for tda, with love and Saussure
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 12:37:49 -0500
In which Saussure appears for the first time, and the translation
thread is mentioned, by oblique way of my long-overdue obSal.
Jim:
> I'm not sure, but I think Matt is using "linguistic" to mean any kind of
> symbol -- even a visual image. I think we can and do think in terms of every
> conceivable form of human experience, from the visual, to the affective, to
> the verbal. Our thinking isn't all verbal. I'm used to approaching this
> subject in semiotic terms -- you have three main concepts there:
>
> The referent -- a physical thing like a tree or a dog.
> The signified -- imprint of the referent upon the human mind
> The sign -- the word "tree" or "dog"
Sorry to pick, Jim, but the "sign" is defined by our man So-sure as
the signifier / [over] the signified. It's both taken together--both
word and sound-image as a whole. And it should be noted that signs
and symbols (arguably a much larger grouping of signification
processes) are very different, symbols not necessarily possesing/being
constrained by the "linear" nature of (linguistic) signifiers.
And to make this a general response: Elizabeth, yes we are making
different, but not mutually exclusive, points. Yours quite interests
me, especially with its implications for the translation thread. If
differently-structured languages create different understandings of
the same experience (assuming two people who speak entirely different
languages could have precisely the same experience), translators
really do have a problem. 'specially translators of haikus...
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu