The Differance Between Locke and Derrida

In Book III of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke discusses the limitations and failures that language inherently possess. Locke claims that words themselves have no real meaning, “because the ideas they stand for relate to the reality of things” (Locke 820).  This notion is also evident in Derrida’s essay Differance, which highlights the role the “present” in communication. These ideas seem somewhat obvious; clearly words and their meanings are highly contingent upon the context that they are spoken. Both believe this constructed reality is based on patterns of naming and word usage that gives us a “tranquil familiarity” (Derrida 281).

Differance in Terms of Author-Function

Before I considered differance in terms of Foucault’s “What Is an Author?” I could not comprehend what Derrida meant by the term. 

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The age-old causality dilemma, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is something that revolves around people questioning how the universe and life itself began. However, when I think of this saying, it immediately reminds me of John Locke and Jacques Derrida and their texts, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Differance, respectively. In relation to these texts, I pose a similar question, which came first, the idea or the word? Locke would say the idea. Then, language came into being and labeled the idea a word. However, Derrida, being less concerned with labeling and more concerned with deconstructing, might have some points to add about that old adage.

Lost in Translation

For Locke, language is flawed. The words in and of themselves contain no errors, but the ideas that they are meant to portray present challenges due to their complexities and our imperfect knowledge of them. Communication rarely, if ever, transfers a clear idea from one person to another. We are constantly battling with meanings and our own experiences. These experiences, and the way in which we interact with the world, make it impossible to be directly familiar with it. We experience our ideas of the world instead, and this makes conveying those ideas almost impossible. This is difficult enough while communicating in the same language, but the imperfections become evident when we attempt to translate words from one language to another.

Multiple Meanings

In Derrida's Differance, Derrida discusses the subtle contrasts between "Difference with an E" and "Differance with an A"(281). With stating that Differance is neither can deal with the term "to differ," much like when one is set apart from everything, Derrida shows that language is limited in English due to people having one word for one, specific idea. In Burke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Burke says that words can "have a double reference in there ordinary use" (820). Both of these claims are true when it comes to dissecting the English language, but I believe that it is easier to have a separate word for everything.

When Derrida changes the letter "E" to an "A," Derrida is antagonizing the idea that the English language is very subjective. In order for one to understand the word that Derrida is creating, the word itself must be changed. But even with this most subtle change in the word, this reading is actually a speech. Derrida, since this is a speech, must now clarify by stating whether he is saying "difference with an E" or "differance with an A." Why? Because orally, both words sound the same, unless one truly emphasizes each syllable. He goes on to discuss that he is, indeed, limited by the text in front of him. This limitation by "graphic differences" (281) hinders the words during a speech because Derrida's the only one reading the script. He is the only person that can see the specific arraignment of letters and sentences on the page. Because of this, he must now clarify what form of a word he is saying at the time.

In Burke's essay, Burke argues that words can have "double reference" (820) today. This is true for many words in English. For instance, the verb "running" can be used to describe the action of someone jogging or an appliance that is working. This is the case for many other words in English. The words set, card, pitch, and round all have multiple meanings. The problem with these words though, is that in speaking the words, we must use context clues in order to figure out what form of the term one is using. For instance, the term "pitch." If one were to say "That guy has some great pitch," how do we know if they are referring to pitch as in throwing a baseball or pitch as in matching a musical sound? This is why I think separate words are better than one word that means many things.

Burke actually references a group that does this in one of the earlier essays that we read this year. In Equipment for Living, Burke states that, "Eskimos have special names for many different kinds of snow" (293). He states that the reason for these different names is that they imply different hunting conditions for the Eskimos. If someone were to just say "It's snowing hard," what is the definition of hard?

This can all related back to how truth is relative to people. Some words can be hard to gauge depending on how they are used. For instance, if someone were to say, "It's cold outside," this is relative due to the person. To someone from Alaska in Florida, a fifty degree day would most likely feel like a walk in the park rather than a day to bundle up.

The point behind all of this is the enforcement of an idea. Derrida and Burke would both agree that the use of so many words for every single thing that is different is next to useless because they imply ideas. Take a word like pants for example. Pants implies the idea of a form of clothing that is designed to cover the parts of the body from the waist and down. This is a very non descriptive term, due to the fact that we have given a name to every form of pants that are made.

To me, it is all based on the idea that one has created through the reading or hearing of a word. Humans love to visualize. People want to see what exactly it is that someone is talking about, this way, there is no misunderstanding. Burke and Derrida have a point that language has many unnecessary words, but this is due to people wanting a concrete picture in their minds about what is being presented to them. This is because each word signifies not only a picture in their minds, but also a form of being.

Locke and Derrida

   John Locke essay Concerning Human Understanding, and Jacques Derrida’s Differance, both  consider the substance of a word, sign, and language. How words change and form between different sets of people effects the understanding of the word or languages understanding its self. Locke discusses how words, ideas and things although seem different all have to interact to form a language. Derrida discusses more of how words although visually appear different, actually represent a similar concept or idea. Many of the things Locke and Derrida speak on have made me consider what words represent and how they are changing in our society.

Derrida/ Locke

  After reading Derrida, I noticed one specific line that caught my attention. There was mention that "there is no substance in language". This line reminded me a lot of what Locke was trying to convey because without proper communication and knowledge of a specific word, there really is no substance in language. He goes on to explain that "form" is something external and shapes material into something specific. Everyone talks about form or writing or language and this also made a lot of sense to me. Each form of language is, essentially, "different".
  Derrida says that difference is neither a word or a concept. There should be a clear understanding of it therefore two words are formed, with slightly different definitions. Derrida goes on to say that all things are signs and all reality is "textual". I think what he means by this is that all parts relate to other parts. I also think he means that all words, can relate to other words or link them together. And all other languages relate but are not exactly the same.
  As he goes into describing the verb "differ" he says that it differs from itself. I found this paragraph to be a little bit confusing and I am not entirely sure on how to elaborate from it. As I got further into the reading, he talks about the web and how it is linked and webbed from other things bonded together. Everything on the web comes from something else and is linked to a million other things. This helped me better understand the concepts he was trying to convey and reminded me of Locke because everything he tries to explain, he explains through example.
  As much as I liked Derrida, it was difficult for me to read for some reason. I wish there was more examples so that I could better understand his concepts and further analyze his theories better.

John Locke and Emojis: Or, How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Love the Language

                The 2008 thriller film Pontypool is not your average zombie film. Instead of a viral infection or some evil sorcery resurrecting the undead, the film centers on the idea that the infection can spread through language. By repeating a word until the sound seems useless and the word loses meaning, the small town’s citizens are driven mad. The film does bring up an interesting concept. In As I Lay Dying, Addie Bundren talks about repeating her husband’s name until it becomes “an empty vessel”. John Locke raises the point of how language is not perfect, and even goes to suggest that words do not exist because they are just that-empty vessels that vaguely represent the idea of what we suggest them to represent. In today’s world of text messages and social media, the emoji pictographic alphabet is used to convey information and often to add extra emotion to a message, and they are just as important as the words they accompany because they are more concrete in their nature of interpretation.

               

                In his “Essay on Understanding”, Locke argues that words do not solidly represent their ideas assigned to them as thought at first. He cites an example of how he asks a group of people what the word “liquor” means, and they cannot come up with a solid agreement on the term. While I do not agree with Locke’s suggestion that words themselves do not exist, I do agree that they are more loosely associated than previously thought. However, I feel like Locke is overlooking something by simplifying his argument. He does apply his experiment to nouns, but excludes other parts of the language like articles or verbs. The experiment might have had a more concrete answer if he asked the group what the meaning of the word “the” or “fly” is.

                Applying this to the emoji alphabet is as simple as analyzing what the symbols themselves represent. The emoji alphabet is pictographic, and not logographically built into a syllable-based language. Therefore, each symbol has its own concrete meaning and is not absolutely concrete in its message. For example, this emoji pictured here may look like two hands in prayer, but also represents two people high fiving. However, this is a minority issue with emojis, as most of them are very simple in what message they convey: smiley face and frown face represent a simple caricature of the emotion they are associated with.

                Saying that words do not exist purely because there is no absolute truth in their definition is not necessarily a valid argument because it places the mechanism of words into an extreme stance of being. Words do exist, but not as the exact meaning that Locke envisions; this is not likely to happen due to the errant ways of humans, however, the act of conversation allows for true understanding to happen through discourse and repetition. Words exist as Addie Bundren describes them: vessels which carry the overall meaning of what someone is trying to convey. Vessel is such a weird word, isn’t it? Vessel. Vessel. Vess-el. Vessel. Oh no, it’s happening.

The Wandering Woman: Derrida, Feminist Theory, and Urban Legends

By Allyn Farach

Like the stories of older civilizations, urban legends define our culture. From little girls converting atheists in grocery lines to dead men on subways to child cancer patients seeing Jesus to fried rats in fast food, these stories reflect our society's hopes and fears. Claude Levi Strauss's idea of structuralism argued that society, like stories, held symbols and storylines that our culture viewed as important (Rivkin and Ryan, 258). Simone de Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex, argued that a woman was not born as a woman, but made into one by society (Smith, 337). Urban legends depict what society view as important for and about women, and set up a model for women to follow. One specific one would be the story of the hotel room service menu, which was a cautionary tale that people would tell women to warn them of the dangers of the world. 

Derrida vs. Locke: Language & Different

     After reading Derrida, I realized that she took the word "differance" and unpacked it using literature, language and ideas. Derrida wanted us (the readers) to combine the two terms together and make a definition which would leave us with "differance." Derrida states that "differance" is neither a word or a concept. I took it as it being the middle definition for "differer" and "different". Since differer means difference as distinction from various aspects such as inequality or discernibility; and different and deferred had a correlation with each other. Derrida felt as if there should be a word in the middle of the two that really makes the terms clear so that you are able to differentiate between the terms.In the text, it states that Locke "searches for truth in the physical world and attempts to understand knowledge as a psychological phenomenon” (814). Derrida is doing exactly that by trying to explore and figure out what exactly "differance" is with the use of ideas. 

    As Derrida gets deeper into her text she goes on to discuss how the the term "assemblage" is more of like bringing things together. Then he uses the example of a web and how the strings of a web are interlaced and they diverge off and start binding other things together. In my opinion, that was a good example because it provided a visual image of the term. This goes hand and hand with Locke because Locke put an idea with a word to help the audience understand it more. I feel as if that is what Derrida was trying to do with this piece of text. In reference to Locke I feel as if a word wouldn't exist, if it didn't have much meaning behind it. In another case it wouldn't have much meaning because a word can mean two different things in two different situations. Like the examples on the slide show shown in class, it stated that a red light can mean STOP but the actual word red doesn't only mean STOP and that goes for the color red as well.

I feel as if both Derrida and Locke both brought up important topics concerning the ideas of terms and meanings. When Locke says "our worlds reflecting upon language are the signs of our ideas” (815).  Derrida also feels as if the signs and experiences we have is a reflection of our ideas. However , both agree that words come from our very own ideas but Derrida believes that its the differences between these ideas as well. With the help of Derrida and Locke we are able to use context clues to figure out what a word is and what it means. 

Locke's "Language" and Derrida's "Differance"

Once I read Derrida’s argument about how we communicate everyday with language, I realized that he was explaining the distinction of how the terms “differ” and “defer” are interpreted or used when we (the audience/ readers) are presented with it and using it. Derrida states how, “written language, cannot escape the built- in biases of the cultural history that produced it,” (253). He believed language to be a “system of relations and oppositions,” (255), that should, even in this modern day, continue to be defended. As we know language is based, not just on the interpretation or meaning of words, but on the meaning behind words and how they can be used in a different way. For instance, Derrida claims how meaning is, “always the product of a restless play within language that cannot be fixed or pinned down for the purposes of conceptual definition,” (255).

Skinning You Alive (Examining Metaphors & Imperfections of Language)

Lakoff and Johnson’s article “Metaphors We Live By” illustrates how Locke believes there are imperfections of language in his article “From An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” Metaphorical concepts create imperfections within language because ultimately, language is used to communicate, and if concepts are misconstrued or misunderstood then the communication has been incomplete. It should be noted that a metaphor complicates this because a “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action” (Lakoff & Johnson). So, if it is pervasive in everyday life then it should not risk being misconstrued, but for someone who has not experienced that aspect of everyday life or is learning the English language as a second language, then it could be imperfect because they would fail to communicate.

Derrida's Differance

The biggest concern in Derrida’s article is connected to the title – difference, or “differance.” We hear all the time that we are all different and that is what makes us unique, interesting, and a diverse planet, but people rarely think about the variety in language, despite there being 6,500 spoken ones in the world. (And this doesn’t even include things like sign language, love languages, and all of the other ways we communicate that don’t involve words or speaking.)

So, back to the main point: there is no substance in language, only forms, and it all consists of differences. You may think that there are infinite forms of language available, and you would be essentially right. “A ‘form’ is something external that shapes material into a particular identity or substance” (Derrida, 278). Because of the wide range of notions and possibilities in the universe (and the human mind), there are an innumerable number (isn’t that an oxymoron?) of experiences and thought processes that thus shape language, like Derrida says.

This classification of form also ties in with the act of agency, which is communal and participatory, making it “both constituted and constrained by externals that are material and symbolic” (Campbell, 1). Form and agency both influence the way a composition is put together and read, because a) form is also similar to genre, which has to be decided before an author begins writing so he/she knows the direction and intent, and b) agency, which is the power that the author has when writing.

Here is an example of my interpretation of form:

Sand is characterized as something that you find at the beach, even though that is far from the only place it is found. It is therefore given the identity of a coastal substrate because of the frequency of seeing the two (the ocean and sand) side by side. The connection of “sand” and “beach” is only familiar because of the forms of communication that people participate in – allowing connotations to be created when talking about the beach, drawing and painting and photographing the beach, etc.

Therefore, the identity of lingual elements are only “produced by a network of differences, and each element will itself consist of further differentiations” (Derrida, 279). It is this that distinguishes a pen from a bread crumb, and the regulation of our thoughts and discernments regarding existence are similar. “Traditional philosophy” dictates that the truthfulness of the world is guaranteed by the physical presence of our ideas, but in reality, it is the distinctions – the differences! – that make up the pieces of the pie of life and language.

Words Don't Fail

Locke states that "the chief end of language in communication being to be understood, words serve not well for that end, neither in civil nor philosophical discourse, when any word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker" (Locke, 817). To be completely honest, this entire quote (which I guess essentially means a chunk of Locke's argument) sounds false, hypocritical and entirely bizarre. Locke even states later in his essay how one of the imperfections of words, signification and meanings are the fact that they ignite multiple meanings in the minds of the hearers. If that is the case, then is there really one "meaning" for a word?

Transcendence is differance through difference?

When a person thinks of the word transcend, do they think of it in the sense of language? Or the sense of time? What about spirituality? When the first thing that comes to your mind is language, then you may have cracked the code of Jacques Derrida's theory of Différance.

Words are to Language : Language is to Metaphor : Metaphor is to Communication

Locke explores the significance of language and words; if they are similar and if they are a single unit. Lakoff and Johnson delve into the world of metaphors and how they are used linguistically in our day-to-day lives. Lakoff didn't speak about the signification of words, nor did Locke speak of metaphors. I try to gain understanding of each overlapping terms by asking the following questions:How are the terms connected? Do metaphors gain their signification through its language or through the words? Why do we need metaphors ? How do language and metaphor aid in communication? I try to understand the links between each term, through each writer.

Maybe its a sign!

In book III of An Essay to Understanding, John Locke mentions the importance on signs in regards to creating a more unified language. Locke prefaces the essay by mentioning that language is imperfect by basing one of his major arguments on “signs.” In order to develop a clearer meaning of the word “sign,” there have been excerpts from the Bedford Glossary and Locke’s essay. The idea is these theories can be applied today as the term “book” can be viewed differently based on generations that have previously identified with a sign of the book.  His approach to readers challenges them to identify with a language that is indefinite and uncertain just as technology is.

Language...and truth??????????

“Derrida held that language-especially written language-cannot escape built-in biases of the cultural history that produced it.” (Herrick, 253)  Derrida approached language in a deconstructive manner, challenging what was perceived based on language that has been defined by social structure, which can be denatured by asking questions such as “According to whom?” and “why?”

Erasure as a Lockean Abuse of Language

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke discusses several ways that language and words—and more specifically the signification process behind creating the meaning of words—can fail. This phrasing, however, can be a bit misleading. Many of the failures of language that Locke discusses arise out of user error, and not from the words themselves. He calls these the “abuses” of language. Some of the abuses he discusses include how people use words to signify something they do not really signify—in other words, they make the meaning of the word obscure or difficult to understand on purpose. He also says that language can become obscure when people assume that others know what they mean when they use certain words. This, to me, sounds like one of the problems that Ellen Barton wanted to bring to light in her essay Textual Practices of Erasure.

Exploring the Role of Language: Locke Vs. Derrida

Significance refers to ideas and how individuals perceive these particular ideas. A signifier may not always provide the intended meaning, as alterations for each individual tend to affect the uniformity placed on the significance of the word. John Locke’s essential focus is to understand how signs are perceived when referring to a complex idea, surpassing the notion of just a simple word. “Ideas are the signs of real things,” (Locke, 817) meaning that ideas are ultimately the means through which meaning is evoked- not words. Derrida similarly explores differences in language and how ideas are understood through the communication of individuals. Knowledge can only be reached through understanding these complex ideas and the differences through which individuals come to terms with them. Essentially, both Locke and Derrida focus on these complexities in interpreting language for everyday communication.

Is Language Ever Perfect?

In John Locke's An Essay on Human Understanding, Locke asserts that language is easily misunderstood. People assign different meanings to the same word depending on a person's experiences. Locke says that the purpose of words is to communicate and in that communication, to be understood. But, Locke stipulates that words don't work well for this end. In this way, words are imperfect. But if words are so easily misconstrued, can they ever be truly perfect if there's always a chance for the message to be misunderstood?

Language for Locke and Ong

In John Locke’s essay his overarching argument is the imperfection of language and the ways it fails us. Locke believes that the use of words is for recording our own thoughts and then communicating these thoughts with other. However, Locke notices a problem with this because words can have many different meanings and people can associate many different ideas with a single word.  This for Locke is where language fails because if “any word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker” than communication is not being successful because the hearer is not fully understanding the speaker (Locke 817). Now to take it back to Walter Ong's "The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction" which states authors create a fictional audience when writing. Writers use this fictional audience in order to help them imagine whom they are writing for thus appealing to them. “If a writer succeeds in writing it is generally because he can fictionalize in his imagination an audience he has learned to know not from daily life but from earlier writers who were fictionalizing their imagination audiences they had learned to know in still earlier writers” (Ong 11). Locke and Ong both have strong views on language, but do they connect?

Breaking Down the Walls of Experience: Derrida and Locke

The main argument that I took issue with from Locke’s An Essay on Concerning Human Understanding was the distinction of an ‘idea’ from language. Locke argues that an idea arises from a given experience while language is what is used in an attempt to articulate that idea outside of the moment of having that idea. This separation of an idea existing apart from language is problematic considering that the ideas we have about experiences are not only constructed and understood through language, but the essence of those ideas rely on previous experiences constructed through language. Derrida, in his essay “Différance”, attempts to dismantle the claim that there is a present moment at all, much less whether it can or cannot be articulated through language. Thus while language is arbitrarily designated and cannot fully represent the natural world, our only understanding of that natural world is based on a system of relationships created and maintained through language.

The Space In Between: Language as Temporal and Visceral

 “Differance is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each element that is said to be “present” appearing on the stage of presence, is related to something other than itself but retains the mark of a past element and already lets itself be hollowed out by the mark of its relation to a future element” (Derrida 287).

John Locke theorized that words are inherently insufficient in their ability to convey complex ideas, thus rendering language is fundamentally imperfect. In his 33 propositions Locke more than thoroughly explains the shortcomings that come with words, yet his argument remains firmly in the realm of painstaking classification. Locke goes into concentrated detail in his dissection of what language is not, yet he never ventures into the murky unknown of what language is. Jacques Derrida endeavours to explain his concept of “differance” in terms of language.

Exploring The Flaws of Language in Accordance with John Locke

In a perfect world, language would be considered perfect. Every phrase is interconnected with an automatic idea, and every sentence, however fragmented, still reads as smoothly as the next. In an ideal environment, every person would have the ability to figure out language without the need of learning basic principles beforehand. However, that is not the case in actuality. Language is flawed, language is imperfect, and language is ever-changing. The latter notion towards language is the one that Locke resonates with the most within his work in book III of An Essay on Human Understanding. His approach to language as an inexact concept is a rather correct one.

But, why do we write?

As if American and Greek philosophers were not difficult enough to understand, Jacques Derrida proceeds to write an 11 page explanation of the difference between "difference" and "differance." The essay is thick with explanations, examples, and ideas of Derrida that are extremely difficulty to comprehend. In the English speaking language, the term "difference" is defined as a point or way in which people or things are not the same. This term is not difficult to understand. As we were taught throughout our lives, we learned that there is a difference between a cat and a dog, a man and a woman, an apple and an orange, Brussels sprouts and cake, and so forth. The term "difference" is a simple idea for us to understand because it can be explained simply. We simply know through teachings that when things are not the same, there is a difference. Furthermore, we have been molded to believe that no two things are ever the same and, therefore, there is a difference in everything.