SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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iz8 I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes<br />
function in "discursive texts" by means of the construction of a relatively fixed<br />
or coherent "interactional text." Although Silverstein intends the term to refer<br />
primarily to linguistic phenomena, he suggests that it can be extended to describe<br />
the normative constraints on social behavior and understanding deriving from<br />
sociopolitical forcesTThe first deals with varieties of institutionally enforced<br />
metasemiotic, including "metapragmatic" (Silverstein 1976), discourses that regulate<br />
the range of ^cceEtabJe_interpretants of specific segments of social semiosis.<br />
The enforced closure of the play of interprétants can be accomplished by explicit<br />
metasemiotic framing ("the meaning of X is Y") or by constructing an implicit<br />
yet systemarfc representational world that silences subaltern "voices." The second<br />
i^^deological regimentation^rriat is, metasemiotic discourse that creates a general,<br />
relatively dëcontextualîzeci atmosphere of perception,Tcnowledge, and expectation<br />
about semiosis. Whereas institutional regimentation controls the interpretability<br />
of specific discursive forms.in context, ideological regimentation operates<br />
to create a presupposed cultural theory of semiosis. ~—<br />
While all four of these ways that semiosis is inflected with power are discussed<br />
by Thibault, though under different labels and with different theoretical<br />
aims, his book offers few empirical examples that would illuminate them in terms<br />
of the comparative study of social and historical processes. In his analyses of<br />
passages from Nabokov's novels, Thibault privileges the realization of power relations<br />
in the realm of literary intertextuality, whereas a semiotically inclined ethnographer<br />
would focus more on patterns of social activity and collective experience.<br />
I propose here to offer three 7<br />
related studies drawn from my current<br />
research, each illustrating a different^dimension of semiotic regimentation. The<br />
-eases have been arranged in a continuum, moving from the semiotic dimension<br />
of explicit. typeTleyel.textuality, to the implicit text-internal metasemiotic power<br />
of sign complexes, to the ideological projection of fully^metasemiolic-d^scojurse.<br />
In the following sections I discuss, first, the way ritual action and language in<br />
many societies foreground the conventionality of systems of textual signfiers;<br />
second, the way historical museums communicate to tourists about history but<br />
also about how to interpret the historical signs contained within; and third, how<br />
legal discourse about commercial advertising skews popular assumptions about<br />
the general communicative function of advertising messages.<br />
Context and Type in Ritual Performativity<br />
My first example concerns the phenomenon ö^ntuaj^vhich in many cultural<br />
traditions functions to change social relationships, convey divine powers,<br />
cure diseases, or coerce natural forces. The argument will be that the high degree<br />
of presupposed textuality of ritual forms is the key to this contextual power, a<br />
position that can best be explained by using as a foil Tambiah's influential essay,<br />
"A Performative Approach to Ritual." Fundamental to Tambiah's argument is<br />
The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life I iz?<br />
his delineation of the "dual aspects of rituals as performances" (1985^124). On<br />
the one hand, rituals exhibit "invariant and stereotyped sequences," while on the<br />
other hand, their efficacy depends on socially anchored "variable features." He<br />
describes ritual's "duplex existence" in terms of its being "an entity that symbolically<br />
and/or iconically represents the cosmos and at the same time indexically<br />
legitimates and realizes social hierarchies" (1985b: 155). I want to investigate<br />
further this dualism of formalization and contextualization from an explicitly<br />
semiotic point of view in order to explore the fundamental question of the source<br />
of ritual power.<br />
Rather than speak of "dualism," I prefer to think of these two dimensions<br />
as a paradox, namely, that while the action and language of ritual often appear<br />
highly structured and conventional, the powerful efficacy released by ritual is<br />
narrowly channeled or "situationally patterned" (Turner 1977:207; cf. Wheelock<br />
1982). Rappaport (1980:187) expresses this paradox as the reflexive relationship<br />
between order and performance: "By participating in a ritual, the performer<br />
becomes part of an order which is utterly dependent for its very existence<br />
upon instances, such as his, of its performance."<br />
Tambiah, along with almost everyone else who has written about the nature<br />
of ritual, notices several cross-cultural features of ritual action, including segmentation<br />
(clear division into sequential parts), hierarchical organization (multiple<br />
levels of embedded structures), and stereotypy (careful prescription on exact<br />
repetition). We can condense these properties by saying that rituals have structural<br />
properties, that is, they are cultural constructions with a high degree of<br />
textuality. Ritual acts are not just patterned, they are "among the most perfectly<br />
recurrent social events" (Rappaport 1992:14).<br />
Of course, many cultural phenomena showing complex semiotic organization<br />
are structured. The architecture of a building, with four front pillars on the<br />
first level, three pillars at the second level, two on the third level, and a single<br />
cupola on top shows a triangular organization that is its syntagmatic structure.<br />
But rituals are not just structured; they are "hyperstructured" in that these cultural<br />
forms literally call out: behold the structure! 1 Compare this triangular architectural<br />
form with the Beaubourg museum in Paris, where the architect took<br />
elements from the infrastructure—pipes, wiring, and other mechanical features—and<br />
put them on the outside of the building visible to the public, thus<br />
reversing the "container" and the "contained" (Baudrillard 1982:3—5). There is<br />
no way to look at this building without thinking: the "deep structure" and the<br />
"surface structure" have been inverted, and, thus, to reflect on the nature of architectural<br />
form. Poetry, as Mukarovsky (1977b) and Jakobson (1987) demonstrate,<br />
is another example of a hyperstructured semiotic phenomenon. In contrast<br />
to decorative orelegant language often found in political oratory, persuasive advertising"<br />
and fictionaTprose, the language of poetry, with its rhythmic pattern,<br />
metrical verse structure, sound alliteration, and metaphorical sequence, calls at-