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.