SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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io6 I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes Tropical Semiotics I 107<br />
usage plays on the connotation of collation or collection of symbols—and by<br />
"differentiating" he wants to imply a series of contrasts or complementaries in<br />
social role relations, that is, "social differentiation" (Weiner 1988:9)—whereas<br />
Wagner's usage relies more on the sense of "making different" or fragmenting<br />
some standarized semantic relations. Wagner himself sometimes speaks of collectivizing<br />
symbols as deriving from the "collectivity" (19863:175) and even reverses<br />
the definitions at several points, such 3S in his discussion of "collectivizing<br />
acts .. . that recharge the symbols of their ordinary differentiating existence"<br />
(1981:118). Despite this definitional confusion, the key point is clear: the opposition<br />
between convention and innovation parallels the distinction between collectivizing<br />
symbolization and differentiating symbolization; indeed, innovation is<br />
the "sign" of differentiation (Wagner 1981:43; Weiner 1988:143).<br />
Convention and Innateness<br />
At this point it becomes essential to begin disambiguating several contradictory<br />
senses of the term "convention" that appear in the Wagner and Weiner<br />
texts. Two usages have already been noted. In the strict Peircean sense, "conventional"<br />
labels a semiotic ground linking sign and object such that the sign would<br />
not stand for the object it does without some further sign, its "interprétant,"<br />
representing it to be so related. Thus, a conventional sign (a Peircean "symbol")<br />
is maximally unmotivated, since it requires neither kind of "natural" linkage,<br />
namely, iconicity or indexicality. The important point to keep in mind about Peircean<br />
conventional signs is that they are inherently semiotic, since apart from the<br />
triadic process of semiosis the sign and the object would not even exist as functionally<br />
related entities (see Chapter 1). I will represent this sense of convention<br />
as convention-P (for Peirce). Clearly, conventions-P can belong to the first level<br />
of semiosis, for example, many linguistic signs. As Wagner (1986b:8) notes:<br />
The conventions—rules, syntax, lexicon—of language stand in a reciprocal<br />
relation to that which can be, and is, said in the language. As we speak by<br />
working transformations upon those conventions, figuring our meanings<br />
through them, so the set of conventions can be seen as the metaphor of all that<br />
could be said in this way.<br />
Tropes such as metaphors and other figurative expressions are not, strictly speaking,<br />
conventional-P because, in establishing the mutual transformation of vehicle<br />
and tenor, their motivation lies in rich layers of cultural association, "analogic<br />
construction" (Wagner 1986^30), and "recursive implication" (Wagner<br />
i986b:i26) rather than in grammatical regularities. But note that even the most<br />
highly innovative metaphor relies for its striking effect on conventional-P signs,<br />
namely, the linguistic components (Wagner 1978:25).<br />
The second sense of convention that we have encountered refers to the habitual,<br />
typical, taken-for-granted, literal, or normative quality of cultural symbolization—what<br />
I will call convention-N (for normative). Conventions-N include<br />
not only nonfigurative semantic meaning but also, and more importantly, the<br />
"dead" or "standard" (Weiner 1986:125) tropes whose innovative fragmentation<br />
has given way to tired or "counterinnovative" (Wagner 1981:44) repetition.<br />
1 Wagner is referring to convention-N when he describes the dialectical relation<br />
between conventional and differentiating symbolism (1981:44). And it is<br />
in this sense that he speaks of "linguistic conventions of Daribi narrative form"<br />
(Wagner 1978:38) or "the conventional opening of a Daribi story" (Wagner<br />
1978:45), and when Weiner talks about "conventional social roles" (1988:130)<br />
or of women and marsupials as "two conventionally contrasted elements"<br />
(1988:124). And it is in this sense of convention-N that Wagner can say that,<br />
just as tropic usages metaphorize literal meanings (conventions-P), "so conventional[-N]<br />
nonarbitrariness often threatens to displace the tropic variety"<br />
(1978:25). The seemingly contradictory formulation of the seemingly contradictory<br />
phrase "conventional nonarbitrariness" (recall that arbitrariness is a characteristic<br />
of conventions-P) refers to the standardization or habituation of social<br />
rules. As it turns out, both tropes and conventions-N are "motivated," although<br />
in different ways: tropes are motivated because, as signs at the second level of<br />
semiosis, they creatively assert fresh associations; conventions-N are motivated<br />
because they code the self-evident force of cultural traditions.<br />
Since both Wagner and Weiner (1988:138—39) regularly conflate convention-P<br />
and convention-N, it is often difficult to figure out—other than figuratively—what<br />
a given sentence means. In particular, their arguments frequently<br />
slip between the hierarchical opposition of semantic and metaphorical signs (the<br />
former being conventional-P) and the contextual opposition between standardized<br />
cultural images (convention-N) and innovative, differentiating tropes, as, for<br />
example, when Weiner (1988:12) writes: "Meaning, as I argue, results when the<br />
elements of conventional [-P] syntagmatic orders are inserted into nonconventional<br />
[-N] contexts. The resulting figurative or metaphorical expressions define<br />
at once both the particularizing nature of metaphor and its dependence upon<br />
conventional[-P] semantic or syntagmatic references for its innovative impact."<br />
Certain passages in Wagner (1978:54) seem actually calculated to obscure the<br />
distinction between convention-P and convention-N:<br />
Unlike our [Western] literature, [Daribi] myth belongs to an ideological regime<br />
in which the conventional aspect of symbolization (the semantic mode) is believed<br />
to be innate or immanent in man. This means that the conventions that<br />
pertain to the narrative medium are perceived as "given," a kind of implicit<br />
moral appropriateness appearing spontaneously within an activity whose appropriateness<br />
is itself self-evident.