Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...
Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ... Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...
The implications of the signifier / signified distinction have come to touch many areas of contemporary thought, including film theory. Although language has been an object of analysis over the centuries, it is only recently that it has been accepted as a fundamental paradigm for all scientific and non-scientific areas, notably in the artistic and intellectual, and communicative areas. Major thinkers from the twentieth-century, such as Wittgenstein, Cassirer, Heiddeger, Lévi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty, Nöth and Derrida have tried to rework the concept of semiotics within a broader context of the human language and thought. The notion still remains a rather difficult object of analysis in the contemporary world. I believe, however, that semiotics must be seen as a comprehensive and multidisciplinary paradigm, with its manifestations in different cultural forms, and subject to critical inspection of its own definitions and procedures. In his Cours de linguistique générale (published posthumously in 1916 and taught by his disciples Charles Bally and Albert Séchehaye), Saussure not only elaborates on his base paradigm of langue / parole but he also made the critical point that the conventions that rule the sign system are very arbitrary, which means that there is not necessarily a correlation between the word (the signifier) and the object or idea it represents (the signified). This arbitrariness is present in all the various languages around the world, and it is this arbitrary relationship between these two parts that make it possible to function as a linguistic system. Roland Barthes in his book Mythologies (1957) carried Saussure’s ideas into other domains of cultural theory, creating with others a new theoretical system known as “Structuralism”. Whether spontaneous or poetic, the aim of any structuralist activity is to reconstitute an “object” so as to make clear in this reconstitution the rules of functioning (the “functions”) of the object. There are other acts / activities other than language which produce meanings, social and cultural ones, like in sports, for example, that show that there are other sign systems. Hence, semiotics becomes a useful tool to analyse the process of meaning production in all the arts (literature, cinema, television) and, ultimately, in other forms of cultural production, as Barthes notes in his book about the myths of French society of that time: On trouvera ici deux déterminations: d’une part une critique idéologique portant sur le langage de la culture dite de masse; d’autre part un premier démontage sémiologique de ce langage: je venais de lire Saussure et j’en tirai la conviction qu’en traitant les “représentations collectives” comme des systèmes de signes on 254
pouvait espérer sortir de la dénonciation pieuse et rendre compte en détail de la mystification qui transforme la nature petite-bourgeoise en nature universelle. 72 (Barthes 1970:76) As I mentioned in the introduction, the greatest immediate applications of these two disciplines in film theory – structuralism and film semiotics – came in relation to genre films, and their objective was to expose a then complex and hermetic system by means of a symptomatic reading of American culture through a study of the elements and rules structuring its cinema-reality. Language in Saussurian terms does not reflect reality as the linguistic sign, he would argue, and was not a term that could be attached to an object but rather to a combination of signifier and signified. As a signifying system, language arbitrates reality and therefore has an ideological function. “Le mythe est une parole”, Barthes would add, linked to a communication system and to a certain society at a specific given time (as the above quote shows). Both structuralism and semiotics derive from structural linguistics, a master discipline which in the sixties tried to establish the communicative power of language from its smallest elements to their meaningful combinations. But linguistics, seen as the science whose object of studies is the structures of the language (langue), is no longer sufficient, and it is here that semiotics arrives at a crucial point, especially in its structuralist formation, says Saussure: A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology (from Greek semeion “sign”). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. (in Wollen 1972:116) Saussure uses the word “semiology” as opposed to “semiotic” (without the “s”) used by Peirce. Both semioticians and semiologists have long debated this term and its definition. For the former, of mainly Anglo-Saxon origin, semiology is understood as the science of signs created by human beings and therefore not so encompassing as semiotics. For the latter, from Romance countries, semiotics is a system of signs with hierarchical 72 There are here two main determinants: on the one hand, an ideological criticism based on the so-called language of mass culture; on the other hand, a first semiologic deconstruction of this language: having read Saussure, I came to the conclusion that on dealing with “collective representations” as sign systems, one could move away from the pious denunciation and present in detail the mystification which transforms the petty bourgeoisie into a universal nature. (my translation) 255
- Page 219 and 220: in the popular imagination. While t
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pouvait espérer sortir de la dé<strong>no</strong>nciation pieuse et rendre compte en détail de la<br />
mystification qui transforme la nature petite-bourgeoise en nature universelle. 72<br />
(Barthes 1970:76)<br />
As I mentioned in the introduction, the greatest immediate applications of these two<br />
disciplines in film theory – structuralism and film semiotics – came in relation to genre<br />
films, and their objective was to expose a then complex and hermetic system by means of a<br />
symptomatic reading of American culture through a study of the elements and rules<br />
structuring its cinema-reality.<br />
Language in Saussurian terms <strong>do</strong>es <strong>no</strong>t reflect reality as the linguistic sign, he<br />
would argue, and was <strong>no</strong>t a term that could be attached to an object but rather to a<br />
combination of signifier and signified. As a signifying system, language arbitrates reality<br />
and therefore has an ideological function. “Le mythe est une parole”, Barthes would add,<br />
linked to a communication system and to a certain society at a specific given time (as the<br />
above quote shows). Both structuralism and semiotics derive from structural linguistics, a<br />
master discipline which in the sixties tried to establish the communicative power of<br />
language from its smallest elements to their meaningful combinations. But linguistics, seen<br />
as the science whose object of studies is the structures of the language (langue), is <strong>no</strong><br />
longer sufficient, and it is here that semiotics arrives at a crucial point, especially in its<br />
structuralist formation, says Saussure:<br />
A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a<br />
part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it<br />
semiology (from Greek semeion “sign”). Semiology would show what constitutes<br />
signs, what laws govern them. Since the science <strong>do</strong>es <strong>no</strong>t yet exist, <strong>no</strong> one can say<br />
what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. (in<br />
Wollen 1972:116)<br />
Saussure uses the word “semiology” as opposed to “semiotic” (without the “s”)<br />
used by Peirce. Both semioticians and semiologists have long debated this term and its<br />
definition. For the former, of mainly Anglo-Saxon origin, semiology is understood as the<br />
science of signs created by human beings and therefore <strong>no</strong>t so encompassing as semiotics.<br />
For the latter, from Romance countries, semiotics is a system of signs with hierarchical<br />
72 There are here two main determinants: on the one hand, an ideological criticism based on the so-called<br />
language of mass culture; on the other hand, a first semiologic deconstruction of this language: having read<br />
Saussure, I came to the conclusion that on dealing with “collective representations” as sign systems, one<br />
could move away from the pious denunciation and present in detail the mystification which transforms the<br />
petty bourgeoisie into a universal nature. (my translation)<br />
255