5003 saussure
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How might one relate Benedict writing about "configurations" into Saussure writing about "langue"?
Saussure makes two points that are fundemental to Benedict's theory of "configurations", one, which is that "in the lives of individuals and of societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other" (7), and two, "the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign" (150) and the separation of the sign and meaning.
Saussure´s terminology could be transformed into a terminology mirroring Benedict's "configurations" by thinking about language as an external fact acted upon inside the social sphere much as morning rituals or and spirit avoidance is practiced among the Plains or the Pueblo socieites. For example, as the distribution of a deceased individual's belongings among the tribe happens as an arbitrary action of morning patterns, as Benedict describes in the Plains culture, Saussure shows us that a word attains a value as a symbol of an idea, equally as arbitrarily. Mead nests shared meaning achieved through language in the action (gesture) of conversation, which is another way to say that he is talking about doing culture and creating shared values of meaning. For example, the value of a sign is arbitrary and the end of the interation between person A and B and the sign could very well be socialized to symbolize something that neither had intended. Saussere extends the point that if historical change modifies cultural patterns, linguistic patterns, which as Mead sees as equally behavioristic, must also change as a consequence of the nature of shared agreement, in other words the nature of community of participation. For example, If "I" have decided that "you" have decided to pronounce, write, and assign the word 'dog' to a furry animal with teeth which barks we have constructed an arbitrary sign and signification in our society of "I" and "you". However, if a third person "he/she" joins our society who has always called this animal a "tree" it is possible that sound, writing and language will change for the reason that one is as arbirtrary as another. The mechanism of change remains unclear?
To sum up, Fiske comments on the on-going and constant battle being waged between dominant and popular culture, Benedict profiles the consequences whereby different patterns have emerged from this struggle and shared agreement, Mead ask what happens between two people (and by extrapolotion 'society') to create this pattern, and Saussure applies the historical process of change to semiology.
Relate Fiske's notion of the "producerly" text to Saussure's discussion of "arbitrariness."
What might a Saussurian theory of the self look like?
What might a pragmatist theory of language look like?
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