Jakobson, Roman 1972. Motor Signs for 'Yes' and 'No'. Language in Society 1(1): 91-96.
Russian soldiers who had been in Bulgaria in 1877-8 during the war with Turkey could not forget the striking diametrical opposition between their own head motions for indicating 'yes' and 'no' and those of the Bulgarians. The reverse assignment of signs to meanings threw the parties to a conversation off the track, and occasionally led to annoying misunderstandings. Altohugh facial expressions and head motions are less subject to control than speect, the Russians could, without great effort, switch over to the Bulgarian style for the signs of affirmation and negation; but the main difficulty was contained in the uncertainty of the Bulgarians over whether a given Russian in a given instance was using his own code of head motions or theirs. (Jakobson 1972: 91-92)
Oh wow. The problem of nonverbal code-switching!
The movement of the head forward and down is an obvious visual representation of bowing before the demand, wish, suggestion or opinion of the other participant in the conversation, and it symbolizes obedient readiness for an affirmative answer to a positively-worded question. The direct opposite of bending teh head forward as a sign of obedience ought to be throwing the head back as a sign of disagreement, dissent, refusal - in short, as a sign of a negative attitude. (Jakobson 1972: 92)
Just like Darwin with his principle of antithesis, Jakobson is looking for an opposition.
Turning the face to the side, away from the addressee (first, apparently, usually to the left), symbolizes, as it were, alienation, refusal, the termination of direct face-to-face contact. (Jakobson 1972: 93)
I think that's a bit of a stretch.
The Bulgarian head motion for 'no', appearing at first glance visually identical to the Russian head motion for 'yes', under close observation displays a significant point of difference. The Russian single affirmative nod is delimited by a bending motion of the head forward and its return to the usual vertical position. In the Bulgarian system, a single negative sign consists of throwing the head back and the consequent return to the vertical position. (Jakobson 1972: 93)
This description reminded me of this meme image:
The work of the facual musculature, causing the movement of the eyebrow either towards or away from the cheekbone, creates a kind of synechdoche: the lowered or raised eyebrow becomes a meaningful, valid substitute for the submissive-bent-down or obstinately-thrown-back head. (Jakobson 1972: 94)
Wat.
The exciting questions about the interrelation of naturalness and conventionality in these motor signs, about the binary, 'antithetical' principle of their construction, and, finally, about the ethnic variations and universal invariants - for example, in signs for affirmation and negation - raised almost 100 years ago in Darwin's searching study The expression of the emotions in man and animals (1872) demand a comprehensive and systematic examination. (Jakobson 1972: 95)
I am not surprised.
Kock, Christian 1997. The function of poetry in our lives: Roman Jakobson's legacy and challenge to poetics. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics 29(1): 305-319.
But some of Jakobson's most famous work on poetry may tempt us to look too exclusively at the internal functionings of language in poetic texts. When we talk about how a thing functions, e.g., an engine or a word processor, we should not just talk about how the thing is structured; we should remember that it is structured as it is in order to do something. So we should not only ask, "How is poetry structured?" but also, "What does poetry do?" (Kock 1997: 305)
This may be called Jakobson's brand of functionalism.
Poeticity is present when theword is felt as a word and not a mere representation of the object being named or an outburst of emotion, when words and their composition, their meaning, their external nad inner form acquire a weight and value of their own instead of referring directly to reality. (Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings V, pp. 749 in Kock 1997: 306)
An alternative iteration to the poetic function as that which announces that it is indeed a poem.
Jakobson never abandoned the conviction that poetry is a vitalizing force in our mental life. (Kock 1997: 306)
Quite in line with Morris (1949: 240) for whom the individual attains the level of a complex individual only when he utilizes the signs of the artists, prophets and philosophers.
The poetic function means that the reader foregrounds the Expression/Content relation as such. The "set towards the message as such" focuses on the fact that this Expression signifies this Content. Expression is not a mere vehicle for content, no matter how interesting that content might be; but expression as such is not the sole object of interest either. Jakobson is more radical than that. In the poetic function, the reader is engrossed in the relation between expression and content, the semeiosis, the sign function. (Kock 1997: 307)
Sounds formalistic. It almost seems that the
device of poetry is to make the connection or association between the signifier and the signified apparent.
Connoted content is always questionable; it is not encoded in the same way as denotative content. (Kock 1997: 309)
A truism if there ever was one.
The foregoing discussion of sign functions in Landor's poem is structurally similar to Freud's analysis of jokes (1905). Freud demonstrates that the point of a joke is crucially dependent on a certain content being expressed by means of what he calls a technique. One important technique is to express a salacious content by not expressing it, while allowing the reader to infer it (this is similar to what we saw in the Landor poem). Saying something "by omission," as Freud calls it, is a characteristic and peculiar sign function, and the foregrounding of this sign function is crucial to the effect of many jokes. This insight is reflected in the saying, "A joke explained is a joke destroyed." We all know that this is so; the interest point is why it is so. The answer is this: by explaining a joke we delete the foregrounded sign function that creates the joke. (Kock 1997: 309)
And the other side of the coin is that these kinds of jokes fall flat when the audience hasn't the slightest idea of what was left unexpressed.
Kennedy, George A. 1955. Review of Studies in Chinese Thought by Arthur F. Wright. The Far Eastern Quarterly 14(3): 406-408.
...it is much easier to investigate a formulated system of ideas than to try to describe the possibly incoherent thinking of the inarticulate masses. (Kennedy 1955: 407)
True that. It is even the case that it is much easier to take a specific thinker or author and study his or her thought or writings instead of some abstract notions or understandings in a wide scope. My own work is so fruitless exactly because I haven't limited myself to a single author but journied through various books and papers, looking for whatever it is that I'm looking for - I don't even know exactly what it has become.
There is, as a matter of fact, a great deal of material that has survived in Chinese despite its sconful relegation by the scholar to the category of trivialities (siao-shou). Without minimizing the value of a knowledge of the classics, I think it can be said that this whole category deserves more attention from the American student than it has generally been receiving. This thesis is pointed up by Schuyler Cammann's article (chapter 5) on Types of Symbols in Chinese Art, which has more to do with the thinking of ordinary peaple than any of the foregoing chapters. He refers to his research as in "a pioneer field," and notes that the symbol-seeker needs to hunt in "popular works on philosophy or religion ... or the local gazeteers and travel memoirs" (p. 197). To these one might add the novels and dramas. Here is rich hunting for Chinese thinking on a non-sophisticated philosophical level. And this may be fully as important. (Kennedy 1955: 407)
Again I see similarities with my own research, which began is more and more moving away from scientific works on nonverbal communication to the study of the idea and application of nonverbal communication in... well, wherever: novels, song lyrics, news, etc.
I. A. Richards has contributed an article on the theory of translating, which has no particular reference to Chinese, and is, in any case, too abstruse for me to follow. (Kennedy 1955: 408)
Which is exactly why I read Richards' article and found it extremely interesting.
Cassirer, Ernst A. 1945. Structuralism in Modern Linguistics. Word 1: 99-120.
In the great family of human knowledge linguistics is one of the youngest members. Grammatical questions have always been studied with keen interest both by linguists and by philosophers. They can be traced back to Pānini's Sanskrit grammar and to those Greek schorals who, in the fifth century B.C., laid the foundations for a scientific treatment of grammar and rhetoric. Yet all this was suddenly eclipsed by the new form of linguistics that developed in the first half of the nineteenth century. (Cassirer 1945: 99)
A time frame.
Most of the linguists who recommended and used psychological methods were deeply influenced by Herbart. It had been the ambition of Herbart to create a new type of psychology - a mathematical psychology. This was possible only by following the examples of Newton and Lagrange. To reduce all psychological activities to what he called "die Mechanik des Vorstellungslebens" was one of the principal aims of Herbart. (Cassirer 1945: 100)
Add to this list de Courtenay's mathematical phonology and perhaps even Lotman's early semiotics, which borrowed much from mathematics and topology.
According to Hume or Mach, there was no other way to understand a complex psychic phenomenon than to disintegrate it into its first elements; into simple sense-data. Even our self, our personality, is nothing but a "bundle of perceptions". In modern "Gestalt-PSychology" all this was transposed into its very opposite. Psychical phenomena - it was declared - have a definite structure; and it is impossible to understand this tructure by treating it as a loose conglomerate - a mere mosaic of sense-data. (Cassirer 1945: 101)
I did not hope for Cassirer to take up this topic. But seeing as he did, today we could add that the semiotic conception of the self or personality is a bundle of sign processes and sign systems.
F. Max Müller wrote two books: the one entitled The Science of Thought (2 vols., New York, 1887). Both of them tried to prove the same thesis: the thesis of the fundamental identity of speech and thought. Reason, declared Max Müller, cannot become real without speech. Like the other works of Max Müller, these two books enjoyed a great popular success, but on the general course of linguistic studies they had very little influence. Their defects were obvious. They were full of arbitrary assumptions and fantastic constructions. W. D. Whitney wrote a special essay, Max Müller and the Science of Language (New York, 1892), in which he gave a crushing criticism of Müller's theory. Max Müller's expressions - he said - though sometimes betraying an inkling of the truth, are confused, indistinct, and inconsistent; they have no scientific value. (Cassirer 1945: 102)
The Science of Thought is available on archive.org. The 700+ page monstrosity is indeed "full of arbitrary assumptions". I ventured on a random page and it claimed that animals do not have the capacity for creative action. Although rather speculation than science, it might be a candidate for reading when I'm older and have more leisure time at my hands.
The term "morphology" is now quite familiar to us. But who was the first to use this term? It is perhaps worth notice that this term, which has now become an integral part of our scientific terminology - of biological as well as of linguistic terminology - was not introduced by a scientist, but by a great poet. Goethe used the word "morphology" as a general title for his doctrine of the metamorphosis of plants and for his studies in comparative anatomy. The first pupils of Darwin in Germany, especially Ernst Haeckel, often credited Goethe with being the precursor of Darwin. This is, however, a very inadequate and superficial description of his theory. When Goethe spoke of morphology - of "Birdung und Umbildung organischer Naturen" - he meant something far different from and even incompatible with Darwinism. Darwin saw the first impulse to the origin of new species in accidental or fluctiating variations. These variations are made at random; they have no definite direction. But they are enough to explain the whole variety of organic forms. (Cassirer 1945: 105)
Kalevi Kull talked about this at this years Autumn School of Semiotics (at Mooste).
The program of this new biological movement was developed and explained by the English physiologist J. B. S. Haldane in a Presidential Address to the Physiological Section of the British Association in Dublin (1908). Haldane suggested for this movement the name "holism"; others preferred to call it "organicism." To my mind, this new holism or organicism bears a close relationship to linguistic structuralism; the methodological views and ideals that we find on both sides are very much akin. But I cannot enter here into a discussion of this point; I must content myself with referring to the literature on the subject: for instance to Ludwig v. Bertalanffy's Theoretische Biologie (i, Berlin, 1932) and to Adolf Meyer's Ideen und Ideale der biologischen Erkenntnis (Cassirer 1945: 108-109)
These two notions are quite important for semiotics (especially sociosemiotics a la Randviir).
When dealing with linguistic questions, the philosopher and the logician are, from the very beginning, confronted with two great and puzzling questions. The first is, Is language an organism?; the second, Is linguistics a natural science or is it a "Geisteswissenschaft"? Let us begin with the first question. The comparison of language with an organism is very old. It has especialy appealed to all romantic writers. But before giving a definite answer we must first explain what the similie means and what it does not mean. We may understand the term "organism" in an ontological or in a formal or methodological sense. In the first cale, we are immediately involved in the most intricate metaphysical questions. In 1863 August Schleicher published at Weimar his book die Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenscaft. What we find here is a strange mixture of naturalism and mysticism. It is a romantic theory based on Darwinian principles. Human language is described as a living being; it springs up and fades away; it has its hour of birth and its hour of death. (Cassirer 1945: 109)
In Lotman we find a treatment of the text or culture as a living organism that seems to accord to this line of thinking.
It is obvious that what is given here is an entirely metaphysical description of language under the cover of a scientific and empirical theory. To speak of language as a thing that comes into being and withers, that has its youth, its prime of life, its senility, and its death is to speak in a mere metaphor. Such a metaphor is admissible if we understand it in the right way and use it with all the necessary critical reservations and limitations. (Cassirer 1945: 110)
This is why I have problems with J. Grigorjeva - her weird metaphysical standpoint that people are the organs of language is unacceptable for me.
Language is neither a mechanism nor an organism, neither a dead nor a living thing. It is no thing at all, if by this term we understand a physical object. It is - language, a very specific human activity, not describable in terms of physics, chemistry, or biology. (Cassirer 1945: 110)
This is much more acceptable. Even more so when we take an extra step and dispense with a homogeneous
language and acknowledge that there is a heterogeneous, rich semiotic world of
languaging activity.
To put it shortly, we may say that language is "organic," but that it is not an "organism." It is organic in the sense that it does not consist of detached, isolated, segregated facts. It forms a coherent whole in which all parts are interdependent upon each other. In this sense we may even speak of a poem, of a work of art, of a philosophical system as "organic." (Cassirer 1945: 110)
This is quite agreeable and close to the way Juri Lotman uses the this term.
Language consists of sounds. If we have found the mechanical laws that govern the phenomena of sound-shift, of phonetic change, we have found the laws of language. The adversaries of this thesis - the structuralists - defend themselves "with weapons derived from the invisible world above." They emphasize that sounds, as mere physical occurrences, have no interest for the linguist. The sounds must have meaning; the phoneme itself is a "unit of meaning." And meaning is not a visible of tangible thing. (Cassirer 1945: 113)
This is the most explicit statement about structuralism in this article.
According to Grimm's Deutches Wörterbuch and Fr. Kluge's Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutchen Sprache, Gestalt is an old German word. Originally it occurred only in its adjectival form, and mostly in its negative form as ungestalt. It is a participle derived from the verb stellen. The substantive Gestalt does not appear before the end of the thirteenh century. In most cases, it is used in a concrete sense; it designates the visible or tangible form of a material body, especially of a human body. (Cassirer 1945: 118)
Good to know.
Voegelin, Charles F. and Zellig S. Harris 1947. The Scope of Linguistics. American Anthropologist 49(4): 588-600.
Human behavior, as well as (or rather, which includes) behavior between humans, is never purely verbal; nor, in the general sense, is it non-verbal. Linguists characteristically study only that part of a situation which we here call verbal. Cultural anthropologists often segregate the non-verbal from the verbal, relegating the latter to special chapters or volumes (such as folklore), as contrasted with chapters devoted to various aspects of material culture, such as house types; one might infer from some ethnographies that houses are built in sullen silence. (Voegelin & Harris 1947: 588)
One interpretation of the concept of "nonverbal" could be that it is that part of behaviour that isn't the primary interest for the linguist.
There are exceptions: these we call ethno-linguistic because they attempt to integrate the verbal and non-verbal aspects of behavior, whether in a single historical problem or in a single synchronic situation. We are more indepted to ethnographers than to linguists for contributions which have been made thus far to ethno-linguistics. The main contributions have been historical. (Voegelin & Harris 1947: 588)
At first sight it may seem that my
concursive project should then belong to the field of ethnolinguistics, but it is relevant that it is not centered on the integration of verbal and nonverbal
behavior, but verbal and nonverbal
signs.
Language is an adjunct to bodily activities, an indispensable ingredient of all concerted human action (7); it does not always serve to communicate, but is always part of concerted activity (8). To exemplify this distinction Malinowski cites an ethno-linguistic situation in which some old men go off to survey an area for agricultural purposes; in this, Malinowski equates technical terminology with gestures and other kinds of non-verbal behavior such as blazing trees and cutting saplings. (Voegelin & Harris 1947: 590)
It should be self-evident that neither verbal or nonverbal can be dispensed with.
Applied linguistics is used in education and in social control.
We use the term "applied linguistics" for the entry of research linguists into the field of practical teaching, dictionary work, code work, devising of alphabets, and administrative problems concerned with subject populations. The part that descriptive linguists play in such a work is very small, but it has already had some effect in the fields here mentioned. (Voegelin & Harris 1947: 595)
My own ideas about social control in terms of nonverbal behavior is different, following Foucault' conception of power and conduct, rather than "administrative problems".
Vávra, Vlastimil 1976. Is Jakobson Right? Semiotica 17(2): 95-110.
In his study, Jakobson also attempts to distinguish the initial movement of the horizontal turning of the head. This time he concentrates on the direction of the initial movement of the head from right to left or from left to right. He describes the turning of the head horizontally to express dissent in the System A in this way: "Turning the face to the side, away from the addressee (first, apparently, usually to the left), symbolizes, as it were, alienation, refusal, the termination of direct face-to-face contact". On the other hand, the turning of the head horizontally to express assent, as in the System B, is described as follows: "With the initial turn of the head - usually to the right - and with each other turn, the addressol of this affirmative cue offers his ear to the addressee, displaying in this way heightened attention, well-disposed to his words". (Vávra 1976: 96)
Jakobsons paper on the jugular and head movements for "yes" and "no" came as if out of the blue - to my knowledge it was the only paper in which he addressed nonverbal behavior at length. For me it remained vague and somewhat speculative. Four years after the fact someone is trying to ascertain if Jakobson was right in his paper. Not only do I miss the relevance of any of this but I can't really eat myself through these verbose and detailed descriptions. Nevertheless, I have to.
These results led me to consider if the great stability of the initial movement from right to left and from left to right in the horizontal turning of the head is not connected with asymmetric deviations, which occur with the preference of one side of the human body over the other, especially in paired motor or sensory organs. In our case it was necessary to consider 3 variables: (2) handedness, that is the functional motor preference of one hand, (b) eyedness, the functional sensory preference of one eye, and (c) earedness, the functional sensory preference of one ear. (Vávra 1976: 98)
I did not know that these are... things. Except, of course, in "pathological" cases wherein a person knows that he or she is deaf in one ear or has bad vision in one eye. It turns out that functional asymmetry of the eyes, for example, is supposed to be even measurable:
Right-eyedness and left-eyedness were determined with the classic Parson manuscope (Parson, 1924), which together with other tests for investigating ocular dominance usually yields high correlation (Cronwall and Sampson, 1971). Here the subjcet places the wider end of a cardboard cone to his face and concentrates his sight on an object about 4 m. away; the dominance of the left or right eye is then experimentally determined on the basis of the following two rules:Rule I. If the subject closes his right eye and with his open left eye his vision is 'shot off', from the point of view of the observer from right to left, then the right eye is the dominant one.
Rule II. If the subject closes his left eye and with his open right eye his vision is 'shot off', from the point of view of the observer from left to right, then the left eye is the dominant one.
(Vávra 1976: 98)
Basically, when vision is obstructed, which eye is opened to look at something. That is supposed to be the dominant eye.
... a simple statistical processing of the data shows that in fact a firm order reigns, based fully upon ... eyedness. All right-eyed students (74 [out of 100]), regardless of the dominance of hand and ear, began turning their head from right to left and all left-eyed subjects (26) from left to right. The data in Table II can thus be rearranced according to (a) eyedness, and (b) the direction of the initial movement of the head. (Vávra 1976: 101)
Thus ocular dominance is related to which way you turn your head first when you shake your head in dissent. I can't think of anything this information could be useful for.
It thus seems very likely that it can be experimentally proved that Jakobson's idea of the horizontal turning of the head to designate dissent in the System A is also connected with visual analysers. However, the question why right-eyed students begin to turn their heads from right to left and left-eyed ones from left to right remain open. (Vávra 1976: 102)
I would venture a guess that when shaking the head in dissent the shaker still wishes to see the partner - perhaps to gauge the reaction to the shake.
Every living organism represents a system in which everything is subordinated to the principle of utility and efficiency. Why should anything be done in a complicated manner when it can be done simply? This principle of economy, found among the simplest cilia, as well as in man, explains why a right-eyed person begins to turn his head from right to left and left-eyed persons in the opposite direction, i.e., from left to right. It is only on the basis of these movements that it is possible to have what one does not wish to see disappear from one's visien, with maximally economic movement and, of course, as rapidly as possible. (Vávra 1976: 103)
The principle of economy is relevant insofar as in one of the offshoots of Jakobson's communication model, someone added the function of economy. Anyway, the authore here comes to a the opposite conclusion than me: that in shaking the head we wish to have "what one does not wish to see" disappear from the visual field. I'm not sure if turning the head is necessary for this - on the principle of economy, one would think to just "look away". Also, compare the "principle of economy" here with the "function of economy" in Danesi's elaboration of Jakobson's communication. It seems to me that while original features and functions in Jakobson's model are present in every act of verbal communication, economizing is present in only certain types of messages.
In interpersonal interaction and communication an important role is also played by the lower extremities. Scheflen (1972) in his very subtle analysis has pointed out that a group of human feet (under a table or around a table) represents varied forms of social inclusion and exclusion. In such cases it seems more than likely that footedness enters the picture. If a left-footed subject rapidly moves his dominant left foot towards the person he is in contact with, the importance of such a movement will probably be different, than when the submissive right foot is moved. (Vávra 1976: 107)
These behaviours are way too subtle for a general semiotic consideration. It's neat, but what does one do with it? I can almost imagine, though, a dystopian world where eyedness, earedness, handedness, footedness and possible other more absurd ones (breastedness, buttockedess?) play such a significant role that everyone must get tested.
Paralysis of the eyes during intense anger is a phenomenon, which human experience has set forth in a number of idioms (seeing red, angered to the point of dark, etc.). But we can also encounter experiences wheret he hand suppresses and weakens the visual sensors. For instance, Čelakovský (1852) notes the following proverb: Když svrbi ruka, zaslepuji oči (Itching of the hands blinds the eye). Similar human experineces already existed so long ago that they found their way into Sumer proverbs (Gordon, 1959). (Vávra 1976: 108)
I would venture a guess that intense anger takes up too much cognitive resources. That is, it is not a case of "paralysis of the eyes" but a case of seeing but not being aware of what is seen. Or, much more likely, it has something to do with blood circulation. Also, the Sumerian proverb is not quoted and the reference (Gordon, 1959) is missing from the bibliography.
Vlastimir Vávra (b. 1939) was a Lecturer of the Prague Academy of Arts (Department of Television and Film Documentary Programmes). He is at present a script-writer and director of scientific and popular science films. His principal research interest concerns the "kinetic behavior of non-actors in live television transmissions" as evidenced in his most recent publications: "Some Types of Motion Metasignals between the Interviewer and Interviewed during Live Television Transmissions" (1967). (Vávra 1976: 110)
It appears that I stumbled upon an early researcher in my field. Even more, I now have an urgency to read one of his papers, "The Self and Body Movement Behavior", for my project on autocommunication.
Andrews, Edna 1990. A dialogue on the sign: Can Peirce and Jakobson be reconciled? Semiotica 82(1-2): 1-13.
Through Jakobson, Peirce became the central figure in the discipline of semiotics, and finally assumed his rightful place as one of the greatest American thinkers of the nineteenth century. Subsequently, as more linguists conduct research within the framework of Peircean sign theory, Jakobson has been criticized for being more Saussurean than Peircean in his theory of language> Elizabeth Bruss, for example, argues that Jakobson is 'a selective reader' of Peirce, 'using Peirce to supply additional support for his on positions, deploying him polemitally as the exemplar of an alternative to the Saussurean tradition. (Andrews 1990: 1)
Perfectly understandable, as any reading is selective reading and Jakobson
did have his own positions, which he supplemented with both Peirce and Saussure.
His readings of Peirce never seem to demand any serious revisions of his own categories... . The Peirce that Jakobson presents is therefore Jakobson's Peirce...' (1978: 81). This particular point of view is insightful because it is certainly the case that Jakobson mainly discusses two notions of Peirce: the icon/index/symbol trichotomy and the importance of the interpretant (1974, 1975). Jakobson's focusing only on these two aspects of Peirce's work inclines one to conclude either that Peirce's other works are of no relevance to linguistics, or that Jakobson did not agree entirely with Peirce's classification of signs. (Andrews 1990: 1)
I think he discussed these notions so often because they were enough for him. He propagated Peirce and urged linguists to use him without doing it thoroughly himself. Also, Jakobson had some idea also of Peirce's
sign-growth (which Jakobson used to supplement his notion of translation). Both of Andrews' conclusions seem to jump the gun as if Jakobson was the penultimate model for semioticians and linguists.
Jakobson's definition makes it immediately apparent that at the base of these three modes are two primary binary oppositions: contiguous/similar and factual/imputed (1985: 215-216). In short, we have two features, one of which occupies a very important place in Jakobson's theoretical works on the two axes of language: contiguity and similarity. Since two features potentially create four categories, Jakobson naturally wishes to fill out the relationship. To do so, he proposes the existence of a fourth mode, which he calls artifice, based on G. M. Hopin's term for 'parallelism' (Jakobson 1985: 215). Thus, artifice is defined as a referral from the signans (SR) to the signatum (SD) via an imputed similarity. (Andrews 1990: 3)
Remo mentioned this in today's autocommunication seminar.
In particular, 'sign and interpretant are distinguished from one another by the fact that the interpretant follows from ... the sign, whereas the sign does not usually follow from its interpretant in the same way' (Savan 1976: 32). (Andrews 1990: 6)
Very relevant for elucidating the
order of the process of semiosis.
Shintani, Laura 1999. Roman Jakobson and biology: 'A system of systems'. Semiotica 127(1): 103-113.
For semioticians today, in particular, a biosemiotician, the idea that 'life is semiosis', or that the combination of biology and semiotics is essential for meaning making, seems almost a natural assumption. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, interdisciplinary and multdisciplinary study was not at the forefront of the North American academic agenda. Individual thinkers such as Jakobson could nevertheless envision the vast and rich grounds that could be broken, if - and only if - most academics could see beyond their own carefully guarded yet superficial borders. (Shintani 1999: 104-105)
It is indeed a natural assumption for semioticians, just as the perspective that culture is semiotic is for cultural semioticians. In the latter regard I think Roger Wescott was even a more significant "individual thinker" - we can only imagine how different and fuller (bio)semiotics would be today if it had embraced his "biosocial" approach of communication.
Keeping these points in mind, I shall move on to Jakobson's third chapter in which linguistics and biology cross. He opens the chapter by saying that biology is 'the science of life which embraces the total organic world - the different kinds of human communication become a mere section of a much vaster field of studies. This broader range may be entitled "ways and forms of communication used by manifold living things"' (1973: 44). It is here that he makes a vital distinction between human and animal communication, so that we may understand the difference between language and communication. Language is uniquely human, whereas communication occurs in both animals and humans. The creation of this definition is evident for us mainly through the intensive study and efforts of Sebeok in the area of human and animal communication, which we, like Jakobson, have come to understand. (Shintani 1999: 106)
For my purposes it is relevant that humans have both language
and (non-linguistic forms of) communication. And semiotics, for me, is indeed an investigation into the forms and functions of communication.
Jakobson now shifted to highlight what we can clearly view as an important idea, double articulation. Double articulation, as labeled by D. Bubrix in 1930 (Jakobson 1973: 44), is crucial to the study of biosemiotics because it not only further defines the uniqueness of the human language, but it also forms a very visible link to biology. Simply put, double articulation is the ability to create out of finite means something seemingly infinite. (Shintani 1999: 108)
By 1999 Bubrikh's name is still not corrected. Double articulation is a theme in cultural semiotics as well, but I don't know what to make of it at the moment.
Fiske, John 1990. Introduction to Communication Studies. Second Edition. London; New York: Routledge.
We shall then look at some models with more specific and limited claims. Lasswell takes the basic shape of Shannon and Weaver's model, verbalizes it, and then applies it specifically to the mass media. Newcomb breaks with this approcah by giving us a new trianglular shape for a model, and by referring it mainly to interpersonal or social communication. Westley and MacLean bring this model back towards the more familiar linear shape when they develop it for application to the mass meida. Finally we look at Jakobson's model, which can be seen as a bridge between the process and semiotic models of communication. (Fiske 1990: 24)
Maybe this is the value of Jakobsons model?
George Gerbner, now Professor and Head of the Annenberg School of Communications, in the University of Pennsylvania, produced an attempt at a general-purpose model of communication. It was considerably more complex than Shannon and Weaver's but still took their linear process model as its skeleton. The main advance over their model, however, are two: it relates the message to the 'reality' that it is 'about' and thus enables us to approach questions of perception and meaning, and it sees the communication process as consisting of two alternating dimensions - the perceptual or receptive, and the communicating or means and control dimension. (Fiske 1990: 24-25)
Yeah, but three years earlier, my obscure hero, Jurgen Ruesch, had already considered these factors - the intent of the sender (and his or her subjective understanding of the social reality) and the interpretation of the receiver, which may be different from the senders intent.
Richards uses this colourful phrase to pour scorn on communication theory. For him, Shannon and Weaver's model implies that there is a core message that exists independently. This is then encoded; that is, it is wrapped up in language like a parcel for transmission. The receiver decodes it, or unwraps the packaging and reveals the core message. The fallacy for him is the idea that a message can exist before it is articulated, or 'encoded'. Articulation is a creative process: before it there exists only the drive, the need to articulate, not a pre-existing idea or content that then has to be encoded. In other words, there is no content before form, and the attempt to find a difference between form and content is in itself a very doubtful exercise. (Fiske 1990: 26)
Similar "creative" aspect has been noted on Shannon and Weaver's communication model by countless many, from Birdwhistell to Lotman. The "packaging theory of communication" also restricts the study of nonverbal communication, because in that world there is hardly anything "packaged" this way.
Access to the media is a means of exerting power and social control. This is widely believed of the mass media: to find illustrations we have only to look at the relationship between authoritarian governments or dictators and their media, or to see how one of the first targets of successful revolutionary forces is the national radio station. But it is also true in interpersonal communication: authoritarian personalities or teachers will attempt to control the access to the channels of communication: that is, they will attempt to limit the amount that others talk. The Victorian father not allowing his children to speak unless spoken to at the dinner table was acting in precisely the same way as the modern totalitarian government allowing only 'official' versions of events on its television screens. (Fiske 1990: 27)
Relevant or my interests. The bit about revolutions and media was painstakingly explored in a book about dictatorships (the author wanted to create one, but failed several times and just wrote a book about it). Information control
is an important aspect of power, but today with the internet and unlimited access to information this picture is much more complicated.
But, for all its elaboration, Gerbner's model is still just an imaginative development of that of Shannon and Weaver. It defines communication as the transmission of messages, and although it looks beyond the process itself, outside to E, and thus raises the question of meaning, it never addresses itself directly to the problems of how meaning is generated. It takes S, the form of the message or the codes used, for granted, whereas the proponents of the semiotic school would find this the heart of the matter. They would also argue that Gerbner is wrong to assume that all the horizontal processes are similar: our perception of a message is not the same as our perception of an event. We do not respond to a film of the villain being gunned down by the hero in the same way as we would if we were wittnesses to the real-life event. A message is structured or encoded in a way that a raw event is not, and thus it directs our response more actively. (Fiske 1990: 30)
These two aspects can be called the semiotics of the code and the semiotics of mediation. In Ruesch the latter is not handled (to my knowledge) at all, but the code aspect is improved significantly with metacommunication: it is not the case that there is a single code, but every message also contains supplementary information about how the message should be interpreted. At this point it seems to be an alternative kind of "double articulation".
Lasswell has given us another widely quoted early model. His, though, is specifically one of mass communication. He argues that to understand the process of mass communication we need to study each of the stages in his model:Who
Says what
In which channel
To whom
With what effect?
This is a verbal version of Shannon and Weaver's original model. (Fiske 1990: 30)
Even if it is a verbal translation of the earlier mathematical model, it still includes the important element that is missing from other models: the effect of communication.
'Effect' implies an observable and measurable change in the receiver that is caused by identifiable elements in the process. Changing one of these elements will change the effect: we can change the encoder, we can change the message, we can change the channel: each one of these changes should produce the appropriate change in the effect. (Fiske 1990: 31)
Luckily I subscribe to semiotic theories that view "meaning" and effect as intricately connected (e.ge Mead and Morris).
But not all of these models are linear. Newcomb's is one that introduces us to a fundamentally different shape. It is triangular. Its main significance, however, lies in the fact that it is the first of our models to introduce the role of communication in a society or a social relationship. For Newcomb this role is simple - it is to maintain equilibrium within the social system. (Fiske 1990: 31)
Again, Ruesch introduced the social situation in his model as well, in fact his understanding of communication is intimately tied with this matter as he defines it as "the social matrix".
This dependency model fails to take account of the relationship between the mass media and the other means we have of orienting ourselves to our social environment: these include the family, work mates, friends, school, the churct, trade unions, and all the other formal and informal networks of relationships through which we fit into our society. We are not as dependent upon the media as this model implies. (Fiske 1990: 34)
Westley and MacLean did not consider that communication is a
social matrix.
Jakobson's has similarities with both the linear and the triangular models. But he is a linguist, and as such is interested in matters like meaning and the internal structure of the message. He thus bridges the gap between the process and semiotic schools. His model is a double one. He starts by modelling the constitutive factors in an act of communication. These are the six factors that must be present for communication to be possible. He then models the functions that this act of communication performs for each factor. (Fiske 1990: 35)
"Constitutive factor", to my knowledge, is Tynjanov's notion. It sounds weird here, as if the author read Jakobson on poetics and took over this notion uncritically.
He starts on a familiar linear base. An addresser sends a message to an addressee. He recognizes that this message must refer to something other than itself. This he calls the context: this gives the third point of the triangle whose other two points are the addresser and the addressee. So far, so familiar. He then adds two other factors: one is contact, by which he means the physical channel and psychological connections between the addresser and the addressee; the other, final factor is a code, a shared meaning system by which the message is structured. (Fiske 1990: 35)
Thus what is truly original in Jakobson's model is the addition of contact and code. And, on second thought, the elements of Jakobson's model
can be called factors, because this notion is related to "functions" and "principles" (in the "formalist" theory). That is, Jakobson elucidates the factors and functions of the principle of communication (I think I'm using "principle" wrong here).
The emotive function describes the relationship of the message to the addresser: we often use the word 'expressive' to refer to it. The message's emotive function is to communicate the addresser's emotions, attitudes, status, class; all those elements that make the message uniquely personal. (Fiske 1990: 35-36)
Oh wow. This is the first time I've met someone ascribing individuality to the emotive function. It actually makes a lot of sense - the emotive function expresses the qualities of the addresser, his unique dispositions.
At the other end of the process is the conative function. This refers to the effect of the message on the addressee. In commands or propaganda, this function assumes paramount importance; in other types of communication it is relegated to a lower priority. (Fiske 1990: 36)
Again, wow. I haven't read anything on this by Jakobson - his own description of the conative function is unintelligibly grammatical. If this author is correct, then "the seventh function" is not missing in his model but conflated with the conative function. The notion of
conation still remains vague, but at least some activity is imputed to the addressee, who now becomes a receiver who can be effected (not just addressed).
The phatic function is to keep the channels of communication open; it is to maintain the relationship between addresser and addresse: it is to confirm that communication is taking place. It is thus orientated towards the contact factor, the physical and psychological connections that must exist. It is performed, in other words, by the redundant elements of messages. The second function of redundancy is phatic. (Fiske 1990: 36)
The difference with Malinowsky remains: original phatic communication was oriented towards
establishing the relationship instead of maintaining it; and phatic communication is not performed by the redundant
elements of messages, but by redundant
messages.
The metalingual function is that of identifying the code that is being used. When I use the word 'redundancy' I may need to make explicit the fact that I am using the code of communication theory and not that of employment. An empty cigarette packet thrown down on an old piece of newspaper is normally litter. But if the packet is stuck to the paper, the whole mounted in a frame and hung on the wall of an art gallery, it becomes art. The frame performs the metalingual function of saying 'Decode this according to fine-art meanings': it invites us to look for aesthetic proportions and relationships, to see it as a metaphor for the 'throw-away society', people as litter-makers. All messages have to have an explicit or implicit metalingual function. They have to identify the code they are using in some way or other. (Fiske 1990: 36)
Wrong. The metalingual function
clarifies the code, e.g. "What does that word mean?" It is essentially speech
about language. What has happened is that the author has confused the metalingual function with metacommunication. The frame given a metacommunicative instruction: "Decode this as such and such..."
Conatively, its ["I like Ike" badge's] function will be to persuade the addresse to support the same political programme, to agree with the addresser. Its referential function is to refer to an existing man and programme, to make the addressee think of what he already knows of General Eisenhower and his policies. Finally, its phatic function is to identify membership of the group of Eisenhower supporters, to maintain and strengthen the fellow-feeling that exists among its members. (Fiske 1990: 37)
Hmm... The conative function has here become the
intent to produce a certain effect in the addressee. The referential function is here more related with factors in the Revzin's model, e.g. common memory. And phatic... Actually is spot on, as it originally meant the type of speech that reduces social tension by proving that "I'm one of you, I speak your language." It is still doubtful whether the phatic function is justified and if it really occurs in every act of communication.
Danesi, Marcel 2004. Messages, Signs, and Meanings: A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication Theory. Third Edition. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press Inc.
Among the various semiotic approaches to verbal communication, the one by the Moscow-born linguist and semiotician who carried out most of his work in the United States, Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), is perhaps the most insightful one. Jakobson posited six "constituents" that characterize all speech acts (Jakobson 1960):- an addresser who initiates a communication;
- a message that he or she wishes to convey and which he or she recognizes must refer to something other than itself;
- an addressee who is the intended receiver of the message;
- a context that provides the framework for encoding and decoding the message - e.g., the phraes "Help me" would have a different meaning depending on whether it was uttered by someone lying motionless on the ground or by someone in a classroom who was working on a difficult math problem;
- a mode of contact by which the message is delivered between an addresser and an addressee;
- a code providing the signs for encoding and decoding messages.
(Danesi 2004: 106)
Danesi has hit upon several critical points in Jakobson's model. (1) Jakobson's model is inherently static (there is no
exchange included in the model), a point which Danesi has consolidated by viewing it in its
beginning phase - the addresser
initiates. But does he always
only initiate? (2) Autoreferentiality is actually an important component in the poetic function (which pertains to the message). (3) Addressee is once again a passive "intended receiver" here. (4) Danesi has ascribed metacommunication to the context, which is not wrong - according to Ruesch, the context has its own metacommunicative instructions, a "framework" of sorts.
Conative function. The message invariably has an effect on its receiver, known as "conative," no matter what the message contents might be, because the way it is delivered by the addresser involves such subjective features as tone of voice, individual selection of words, and so on. (Danesi 2004: 107)
The conative function is the most mystical one. Here Danesi, like Fiske, has identified it with the (intended?) effect. Other than that, he has included aspects of other functions, namely the emotive (the way it is delivered) and poetic (selection of words or tone of voice).
Phatic function. This refers to any message that is designed to establish, acknowledge, or reinforce social relations ("Hi, how's it going?"). (Danesi 2004: 107)
Danesi is being thorough. The aspect of acknowledgement needs further elucidation. What is missing is "terminative" aspect (terminating the contact). This may sound random, but interaction analysts have studied the termination phase of communication thoroughly - it should at be considered.
To Jakobson's set of functions, however, I would add two more. One can be named the mystical function, or the latent perception of the words used in communication as having primordial mystical power. This function is latent in all kinds of rituals and religious practices - the Catholic Mass is spoken; sermons, prep rallies, and other ceremonial gatherings are anchored in speeches, either traditionally worded or specifically composed for the occasion; and so on. The use of langiage in ritual is not to create new meanings, but to reinforce traditional ones and, thus, to ensure cultural cohesion. Societies are held together as a result of such verbal rituals. (Danesi 2004: 107)
This I like. Danesi is taking a creative approach and adding something, which is otherwise quite rare with Jakobson's model. The problem is - which element does the mystical function pertain to? I would not ascribe it to the seventh, "missing", element, effect, because for that I think I could create a "[social] control function". We would need to add "cultural tradition" to the model (in Revzin's model this may be the "common memory" factor). That is, both the sender and receiver have some common cultural core (not only code is shared, but a system of codes is shared), and the mystical function serves to reinforce this commonage. An everyday example is ready at hand in "nostalgia". E.g. "When I was little I used to play this computer game..." and "Me too!"
The other function I would add to Jakobson's typology can be called the economizing function. This claims that messages will be constructed and delivered in the most "economical" way possible, that is, with the least possible effort. Actually, "economization" is characteristic of all kinds of communication systems, not just language. It appears in various ways across cultures. For example, the more frequently a word or expression is used the more likely it will be replaced by a short equivalent. (Danesi 2004: 109)
My first thought was that you can't "abbreviate" nonverbal behaviour, but actually you can. This is the "cue reduction" that zoologists talk about. Langer expressed it nicely - when some nonverbal sign is used so often its meaning becomes habitual, it ceases to be a representation and becomes a reference. That is, the first few times you wish to convey a feeling or idea nonverbally you have to "play it out", but after several times a more economic, briefer, action will do to convey the same. So it is a useful notion. But what factor should it pertain to? Danesi's examples involve abbreviations, acronyms, but could also include emoticons and perhaps even memes (using an image macro instead of bothering to write a text message). The overall impression is that economizing function is related to the time it takes to formulate the message. Thus, instead of the first impulse to ascribe it to the code (which would also be possible - why should one factor have only one function?), I think we could add another factor to the model. Namely, time. Specifically, the time it takes to formulate the message. This can vary greatly depending on the type of message - almost instantaneous in case of nonverbal messages and years in case of books (taken as a single message). The impulse now would be to add space to the model, but this is not necessary at the moment.
Rudy, Stephen and Linda R. Waugh 1998. Jakobson and Structuralism. In: Posner, Roland, Klaus Rabering and Thomas A. Sebeok (eds.), Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretichen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur = Semiotics: a handbook on the sign-theoretical foundations of nature and culture. Band 13.2. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2256–2271.
Roman Jakobsn (born in Moscow in 1896 - died in Cambridge MA, USA in 1982) was one of the major linguists, literary theorists (poeticians), and semioticians of this century. Moreover, as Umberto Eco has emphasized, he was a "major 'catalyst' in the contemporary 'semiotic reaction'" (Eco 1977: 41). This is due to the fact that many of the basic assumptions of modern semiotic research have been defined and/or furthered by Jakobson's work. (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2256)
Eco's evaluation was timely, as Jakobson formulated his most relevant "interdisciplinary" work from the late 1960 until the mid-1970s. Actually, most great semioticians (Jakobson, Sebeok, Eco himself, Lotman, Barthes, etc.) could be called "major catalysts" in that their work helped popularize semiotics.
Semiotics is in its turn encompassed by social anthropology and sociology (language and culture are mutually implicated; see Jakobson 1969: 663 ff and 1967a: 101 ff), and economics, all of which study communication in a larger sense; it shares a complementary relationship with psychology, which studies the individual and personal aspects of signification and communication (Jakobson 1969: 671f); and it is part of the vast field of ways and forms of communication used by all living things and is thus intimately tied to biology (see Jakobson 1969: 672-689). (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2256)
Not so with social psychology. But this is interesting in relation with the question of whether semiotics
can approach "the individual and personal aspects" of its subject matter? Do we shy away from psychological matter or take them on in full stride? I prefer to pay attention to these aspects because they appear to be the most interesting ones, and sometimes most reliable - it is dubious to generalize about a culture or society, but perfectly understandable to talk about a specific individual or, in case of metasemiotics, the semiotic processes on the individual level.
Spoken languag, for Jakobson, is the human semiotic system par excellence, the phylogenetic and ontogenetic basis for all other semiotic systems, and thus the starting point for any valid semiotic analysis (1969: 658 ff). However, he is quick to warn against "the imprudent application of the special characteristics of language to other semiotic systems" (Jakobson 1975a: 214). Given their relative autonomy, special attention should be paid to the diversifying characteristics of sign systems; e.g., interntional communication (the use of semiotic systems par excellence) vs. unintended information (see Jakobson 1969: 661ff). (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2256)
Easily explainable with Jakobson's linguocentrism. I, as a nonverbalist, find that nonverbal communication is phylogenetically and ontogenetically prior to spoken language and the latter
is not the starting point for any valid semiotic analysis. Rather,
semiosis should be such a starting point, and this develops into spoken or written language with time. We do not begin as speaking and writing creatures, we become such creatures with the aid of culture. Without that, we can remain
nonverbal and still live.
The primordial properties of sound are the distinctive features, those minimal sound elements which serve to distinguish larger signs (e.g, words) from each other (Jakobson, Fant, and Halle 1952: 1ff, Jakobson and Halle 1956: 13ff). This means that the distinctive features (and the phoneme, a bundle of distinctive features) are signs, whose signatum ise "(mere) otherness" or pure differentiation: they are pure "signs of signs", unlike all other types of signs, which have some content. (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2258)
That is to say: "distinctive features" are Jakobson's version of so-called "intrinsically coded" signs, in the guise of "metasigns".
Discourses and texts arise from only very generalized, and optional, rules of combination and thus allow the most freedom to be creative. That is, there is an ascending scale of freedom in the ability of speakers to create and of addressees to understand new signs. In other words, many signs are codified as such, but others are only evidenced as messages. Semiotic creativity, then, is associated with semiotic structure. (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2259)
This is quite different from Charles Morris who ascribes semiotic freedom to the ability of the organism to direct its own behaviour through sign-activity and moreover the degree of control the organism has over its own signs.
The point of departure for Jakobson was not structure, as for Saussure, but communicatino. While for many linguists and philosophers the purpose of communication is referential, for Jakobson (and the Prague structuralists) "reference is not the only, nor even the primary goal of communication" (Caton 1987: 231). (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2260)
Not only is reference only one thing that language can do, but language can also be used for conceptual thought, verbal art, signifying without communicating, etc.
In his famous article "Linguistics and Poetics" Jakobson defined the six primary factors of any speech event (1960: 21-22, based in part on Saussure 1916, Bühler 1934, and on communication theory, see Shannon and Weaver 1949; for an opposing semiotic view, see Johnson 1982), as follows: (1) the speaker (encoder); (2) the addressee (decoder); (3) the context (including the thing referred to); (4) the message (parole, text) being communicated by the speaker to the addressee; (5) the code (langue) which is common to speaker and addressee; and (6) the contact between them, the medium by which they communicate. (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2260)
A pretty standard reiteration, but I do not recall Jakobson associating the message with
text. I think this was Lotmans playground. Jakobson seemed more occupied with spoken language and the speech act. But if he did talk about the text, it'd be nice to compare it to Lotman.
In conjunction with these, he then defined (Jakobson 1960: 22-27; cf. 1976b: 113-115) the "functions of language" in terms of an orientation (Einstellung) in the message toward one of the factors: (1) the emotive (expressive) function (focus on the speaker) - e.g., angry intonation which shows the speaker's attitude toward what he or she is speaking about; (2) the conative function (focus on the addressee) - e.g., imperative sentences in which the speaker asks the addressee to do something; (3) the referential (cognitive) function (focus on the context) - e.g., scientific prose in which the aim is to provide information about the world; (4) the poetic (aeshhetic) function (focus on the message) - e.g., poetry; (5) the metalingual (metalinguistic) function (focus on the code) - e.g., definitions of words; and (6) the phatic function (focus on the contact) - e.g., "hello, do you hear me?" (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2260)
Here it is notable that the emotive function is exemplified with
speech qualities (intonation), despite the great potential for associating it with facial expressions. Moreover, the emotive function here is "autoreferential" still - it expresses emotions or attitudes towards the
message (compare this to the Goffmanian triad). Also, it now makes sense why previous authors associated the conative function with effect. Imperatives
do involve an
intended effect - they are verbal equivalents of what I'm thinking of associating with the seventh element - social control or regulation; although it is clear that Jakobson's imperatives are more trivial and held back - there seems to be no implication of social control involved. This is mere speculation - until I read Bühler I can't really tell what conation is about.
Jakobson emerged as the scholar against the background of Russian Formalism. His earliest monograph, The Newest Russian Poetry (1921b), contained a draft of a general poetics, and is a characteristic work of Russian Formalism (see Erlich 1965, Pomorska 1968, Hansen-Löve 1978 and Steiner 1984) in several of its key points: (1) the call for the autonomy of literary studies, in particular their emancipation from philosophical, aesthetic, or sociopolitical theories; (2) an insistence upon the immanent analysis of literary data, in particular, their deformation of linguistic norms by means of the artistic device; (3) the concept of literariness as a more valid starting point for the investigation of literary facts than the conventional, but culturally and historicall relative notion of literature; (4) the opposition of practical and poetic language, the latter viewed as a radical transformation of the former's norms aimed at disrupting the automatism of everyday speech; (5) a theory of literary evolution based on the notion that art necessarily involves palpability of its material and deliberately impeded form, which leads to a historical alternation of outworn and innovative devices, the entire process fueled by novelty and de-automatization; (6) the deliberate laying-bare of the device, namely the self-conscious focus on artistic metalanguage, in modern art (especially avant-garde, abstract art), ledaing to a new conception of representation in early 20th century artistic practice. This necessitates a theoretical re-examination of the signans. (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2262-2263)
Relevant for literary semiotics.
Apart from the application of key concepts of structural linguistics, such as langue/parole (e.g., there is a code of folklore) and synchrony/diachrony (e.g., literature is subject to synchronic laws and to diachronic formation and tranformation), Jakobson and Tynjanov (1928) recognized the interdependence of the "literary series" on other historico-cultural series, thus paving the way for a more integrative and, broadly speaking, semiotic approach to literary data; moreover, the role of social consensus in the acceptance and integration of folkloric innovations was stressed in Jakobson and Bogatyrëv (1929). (Rudy & Waugh 1998: 2263)
I've tried reading that programmatic article and come away with empty hands. This interpretation seems to say that they stressed the relationship between literature and its cultural context.
Sebeok, Thomas A. 1991. Roman Jakobson's Teaching in America. In: Smith, Iris (ed.), American Signatures: Semiotic Inquiry and Method. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 133-143.
It was at his pounding insistence that I was set on the path of specialization in Finno-Ugric languages and linguistics, despite the very nearly total absence of instruction in them within the Western Hemisphere, a circumstance that forced me into an autodidactic stance, yet one that ultimately led to the institutionalization of this field in America. (Sebeok 1991: 135)
I have taken a largely "autodidactic" stance on the same grounds - nonverbal communication is not part of our curriculum, although it should be (seeing as semiotics is intimately tied to this field).
(Somewhat disconcertingly, he was followed around, as well, by an indeterminate cloud made up of East European and Russian groupies, to whom he was unfailingly gracious and kind, although they did erode his time.) (Sebeok 1991: 138)
Groupies. In linguistics.
Jakobson arrived in Bloomington by bus, greeting me with the question, "Where are the Indians?" He spoke on the cultural and social history of Slavic languages (Jakobson 1968), several of which were then taught here intensively to Army personnel, and was then also asked to give an ad hoctalk in J. R. Kantor's seminar. Kantor was an extreme behavioristic psycholinguist who relished controverting with linguists (see Kantor 1936). For some reason, Jakobson chose as his seminar theme "The Theory of Signs," which, as far as I know, was his first presentation of semiotics in this country. He had hardly finished when Kantor bounded forward, shouting, "Why, that was nothing but medieval philosophy!" "Not at all," I remember Jakobson retorting, "it goes back at least to Plato!" (Sebeok 1991: 140)
It's always nice to meet familiar names and have some context. I've read a paper by Jacob Robert Kantor (1922) on the mechanisms of memory. A paper, I might add, that in my view may hold up to a unification with semiotic perspectives.
While his mastery of the grammatical and lexical resources of spoken English was elegant, and of its rhetorical effects superb, his pronunciation remained shockingly alien, giving rise to a remark most often ascribed to Jerzy Kurytowicz (in Mehta 1971: 229), but, in fact, circulating in numerous variants: "Jakobson can lecture perfectly in six languages unfortunately, all of them Russian." (Sebeok 1991: 142)
I laughed. Well done.
His proficiency in handling discussion was histrionic and, partly as a consequence, a lot of fun to watch. I was once chairing a lecture where he spoke for a scheduled hour or so to a large assembly of students. When the time came for questions, his mostly young audience were shy, and too overawed to speak up. After a few moments of awkward silence, Jakobson turned to me, holding his hand high: could he address a query to himself, he wondered? I nodded, he put his question, then went on to answer himself, thus expanding his lecture for another rapt hour. (Sebeok 1991: 142)
A real-life example of autocommunication (in relation with Jakobson).
Hawkes, Terence 2003 [1977]. Structuralism and Semiotics. New York: Routledge.
Writing in 1956 about the linguistic problems of the disorder called aphasia (loss or impairment of the power to understand and to use speech), Jakobson records his observation that the two major (and binarily opposed) component disorders ('similarity disorder' and 'contiguity disorder') seem to be strikingly related to the two basic rhetorical figures metaphor and metonymy.
Both are figures of 'equivalence' in that they characteristically propose a different entity as having 'equivalent' status to the one that forms the main subject of the figure. Thus, in the metaphor 'the car beetled along', the movement of a beetle is proposed as 'equivalent' to that of the car, and in the metonymic phrase 'The White House considers a new policy', a specific building is proposed as 'equivalent' to the president of the United States. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 59)
Here it makes only sense that his approach to Peirce is equally determined by searching for "figures of 'equivalence'" and coming up with the
artifice (or
parallelism).
Jakobson's most famous formulation on this basis is his definition of the poetic function of language as one which draws on both the selective and the combinative modes as a means for the promotion of equivalence: 'The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination.' This becomes the distinguishing 'trademark' of the 'poetic' use of language, as opposed to any other use. When I say 'my car beetles along' I select 'beetles' from a 'storehouse' of possibilities which include, say, 'goes', 'hurries', 'scurries' etc. and combine it with 'car' on the principle that this will make the car's movement and the insect's movement equivalent. As Jakobson puts it, 'similarity superimposed on contiguity imparts to poetry its thoroughgoing symbolic, multiplex, polysemantic essence... Said more technically, anything sequent is a simile. In poetry where similarity is superinduced upon contiguity, any metonymy is slightly metaphorical and any metaphor has a metonymical tint'. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 61-62)
Here the famous formulation of the projection between the axes makes a bit more sense. Not much more, but a little.
In fact, he argues that a universal 'competition' between both modes [Symbolism and Realism] will be manifested in any symbolic process or system of signs, be it intrapersonal or social, and instances that of painting where it is possible to distinguish betwen Cubism as meonymic and Surrealism as metaphoric in mode. Structuralist psycho-analysts such as Jacques Lacan have even suggested that these two modes of symbolic representation provide a model for the understanding of psychic functions: the concept of metaphor illuminates the notion of 'symptom' (the replacing of one signifier by an associated one), that of metonymy sheds light on the origin of desire (through the combinative connection of signifier to signifier and the sense this implies of the infinite extension of such a process into uncharted areas). (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 62)
And that is why psychoanalysis is an "interpretive framework" and not a science. The imputation of isomorphism to wildly different phenomena is perhaps the greatest mistake some thinkers have made. Or, following Cassirer, it is permissible as far as we
know that this is merely metaphorical. I think this is why models are dangerous - they may lose their warning label "this is a metaphor" and become something other than a mere model.
We have already noticed the argument of Jakobson's fellow Prague school critic Mukařovský with regard to 'foregrounding': that the 'aesthetic' use of language pushes into the foregrounding the 'act of expression' itself. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 62-63)
This may also be why poetry should be read expressively (
ilmekalt). All in all this is a pretty good explanation of the poetic function, although it refers to the emotive function. T.S. Eliot could probably elaborate the connection between poetry and emotion.
By the use of complex inter-relationships, by emphasizing resemblances and by promoting through repetition 'equivalences' or 'parallelisms' of sound, stress, image, rhyme, poetry patterns and 'thickens' language, 'foregrounding' its formal qualities, and consequently 'backgrounding' its capacity for sequential, discursive and referential meaning. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 63)
I'm currently trying to make the point (based on Jakobson's poetics) that Kaur Kender's editorial piece in the latest issue of (the now "new")
Sirp is "poetic" because it uses an unusual amount of unnecessary repetitions.
What 'shifters' indicate, of course, is the extent to which all meaning is context-sensitive, and the limited access to so-called 'General Meaning' that any communication can have. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 66)
I still detest the use of the word "meaning" as a term. All meanings are not context-sensitive: there
are autonomous semantic units. The fact that we can list words in a dictionary seems to prove that. The notion of "General Meaning" is not only general but ambiguous. Jakobson's communication model is obviously lacking the factor of "theme" or "topic" (of communication).
True to the functional commitment of his Prague school background, jakobson goes on to argue that each of the six elements involved in the communication event has a distinct functional role. The noture of the message is finally determined by the fact that it takes on the functional character of whichever of the six elements involved happens to be dominant. (Hawkes 2003 [1977]: 66)
More on Jakobson's functionalism, where factors have functions... And somewhere, probably, principles also fit in.
