Post-modernism: From surfing cows to Gollum as a lifestyle choice, pt. 3

Last we left off talking about the shift from modernism to post-modernism, brought on by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. If you have not already read them, here the links to PART 1 and PART 2.

Ferdinand de Saussure was a structuralist. What! Another –ist?! Yes, and so you know, post-modernism is also often called post-structuralism. Saussure’s theory of language works in the following way. There are two basic relations that make the STRUCTURE of language: Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.

(If this is feeling like too much vocab, just go with the explanations and don’t worry about the terms, as I have not yet decided if I want to pass out a quiz at the end ;) )

A syntagmatic relation is the “slot” a word or other language element may take. Based on this slot, which is defined by the things around it, you are able to tell if something is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. A native speaker of English knows that “The man kicked the dog” means that the dog received bodily harm. He or she knows this, because that final slot is reserved for objects, in English. If English changes the order to “The dog kicked the man”, it is now the man that has experienced the humiliation of a high force impact from a canine appendage. Of course, different languages will have different rules and the slots will be used differently and have different relations, but the slot and its “meaning” is given by its relation to the structure, not some inherent “object-ness” of that second noun.

The man kicked the dog vs. The dog kicked the man.

Who is kicking whom?

A paradigmatic relation is based on similarity. Thus we all know that hound and pound are two different words, because the voiceless glottal fricative /h/ is distinct from the voiceless bilabial plosive /p/. Or to get even more similar: Banned vs. panned. The only difference is the voicing. But because of that difference we are able to tell them apart. This relation also includes us making groups like “to think, thinker, thought”. We know what they mean by the relationships we create, and which are not inherent in the word. Here we can also see the combination of the two relations. How do I know that thought refers to the noun and not the past participle? Look where it is used in the sentence, in relation to what words.

I have thought about this thought I was thinking about yesterday.

What is going on here? (other than polyptoton*)

Because, according to Saussure, meaning is derived not from essential characteristics of the words, but from the structural relations, we can set up a bold hypothesis: A word is made up of 3 parts – signifier, signified and referent. (Yup, more words). The signifier is the thing we, generally, say or write. The signified is the “meaning “ the word refers to. The referent is the real world object, which may or may not have any relation to the specific meaning of the signified. Simple examples make it look “normal”, like tree. This “means” THAT *pointing to a gnarled, rough, tall thing with green bits*. 

How are there pots, hamburgers and watermelons in this thing?

This is a tree? How do we tell? There is no green!

This also appears to be a tree. Somehow...

But does it really? Is the meaning really that “thing” out there? No, it is some idealized concept that may or may not look like the pine, oak, birch or olive tree outside. Things get even weirder when we look at love. What is its meaning, its signified? Perhaps an emotional attachment between two people. But does it have a referent in the real world? Do we really base our meaning of love on some behavior we see? Careful, that is a trick question. If you say yes, you are thinking like a post-modernist: Love as a concept is a convention we pick up on in our society. If you say no, then you strengthen Saussure’s position that meaning doesn’t comes from a given relationship to the outside world.

(Side-note: the post-structuralist comes from the fact that the structuralists believed that their structures were given and transcendental. This could be seen in people like the structuralist anthropologist Levi Strauss who looked for universal and fixed taboos regulating social behavior. The post-structuralists also acknowledged the existence of these structures, but shied away from calling them given and transcendental. For them they were products of convention and thus subject to change)

Levi Strauss
An egg with a beard?
Strauss = Ostrich in German
Coincidence?

Join us next time as we finally enter true post-modern territory.

* Polyptoton - no, not a fat, singing hippo that lives in Queens. Rather it denotes using different words that all have the same root. The strength required to be strong.

Click HERE for part 4