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Deconstruction and Structuralism on Semiotics and Its Limits

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Deconstruction and Structuralism on Semiotics and Its Limits REA EMILIA ALEXANDRA WALLDEN IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE: DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS UMI Number: U584611 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584611 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 CARDIFF UNIVERSITY CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ENGLISH, COMMUNICATION AND PHILOSOPHY PH.D. THESIS IN PHILOSOPHY IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE: DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS REA EMILIA ALEXANDRA WALLDEN SUPERVISOR: Professor CHRISTOPHER NORRIS CARDIFF, 2008 REA WALLDEN - IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree STATEMENT 1 This thesis is been submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD dlA I CIV IC IN I c This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for interlibrary loan, and for the title and the summary to be made available to outside organisations REA WALLDEN - IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS SUMMARY The topic of my thesis is the complicated interconnection between deconstruction and structuralist semiotics, developed around the problematic of the sign and its limits. I argue that Jacques Derrida’s project of deconstruction can be seen as an extension of the project of structuralist semiotics in two ways: on the one hand, it extends the applicability of its principles beyond the semiotic realm; on the other, it investigates its conditions of possibility. Thus, to a significant extent, deconstruction develops on the basis of structuralist semiotics; it needs structuralism both as its own foundation and as its exemplary object. I investigate the way deconstruction affects the structuralist definition of signification and its epistemological implications. Louis Hjelmslev and the linguistic Circle of Copenhagen occupy an exceptional position in this context. Derrida’s quasi-meta-theory of signification looks in some ways very much like Hjelmslev’s stratification, put into motion and thrown out of balance, flattened or multipliedad infinitum. Moreover, glossematics is probably the closest semiotics can get to posing the question of its limits without exceeding a strictly immanent point of view. Throughout the history of Western metaphysics, signification was defined in terms of mediation and exteriority. Structuralism retains the structure of this definition, while completely emptying it of any metaphysical import. Derrida proceeds to question that same structure; nevertheless, he also retains a residue of dualism so as not to fall back into metaphysics. In a dualistic structure, the question of bridging is of utmost importance. Having defined the object of knowledge as constituted by the semiotic articulation, both structuralist semiotics and deconstruction are faced with the structural impossibility of bridging the epistemological gap. Therefore my thesis, which begins as a study of the limits of semiotics, epistemological and other, turns out also to concern the semiological limits of epistemology. 2 REA WALLDEN - IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Professor Christopher Norris for his guidance and improving suggestions, as well as for his unfailing faith and patience; also to Professors Alexandros-Phaedon Lagopoulos and Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou, for their guidance, academic and personal. I would like to thank the Philosophy section of the Cardiff University: the academic staff, my fellow PGR students and the undergraduate students who attended my tutorials. Particularly, I would like to thank Theodoros Grammenos for our academic battles and fortifying friendship, together with Paul Gorton, Ed Dain, Robert Reay-Jones, Paul Overend and Jonathan Davies. My sincere thanks to all the people who heard parts of this thesis when in progress in the PGR talks, the PhD seminars and in conferences - in Athens, in Cardiff, in Fiorina, in Gregynog, in Lyon and in Winnipeg - for their suggestions and contributions. My warmest thanks to the secretaries of the Philosophy section, Alison Venables and Rhian Rattray, as well as to the computer technicians, Dean Burnett, Nathan Heslop and Robert Thomas, for their invaluable help. I wish to express my gratitude to the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation and the Panayotis and Effie Michelis Foundation for making this thesis possible by their financial support. I wish to thank ‘my Welsh family’, the Petersons - Jean, Meic, Jonathan and little Virgil (greetings from the crocodile in the attic); also Lisa Kinick-Pope, Eleftheria Alexandri, Nancy Thodi, as well as the Lagopouloi family - Karin, Alexandros, Katerina (and Mitsuko) - and the Norris family - Alison, Chris, Clare, Jenny (and Rosie) - for sharing their homes with me in different times during the long period of the writing of this thesis. I also wish to thank my friends, in Cardiff and elsewhere, who brought light to all these years: Adam Johannes, Angelika Gounelas, Alexandros Massavetas, Christos Malis, Dave Reid, Li DongNing, Edgar de Faria, Fiora Touliatou, Peng Jian, Nastazia Rammou, Odysseas Lekkas, Ourania Charmanidou, Stavros Efstratiou, Taran O’Sullivan, Vassilis Karavias and the members of the Cardiff Reds Choir. I need to thank separately Nikos Patsavos, for we once shared the world, ‘my twin sister’ Eva Thomopoulou and my fellow traveller Roshan Kissoon. I want to thank all those who taught me in the school, in the university and elsewhere. A huge thank you to my family for their love and faith: My mother Antoinetta Angelidi for her infinite gifts of love, knowledge and companionship; my brother Petros Wallden for being always there for me and making me a better person; as well as Kostas Angelidakis. My father Sotiris Wallden for his patience and support; as well as my little brother Giorgos Wallden, and Myrto Zorbala. And Blanca Mabel-Achar. In loving memory of my grandmother Emilia Angelidi (penname: Milia Rozidi), poetess and engineer, who set high academic standards for the women in our family; and of Di Corker, Kostas Georgizas and Nikos Papadopoulos, who didn’t live to,see me finish this project. 3 REA WALLDEN - IN BETWEEN AND OUTSIDE DECONSTRUCTION AND STRUCTURALISM ON SEMIOTICS AND ITS LIMITS TABLE OF CONTENTS P- Declaration and Statements ................................................................................................. 1 Sum m ary........................................................................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents........................................................................................................................ 4 List of Abbreviations................................................................................................................. 5 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. On the title............................................................................................................................. 6 1.2. Choices and methodological problems........................................................................... 7 1.3. Structure, bibliography, conventions............................................................................... 9 2. THE SIGN OF DECONSTRUCTION 2.1. Introduction........................................................................................................................... 15 2.2. About naming and deconstruction.................................................................................. 18 2.3. About the naming of deconstruction............................................................................... 31 2.4. ‘^construction’: from ‘Destruktion’ and phenomenology...................................... 40 2.5. ‘Deconstructin’: from ‘structure’ and structuralism ................................................. 50 2.6. About studying signs........................................................................................................... 64 2.7. ‘Deconsrtuction’ and ‘structure’ inP osition s............................................................... 77 3. STRUCTURALIST SEMIOTICS 3.1. Introduction........................................................................................................................... 82 3.2. The structure o f semiotic function.................................................................................. 88 3.3. The semiotic medium.........................................................................................................
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