Previously on Saussure, I wrote about the Structuralist idea that words are arbitrary signifiers. Now, we take up the second attribute of words. Their meaning is relational.
Saussure imagined every word to exist in a linked word-chain, a sequence of words. The meaning of each word, he said, is determined by one, its position in this sequence and two, all the other words that could have been used instead of itself.
Consider this sequence of words:
Pleased, Happy, Joyous, Cheerful, Gleeful, Delighted.
To start with, we distinguish between a word’s content or what it signifies and its position in relation to neighbouring words. Pick any word, say ‘Cheerful’.
The word’s content indicates a certain degree of a pleasurable emotion, but that degree itself is determined by the word’s location (or position) in this chain. ‘Cheerful’ signifies a certain degree that is more than ‘Joyous’ and other words before it, and less than ‘Gleeful’ and words that follow it. One could say then, that Cheerful is also not-Joyous; Cheerful is not-Happy, and so on.
Which brings us to Saussure’s famous assertion that, “in language there are only differences without positive terms.” In other words (pun intended), a word’s meaning is not intrinsic to what it is, but to what it is not in relation to other words. As amusing as it sounds, ‘Joyous’ is ‘not Pleased’.
The idea of opposite word pairs is fundamental to Saussure’s structuralism. Male-Female, Light-Dark, Up-Down; mutually defining opposite-pairs indicate that the meaning of one word depends on the existence of the other.
And if one argues about the arbitrary nature of this word chain, and claims that say, the word ‘Happy’, should be either moved further right or left, then one has truly sold their soul to Structuralism. That argument underlines the very point Saussure is trying to make. The meaning of each word changes as it moves up and down the sequence, because its meaning is tied to its position vis-à-vis the other words.
Further, the more words in the chain, the stronger each word’s meaning becomes, and weaker when the number of words reduce. For instance, in a chain of only three words (Pleased, Joyous, Delighted), the demands on each word increases. ‘Joyous’ must now encompass and be a stand-in for a range of states of emotion between ‘Pleased’ and ‘Joyous’. Its scope significantly expands. Similarly, ‘Delighted’ must now not only cover all the degrees of pleasure that are more than Joyous it must also accommodate a heightened state, like ‘Overjoyed’.
A word’s position in a sequence of words, was the first determinant of a word’s meaning. The second, Saussure said, is the various substitutions possible for each of these words. For instance, if we replaced even one word in this chain with another, we would have a completely different situation. Let us replace ‘Joyous’ with ‘Smiling’
The first sequence: Pleased, Happy, Joyous, Cheerful, Gleeful, Delighted.
The new sequence: Pleased, Happy, Smiling, Cheerful, Gleeful, Delighted.
Similarly, for each of these words there are other choices and picking one over the other depends on one’s awareness of all the other candidates. You could say, the chosen word bears a whiff of all the ones rejected. This idea, that the chosen word carries traces, remnants of all the excluded words, would later be picked up by Jacques Derrida, the pioneer of Deconstructionism—who pulled the rug from under Saussure’s feet. We will wade those waters later.
So, Joyous, from the first list not only derives its meaning from other words in the list, but also from all the words that were excluded in the course of its choosing. When you consider the second list now, in subtle degrees, the value of each word has changed.
And if you are throwing your hands up in exasperation and crying, “But there could be thousand…infinite such word chains,” find solace in the thought that you have understood what Saussure was getting at. Yes, there are as many word-chains as stars in the sky (not the ones we are seeing). And the same word acquires different shades of meaning in each chain.
Which is why when someone asks, ‘how are you?’ and the response is ‘good’ or ‘doing all right’, the exchange is shallow and fails to convey any valuable information. The responses are part of different word sequences for the Asker and the Responder. Each response carries a different weight for each person, and therefore neither can be certain there has been meaningful communication. Consequently, such exchanges have devolved into soulless shell-conversations; cliched, trite, and automatic—which is not to say they do not play a necessary role in everyday communication. What it highlights is how difficult it is to make oneself truly understood and why even the best communicators misunderstand and are misunderstood.
And this brings us to the foothills of Saussure’s third and final pronouncement: that language constitutes the world. Simply put, because we have already covered much ground, objects in the world around us do not have any meaning intrinsically. We create them, so to speak, and constitute a meaning to them.
The four seasons don’t exist as a reality; we have constituted them by signifying a unit of time as summer, spring, winter, or fall. In fact, it is only a generally accepted social convention that decided we would have four not seven seasons. Similarly, consider the numerous variations of the colour green. They exist on a seamless spectrum, and it is through language that we finely slice them and distinguish them as emerald green and parrot green.
And now, we face the question I always try to answer when studying literary theory. So what? Or, why bother?
More than just an intellectual thrill, studying Saussure and Structuralism has made me more conscious of how words are used around us; how the choice of words affects our thinking, beliefs, and can fundamentally alter our version of reality.
Revolutionary vs Anarchist; Patriot vs Protestor, Revolt vs Protest. When we use one word instead of another, we are constituting reality differently, and we need to be mindful of that. It is imperative that with propaganda and manipulation becoming increasingly insidious, subtle, and therefore even more dangerous, we become acutely aware of the words entering our minds. We need to question every word, if it comes to that. When does a student become a protestor, and then when a revolutionary? No word exists in isolation; for a word chosen, many others were rejected. This awareness itself will increase our suspicion and scrutiny of words.
Today, our understanding of the world is shaped by independent YouTube journalists, influencers, activists with a 9-5, armchair pundits and more. Each one of them uses language differently, chooses different words, has different word-chains. The responsibility, then, is on us to have an inquisitive, interrogative, and altogether rational approach.
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