"In language there are only differences without positive terms" (40)
Okay…I am going to try to make sense of this. I believe I understand it…but I am not sure if I understand it completely. I believe when Saussure states “in language there is only differences without positive terms” he means that the meaning behind language comes from linguistic system. In the book it states, “Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system” (Rice & Waugh 40).
For example, when you look at the word tree with the signifier and the signified we have a complete and positive meaning behind the text; however, without both components the meaning behind tree is not the same. Without signifier or the signified we cannot truly understand the meaning behind the word.
The theory of post-structuralism challenges this concept because to say you can only find true meaning behind a text with only signified or signifier is not what post-structuralism believes. Post-structuralism believes that a text does not have one meaning. The theory believes that there is “no facts just interpretation”. There is never truly one center of a text.
Okay…I am going to try to make sense of this. I believe I understand it…but I am not sure if I understand it completely. I believe when Saussure states “in language there is only differences without positive terms” he means that the meaning behind language comes from linguistic system. In the book it states, “Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system” (Rice & Waugh 40).
For example, when you look at the word tree with the signifier and the signified we have a complete and positive meaning behind the text; however, without both components the meaning behind tree is not the same. Without signifier or the signified we cannot truly understand the meaning behind the word.
The theory of post-structuralism challenges this concept because to say you can only find true meaning behind a text with only signified or signifier is not what post-structuralism believes. Post-structuralism believes that a text does not have one meaning. The theory believes that there is “no facts just interpretation”. There is never truly one center of a text.
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