SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

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