Collapsing the Signifier and Signified: Kristeva 1980

As a linguist whose undergraduate training is in anthropology and English literature, I’ve of course spent a good deal of time thinking about the signified/signifier distinction and the distinctions between lange and parole. Of course Bahktin’s commentary on whether or not linguistics should comment on what he refers to as “metalinguistics” seems interesting, especially since his work was concurrent with Labov’s groundbreaking work that formed the foundations of sociolinguistics. Thus for me one of the most interesting aspects of Kristeva’s work is her suggestion that the framework that Bahktin is creating ultimately collapses the distinction between signifier and signified, making both contextually dependent, and bringing to the fore the relationship between speaker and addressee, referred-to and referrer.

Also fascinating to me is Kristeva’s explication of the ways in which the speaker <> addressee relationships create the different levels of “person” we encounter in the texts of novels, first, second, third (or rather, third, first, second as she explains them) and then the ways in which a dialogical relationship between the writer and the text can create a layer at which the text questions itself. I actually find this to be more the domain of parody, and it is interesting that the writers like Norrick who have looked at parody haven’t necessarily used Kristeva’s explanations as a jumping-off point. It seems to be that parody and humor is in some ways a text looking at itself and commenting on itself; for example, in order for Tina Fey to portray Sarah Palin, she must not only create a performance which we recognize as invoking the text of “Sarah Palin,” she can only mark it as humorous parody by also drawing attention to the fact that it is parody by means of exaggeration—oftentimes of a features as nuances as simple prosody (I am reminded of a time when I saw Fey’s parody second and only later realized that her parody as created only by her intonation and pauses—the lack of semantic information and in and the circuitous nature of the answers which I originally perceived as being part of the parody it turned out were verbatim from the interview Palin had given the day before). This fourth level is one that I think is worth further probing—when does a text comment on itself, and how does it achieve this?