Following today’s class, write at least 250 words summarizing the material that we covered on Derrida’s “Linguistics and Grammatology.” Some of your discoveries in the text and connections to other readings made during discussion would be very useful for your summaries, too. Post your summary as a comment to this blog post before our next class.
Also, thanks to everyone attending class today. We had 100% attendance!
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher who was born in Algeria. He was a public intellectual, and his work greatly impacted Occidental, or Western, philosophy. He made great contributions to semiotics by explaining how to make signs. We attempted to read a portion of one of his works, âLinguistics and Grammatology,â which was translated into English from French by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, now a professor at Columbia and a philosopher in her own right. However, at the time of the translation, Ms. Spivak had little familiarity with philosophy, and neither English nor French was her first language. Perhaps Derrida favored her as a translator because he may have trusted her version of his work to be truer to his intentions than another person who may have skewed (intentionally or unintentionally) the translation with some of his or her own philosophies.
Regarding Derridaâs techniques to defining semiotics, he uses deconstruction. Through a very thorough examination of what speech and writing are, and illustrating the binary relationship that the two have, his deconstruction then works to invert that relationship. His goal was to essentially begin a discourse about speech and writing in language, and then to keep the discourse doing indefinitely by crafting and sustaining an extended argument about this relationship that had no ending. His point was that there was no definitive conclusion to be drawn because language is always at play, always changing, one sign leading to another and so on. His aim was to create and sustain the extensive and perpetual contemplation of this relationship to drive discussion and thought.
Derrida believed that spoken language should not be privileged over the written word. He studied the history of speech and writing and makes reference to philosophers such as Plato, Rousseau, and Saussure. Much like Mufwene, Derrida uses exhaustive rigor in his analysis of these philosophersâ works in order to find any weaknesses in their arguments. These thinkers privileged speech over writing because they felt that words and language were just an extension of the exterior self, external reality. They felt speech was truer to the interior, a symbol of mental experience whereas writing was just a series of symbols of an already existing speech. Derrida says that the structure of writing is perhaps more important and older than speech; he points out that we canât know whether writing predated speech or vice versa, and therefore one cannot be more valid than the other. Derrida uses deconstruction to again show that in one light, speech can be seen as more important, and then examined from another angle, writing is the more important development; ultimately, he stresses that we must be open to the possibility that either may be primary and thus of equal import.
One interesting term that Derrida used in his essay includes “diffĂ©rance”, which is central to his deconstruction technique. It means an attempt to combine, to show that writing is not inferior to speech. “Archi-writing” is another term Derrida used which means a breech between a word and its signifier when it is spoken or written. Archi-writing represents the connections we make as we speak and write, because we are constantly processing signs. Derrida says the “traceâ is a connection between signs that you envision in your mind, similar to the way archi-writing creates connections. The trace is something left behind in your mind, and it informs how we think about future things. We also learn about the “supplement”: it is an aid to something that is original, whether it is of a negative or positive nature. He says that the original may need supplementation to help explain it, though that often leads to ambiguity. He says that writing is not a supplement of speech but a supplement of signification, or how we are always linking things back to the trace. The notion is paradoxical- something that explains should cause more confusion; but Derrida strives for this state of contemplative flux- that is the essence of his deconstruction.
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher. In the article of his work “Linguistics and Grammatology,â he described the development of language occurs through an interplay, neither speech nor writing may properly describe as being more important to the development of language. Derrida made the contribution to the science field and analysis how do we refine it. Derrida mentioned the term deconstruction with semiotics, which he discovers the evidence from Plato, he finds that we have the natural bound of sound, and the complex relation isn’t easy to resolve. Derrida demonstrated how does the structure of writing with grammatology are more important than the speech, writing, and speech are binary. Derrida defines “Differance” as difference. It means the ambiguity of spoken word and the written word, the combination or aggregation of oral and literal language. It transforms the language over the period of time. One of his writing technique is Arch-writing. It’s the breach of a word whether it signifies or witting down by creating connection and interactions. The significations can connect to other things. The trace of ideas is the connection between signs. It informs the ability we process our mind. The supplement of the language aids to something natural and the origin is the ambiguity. Writing is the supplement, it provides signs over the sign, taking speech already significant, it defines the supplement of significations. Logo-centrism focuses oral part of the language overwriting. The idea of the word in the language is an expression of external reality. Language will further distance our self from the world; spoken words are the symbols of experiences. Therefore, it forms the trinity of thoughts produces speech, speeches produce writing, and writing produces thoughts.
Jacques Derrida is the author of the book titled, “Linguistics and Grammatology”. He was born in 1930 and passed away in 2004. He was a French philosopher born in Algeria. His work was related to occidental/western philosophy. He also made contributions to study the sign language. Today’s reading was a translated version from the original French writing. The book was translated to the English language by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, whom then did not really know what she would be translating and how important this book will be. Gayatri is currently teaching at the Columbia University. She is originally from India and she studied post-colonial studies. The reason why many respect Gayatri is due to her wide knowledge of other languages. As it was mentioned in class, when she likes to find out more about certain culture she goes ahead and simply learns the language. She did not speak the English language and was not aware who Jacques Derrida was until she translated his book and met him afterwards.
“Linguistics and Grammatology” talks about the spoken languages and how it shouldn’t be privileged over what is written. He referenced three philosophers in his book those were: Rousseau, Saussure and Plato. All of them connected, due to their theories being somehow similar. They believed that spoken language was more of a valuable technique rather than the written words. In this case Jacques Derrida disagrees, as he believes that the written words are important and so is the spoken language. That one is not better than the other one, that they are somehow equal value.
French philosopher, Jacques Derrida was a prolific figure as a public intellectual in the 20th century. Derrida has published multiple books, essays, and conducted numerous public presentations based on linguistics, historiography, and other topics. He criticized western philosophy and his played a huge role on what western philosophy is today. One of his most famous works, âLinguistics and Grammatology,âwas translated by literary theorist and Columbian University professor, Gayatri Spivak . In 1967, she took a risk and translated Derrida’s book, and after that the world was introduced to Derrida, herself, and Derrida’s process called, Deconstruction. In his book, Derrida believed that writing should not be valued more than writing , and he wanted to create an argument of which system supported language first speech or writing. Derrida believes that we have no way off determining the history of language and it will be impossible to see which one is first. This argument can be ongoing because language is more than speech it’s also signs; however, Professor Fromkin pointed out that language is always changing and I think the first change was speech and writing emerging at the same time into the system of language we know today. For example, hominids recorded their experiences on caves ,but communicated verbally through sounds as well. Derrida uses his deconstruction process by inverting the binary relationship between speech and writing and inverts them to pose an argument. He analyzes the works of Logocentric philosophers such as, Plato, Rousseau , and Saussure rigorously until he finds a fault in their arguments. These guys believed that speech was the center of language and not speech and writing as the center of language.The Aristotelian definition of writing is, “words relate mental experience and written words are representation of spoken words” (p. 131). Saussure supported this definition but described writing as, “Language and writing are two distinct sys-
tems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of repre-senting the first” (p. 131). This definition can be debated by a term Derrida introduced in the reading called, âdifferenceâ, which refers to an ambiguity in the spoken and written word. Words, concepts, and signs can lead us to thinking of other words, concepts, and signs. For example, pear refers to fruit but pairs refer to a couple. The words sound similar, but they have different meanings and spelt differently. I agree with Derrida on the fact that writing is the center of language just as much as speech is; however, we can already see some of the origins of language through what hominids left behind.
Jacques Derrida was born in Algeria in the year 1930 and was a French philosopher. His essay âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ was translated from French to English by his translator Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who was born in India in the year 1942. She is a philosopher and a post-colonial scholar who studies countries and people who have been colonized and is an important feminist critic in the post-colonial context. She is currently a professor at Columbia University. In âLinguistics and Grammatology,â Derrida argues that speech is considered more privileged over writing. He starts off his argument by saying that the origin of writing and the origin of language are difficult to separate and goes into asking several questions. He wants to know why writing is being overshadowed by speech and goes into which one is primitive by arguing for both sides as to why speech is primitive and/or why writing is primitive. In order to support his argument he tries to find a loophole within a few texts from Ferdinand de Saussure and uses a method called deconstruction. Deconstruction is where you are faced with a binary relationship and you are arguing for and against each thing. Derrida points out that in Western philosophy, it has controlled the practice and relationship between speech and writing and that Saussure does not see this. He also points out the following in one of Saussureâs work: “Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exits for the sole purpose of representing the first.” If language did not exist then writing would not have existed either. Saussure favored language over writing because Derrida said that for him to give in to writing would be like giving in to passion. A few other philosophers that Derrida mentions like Rousseau and Plato, have also expressed their voice about favoring speech over writing because for them speech is more accurate then writing. With writing you are transcribing what you might hear and might not be as accurate as one hopes it to be.
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher who studied western philosophy, made contributions to semiotics, developed âdeconstructureâ and published âOf Grammatologyâ in 1976. His work âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ was translated from French to English by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a post colonial scholar, master of languages, and professor at Columbia University. Derrida explained that spoken language shouldnât be privileged over writing through his stages of deconstruction, how the relationship between speech and writing adverts. He explains that language itself is always a âplayâ because sign for one concept can link to an infinity of other signs. Derrida also came up with the term âdifferanceâ which is a breach between how a word sounds and is spelled and can lead to new changes in both oral and literate, an attempt to combine a term called âarche-writingâ into a single concept. In the history of linguistics, spoken words is usually privileged over writing. Derrida mentions how philosophers in history like Plato and Rousseau believed in logocentrism because it symbolized mental experience and writing is a symbol of already existing. However, Derrida thought otherwise. In this binary relationship between speech and writing, there are discourses amongst which came first or which is closer to real experience. Itâs hard to say according to Derrida which came first because at times he argues language being primary but sometimes argues that writing is primary which demonstrates the play of deconstruction. By arguing every possible argument that can be raised and ambiguity in Derridaâs words are always inviting discourse and open discussions.
Born in Algeria, Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher and public intellectual. Derrida studied occidental psychology and phenomenology. He is known for creating the possess of deconstruction. His infamous book âDe la grammatologieâ was translated from French into English by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. In English, the book is known as âOf Grammatologyâ and has been greatly studied worldwide. Spivak was an important figure in Derridaâs career. He trusted Spivak with his work because she was a young Indian scholar who did not know Derrida until she worked with him. Also, a literary theorist and feminist critic, Spivak was a master of languages. Both of these intellectual people understood the importance of linguistics and grammar had on language.
In his work, Derrida included terms such as Hegelianism and Saussurean. Hegelianism
was a philosophy written by G. W. F. Hegel which stated that all reality is capable of being expressed in logical groups. Philosophy was also a contradiction of a thesis and its non-thesis.Its truth was a combination of ideas to form a theory. Another term he used was Sassureran. This was in reference to Ferdinand de Saussureâs theories. He followed the âSign, Signified and Signifier Explainedâ concept. Discussed in Professor Ellis previous classes, I began to understand the idea Derrida wanted to convey. Language created signs. The signifier is a symbol. The signified is the thought behind the symbol. When the signifier and signified are expressed, they will differ from each other. They can be unlike in a small aspect or differentiate on a larger scale. For example, one topic that changes within people minds is beauty. What one may believe is beautiful, can be different from someone elseâs vision.
Derrida’s understood writing structure and its grammar, which comes from Fromkin’s work, are more important than speech structure. He also included the idea that language has no real origin. The debate whether speech or writing came first still is dealt with today.
We also discussed the idea of deconstruction. It was determined to be a binary relationship of writing in speech. One concept is more experienced than the other. Derrida contradicts the norm that speech was created first. Derrida at times changes his ideas and beliefs. I was often confused with the point he was trying to make. It was concluded that Derrida wanted his audience to think beyond popular belief. The truth behind linguistics and grammatology is left to the reader. I found his writing style similar to Mufweneâs work. However, Derrida used a different tactic. Mufwene presents multiple theories and makes readers think. Derrida presents theories and destroys them.
Derrida argument was found in claims of infamous scholars such as Plato who was Greek, Rousseau who was French and Sassuean who was also French. Within Sassuean work he found a weakness in the argument. âDiffarenceâ, a term created by Derrida describes the violation of how a word is verbalized and way it is spelled with the way it can change speech and writing.
Derrida uses numerous accounts for research which present an intensive pathway for discourse. Today. his work still brings forth ideas that were once deemed the norm and questions them.
In the reading âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ we were introduced to a staggering fifty six pages of rigmarole discussing Philosopher Jacques Derridaâs stance on the concept of writing, written in two distinct fonts. Derrida speaks of fellow philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the term Hegelianism is used throughout his writing to signify the importance of Hegelâs work: He also mentions Ferdinand de Saussure a swiss linguist and Saussurian (Saussurean) structure in linguistics which deals with sign, signifier, and signified. The structure of the material and the density if the words make the work a grueling task to decipher. Hegelianism is the system of absolute idealism that Hegel wished to established as the standard by which reality is expressed.
The reading was harder to stay focused on despite having so much content seems to ramble continuously but with changing topics and sectioned explanations of explaining linguistic and philosophical jargon. The term Saussurian is used to classify the characteristics of and associating the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. The term âHegelian-Saussurianâ without context or explanation and all this shrouding the actual content of the read which is âWhat can the science of writing signify, if it is granted:
1)That the very idea of science was born in a certain epoch of writing;
2)That it was thought and formulated, as task, idea, project, in a language implying a certain kind of structurally and biologically determined relationship. etcâ
Whether or not that’s translation of Derridaâs work to english is what makes it so lengthy and confusing. It feels like a lot could be lost as your mind may wander while reading it and as we discussed it in class it gained more meaning but remained by itself a perplexing reading.
Jacques Derrida was an Algerian born French philosopher, he worked on occidental philosophy and was a well-known public intellectual. In his writing Linguistics and Grammatology Derrida argues that the language we speak should not be prioritized over the written word and he stresses how writing and grammatology are more important than speech. He also introduces us to Deconstruction, the relationship between speech and writing, what if writing came before language? Derrida also mentions how we are logo centric, we are too reliant on the spoken word than we are on the written. He says that because of this our interaction with the world is dictated through speech and thatâs the only way we can express ourselves. Derrida also talks about arche writing, a from of writing that isnât diverted from speech. He goes on to Differance, where he tries to combine his arche writing into a comcept to try and create new words and speech. it can also lead to many connections and could change language. He uses deconstruction to make us think about what if writing came before speech, would we be more text oriented or still more towards speech. During our class discussion we spoke about Derrida and how he analyzed famous writings from people like Plato and Rousseau. Professor Ellis said that Derrida would look in all the persons writing and look for the slightest hole in the persons argument then attack them on their mistake. I found this quite petty but smart of Derrida at the same time. I also picked up something about deconstruction, Derrida wants us to break down the way we know things and rebuild them asking what if?
TO: Professor Dr. Jason W. Ellis
FROM: Ronald C. Hinds
DATE: March 06, 2018
SUBJECT: De la grammatologie [Linguistics and Grammatology]
Jacques Derrida, who was born on July 15, 1930 into a Sephardic Jewish family living in El Biar, in French Algeria, introduced in the second half of the 20th century the concept of deconstruction. Deconstruction has at least two aspects: literary and philosophical. The literary aspect concerns the textual interpretation, where invention is essential to finding hidden alternative meanings in the text. The philosophical aspect concerns the main target or, as Derrida puts it, the âobjectâ of deconstruction: the âmetaphysics of presence,â or simply metaphysics. Merriam-Websterâs Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition defines metaphysics as âa division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.â
Deconstruction is a strategy of critical questioning directed towards exposing unquestionable metaphysical assumptions and internal contradictions in philosophical and literary language. I think that an equal sign could be placed, tenuously, between deconstruction and ambiguity. It often involves a way of reading that concerns itself with displacing from a central positionâwith unmasking (to reveal the true nature of) the problematic nature of all centers. Another concept brought to the fore by Derrida revolved around diffĂ©rance. DiffĂ©rance refers to itself, because it breaks with the concepts of an idea expressed by a sign, as distinct from the physical form which it is expressed and of the thing that a word denotes. The emphasis, on the theme of writing, functions as an antidote against idealism, metaphysics and ontology; ontology, the study of what kinds of things are in the universe. DiffĂ©rance can be thought of as a quality that fills the breach between how a word sounds and how it is spelt.
We must be grateful for the work done by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who translated De la grammatologie, into English Language so that those of us who are not literate in French can read and engage in conversation about Derridaâs endeavor. Spivak is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a Professor at Columbia University, where she is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Considered one of the most influential postcolonial intellectuals, Spivak is known for her translation of and introduction to Jacques Derrida’s, De la grammatologie.
In the case of speech and writing, speech is attributed to the positive qualities of originality, centre and presence, whereas writing has been relegated to a secondary or derived status. Ever since Plato (c.428-347 B.C.), the written word has been considered as a mere representation of the spoken word: this is what Derrida calls the logo centric tradition of Western thought. By logo centric (centered on reason) I refer to a method of literary analysis in which words and language(s) are regarded as fundamental expressions of external reality, excluding nonlinguistic factors such as historical context. Derrida himself was familiar with the Western thought and the Occidental, later Interlingua thought i.e. Asian. He was influenced by Plato, Jean Jacques Rosseau and Ferdinand de Saussure. Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist and semiotician. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. De Saussureâs ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. Saussure put it very succinctly when he said the following: âLanguage and writing are two distinct symbols of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first.â Saussure tried to restrict the science of linguistics to the phonetic and audible word only. Derrida and Saussure part ways with Derrida arguing against the latter and promulgates against this hierarchical conception and instead argues that all that can be claimed of writing-is derivative and merely refers to other signs-is equally true of speech.
Words also lead from one concept to another. Signs for one concept lead to another. They are inherently and in and of themselves digressive in spite of their particularity. It is amusing to note that, even literal-physical signs, such as road signs, affixed, painted signs, et al, are subject to this flowchart-like path of continuity, as reggae legend Bob Marley allegorically demonstrates:
âLife is one big road with lots of signs.
So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind.
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy.
Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality.
Wake Up and Live!â
References
Derrida, J., Spivak G. C. (1974). De la grammatologie [Linguistics and Grammatology]. SubStance, 4(10), 127-181.
http://www.jstor.org/stable. Downloaded on Tuesday, 27 February, 2018.
Guillemette, L., Cossette J. Deconstruction and Différance. Université du Québec à Trois-RiviÚres.
http://www.signosemio.com/derrida/deconstruction-and-différance.asp. Downloaded on Saturday, 2 March, 2018.
Keywords
Decentering, deconstruction, différance, logo centric, metaphysics, occidental, ontology, referent, semiotician.
Jacques Derrida was a French-Algeria philosopher. He is best recognized for the developed deconstruction a form of semiotic analysis. Derrida has put out over 40 books, which one of them is âLinguistic and Grammatology.â This book describes the languageâs development happen as a relationship between speech and writing. Neither the speech nor the writing is more important than the other one. They both equally important for Language development. Derrida mentions philosophers Rousseau, Saussure and Plato since he disagree with the theory they follow. They believed that speech is more important than any other the written. âLinguistic and Grammatologyâ was first written in French and then translated to the English language by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Spivak is from India and is well respected for her extensive knowledge of numerous languages. In class we discuss her passion and hard work to learn other language start by learning the countries culture. She says that the culture can tell you a lot about their language and can it is easier to learn. Derrida died in 2004 at the age of 74. Spivak is currently teaching classes at the Columbia University. I do agree with Derrida that we need both speech and writing to develop language. English is my second language and without writing and reading I wouldnât be able to understand the sounds associated with the words. It is very impressive what Spivak did to learn multiple language and her technique definitely helps understanding the colloquial meaning are in the culture as well.
Of Grammatology and Linguistics is the oeuvre of Jacques Derrida, who is a French philosopher. In this body of work, Derrida introduces the estimation of deconstructionism to the field of critical hypothesis during the late 1960âs in Western European Economic Community. Derrida believes that Western civilization is completed with his deconstruction. His works objective is to understand speech and the postmodern universe whose said to replace our modern world. Derrida modified ideas of intellect philosophers of his meter, such as Friedrich Wilhelm and Martin Heidegger, which included a new understanding of Western Philosophy. Derrida believes that substance/ meaning can be attributed to other significances than what is deemed by metaphysics by means of deconstruction. The reading was complex, and often times changed ideas that I thought I understood. Derrida pushed through two deconstructive tactics. He identified a conception that force-out signification into binary star and opposition.Derrida suggests that written material is vital to the expansion of meaning. He also suggests that âre-writingâ and self-contradiction (Saussure’s) implies a further literacy step. Thus he set forth an extension of his analysis in his second part of the work. Derrida also applies Henri Rousseau own analysis to reveal his own theory of inherent instability. Thus, his accepting writing as a supplementation to speech. Derrida also introduces Rousseau’s acknowledgment of speech lack by identifying a supplement that completes the theory. He suggests that work is generally separated into theory and application. Throughout the reading, he avoids indicating to the reader that his work isn’t in linear rescript. He yields to work in an axis guild. Derrida produced a work with heavy complexity that has no apparent structure of a traditional volume. Derrida resists following the traditional guidelines, as his work does not have a certain meaning or confinement.
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher born in 1930 and passed in 2004. Derrida is most known for deconstruction, which is argument for or against something in relation to a binary relationship the subject possesses. In his book, âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ, Derrida argues that orality shouldnât be valued more than writing. Writing and speech are binary in the sense that they are equal in terms of their significance to the other. Although weâve made great strides in learning more about the creation of language, we have yet to discover which came first: speech or word. Yet, philosophers pose the stance that speech is more important than writing. The philosophers Plato, Rousseau, and Saussere all share such a common belief. They all believed that speech was a truer representation of our mental experiences and in turn ourselves. Writing, to them, was just a representation of speech: a series of symbols. I think to simply dismiss the importance of writing, and to marginalize it to solely as a representation of orality is just foolish. Without writing, those dismissive words would have been lost for nobody to read.One interesting point is that Saussere believes writing to be nothing more than a potentially dangerous tool. He believes writing is also just an obstruction to speech. Furthermore, speech, the truth, is better understood when spoken, where with writing it is âdisguisedâ as he puts it. All of this leads me to believe Saussere fears how much writing can be used as a weapon. We see all of the time the spread of misinformation under the guise of truth, and we are none the wiser to its truth or fabrication. With speech, however, the source is undebatable. Their words holds more merit when spoken since they are a drawn from their essences. I canât agree with argument of speech being more pertinent than writing. I can see the points and thinking of their time believing that point, but as a language grew and involved, weâve come to realize that perhaps writing is more invaluable than speech.
Jessica L. Roman
ENG 1710
3/12/2018
Jacques Derrida was an Algerian born French philosopher and public intellectual known for the development of deconstruction. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak translated his work, âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ. Having never taken a course in philosophy nor being a native French or English speaker Spivak took on the harrowing task of translating this very complex work. It was suggested in class that it was possible her naivety or separation from philosophy that made Spivak an ideal person to translate Derridaâs ideas without inserting herself into the work and therefore retaining a more pure version of Derridaâs argument.
The focus of his argument is the historical privileging of orality over literacy. From our earlier readings of Frompkin and Ong, we are told that phonetic speech came first and written language was a technology that came about through our evolution. Many great thinkers such as Plato, Rousseau and Saussure held the same positions and have a pantheon of work to that end. Derrida presents these works, which hold the position that speech is a more direct reflection of our ideas because writing was viewed as just a representation of speech. He then goes through each of their ideas extensively in order to find a flaw in their argument to which he can insert his position. His argument revolves around what he terms difference, which is the breech between how a word is spelled and how it sounds. This use of deconstruction makes it quite difficult to identify Derridaâs position initially, but this is what allows him to maintain the line of discourse he presents. Mainly he puts forward that there is no way to determine if speech did in fact come before writing. Much like Muwfene the level of rigor in his argument is required as it holds a position that conflicts with many theories that have been more widely accepted and researched.
Some additional terms we were provided in class in line with his work were Archi-writing which are the signs in our mental lexicon connected to other things, those connections are unending. The trace, which are the connections between signs that we think about in our minds. That trace informs the way we think about things. Lastly, the supplement, which is an aide to something that is original or natural. It can be positive or negative, saying what something is or what it is not.
The reading never comes to any resolution; instead, Derrida uses deconstruction in order to keep both of the arguments in play. This is similar to Muwfene as well in that it keeps the discourse open on the subject. While his work was dizzying, Derrida believes that a complex issue such as this would not have a simple solution.
The author who created the article, Linguistics and Grammatology, was Jacques Derrida. Derrida was an Algerian and French philosopher. He was born in the year 1930 and passed away in 2004. Derrida was well known for his discovery of deconstruction. This article was originally written in french, and for those of us who have little to no knowledge of the language, there was someone who was able to translate the article for those of us who speak the english language. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an indian born literary theorist and feminist. She is also currently still a professor at Columbia University. Spivak did not have any prior knowledge to Derrida or his work so he believed that she would be the perfect individual to translate his work into the english language on a non biased scale. In his article, Derrida discusses about how writing and speech go hand in hand. There was a misconception in the past that speech actually held more weight than writing in a sense where writing was a form of language that wasnât really necessary. He further goes into detail by mentioning three ancient philosophers, Plato, Rousseau and Saussure. All three of these profound thinkers agreed that the speech has more significance that writing and that there are distinctions between the two. âSaussure thus begins by positioning that writing is unrelated to the âinner systemâ of language. In their eyes, they saw that writing was a representation of speech. That the symbols of writing were used to demonstrate the significance of speech. The author finds that this is not the case and how writing and speech are actual in relation to one another.
In the reading âLinguistics and Grammatologyâ we were introduced to a staggering fifty six pages of rigmarole discussing Philosopher Jacques Derridaâs stance on the concept of writing, written in two distinct fonts. Derrida speaks of fellow philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the term Hegelianism is used throughout his writing to signify the importance of Hegelâs work: He also mentions Ferdinand de Saussure a swiss linguist and Saussurian (Saussurean) structure in linguistics which deals with sign, signifier, and signified. The structure of the material and the density if the words make the work a grueling task to decipher. Hegelianism is the system of absolute idealism that Hegel wished to established as the standard by which reality is expressed.
The reading was harder to stay focused on despite having so much content seems to ramble continuously but with changing topics and sectioned explanations of explaining linguistic and philosophical jargon. The term Saussurian is used to classify the characteristics of and associating the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. The term âHegelian-Saussurianâ without context or explanation and all this shrouding the actual content of the read which is âWhat can the science of writing signify, if it is granted:
That the very idea of science was born in a certain epoch of writing;
That it was thought and formulated, as task, idea, project, in a language implying a certain kind of structurally and biologically determined relationship. etcâ
Whether or not that’s translation of Derridaâs work to english is what makes it so lengthy and confusing. It feels like a lot could be lost as your mind may wander while reading it and as we discussed it in class it gained more meaning but remained by itself a perplexing reading.
The articleâLinguistics and Grammatologyâ is written by Jacques Derrida. Derrida was a occidental-western philosopher. One of his main works is the study of signs. He was a public intellectual.
In this article Derrida talks about his belief that spoken language should not be privileged over written language. He taught this belief so much that he included this article based on it in his book. He believes this due to language always being at play because of its connection of concepts.
Derrida goes on to mention Arch writing also known as differance. This is the way a word sounds versus how its spelled. Derrida ties all of this in due to his main focus of the article being written and spoken language. He believed that words and language are an expression of outside reality. Also that language plays a role in humanity distance from the world itself. He also believes that spoken words are the symbol of thought while written os the symbol of an object. He argues how we donât know if writing came before speech. Thus a supplement or rather an aid to something that is original that can have a positive or negative connotation.
Jacque Derrida, author of the essay âLinguistics and Grammatology,â was a French philosopher born in Algeria. Derrida was known for his Western most philosophical thoughts than his traditional oriental ones. This meant that Derrida thought spoken language should not be privileged over written language. The two types of language he speaks about can be related back to Ted Chiangâs âThe Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feelings.â Chiangâs story portrayed the life of two people, one with an oral based life and the other with a life of rapidly advancing technologies. Along with Derridaâs idea of the two languages, he brings about the idea of âdeconstruction.â Deconstruction can be defined as a binary relationship between the text that is stated and its intended meaning. Along with these important points that Derrida made, it is also important to recognize that this essay Derrida wrote was translated by Gayatri Chakroyorty Spivak. She is currently a professor at Columbia University, and fought an uphill battle of translating Derridaâs philosophical ideas. Spivak was born in 1942, in India and is a postÂcolonial scholar. She studies the history of countries and the people that once inhabited it, and the people who know inhabit it. Overall, Derridaâs essay is about the main idea that language itself is always at play.