Derrida, Jaques [1997 (1967)]: Of Grammatology
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7.”The signifier aspect of the system of language can consist only of rules according to which the phonic aspect of the act of speech is ordered,” [N. S.] Troubetzkoy, Principes de phonologie, tr. fr. [J. Cantineau (Paris, 1949); Principles of Phonology, tr. Christiane A. M. Baltaxe (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969) ], p. 2. It is in the “Phonologie et phonétique” of Jakobson and Halle (the first part of Fundamentals of Language, collected and translated in
phonologistic strand of the Saussurian project seems to be most systematically and most rigorously defended, notably against Hjelmslev’s “algebraic” point of view. 8.Page ‘or. Beyond the scruples formulated by Saussure himself, an entire system of intralinguistic criticism can be opposed to the thesis of the “arbitrariness of the sign.” Cf. Jakobson, « A la recherche de l’essence du langage, » [Quest for the Essence of Language, »] Diogène, 51, and Martinet, La linguistique synchronique [Paris 1965], p. 34. But these criticisms do not interfere—and, besides, do not pretend to interfere—with Saussure’s profound intention directed at the discontinuity and immotivation proper to the structure if not the origin of the sign. 9.Elements of Logic, Bk. II, [Collected Papers, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Mass., 1931-58), vol. 2], p. 169, paragraph 302. 10. I justify the translation of bedeuten by vouloir-dire [meaning, literally “wish-tosay”] in La
11.The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings, [ed. Justus Buehler (New York and London, 1940)1, ch. 7, p. 99. 12.Page 93. Let us recall that Lambert opposes phenomenology to aletheiology. 13.Elements of Logic, Bk. I, 2, p. 302. 14.These Heideggerian themes obviously refer back to Nietzsche (cf. La chose [1950], tr. fr. in Essais et conférences [tr. André Préau (Paris, 1958)], p. 214 [”Das Ding,” Vorträge und Au
1962] pp. 240 f. [Der Satz vom Grund (Pfüllingen, 1957)]. Such themes are presented also in Eugen Fink (Le jeu comme symbole du monde [Spiel als Weltsymbol (Stuttgart] 1960) , and, in France, in Kostas Axelos, Vers la pensée planétaire ([Paris], 1964), and Ein f ührung in ein kün f tiges Denken [:über Marx und Heidegger (Tübingen], 1966) . 15.Communications, 4 (1964), p. 2. 16.”The conceptual side of value is made up solely of relations and differences with respect to the other terms of language, and the same can be said of its material side. The important thing in the word is not the sound alone but the phonic differences that make it possible to distinguish this word from all others, for differences carry signification... . A segment of language can never in the final analysis be based on anything except its noncoincidence with the rest” (p. 163) [pp. 117-18]. 17.”Since an identical state of affairs is observable in writing, another system of signs, we shall use writing to draw some comparisons that will clarify the whole issue. In fact: “1)The signs used in writing are arbitrary; there is no connection, for example, between the letter t and the sound that it designates. “2)The value of letters is purely negative and differential. The same person can ((327))
write t, for instances, in different ways: t & t. The only requirement is that the sign for t not be confused in his script with the signs used for 1, d, etc. “3)Values in writing function only through reciprocal opposition within a fixed system that consists of a set number of letters. This third characteristic, though not identical to the second, is closely related to it, for both depend on the first. Since the graphic sign is arbitrary, its form matters little or rather matters only within the limitations imposed by the system. “4)The means by which the sign is produced is completely unimportant, for it does not affect the system (this also follows from characteristic I). Whether I make the let-ters in white or black, raised or engraved, with pen or chisel—all this is of no importance with respect to their signification” (pp. 165–66) [pp. 119–20]. 18. “Arbitrary and differential are two correlative qualities” (p. 163) [p. 118]. 19. This literal fidelity is expressed: 1.In the critical exposition of Hjelmslev’s attempt (“Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev,” Bulletin de la Société Linguistique de Paris, vol. 42, p. 40) : “Hjelmslev is perfectly consistent with himself when he declares that a written text has for the linguist exactly the same value as a spoken text, since the choice of the substance is not important. He refuses even to admit that the spoken substance is primitive and the written substance derived. It seems as if it would suffice to make him notice that, but for certain pathological exceptions, all human beings speak, but few know how to write, or that children know how to speak long before they learn how to write. I shall therefore not press the point” (italics added) . 2.In the Eléments de linguistique générale [(Paris, 1961); Elements of General Linguistics, tr. Elisabeth Palmer (London, 1964) ], where all the chapters on the vocal character of language pick up the words and arguments of Chapter VI of the Course: “[One learns to speak before learning to read:] reading comes as a reflection of spoken usage: the reverse is never true” (italics added. This proposition seems to me to be thoroughly debatable, even on the level of that common experience which has the force of law within this argument.) Martinet concludes: “The study of writing is a discipline distinct from linguistics proper, although practically speaking it is one of its dependencies. Thus the linguist in principle operates without regard for written forms” (p. 11) [p. 17]. We see how the concepts of dependency and abstraction function: writing and its science are alien but not independent; which does not stop them from being, conversely, immanent but not essential. Just enough “outside” not to affect the integrity of the language itself, in its pure original self-identity, in its property; just
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