The texts from this week were complex and at times difficult
to understand, but otherwise thought-provoking. In “Course in General
Linguistics”, de Saussure claims that language is the amalgamation of a “series
of differences of sound” and “a series of differences of ideas” (de Saussure
11). The metaphor that assisted me in understanding or visualizing this concept
was the sheet of paper in which the front is thought and the back is sound. You
cannot separate the two from each other; both are necessary to produce what he
defines as “form.” Perhaps this how we acknowledge that language is more than
just a system of labeling. Indeed, concepts are understood not by their
positive content but on the their “relations with other terms” (de Saussure 9).
I speak both Spanish and English therefore I am able to see that indeed words
are not equivalent to pre-existing concepts, because there are not always
literal translations from one language to the next.
I could not
help but notice that in the readings their seemed to be themes of differences,
spaces, and the in between. Macherey’s “A Theory of Literary Production” was
the most challenging reading for me, however I enjoyed his exploration of
explication and implication as well as silence in speech. He suggests that we
should not only examine the “manifest” or the content that is formally present,
but also the “latent”, which is the concealed content that can be found in the
absence of words. Nietzsche questions what the concealed has to show; perhaps
our prejudice or what we are predisposed to think. It is clear in the media that
the explicit content is influencing us to perceive something a certain way.
Maybe we need to take a step back from what we are being explicitly told and
notice what the implicit is telling us. For example, there might be implicit
racism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination that are not being blatantly
displayed that show us how institutionalized they are within our society.
Continuing
the theme of gaps and spaces, Barthes suggests that the most erotic portion of
a body is where the garment gapes. That
is the body of text, in which “tmesis” is described as the gap where we tend to
inject our own meaning. Similar to reading the implications of a text, “text of
bliss” (the text that does not fill in all the gaps for us), propels us to
challenge what we are used to. Barthes claims that “text of bliss” causes the
destruction of culture and loss of selfhood versus “text of pleasure” which
engenders the hedonism of culture and consistency of selfhood. Overall I imagine
that on our journey during this course in which we examine all types of media
and texts, Barthes and Macherey’s concepts will prove to be extremely relevant.
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