Post four - Barthes and semiotics.

This week I am tackling Roland Barthes and his discourse on social semiotics. Barthes’ text A Lover’s Discourse (1978) is a series of fragmented essay style musings on the rhetoric that exists in popular discourse surrounding the verbal interaction between lovers.

Chandler (2007, pg. 2) describes semiotics as being more in depth than the basic ‘study of signs’ definition, but of being the study of anything that ‘stands’ for something else. This would include “words, images, sounds, gestures and objects“ (p. 2), leading to a broad study of “how reality is represented” (pg. 2). Chandler goes on to describe how modern semiotics stems from two schools of thought – the Swiss linguist Saussure and American philosopher Peirce.

Barthes follows in the Saussurean tradition, with his interest in linguistics and language leading him to write A Lover’s Discourse in an attempt to produce a truly neutral document, one that would not lead the reader with implied meanings or culturally understood contexts in the language used.

His narrative titled Waiting consists of six small paragraphs of the internal dialogue his character endures whilst anticipating the arrival of another person, perhaps a date. The paragraphs chart emotions felt, whilst trying to rein in these emotions, and maintain a sense of ‘proportion’ (Barthes, 1978, pg 37). The language used is evocative, yet not. His opening paragraph clearly states he is “waiting for an arrival” (pg. 37), before paragraph two declares he is ‘organising’ and ‘manipulating’ the waiting (pg. 37), turning it into a play which is acted out in various scenes of reaction – “taking it badly”, or a ‘calm’ greeting (pg. 37-38).

The specific words used to tell this story become ‘signs’ of how this scenario will play out. If the character ‘takes [the waiting] badly’, then the reader can assume this to be a sign of a negative outcome of the interaction between the characters when they do meet. Whereas if the character gives a ‘calm’ greeting, perhaps the character is forgiving of the lack of punctuality of the other, which could be taken as a sign of the characters personality, perhaps as a relaxed, understanding individual.

However these signs may not signify the ‘true’ nature of the character, perhaps they give a calm greeting as a sign of manners when truly they feel something else? The signs then signify something else, though the sign is the same action.

The understood terminology is therefore dependent on context and individual understandings, the very implication that Barthes hoped to disprove with his text.

References

Barthes, R 1978, 'Waiting', A Lover's Discourse, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux (trans.), Noonday Press, New York, pp. 37-40.

Chandler, D 2007, Semiotics: The Basics, Routledge, New York.

Post three - legal kinship ties.

The week 5 topic is a discussion of kinship, social ties and relationships that legally and informally group individuals as ‘family’. Butler’s 2004 article, “Is Kinship always Heterosexual?”, raises many questions regarding the social and legal definitions of kinship, and the implied inclusion/exclusion of specific groups/individuals in these arguments. She notes kinship is a set of practices that institute relationships of various kinds, which if we understand exist to address fundamental forms of human dependency, eg child rearing, emotional support or generational ties, we can posit they exist to negotiate the reproduction of life and the demands of death (p. 102).

Butler (p 104) further states variations of kinship that challenge the normative heterosexuality based on family forms secured through marriage are hotly debated, noting marriage has also been separated from questions of kinship to the extent that gay marriage legislative proposals often exclude rights to adoption or reproductive technologies as one of the assumed entitlements of marriage (2004, p. 103-104).

Debates on gay marriage are thus complicated by the norm of belief that marriage is a fundamental precursor to reproduction, therefore the debate also encompasses arguments surrounding the extent of ‘allowable’ family forms both socially and legally.

This turn to ‘legality’ and the intervention of the state in recognized alternative kinship models leads to the examination of what a sanctioned relationship is. Butler notes that in current politics surrounding this debate, the options are to take a stand for or against gay marriage, but this ignores the underlying critical reflection of why and how this is the question? Why gay marriage specifically and not more broadly a legislative revolution in terms of legal kinship ties? Does it even need to be legal? (p. 107)

A broader definition of family could include social networks, rather than blood or marriage ties, as a boundary for family models. Butler notes a proposal in France to institute civil unions or ‘pacts of social solidarity’ as an alternative to marriage that would secure a legal bond between individuals (p. 112). As long as the debate surrounding gay kinship focuses on the inclusion or exclusion of couples to the contract of marriage, the question of why marriage is the major legal legitimator of sexual relationships, gay or straight, will go unanswered.

Reference

Butler, J 2004, ‘Is Kinship always heterosexual?’, Undoing Gender, Routledge, New York and London, pp. 102-130.