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Writing in Deconstruction vs Speech in Structuralism (Jacques Derrida vs Ferdinandde Saussure)

Bagiu, Lucian

Published in:Transilvania

Published: 2009-01-01

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Citation for published version (APA):Bagiu, L. (2009). Writing in Deconstruction vs Speech in Structuralism (Jacques Derrida vs Ferdinand deSaussure). Transilvania, XXXVII (CXIII)(8), 79-87.

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JJ acques Derrida points out in his secondchapter, Linguistics and Gramma tology,of his 1967, Of Grammatology that

speech is a form of writing. To sustain thisapparent paradox he begins with a quotation from J.-J. Rousseau and ends his argumentation withHusserl’s vision. Though much of Derrida’s debateconcerns Saussure’s linguistics, his tone is that of aspeculative yet charismatic philosopher. ThoughDerrida might not convince in his linguisticapproach, however he certainly makes thephilosopher within every of its presumed readersthink twice.

“Writing is only the representation of speech, it isbizarre that more care is given to determining theimage than the object.” (Rousseau 1990: 336). Thisquotation from Rousseau is the starting point forDerrida to demonstrate exactly the opposite,reaching Husserl’s assertion: before being the objectof a science (concerned with language or the wholeontology), writing is much more, writing is the veryapriori condition of the episteme.

“The important function of written,

documenting expression is that it makescommunications possible without immediate ormediate personal address; it is, so to speak,communication become virtual. Through this, thecommunalization of man is lifted to a new level.Written signs are, when considering from a purelycorporeal point of view, straightforwardly, sensiblyexperience; and it is always possible they beintersubjectively experienceable in common. But aslinguistic signs they awaken, as do linguistic sounds,their familiar significations. The awakening issomething passive; the awakened signification is thusgiven passively, similarly to the way in which anyother activity which has sunk into obscurity, onceassociatively awakened, emerges at first passively as amore or less clear memory. In the passivity inquestion here, as in the case of memory, what ispassively awakened can be transformed back, so tospeak, into the corresponding activity: this is thecapacity of reactivation that belongs originally toevery human being as a speaking being. Accordingly,then, the writing-down effects a transformation ofthe original mode of being of the meaning structure,[e.g.] within the geometrical sphere of self-evidence,of the geometrical structure which is put into words.

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L u c i a n B Â G I U

Writing in DeconstructionvsSpeech in Structuralism

(Jacques Derrida vsFerdinand de Saussure)Writing in Deconstruction “vs” Speech in Structuralism

Speech is already in itself a writing. Any concept that is to name, to stay for the abstract or concretereality is made up of a mental trace. There is always a sleepy-waiting yet ever present trace at the origin ofthe representation and the naming of any ontological phenomenon. The trace is itself The apriori ontology– and this is how writing is pre-eminent to the later formal verbalization of any already traced concept ofany abstract or concrete phenomenon of reality. The trace is the very possibility of the existence. The wholereality is originally “written”, then existing and finally spoken.

Keywords: grammatology, linguistics, logocentrism, speech, writingInstitution’s address: postal address: N-7491, Trondheim, Norway; visiting address: Departmental

office, room 5557 in building 5, level 5 at Dragvoll campus; tel.: + 47 73 59 68 03, fax: + 47 73 59 65 12Personal e-mail: lucian_bagiu@yahoo.com

Universitatea Norvegiană de Ştiinţe şi Tehnologie din Trondheim, Facultatea de ArteThe Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Faculty of Arts

It becomes sedimented, so to speak.” (Husserl, 1989:164).

For this Derrida makes war with the idea ofLinguistics as the science of language, revealing thefalse assumption on which it was raised in the firstplace: the phonological foundations of Linguistics arelooked down upon as the original sin of a laterstructural corruption of the scientific perspectiveconcerned with language. Derrida states that there isa very consolidated tradition of the phonologicalorientation of Linguistics, Troubetzkoy, Jakobsonand Martinet being the mere perfectionists ofSaussure’s intention, this being the reason for whichDerrida’s deconstruction is applied prevalent to thetexts of the later mentioned, as Saussure is consideredthe initial responsible and most guilty of them all.

The phonological perspective states that there is aprivileged articulated unity where the significanceand the acts of language are possible: that is the unityof sound and sense within the phonic. This is howwriting came to be thought derivative, accidental,particular, exterior, doubling the phonic aspect oflanguage. Aristotle, Rousseau and Hegel consideredwriting as “sign of a sign”, and for Derrida this meansthe “reduction of writing to the rank of aninstrumental enslaved to a full and originarily spokenlanguage” (Derrida 2002: 29). As a reaction to thistremendous injustice and false thinking Derridaproposes nothing less than a new science, calledGrammatology, “of which linguistics-phonologywould be only a dependent and circumscribed area”(Derrida 2002: 30).

For Saussure the essence of language remainsforever uncontaminated by writing: “… languagedoes have a definite and stable oral tradition that isindependent of writing, but the influence of thewritten form prevents or seeing this.” (Saussure 1974:24). However, Saussure is not original in this respect,for he only reasserts what Plato and Aristotle statedlong time before, according to them writing beingrestricted to the model of phonetic script and thelanguage of words. Aristotle’s definition in thisrespect is the following: “Spoken words are thesymbols of mental experience and written words arethe symbols of spoken words” (Aristotle 1990: 25 [1,16a 4-6]). Saussure’s definition is nothing but anecho: “Language and writing are two distinct systemsof signs; the second exists for the sole purpose ofrepresenting the first” (Saussure 1974: 23). We pointout that Aristotle mentions the “mental experience”as the first step of spoken words, a step highlyignored afterwards and out of which Derrida willmake full usage in his paradoxical argumentation ofthe preexistence of writing over speech. Yet, at thismoment, we will concentrate our attention onSaussure’s much more obvious shortcoming in hisconviction of the derivative status of writing.

Derrida emphasizes that Saussure’s definition isfundamentally incomplete since it only applies to acertain type of writing: the phonetic writing. Yet,writing – and language in general (thus linguisticsimplicitly) – is a function in fact never completelyphonetic. Completely subjective and rather absurd,Saussure’s highly capricious and preferentialdefinition of the linguistic object outlaws writing andconsequently totally ignores it as the episteme: “Thelinguistic object is not the written and the spokenforms of word: the spoken forms alone constitute theobject” (Saussure 1974: 23-24). For Saussure thespoken word is already a combination of sense andsound and he imposes a new terminology that appliesto the domain of spoken language alone, an essentialdetail ignored afterwards: “I propose to retain theword sign (signe) to designate the whole and toreplace concept and sound-image respectively bysignified (signifié) and signifier (signifiant)” (Saussure1974: 67). Consequently, in Saussure’s vision writinghas to be phonetic, writing is the outside dimension,the exterior representation of language and of the“thought-sound” unit. The units of significationsfunction without any contribution from writing,they are preexistent, writing played no part in theprocess of birth of language, yet it has to operatewith spoken language as such. According to Derrida,writing has the undeserved status of the outcast andsolely the fascination of the original phonetic unitSaussure imposed prevented writing from being therightful protagonist of the “drama” called language.

Derrida pays much attention to his approach inarguing the pre-emption of writing. He dismissessuch simple syllogisms as: “Most people pay moreattention to visual impressions simply because theseare sharper and more lasting than aural impressions”(Saussure 1974: 25). For him, such an explanation iseven dangerous because makes out visibility “thetangible, simple, and essential element of writing”(Derrida 2002: 42). This is only one of the paradoxesDerrida uses in his study, yet we must note that forhim writing does not seems to be what one iscommonly used to. Moreover, he speculates on anassertion made by Saussure, which could also beconsidered as a paradox: “The thing that constituteslanguage is (…) unrelated to the phonic character ofthe linguistic sign” (Saussure 1974: 7). Thus, forDerrida language is not phonic and writing is notvisible. If language is not phonic (though thelinguistic sign might be), then writing is not an“image” or “figuration” of language, writing is notsign of a sign. What annoys Derrida the most isexactly the fact that a certain model of writing wasimposed as instrument and technique ofrepresentation of a system of language: that is thesystem of language associated with the phonetic-alphabetic writing, exactly the vision that makes out

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of writing nothing more than the derivative status ofsign of a sign. For Derrida logocentrism is not thevalid basis of the episteme, but a mere passing andfalse mode, an “epoch” that preferred, promoted andwrongly imposed speech, whereas it placed inparenthesis, suspended and suppressed not only thegenuine status of writing, but even “free reflection”on the origin and status of writing. For Derridalogocentrism seems to be the despotic totalitarianregime that prevented all linguists (including andstarting with Saussure) from determining “theintegral and concrete object of linguistics” (Saussure1974: 7). Fortunately Derrida is the redemptionknight that saves writing from this undeserved statusof “the wandering outcast of linguistics” and he doessuch a good deed in a most unorthodox way: hedeconstructs Saussure’s discourse, revealing how“writing itself is the origin of language” is whatSaussure actually thought when saying exactly theopposite. Such a redemption must have been quiteuncomfortable for Saussure’s (en)grave(ing).

The deconstruction of Saussure’s discourse thenconcentrates on his thesis of the arbitrariness of thesign. Derrida points out that there is a greatdiscrepancy between writing and the spoken word,in the sense that by no means writing is to be reducedto – and considered dependent by – the thought-sound unity and least at all writing could and shouldbe a mere image of the thought-sound unity.

“If «writing» signifies inscription and especiallythe durable institution of a sign (…), writing ingeneral covers the entire field of linguistic signs. Inthat field a certain sort of instituted signifiers maythen appear, «graphic» in the narrow and derivativesense of the word, ordered by a certain relationshipwith other instituted – hence «written», even if theyare «phonic» - signifiers” (Derrida 2002: 44).

What we come out of this witty play of words isonce more Derrida’s constant striving in pushing theboundaries of the episteme, rethinking linguistics.He refers not to the traditional “phonic-graphicwriting” which stays for the “spoken word”, but to amuch, much larger field of “linguistic” signs,traditionally called “symbols”, plunging intosemiology, a place where of course that Saussure’sthesis of the arbitrariness of the sign does not andcannot apply. Derrida makes his best to reveal thatSaussure’s thesis is fundamentally incomplete andthus even pointless, since it only refers to a specialsort of writing, one among many others. “This thesissuccessfully accounts for a conventional relationshipbetween the phoneme and grapheme (in phoneticwriting, between the phoneme, signifier-signified,and the grapheme, pure signifier), but by the sametoken it forbids the latter be an «image» of theformer” (Derrida 2002: 45).

Derrida even comes out with another speculativeparadox to contradict and thus deconstruct thetraditional concept of writing as “image” of thelanguage. He asserts that even in the particular caseof

“… the synchronic structure and systematicprinciple of alphabetic writing – and phoneticwriting in general – no relationship of «natural»representation, none of resemblance or participation,no «symbolic» relationship in the Hegellian-Saussurian sense, no «iconographic» relationship inthe Peircian sense is to be implied” (Derrida 2002:45).

He challenges this long time standing scientificconviction with such childish argument as “thephoneme is unimaginable itself, and no visibility canresemble it” (Derrida 2002: 45), this being nothingmore than pure sophistic rhetorical play of words.Using long digressions Derrida ultimately admitsthat his goal is “the de-construction of the greatesttotality – the concept of the épistème and logocentricmetaphysics” (Derrida 2002: 46). Of course, nodeconstruction of one episteme is possible withoutimplicitly imposing another, and this is exactly whatDerrida does. After reasserting that writing is neitherthe “image” nor the “symbol” of language, thus beingmore exterior to speech, Derrida makes a flashingclimax of his paradoxes stating that, at the same time,writing is more interior to speech, speech beingalready in itself a writing. This may look as acontradiction, yet it only depends on what oneunderstands by writing. Derrida made his best todifferentiate the concept of writing from thetraditional “sign of a sign” understanding, and this isthe reason why he states that (his) writing is moreexterior to speech. He always emphasized thatwriting is much more than phonetic writing, thusbeing unrelated to speech (and certainly notdependent to and derivative from speech in thecommon sense of spoken words). To understandwhy, at the same time, he says that writing is moreinterior to speech, speech being already a particularsort of writing, one must accept the pre-eminence ofwriting over speech. Nevertheless, what meanswriting for Derrida, after all?

To Derrida writing is much more than thetraditional graphic concept. The graphicunderstanding of writing is merely the last prosaicphase of the original reality of writing (whereassomewhere in between these two Derrida placingspeech). For him, “even before being linked toincision, engraving, drawing, or to letter, to asignifier referring in general to a signified by it, theconcept of the graphie [unit of a possible graphicsystem] implies the framework of the instituted trace,as the possibility common to all systems ofsignifications” (Derrida 2002: 46). The fundamental

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concept of Derrida’s episteme thus becomes notwriting, but trace. What exactly means trace toDerrida (and consequently writing and further onspeech as a sort of writing) can only be understoodby means of stepping out of linguistics and wanderinto a confusing, speculative sea of philosophical andeven theological arguments. To make it short, thetrace seems to be, in Derrida’s vision, some sort ofvirtual existence, a monadic reality, a purelyontological archetype, not an expression, not acontent, but all of these suspended even before theyactually come into being. “The field of the entity,before being determined as the field of presence, isstructured according to the diverse possibilities –genetic and structural – of the trace” (Derrida 2002:47). Applying this vision to Saussurian episteme –and deconstructing it, of course – in Derrida’s ownwords “there is neither symbol nor sign but abecoming-sign of the symbol” (Derrida 2002: 47).Derrida finds part of support in Peirce’s treatment ofthe relationship between symbol and sign:

“Symbols grow. They come into being bydeveloping out of other signs, particularly fromicons, or from mixed signs partaking of the nature oficons and symbols. We think only in signs. Thesemental signs are of mixed nature; the symbol parts ofthem are called concepts. If a man makes a newsymbol, it is by thoughts involving concepts. So it isonly out of symbols that a new symbol can grow.Omne symbolum de symbolo. A symbol, once inbeing, spreads among the peoples. In use and inexperience, its meaning grows. Such words as force,law, wealth, marriage, bear for us very differentmeaning from those they bore for our barbarousancestors. The symbols may, with Emerson’s sphinx,say to man, Of thine eye I am eyebeam.” (Peirce1960: 169, paragraph 302).

Any concept that is to name, to stay for theabstract or concrete reality is made up of a mentaltrace. There is always a sleepy-waiting yet everpresent trace at the origin of the representation andthe naming of any ontological phenomenon. Thetrace is itself The apriori ontology – and this is howwriting is pre-eminent to the later formalverbalization of any already traced concept of anyabstract or concrete phenomenon of reality. Thetrace is the very possibility of the existence. Thewhole reality is originally “written”, then existingand finally spoken.

Derrida seems to be very much delighted by such“de-construction of the transcendental signified”,Peirce being highly praised for his acknowledgementthat the thing itself is a sign. In his The Principles ofPhenomenology Pierce stated: “… the idea ofmanifestation is the idea of a sign.” (Peirce 1955: 93).Anything that simply exists comes out of the idea ofa sign and can only be interpreted further by means

additional of signs. “From the moment that there ismeaning there are nothing but signs. We think only insigns” (Derrida 2002: 50), the world itself is a sign andit manifests and expresses itself through indefinitesigns.

Mentioning once again such traditional – yetwrong – acceptation of writing as one is to face inPhaedrus, which condemned writing as play – paidia– and opposed such childishness to the adult gravityof speech (Plato 2006: 151, 277e), Derrida refers to ascience of writing before speech and in speech, calledgrammatology. This new science Derrida aims to isto cover a vast filed within which linguistics is todelineate its own, smaller area, with the limitsSaussure prescribes. Finally, Derrida admits that onemay replace/substitute semiology by grammatology,and reaching this point he becomes once moreconfusing and paradoxical. He does not and cannotname the precise object of grammatology and thusdelineate its rigorous area and reveal its episteme.Why is that so? Because this new science ofgrammatology does not yet exist – consequently it isimpossible to say what it would – or could – once be.Nevertheless, one thing is for sure: linguistics is onlya part of this new general science and the laws thatwill some day be discovered by grammatology willbe applicable to linguistics. Seeing such a tremendousgenerosity on the part of Derrida, one cannot stopwondering whether we face a philosophical visionarymind or just a spoiled whimsical rhetor.

It comes out quite clearly that Derrida is not suchmuch concerned with constructing grammatology,but with deconstructing linguistics. He is mostlyannoyed by the fact that semiology, thoughtheoretically including linguistics, being moregeneral and comprehensive, it continued to beregulated as if it were one of the areas of linguistics.The pattern of the linguistic-sign remainedexemplary for semiology and dominated the ever un-delineated master-sign. “… linguistics can become themaster-pattern for all branches of semiologyalthough language is only one particular semiologicalsystem” (Saussure 1974: 68). This is precisely whatBarthes revealed as the actual intention of Saussure’sCourse in General Linguistics: “In fact, we must nowface the possibility of inverting Saussure’sdeclaration: linguistics is not a part of the generalscience of signs, even a privileged part, it is semiologywhich is a part of linguistics: to be precise, it is thatpart covering the great signifying unities ofdiscourse.” (Barthes 1972: 11).

All of these happened because of the so-called“civilization of writing” that human kind inhabitedfor a long, long time; that is of phonetic-writing,which means logocentrism. Yet Saussure himselfstated, curiously enough, that language is comparableto a system of writing. Not comparable, says

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Derrida, but a species of writing. The problem startsfrom Saussure’s own discourse, as usually. There areseveral times when trying to define language thatSaussure draws his arguments from ratherquestionable examples related to… writing. It makesone think: which came first? The supposed object oflinguistics or the object by whose means languagecan be determined? Let us follow Saussure’sdiscourse: “Language is a system of signs that expressideas, and it is therefore comparable to a system ofwriting, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites,polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is themost important of al these systems” (Saussure1974:16). Even further, when striving to explain thephonic difference as the condition of linguistic value,Saussure found nothing else helpful but writing itself:“Since an identical state of affairs is observable inwriting, another system of signs, we shall use writingto draw some comparisons that will clarify the wholeissue” (Saussure 1974: 119). All Derrida has to do is tooppose Saussure to himself, revealing hisinconsequent episteme. Rather than being the“indispensable correlative”, writing seems to be thevery foundation of linguistic sign.

Derrida then concentrates on the thesis ofdifference as the source of the linguistic value.Saussure constructs this thesis making full usage ofthe phonic aspect of the linguistic sign, the phonemebeing intrinsic to the linguistic difference. YetDerrida is ever present in speculating oncontradictory phrases he picks up now and thenfrom Saussure’s discourse. Derrida points out thatwhile difference in language comes down tomeaning, yet Saussure stated that sound has little todo with valuable/meaningful language. “The thingthat constitutes language is, as I shall show later,unrelated to the phonic character of the linguisticsign” (Saussure 1974: 7).

“… it is impossible for sound alone, a materialelement, to belong to language. It is only a secondarything, substance to be put to use. (…) the linguisticsignifier, which is not phonic but incorporeal –constituted not by its material substance but thedifferences that separate its sound-image from allothers” (Saussure 1974: 118-119).

“The idea or phonic substance that a sign containsis of less importance than the other signs thatsurround it” (Saussure 1974: 120). What then is theessence of language, which gives it value andmeaning, if not the phonic secondary aspect? That issomething we are yet to find out.

Derrida emphasizes further on statements ofother phonology favoring linguistic discourses,starting with that of Jakobson and Halle, whocontradicted Hjelmslev and his glossematic (whichrequires the neutralizing of the sonorous substance).

“In contradiction to the universal phenomenon

of speech, phonetic or phonemic writing is anoccasional, accessory code that normally implies theability of its users to translate it into its underlyingsound code, while the reverse ability, to transposespeech into letters, is a secondary and much lesscommon faculty. Only after having mastered speechdoes one graduate to reading and writing. ”(Jakobson-Halle 1956: 16).

This argument for the secondariness of writingJakobson and Halle used is dismissed as inconsistent,its pertinence being based only on a preferential –thus subjective – logic of time sequence. It is notenough for writing to appear after speech in onesconscience to make out of it an auxiliary parasite.The two scholars also refer to the imperfection ofgraphic representation:

“There is a cardinal difference between phonemesand graphic units. Each letter carries a specificdenotation – in a phonemic orthography, it usuallydenotes one of the phonemes or a certain limitedseries of phonemes, whereas phonemes denotenothing but mere otherness (…) Graphic signs serveto interpret phonemes or other linguistic units standfor these units, as the logician would say. Thisdifference has far-reaching consequences for thecardinally dissimilar patterning of letters andphonemes. Letters never, or only partially,reproduce the different distinctive features on whichthe phonemic pattern is based and unfailinglydisregard the structural relationship of these features.There is no such thing in human society as thesupplantation of the speech code by its visualreplicas, but only a supplementation of this code byparasitic auxiliaries, while the speech code constantlyand unalterably remains in effect.” (Jakobson-Halle1956: 16-17).

Letters only partially reproduce the differentdistinctive features on which the phonemic pattern isbased, but this is not – at least not to Derrida – anargument for the secondariness of writing, butprecisely for the necessity to reconsider writing asunrelated to and not derived from speech. He pointsout, once more, that the claimed inadequacy ofgraphic only refers to the common alphabeticwriting (something glossematic does not limit itselfto) and thus urges for a “reforming of the concept ofwriting” (Derrida 2002: 55) itself.

Derrida also contradicts André Martinet whocriticized all those who questioned the essentialphonic character of the linguistic sign.

“Beaucoup seront tentés de donner de raison àSaussure qui énonce que « l’essentiel de la langue… estétranger au caractère phonique du signelinguistique», et, dépassant l’enseignement du maître,de déclarer que le signe linguistique n’a pasnécessairement ce caractère phonique.” (Martinet1965: 19).

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[“Much will be attempted to prove that Saussureis right when he announces that «the thing thatconstitutes language is… unrelated to the phoniccharacter of the linguistic sign», and, going beyondthe teaching of the master, to declare that thelinguistic sign does not necessarily have the phoniccharacter”.]

For Derrida is not a question of going beyondwhat Saussure meant, but precisely to extend andrightly reveal what Saussure would have actuallywanted to say, but somehow forgot to… Here is asample of Saussure’s unconscious thought, expressedby the “medium” called Derrida:

“I believe that generalized writing is not just theidea of a system to be invented, an hypotheticalcharacteristic or a future possibility. I think on thecontrary that oral language already belongs to thiswriting. But that presupposes a modification of theconcept of writing that we for the moment merelyanticipate” (Derrida 2002: 55).

To push the limits of the paradox tohallucinatory boundaries, Derrida finds support forsuch courageous overlapping of Saussure’s discoursein the work of…. Martinet himself.

“… il est très important de modifier laterminologie traditionnelle relative à l’articulation designifiants de façon à en éliminer toute référence à lasubstance phonique comme le fait Louis Hjelmslevlorsqu’il emploie «cénème» et «cénématique» au lieude «phonème» et «phonologie». / On comprendratoutefois que la plupart des linguistes hésitent àmodifier de fond en comble l’édifice terminologiquetraditionnel pour le seul avantage théorique depouvoir inclure dans le domaine de leur science dessystèmes purement hypothétiques. Pour qu’ilsconsentent à envisager une telle révolution, ilfaudrait les convaincre que, dans les systèmeslinguistiques attestés, ils n’ont aucun intérêt àconsidérer la substance phonique des unitésd’expression comme les intéressant directement.”(Martinet 1965: 20-21).

[“… it is most important to modify traditionalterminology relative to the articulation of signifiersso as to eliminate all reference to phonic substance; asdoes Louis Hjelmslev when he uses «ceneme» and«cenematics» instead of «phoneme» and«phonematics». / Yet it is understandable that themajority of linguists hesitate to modify completelythe traditional terminological edifice for the onlytheoretical advantages of being able to include in thefield of their science some purely hypotheticalsystems. To make them agree to engage such arevolution, they must be persuaded that, in attestedlinguistic systems, they have no advantage inconsidering the phonic substance of units ofexpression as to be of direct interest.”]

There is one way to consider and agree on the

derivativeness of writing. If the original, naturallanguage had itself always been a writing, an“archewriting”, than the common vulgar acceptationof writing can be looked upon as a dissimulation ofthe archewriting. Yet this archewriting can neverbecome the object of a new science, but instead thetrace could and should.

The linguist that pleases most Derrida isHjelmslev and his Principes de grammaire générale(1928). For him grammar is independent of semanticsand phonology:

“Phonematics must consider the phonemes aselements of the language system, without regard tothe particular way in which they are symbolized.They may be symbolized by means of sound, butthey may be symbolized quite as well by severalother means, e. g. by means of letters, or any othersignals adopted by two or more individuals. / Thereis no necessary connection between sounds andlanguage. The decisive fact is that other symbols thansounds can be used to express phonemes.” (Hjelmslev1973: 159).

The linguistic unit is to Hjelmslev the glosseme,that has little to do with the traditional Saussurianlinguistic sign, though the starting point may bevaguely the same: “Since language is a form and nota substance (Saussure), the glossemes are bydefinition independent of substance, immaterial(semantics, psychological and logical) and material(phonic, graphic, etc).” (Hjelmslev-Uldall 1935: 13f).Even more, in the Prolegomena to a Theory ofLanguage (1943), Hjelmslev emphasizes anothercontradiction of Saussure discourse. ThoughSaussure maintains that language is a form and not asubstance, yet the difference signifier/signified (thatcan be substituted by the oppositionexpression/content), sets as bases precisely the pointof view of substance. Hjelmslev criticizes the idea oflanguage naturally bound to the substance of phonicexpression. To say, “that the substance-expression ofa spoken language should consist of «sounds»”(Derrida 2002: 58) is nothing more than a mistake,the original sin Derrida obsessively talks about.Eberhard Zwirner and Kurt Zwirner pointed outthat that speech is accompanied by and may bereplaced by gesture and not only the so-called organsof speech but all the musculature cooperate in theexercise of “natural” language. Moreover, the samelinguistic sign may be manifested in writing (thephonetic or phonematic notation and the so-calledphonetic orthographies, such as Finish). Thus, a“graphic” substance is addressed exclusively to theeye and doe not need to be transposed into aphonetic “substance” in order to be understood.Thus, it is difficult to say what is derived from what.This is even more difficult when considering that thevery discovery of alphabetic writing is an event that

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took place in prehistory. As Bertrand Russell noted,we have no means of deciding which came first ashuman expression: writing or speech “It is notknown how or when language arose, nor whychimpanzees do not speak. I doubt if it is evenknown whether writing or speech is the older formof language. The pictures made in caves by the Cro-Magnon men may have been intended to convey ameaning, and may have been a form of writing. It isknown that writing developed out of pictures, forthat happened in historical times; but it is not knownto what extent pictures had been used in prehistorictimes as a means of giving information andcommands.” (Russell 1927: 46-47).

H. J. Uldall revealed another paradox of Saussurediscourse and of language in general: only by meansof the conceptualization the difference between formand substance, it is possible to “… explain thepossibility of speech and writing existing at the sametime as expressions of one and the same language”(Uldall 1944: 11f). Concentrating ones attention onthe substance, Hjelmslev admits (in a footnote): “Ananalysis of writing without regard to sound has notyet been undertaken” (Hjelmslev 1953: 67), whileUldall steps even further: “the substance of ink hasnot yet received the same attention on the part oflinguistics that they have so lavishly bestowed on thesubstance of air” (Uldall 1944: 13-14). Uldallemphasizes the mutual independence of the two kindof substances of expressions: in orthography, nographeme corresponds to accents or pronunciation (afact that was the misery and menace of writing forRousseau) and, reciprocally, in pronunciation, nophoneme corresponds to the spacing betweenwritten words.

Though glossematics pleases Derrida in somerespect and to some extent, yet it only lingers at theperiphery of what he assumes a hypotheticalgrammatology would one day be. Glossematics stilloperates with a popular imperfect and limitativeconcept of writing. The “form of expression” linkedby correlation to the graphic “substance ofexpression” may be a novelty, but it has little ornothing to do with Derrida’s “arche-writing”. Thisimplies not merely the form and substance of graphicexpression, as glossematics does, but non-graphicexpressions also. Even much more, the assumedarche-writing “… would constitute not only thepattern uniting form to all substance, graphic orotherwise, but the movement of the sign-functionlinking a content to an expression, whether it begraphic or not” (Derrida 2002: 60). For Derrida thearche-writing seems to belong to the Husserlianreference to a transcendental experience (“Byabsolutely virtualizing dialogue, writing creates akind of autonomous transcendental field from whichevery present subject can be absent. (…) Writing, as

the place of absolutely permanent ideal objectivitiesand therefore of absolute Objectivity, certainlyconstitutes such a transcendental field”; Derrida1989: 88). Transcendental phenomenology belongingto metaphysics, Derrida steps out of linguistics (oreven semiology) and apparently implies that hisvirtual grammatology is very much related tophilosophy (if not even a new philosophical visionconcerned with witty speculations on the archetypalorigin of language).

Derrida makes his best to deconstruct thetraditional acceptance of the Saussurian “material”substance-expression of the “sound”. He does this bymeans of emphasizing the contradictions or at leastparadoxes from Saussure’s discourse itself. Saussuredistinguishes between the “sound-image” and theobjective sound. According to Derrida, there are twoproblems with this epistemological stand. First, thesound-image is the structure of the appearing of thesound (l’apparaître du son) which is anything but thesound appearing (le son apparaissant). This sound-image (and not the sound itself) is what Saussure callssignifier, whereas he reserves the name signified notfor the thing, but for the “concept”. “I propose toretain the word sign [signe] to designate the wholeand to replace concept and sound-image respectivelyby signified [signifé] and signifier [signifiant]” (Saussure1974: 67) “The sound-image is what is heard; not thesound heard but the being-beard of the sound. Being-heard is structurally phenomenal and belongs to anorder radically dissimilar to that of the real sound inthe world” (Derrida 2002: 63). The “sound-image,”the structured appearing [l’apparaître] of the sound,the “sensory matter”, distinct from all mundanereality, is called the “psychic image” by Saussure:“The latter [the sound-image] is not the materialsound, a purely physical thing, but the psychologicalimprint of the sound, the impression that it makeson our senses. The sound-image is sensory, and if Ihappen to call it «material», it is only in that sense,and by way of opposing it to the other term of theassociation, the concept, which is generally moreabstract” (Saussure 1974: 66). Derrida points out thatbefore Saussure, Baudouin de Courtenay thoughtthat the phoneme is a sound imagined or intended,opposed to the emitted sound as a “psycho phonetic”phenomenon to the “physio-phonetic” fact. It is thepsychic equivalent of an exteriorized sound.

One could say that Derrida steps into psychologyas a means of constructing the episteme of the futurescience of grammatology. However, it is not the fact,after all. Psychophonetics is just another instrumentof deconstructing traditional structuralism, withoutnecessarily constructing much of anythingafterwards. What he proposes is a sophisticmetaphysical speculation. To Derrida the so-calledpsychic-image seems to be just a manifestation of the

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ambiguous archetypal trace. “The unheard differencebetween the appearing and the appearance[I’apparaissant et I’apparaître] (between the «world»and «lived experience») is the condition of all otherdifferences, of all other traces, and it is already atrace” (Derrida 2002: 65). The trace is of courseanterior both to physiological or psychologicalmanifestations of the sound. “The trace is in fact theabsolute origin of sense in general. The trace is thedifference which opens appearance [I’apparaître] andsignification” (Derrida 2002: 65). Though it comesquite to be obvious that the concept of “trace” haslittle to do with linguistics or even semiology,philosophy being the only known science yet whoseinstruments could analyze it, Derrida is vigilant incutting down all possible approaches: “… No conceptof metaphysics can describe it” (Derrida 2002: 65). Iftrace can explain anything and if nothing can explainthe trace, then there is no hard work for Derrida toconclude that one should not bother with such futileissues as the sequence of speech and writing, both ofwhich being phenomena of the invisible andimponderable trace:

“… is there a sense in establishing a «natural»hierarchy between the sound-imprint, for example,and the visual (graphic) imprint? The graphic imageis not seen; and the acoustic image is not heard. Thedifference between the full unities of the voiceremains unheard. And, the difference in the body ofthe inscription is also invisible” (Derrida 2002: 65).

Quite ineffable. Towards the end of the chapter, Derrida slides

more and more towards psychology andpsychoanalyses in his inexhaustible attempt tooutcast logocentrism. “… what is natural to mankindis not oral speech but the faculty of constructing alanguage, i.e. a system of distinct signs correspondingto distinct ideas” (Saussure 1974: 10). Constructing alanguage is a psychological ability before being aphysical outcome; articulation is reevaluated as amere way of manifesting for the “psychic imprint”that is the trace itself. Which could mean “physicalspeech” is an expression of the “psychologicalwriting”. “The idea of the «psychic imprint»therefore relates essentially to the idea ofarticulation. Without the difference between thesensory appearing (apparaissant) and its livedappearing (apparaître) («mental imprint)…” (Derrida2002: 66). What is striking is the fact that Derrida isfar from being original. The psychic or mentalimprint had already been outlined long before byseveral linguists as the origin of speech, each of themin its own particular vision: Aristotle (“mentalexperience” Aristotle 1990: 25 [1, 16a 8]), Baudouinde Courtenay and Saussure (“sound-image”) beingthe ones mentioned by Derrida himself. Derridacomes out with his own part when considering this

“mental imprint” as a phenomenological expressionof the original metaphysical arche-writing: “That thelogos is first imprinted and that imprint is thewriting-resource of language…” (Derrida 2002: 68).To argue that writing comes first and speech secondDerrida even mentions no other than Freud, towhich dream work is comparable rather to a writingthan to a language, and to a hieroglyphic rather thanto a phonetic writing (Derrida 2002: 68). The mentalimprint may thus be perceived as a synonymous tothe dream work, an argument that does nothing elsethan getting the arche-writing closer and closer topsychoanalyses and not metaphysics (“aphenomenology of writing is impossible” (Derrida2002: 68) previously states Derrida…).

To Derrida the “oral speech” can never stand forthe plenitude of meaning, for there is no perfectunity between signifier and signified. This kind ofunity and thus true meaning can only be found in thetrace. What actually means “trace” to Derrida is notsimple thing to understand. He relates his notion toLevinas, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Freud, a thing thatmakes one realize it has to do first with philosophy.No matter what name and acceptation the tracemight have in various philosophical visions, onething that interests Derrida is that trace is “dominantand irreducible”. In his most expanded and explicitdefinition/characterization of the trace, Derridaundoubtedly places the episteme of his futuregrammatology in the fields of metaphysics andphenomenology.

“If the trace, arche-phenomenon of «memory»,which must be thought before the opposition ofnature and culture, animality and humanity, etc.,belongs to the very movement of signification, thensignification is a priori written, whether inscribed ornot, in one form or another, in a «sensible» and«spatial» element that is called «exterior». Arche-writing, at first the possibility of the spoken word,then of the «graphie» in the narrow sense, thebirthplace of «usurpation», denounced from Plato toSaussure…” (Derrida 2002: 70).

On the other hand, Derrida is very much irritatedthat the entire history of metaphysics strivedtowards the reduction of the trace:

“The subordination of the trace to the fullpresence summed up in the logos, the humbling ofwriting beneath a speech dreaming its plenitude, suchare the gestures required by an onto-theologydetermining the archeological and eschatologicalmeaning of being as presence, as parousia, as lifewithout difference: another name for death…”(Derrida 2002: 71).

Logocentrism is seen as nothing less than deathitself. There are many philosophers guilty of such afundamental malign. One could start with Plato:

“And now, since you are the father of writing,

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your affection for it has made you describe its effectsas the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it willintroduce forgetfulness into the soul of those wholearn it: they will not practice using their memorybecause they will put their trust in writing, which isexternal and depends on signs that belong to others,instead of trying to remember from the inside,completely on their own. You have not discovered apotion for remembering, but for reminding; youprovide your students with the appearance ofwisdom, not with its reality.” (Plato 2006: 147, 275a);“… writing shares a strange feature with painting.The offspring of painting stand there as if they arealive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remainmost solemnly silent. The same is true with writtenwords. You`d think they were speaking as if theyhad some understanding, but if you questionanything that has been said because you want tolearn more, it continues to signify just that very samething forever. When it has once been written down,every discourse roams about everywhere, reachingindiscriminately those with understanding no lessthan those who have no business with it, and itdoesn`t know to whom it should speak and to whomit should not. And when it is faulted attackedunfairly, it always needs its father`s support; alone, itcan neither defend itself nor come to its ownsupport.” (Plato 2006: 148, 275e)

We are to continue with Spinoza, for whom theUnderstanding – or logos – was the immediateinfinite mode of the divine substance, calling it “… aSon, Product or immediate Creation of God, alsocreated by him for all eternity and remainingimmutable to all eternity.” (Spinoza 2002: 59). Nextit is Hegel who imagined “… a theology of theabsolute concept as logos…” (Derrida 2002: 71) andwe are to come down on this line to all linguists whoaccredited Saussure’s decree.

Bibliography

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3. Derrida, Jacques (1989). Edmund Husserl’sOrigin of Geometry: An Introduction. University ofNebraska Press.

4. Derrida, Jacques (2002). Of Grammatology.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas Publishers.

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14. Peirce, C. S. (1955). “The Principles ofPhenomenology”. Philosophical Writings of Peirce.Dover Publications, Inc., New York 10, N.Y., ch. 6.

15. Plato (2006). Phaedrus [Plato on Love. Lysis.Symposium. Phaedrus. Alcibiades, with selection fromRepublic and Laws. Edited by C. D. C. Reeve.Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.Indianapolis/Cambridge].

16. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1990). Pronunciation.[The Collected Writings of Rousseau. Vol. 7. Translatedand edited by John T. Scott. Roger D. Masters andChristopher Kelly, Series Editors. DartmouthCollege. Published by the University Press of NewEngland. Hanover and London].

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20. Uldall, H. J. (1944). “Speech and Writing”.Acta Linguistica 4 (1944).

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