split word, split subject, split soceity

8/11/2019 Split word, split subject, split soceity

1/34

Pragmatics:I.21-54.

International rasmatics ssociation

SPLIT

WORD,

SPLIT SUBJECT,SPLIT SOCTETY1

Ron Kuzar

0. Introduction

I

would

ike to outline a direction of lexicalanalysis

hich

articulates he dynamic

relationbetween he stableand unstable

parts

of meaning.

n the first

part

of the

paper

I

will

critique the formalistic approach ("meaning s invariant")

and

the

sociologizing pproach ("meaning s contingent")and

will

then read

Voloshinov's

analysis f the

word,

in light of Althusser's onceptof the interpellatedsubjectand

P6cheux'surther corroboration of the speakingsubject. will suggest hat the

treatmentof language n a socialcontextmust always ake into account he split

between

variant

and invariant meanings of the word, the split

within

the

conscious/unconsciousubject,and the socialconflicts

polarizing

society.

The secondpart is a casestudy of the use of terms of

"death"

and

"injury"

in the language f the extreme ight in Israelduring the

1980s.

he linguisticdata

are not surprising, nd similar

practices

avebeen observed lsewhere. ehind the

commonplaceobservation that

"one

person's

tenoist is the other

person's

freedom-fightef'

ies a rhetor ical battlefield over sign theory. In the

past

three

decades

e

havewitnessed ynamic heoriesof the signprosper

n

post-structuralist,

post-modernist,

and

(neo-)Marxist

frameworks of several cultural domains

(literature, heater, ilm, etc), but the theory and

practice

hey have been applying

to their own objects of knowledge cannot be simply copied over to linguistics,

inspiringas they may be. What

we

lack, hen, s both a dynamic heory of the sign

and a link betweensuch a theory and our linquisticdata.

1. Traditional views

of the

word

The specific

object of investigation n this

paper

is the lexical morpheme,often

simply eferred o as the word. By

making

his

choice am not suggestinghat the

grammatical

morpheme s devoid

of ideological harge.The

vast

iterature on the

ideological amifications

of

gender

in language, and on

passive

and active

formulations f political responsibility, learly

demonstrateshat the

grammatical

'

I

would

like to express my deep appreciation to

the anonymous reader of hagmatics

whose

thorough review

guided

me

to

reconsider and refine my formulations in several places. An

earlyversion of section 5. was presented in1992,

at the 25th Annual Meeting of the Societas

LinguisticaEuropaea in

Galway, Ireland, in

a

lecture e;rtitled "Terms of Death and Injury in

IsraeliPolitical Discourse'.


2/34

22 Ron

Kuzar

morpheme has a

role in ideology,

but thesewill not

be the focus here.

To

a

great

extent,

he horizons

of the twentiethcentury

reatment of lexis

were

set by Saussure.

The Saussurean

oncept of the word

elaborated on the

popular

notion

that the word

consists f a simple

epresentationalelation, namely

that a word stands or an entity. Saussure onceived his representationalelation

in two ways.

He relegated

t to the realm

of individualand socialpsychology,

nd

he

gave

t its differential quality.

On

the

plane

of individualpsychology,

he

act of significationwas

removed

from the

material

world

of words

and objectsand was

relocated n the

mind

as

signifiant'signifier'

and signifit'signified'.

he mind is the site of representation,

n

which

first of all the sigttifiant,

he sound mage,

epresents he signifit, the

entity

image,

i.e. the concept.

Only then can the representational

elation

be further

translated

nto entities.

The signifiant ranslatesnto

a

physical

equence

f sounds;

the signifid nto matter,

be it

physical

"tree",

horse")or abstract "to

judge").

The

psychologicalword "tree" s one, ts manifestationsn the real world are many: we

can utter the word

many times, and we

can reference many

trees. Since this

communicative rocess

s

performed

amongmembersof a

linguistic ommunity,

he

psychological

dimension

s

generalized

o

the social domain.

Socially, here is a

psychological

eservoir

of fixed representational

evices,angue,which

is abstract

and uniform; individually,

he physiological

omain of

its manifestations,

arole,

s

concreteand uneven.

The differential quality

of the

Saussurian ign ensues

rom the systematic

relation betweenwords,where

eachword possesses

function

elative o that of the

others,called valeur

value'.

Value

is a

psychological

elationas

well,

for it concerns

the psychological

words,

not their material

manifestations.n

Saussurean erms,

meaning

is a combination

of the signifi and

the

valeur

of

a

word.

It is both

representational

nd differential.

The only

variability

hat Saussure

ecognized

ithin "the

same anguage"was

diachronicvariability,

he passage

rom one tatde angue'state

of language'

o the

next. In

Saussure's

iew,

linguisticchange

occurs

when

an

erratic deviation n the

realm of

parole

is

generalized

nd as such

enters he angue.

The obvious

question

a formalist

would

ask Saussure

s: "Where

s the

point

of change?" r

"How

do you

determine when

exactlya

fact of.

arole

has become

a fact of langue?"Saussure's

ability to problematize the dichotomy has been forgotten, or even scorned as

"conceptual

confusion"

by Harris

(1987:

105).

What

Saussure

n fact said

was

as

follows (1959

[1915]:

701-102.

I have reinstated

riginalFrench terms,

such as

langue,

parole,

and

tat de langue):

In practice an dtat de langue s not a

point, but rathe r a certain

span of time during wh ich

the sum

of the mo difications that have supervened

s minimal.

t..1.

An absolute

state is

defined

by the absence of changes,

and since language changes

somewhat

in spite of

everything, studying an itat de

langue means

in

practice

disregarding

changes of little

importance,

ust

as mathematicians isregard

nfinitesimal quantities

n certain calculations,

such as logarithms.

[...1.

n short, a concept of

an 6tat de langue can

be only approximate.

In static inguistics,as n most sciences, o courseof reasoning s possiblewithout the usual

simplification

of

data.

This may

not be the most

elegantarticulation

of a dialectical iew,

but within the

context of an

otherwise

very

dichotomous iew

of linguistic

acts, t does ndicate


3/34

Split

word,

split

subject,

split

society 23

that the

narrator of

the

Cours

had a clear senseof the

flexible nature of scientific

modeling.

Every

model is a reduction that

centralizes certain aspects

and

marginalizes

thers.

Which

aspect

s centralized

nd

which

marginalized ependson

the point

of view

of

the

scholar,and does

not ensue automatically.

That

this is

Saussure'siew can be observed lsoelsewhere1959[1915]:87):

Since changes never affect the

system as

a whole

but rather one

or

another

of its elements,

they can be studied only

outside

the

system.

Each alteration

doubtless

has its counter-effect

on

the system,but the initial

fact

affected

only one point; there

is

no

inner bond between

the

initial fact and

the

effect that it

may subsequently produce on the whole

system.

The

basic difference

between

successive

erms and coexisting

terms, between

partial

facts and

facts that

affect

the system, preclude

making both classesof

fact

the

subject matter of a

single science.

It is important to

bear in mind the

historical context of

Saussure's

work.

In

introducing the dichotomies langue-parole, synchronic-diachronic,

paradigmatic-Untagmatic,

tc.,

he did not

intend

to

introduce

equally

balanced

pairs,

but

to

establish

a

sciencebased on

the first member of each.

To

do so, the

singularity f

thesemembersof the

pairs

had

to be first of all clearly constructed

in

the context

of

a researchcommunitywhose

universeof scholarly

discoursewas

based n

the secondelement n eachpair.

A

problematization

f tensionswithin

a

dichotomy

ould only come about

once the dichotomy

had been constructed.

It

is

this formalist

aspectof the dichotomies

hat

was

instrumental

n the

structuralist aradigm-shift.

jelmslev

perfected

his dimension f

Saussure'sheory

to

an

"algebra

of language",

laiming 1961

[19a3]:

5-6) that

"Linguisticsmust

attempt to grasp language,

not as

a

conglomerate of non-linguistic

(..g.

physiological,

sychological,

ogical, ociological) henomena,

ut

as

a

self-sufficient

totality".

This formalist reading

of

Saussure till prevails

among proponents

and

adversarieslike.

The most extreme

eading

of

Saussure s a

formalist

advocating

he fixity of

the meaning

of

a word

can be observed in

Yishai Tobin's

neo-Saussurean

sign-oiented

approach (e.g.

Tobin 1990, 1994).

For

Tobin

the

distinction

between

the

inguistic ode and ts

discursivemanifestations

s

absolute. he

speakerutilizes

the

invariant meaning of a sign in

context,

and

endows

t with

its

variant

bent

through

creativity.In

other

words, he

employmentof

the invariant meaning

of

a

word

n a discursive

ontext

can

be

viewed

as

either

being faithful

to its invariant

meaning,n

which

case

t is objective,or as subjectively eviating

rom it. Aside

from the

obvious

possibility

of a

mistaken

usage

of a

word,

which would result in

a breakdown

n the communicative rocess,

ther deviations

rom fixity can only be

attributed

o the intention

of

the individual

gent 81):

[ . . ]

the

notion of inv ariant meaning

[is]

exploited

or

subjectivecomment: The speaker

ma y

use one sign other than ano ther,

in

order to

tell

us something about his

own

attitude

towards the scene

-

as

opposed

to

merely

giving

an

objective description.

Saussure'sroblematization f the invariance f langte is not mentionedby Tobin,

a

practice

which

ensures

a maximal exploitation

of

the

dichotomy.

The same

process

ook

place

among

holdersof the

opposite

view.

A most

radicalopposition

to

the

Saussurean onceptual

ramework has

evolved in

the


4/34

24 RonKuzar

integrationalist approach.

Their

critique

is, again,

based

on ascribing a

purely

formalist reading o Saussure'sext. Once

Saussure

s set up

as a pure formalist, t

is easier

to

take issue

with

him. Roy

Harris, a major

expounder

of

the

integrationalist chool eadsus to believe

Harris

1987:223)

hat for Saussure

the

separationof synchronyrom diachrony s neither ust a descriptive onvenience or

an artifact of linguistic

heorizing".

For someone

who

has

made Saussure

major

object of his

knowledge

his is a strangeoversight.

The integrationalist chool s

very

articulate n

problematizingthe

Saussurean

dichotomies

n

its own

way.

Roy

Harris abolishes

angue and

parole,

synchrony

and

diachrony,and even

language'

itself as the

subject

matter

for a separate

science,

reducing it

(indeed

not

as a

matter

of

principle,

merely as a convenient

classification)o three

domains

Harris 1990: 0):

flntegrationalism]

rejects

any a priori

attempt

to circumscribe

the phenomena

of

language

or to draw a distinction between anguageand non-languagewhich will be valid in each and

every case. Instead,

it delimits

its own sphere of investigation

by reference

to dimensions

of communicational relevance

which

apply to all forms of

sign behaviour

in

human

communities.

Such

an inquiry may conveniently distinguish between three different

scales

or levels o[ relevance,

depending

on

our

mode

of

involvement

in communicational

processes.

One scale,

which

may

be

termed

"macrosocial",

deals

with

factors which situate

any

given

communication

in its particular historical and cultural context. A second,

which

we

may term

'biomechanical",

deals

with

factors

of a physiological and physical

nature

which

determine the parameters of communication

within

that situation. The third scale

is the

integrational scale itself,

concerned with communication

as a

function of the individual's

experience

n the context

of

a

given

situation.

A reduction

of a disciplinary field to

other

"more

basic"

fields

is in itself

a

stimulating

and egitimatemove.The

ustification

or linguistics

sa separate

cience

has been

challengedmore

than

once n the

history

of linguistics,

most

recently

by

some

currentsof cognitive

psychology

nd

inguistics.

ut

while

performing

his

kind

of reduction one must

be aware of the

fact

that the other discipline s burdened

with

controversies

nd

internal

rifts over

questions

f both

theory and practice,at

least as much as one's

own. Without

being

conversantwith the agenda

of

the

neighboring

discipline,one risks usingone

particular

standpoint

within

it,

perhaps

the

easiest

o understand,

which

might be

obsolete,

r else

seriously

hallenged

y

others. If we take the macrosocial caleas an example,Harris (1990: 50) informs

us that

"to the

macrosocial

scale belong factors of the kind

which

orthodox

linguistics

elegates o such sub-disciplines

s dialectology

nd sociolinguistics".

y

saying

hat, Harris only

oins

the ranks of

thoseperforming disciplinary

shortcuts,

so characteristic

f much

of the work

done

within

the

"hyphenated"

isciplines; e

does not address he

problem inherent

n

such a move.

A

brief

look at some

of the alternatives fferedby the integrationalist chool

will suffice o demonstrate

hat

after a

grand critical our

they

have landed

on

the

most formalist

groundsof other disciplines. he integrationalistheory of

meaning

is based

on John

l,ocke's

heory of freedom and socialcontract Taylor 1990),

and

on Keynesianeconomy (Harris 1987:232,,1990:51-52).Although the ideological

bent of

the linguistic

heories

hemselves

s

not the main objectiveof our discussion

here, t

is hard

not to notice

he affinity

between

erms of

scientific

argumentation

and

the

capitalist

deological

onstructs

f

agencyand

market

economybasedon a


5/34

Split

word,

plit

subject,plitsociery 25

freely loating exchange

alue.

The

pose of scientificdiscourse, o

be

discussed

below,

s thrown

into deep relief

in light

of

its ideological ommitment.

The

Lockean ooting of

the theory

assumes

hat the individual is

a free

agent

equipped

with

free

will

to combine

form

and

meaning n any

possible

way.

This

is

an deaderived rom Locke'sviewpointon humannature n generaland on politics

in

particular

(Taylor 1990: 12I):

The

roots

of

political

norms are then traced to the individual's

sacrifice

of

a share of their

own

natural

freedoms and powers to the political authority of laws,

the aim of this sacrifice

being the avoidance of

the

social

anarchy

that

would

arise

were

every individual

allowed the

full exerciseof their

natural

freedom.

The

utilization

of this

political principle

to

linguistics ollows (Taylor 1990: 123):

The

prescription

f norms

presupposesprior ascription f freedom

o the

ndividualagent,

linguistic or political. For if we are not free, then we cannot chooseto obey the

recommendedrescriptions. ignification emains n

the l,ockean

perspective

free

act of

thewill;

but

it is

a

voluntaryact

which

he ndividualagent

houldmake

conform

o socially

imposed

orms.

Linguistic change is

viewed as

interplay between

the two aspects of free

will: the

will

to conform to

the

norm,

and the

will

to

take responsibility and be

part

of

an

attempt

to change the norm.

The Keynesian simile in

the

integrationalist

theory is based on

the

demythologization

and

eradication

of the

gold

standard in economics

(Harris 1990:

52):

Myths cannot

be shown to be false, because

myths

are

never

founded

on propositions

which

were

demonstrable in

the

first place. Keynesian

economics did not demonstrate

that

"gold

standard"

economics

was

wrong, but

merely

that

faith

in

the "gold standard"

was

unnecessary, nhelpful, and in various

ways obfuscating and

harmful. The Keynesian

stratery

is to point

out

that the assumption

that

currency

notes are pieces of

paper standing for

quantities of precious metals

fails

to

make

sense of

economic

reality,

where in practice

money

functions

as

a

complex

of

mechanisms

which

facilitate the

distribution of

goods

and

services. Money does not in addition need

to "stand for' anything. Analogously in

the

linguistic

case, once

we

see that

language can

be treated as a complex of

mechanisms for

facilitating communication there is no need to insist that linguistic signs "stand for'anything

else n addition.

A

word, hen,

does

not a

pioi

stand or anything. t

only

acquires unctionality

as

a contingentmechanism,

ubject o the aforementionednterplayof norm

and free

will.

At the beginningof

the

century

such a

position

could have

possiblyposed

a

conceptualalternative to Saussurean

hought, within the same domain

of

a

modernizing evolution.

nstead of the total determinismof

the

social

system, t

would

have suggesteda

total

free

will

of

the individual speaker. Instead

of

a

Janus-facedixed sign, t could have offered a sign with both form and function

beingalways ontextually

contingent.But

in

the 1990s, fter

a whole century

of

an

elaboration f Freud's deas,

mporting he social nto

the psychological

ake-upof

the ndividual,he

integrationalists under the

guise

of a holisticapproach cannot


6/34


7/34

Splitword,

plitsubject,plitsociery 27

followerof certain

tenets of American

structuralism.

he autonomyof syntaxhas

left

lexical meaning

outside

the core agenda

of Chomskyan

linguistics.

The

opposition o this stance

came

primarily

from the short-livedschool

of

generative

semantics.

ts beginningsmay be anchored

n

McCawley 1968) who advocateda

method of generating surface forms from componentially analyzed semantic

structures. or

example,

A

kill B"

would

be derived rom

"A

cause

[become

not

[B

alive]]]".

Through

a seriesof

transformations he more compact

form "kill"

is

arrived

at

without

recourse o deep structure.

n

later

developments f generative

semantics

he tree-structurewas

abandonded

nd

direct mapping

was

carried out

from semantic tructure o

syntactic

tructure.

At first

this

mechanism ppeared

ery

powerful,

but

eventually urned out to be applicable o an extremely imited type

and

number of

words.

In all its developments

componential analysisdid not

constitute challenge

o invariant meaning,but only an attempt to decompose

allegedly ompositionalwholes

nto their

-

yet again invariant

primitives.

Though

generative

emanticsdied out as a school, the spirit of componential analysis

lingered

n in a

broad variety

of schools.

This is

probably why

the

attack against

componentialanalysis,waged

by

Fodor et al.

(1980), did not

mark

the late

school of

generativesemanticsas

its

targetof criticism,

but a more

general

TSP (The StandardPicture),

a

term which

couldbe seenas applying

also

o

certainmore orthodox

generative

approaches. t

is clear, hough,

hat

if

semanticsiesbeyond he boundaryof autonomous

rammar,

then

what

is attacked

is

not

generative

inguistics

per

se,

but

only

semantic

approaches

ompatible

with

it .

Psycho-linguisticsaintains uch

a

semantic

pproach.Note how despite

his

awareness

f

the debate

ollowing

Fodor et

al. (1989), rvelt (1989:

182)

chooses

to ignore ts added

complexities:

A

speaker's

mental

lexicon is

a

repository

of

declarative knowledge about the words of

his

language.

From

the point

of

view

of language

production,

each

item in

the

lexicon

is a

listing

of

at least

four kinds

of features.

There is, first,

the specification

of

the

item's

nteaning.

This is the set of conceptual conditions that

must

be fulfilled in the

message or

the item

to become

selected.

For the entry eat the meaning is

something like

"to

ingest

for

nourishment

or

pleasure'.

[. . . ]

There are,

probably,

additional

properties

stored with

an item.

It may have

particular pragmatic,

stylistic, and affective features that make

it

fit

one context of

discourse

better

than another.

[...]

Certain

so-called registers

(talk to

babies, alk between lovers, etc.)

seem

to select

for

lexical items

with

particular

connotational

properties. Whether

such

featuresshould be

considered as concept ual

conditions

on the item's use is a matter

of

much dispute. We will

not

go

into

it.

Non-decompositional pproaches estore

the

word

as a

primitive

notion and

relegatehe

inter-relationships

etweenwords

to domainsoutside he word, such

as semantic

memory structure

representedas

linked networks

of lemmas

and

retrieved y

meansof

spreadingactivation

Roelofs 1992).The invariability

of

the

meaning

f the

word

is not

weakened,

perhapseven strengthened,

y this

move.

That mainstream sycho-linguisticsas aligned tselfwith mainstreamChomskyan

linguisticss

a clear indication that it

prefers

to remain

entrenched n the same

unproblematic odernisticpositionof

scientifically ound

procedures,

nd is

willing

to commit tself

to interdisciplinarity nly

where

the other discipline

maintains a


8/34

28

RonKuzar

similar

position.

However, sincehistory

and

certain

rends

n the

social

disciplines

do not carry a

scientific

dentity card, hey

are out

of bounds

or

similar

enterprises.

As a result, any

word-internal

dynamics

hat

might be motivated

by historicaland

social orces

s

unfathomable.

2. The

dialectical view of the word

Having

suffered

many

years

from

political

silencing n its original Russian

version

in the Soviet Union,

Voloshinov's work

resurfaced

n the seventies hrough

its

translation

into

English.

The

challenge

of

capturing

the

relation

between

fixity

and

variability

was

met by

Voloshinov's heory

of the

sign (Voloshinov 198617929]), ne

of the early attempts in the twentieth century to

provide

a framework

for

viewing

the

sign in dialectical terms.

For

the last twenty odd

years

his

views

have been

circulating (under his own name or under a presumedrestoration of Bakhtin's

authorship),making an

mpact

on

the

writings

of semioticians

nd iterary

critics,

but

in linguistics hey have not yet received

he

attention

they

deserve.

Voloshinov'swork, intended o be

a contribution o Marxist

theory, s based

on the

standard

suppositionsof Marxism, schematically ummarizedhere

in six

points:

(u)

The ontologicalsupposition:The world

is

material,

despite

he

question

of

grasping

or representing t.

(b) The

historical

supposition:History

is a

social

process,

motivated by class

conflict.

(c) The

sociological

supposition:Classconflict is

motivated

by the economic

infrastructure :63se). It is accompanied y superstructural

henomena.

(d) The epistemological upposition:The individual

grasps he

world

through

consciousness.

(") The

psychological

upposition:The psyche :individual consciousness)s a

product

of social orces.

(0 The

gnoseological upposition: here are two modesof consciousness:rue

and false.True consciousnesss

scientific

nowledge; alse

consciousnesss

ideology.

Voloshinov

identified

the

function

of language n

the

domains of suppositions

(d)-(0. As for supposition c),

he

insisted hat the signwas not a c lass eature,but

rather a

property

of

the

whole

communityof speakers. his

was a radical

political

stance n the

USSR

of those days,

while

the hegemonicdogma

voiced

by Marr

contended

hat

language

was

a

superstructural

xpression f class.

ronically,only

in 1950

was

Marr's

theory

supersededby Stalin's

article

on linguistics,

which

determined

hat languagewas a tool of

society

as a

whole,

not

of a

particular

class.

Stalin,

who was

esponsibleor the extermination f intellectuals uch

as

Voloshinov,

turned out to be the agent of his ideas.

For

Voloshinov,

language

is

a

social device

for

inter-individual

communication, thus it

is

first and foremost dialogic in character.

Voloshinov

rejected

idealistic conceptionsof the

psyche,

and insisted

hat

ideolog

and

psyche

consist of the same material, i.e. of language,

with

only a secondary

difference


9/34

Split

word,

split subject, split socieq'

29

between hem:

in ideology

speech

s overt, n the

psyche

t is covert,

nner speech.

(Vygotsky's

962

U9341inner

peech raws,no doubt, on

"many

of the same social

and

scholarly

urrents";

eeEmerson1986:27).Hence, he

word

is the atom of

both

ideology nd

psyche.

t

shouldbe clear hat

for

Voloshinov

he

pair

ideology-psyche

doesnot boil down to the pair social-individual.he psyche s sociallyconstructed,

the counterpartof

social

being natural, not individual (34). The

difference between

ideology nd

psyche

s

merely a

matter of

organization, f

grouping

nto

systems:

[..]

any cognitive thought

whatever,

even one

in

my consciousness,

n

my

psyche,

comes into

existence

[..]

with an orientation toward an ideological

system

of

knowledge

where

that

thought will

find

its place. My thought, in this sense, rom the

very

start

belongs to

an

ideological system and is

governed

by its set of laws. But, at

the

same

time,

it belongs

to

another system that is

just

as much a unity and

just

as

much in possessionof its own set of

laws

-

the system of

my

psyche. The unity of this second

system is

determined not only by

the

unity

of

my biological organis m, but

also

by

the whole

aggregateof conditions of life

and society n

which

that organism has been set.(35)

What

makes anguage

apableof carryingout

its outer and inner communicational

function s the

nature of its building blocks, he

fact

that they are semiotic units,

signs.

houghmorphologyand

syntax

ave,no doubt,meaningas

well,

t is the word

that bears t

in its

ultimate fashion:

"The

word

is the ideological

phenomenonpar

excellence"

13; italicized n

the

original).Three functionalelements

play

a role

in

the process

f signification. he

first

element s theme:every

word

has a

theme,

which

is its

contextual unction. Theme is

the unique, singular,

rreproducible

culmination of a historical event. The second element is "reproducible and

self-identical

n all instancesof repetition"

(100),

referred to as meaning n a narrow

technical

ense.

Hence, the

study of signification an

take

two

paths:

that

of

the

investigation

f

theme,and

that

of the

investigation f meaning.

Voloshinov

blames

Structuralismincluding

he Bloomfieldian

variety)

or legitimizingonly

one path:

Such

discriminations

as those between a word's usual and

occasional meanings,

between

its

central and

lateral meanings, between its

denotation

and connotation,

etc.,

ate

fundamentally unsatisfactory.

The basic

tendency

underlying all such

discriminations

-

the

tendency o ascribe

greater

value to the central, usual aspect of meaning, presupposing that

that aspect eally does exist and

is

stable

-

is completely

fallacious.

Moreover, it

would

leave

theme unaccounted for, since theme, of course, can by no means be reduced to the status

of the occasional

or

lateral

meaning of

words.

(102)

Needless

o say,similar criticismcould be leveledat the integrationalist

pproach.

And in fact,

Voloshinov

does t,

premonitionally

as t

were:

Meaning is the

technical

appararus

for

the implementation of thente.

Of course, no absolute,

mechanisticboundary can be drawn between theme and

meaning. There is no

theme without

meaning

and

no meaning

without theme.

Moreover, it is

even

impossible to convey the

meaning of a particular

word

(say, in the course

of teaching another

person

a foreign

language)without

having

made

it

an

element

of

theme,

.e.,without

having constructedan

"examplen tterance.On the other hand, a theme must base tself on some kind of fixity

of

meaning; otherwise it loses its connection with

what

came before

and

what

comes after

-

i .e., t

altogether

oses ts significance.

100)

fu mentioned bove, heme s a sum total of linguisticand

non-linguisticactorsof


10/34

30

Ron

Kuzar

a si tuat ion.

Hence,

theme

minus meaning leaves us with a residue, one

of

whose

factors is the evaluative accent:

Any word used

in

actual speech possesses

ot only theme and meaning in the referential,

or content, sense of these words, but also value judgment: i.e., all referential contents

produced

in

living speech are

said

or written

in

conjunction with

a

specific

evaluative

accent.

There is

no

such thing

as

word without evaluative

accnt.

(103)

A theory

of

change

has much to

do with

the

recognition

of the evaluativeaccent:

[...]

with res pect o changesof

meaning,

t

is precisely

valuation

hat plays he

creative

role.

A change in

meaning

is,

essentially,

always

a

reevaluation: Tlte transposition of some

particular word

from one evaluativecontext to another .

(105)

If taken

verbatim,

these words

of

Voloshinov

are

problematic,

or he

appears o

attribute every single change to evaluativeaccent. Having

read Saussure

very

carefully,

Voloshinov

had a theoretical eason o

identiff

and enliven

he

Saussurean

duality exactlywhere

it

could not

have been

picked

up by reductionists f all kinds.

Voloshinov would easily

concede hat changes

ake

place which are

motivated by

the linguisticsystem

analogy, tc.),not

by

socialstruggle. hrough historizationof

his

project we

are able

to

map and mitigate

overstatements.

oloshinov

himself

admits hat he is committed

[...]

to the modest task

of delineating

the

basic directions that

genuine

Marxist thinking

about languagemust

take

and the

methodological

guidelines

on

which that thinking

must

rely in

approaching the

concrete

problems

of linguistia.

(xiii)

So let us

concentrate on the central component

of

Voloshinov's

discourse, he

nature of

the

evaluative

accentas a

political phenomenon:

Existence

reflected in sign

is

not merely reflected but refracted.

How

is

this

refraction of

existence n the ideological sign determined? By

an intersection of

differently

oriented social

interests within one and the

same sign

community,

i.e. by

the

class struggle.

Class

does

not coincide

with

the sign

community,

i.e., with the

community

which

is the totality of

usersof the sameset of signs or id eologicalcommunication. Thus

various

different classeswill use one and the same anguage.As a result, differently oriented accents

intersect

in

every ideological

sign. Sign

becomes

an arena of the class struggle.

This

social

ntultiaccentuality

of the

ideological sign is a

very

crucial aspect. By and

large, it

is thanks

to

this

intersecting of

accents hat a

sign maintains its

vitality

an d

dynamism and the capacity

for further

development.

(23)

Being

part

of the social

struggle,

he

sign ought to

be

subject o the gnoseological

supposition (D above,

namely that some of its accents would

embody false

consciousness,hile

others

would

represent he

truth. This is

in

fact upheld:

A sign

does

not simply exist

as

part of

a reality

-

it

reflects

and

refracts another reality.

Therefore

it

may

distort

that

reality or be true to it

[my

emphasis],or may perceive t

from

a special

point of

view

[...].

(10)

If one of the accents

s

taken

to

be

true. s there anvthins

hat marks t as such? s


11/34

Split

word,

split subject, split society 31

thereany

way

to identifu ts true nature?

For Voloshinov he

word

does not have

a true/false nclination n toto; truth may be sorted out and negotiated

hrough

accents.

Voloshinov's

iew

solves communicative

roblem.

n

the Saussurean odel

a mismatch of signifi4s among interlocutors necessarily esults in collapsed

communication,

hile n Voloshinov's

model,

which ecognizeshe mutualawareness

of interlocutors o different

accents

n the same

word,

communicationdoes

not

break down. Rather the

sense

of the word emergesand re-emerges n different

frontsof

the

socialstruggle. hus, or a dialecticalmodel of meaning,

Voloshinov's

concept

f multiaccentualitys indispensable, ut its

weak point,

the

psychological

constitution f

the

user of language, alls for revision.

Such a model is further

enhanced

y the concept

of the speaking ubject,as developed

by

Michel P0cheux,

underan Althusserian onceptual ramework.

Althusser formulated

the

mechanism

by

which

ideology determines

the

natureof the individual,and supplieda possible ridge between he socialand the

individual. e defined deologyas

"a

'representation'

of the imaginary elationship

of individuals o their real conditionsof existence" 197I

[1970]:

162). Ideology

produces

nd s reproduced y ndividuals

who

have

always-alreadybeeninterpellated

as subjects:

[...]

the individual

is

interyellated

as a

(free)

subject n order

that he shall submit

freely

to the

commandntents

to the

Subject,

i.e. in

order that

he shall

(freely)

accept his subjection, i.e. in

order that he shall

make

the

gestures

and actions of his subjection

'all

by himself. (182,

italics n original)

Althusser'sonceptof the interpellated ubject,

oesway

beyond

Voloshinov's

iew

of the psyche

as

inner speech see

Voloshinov's

earlier book Freudianism,,1976

11927)).

aving

been

ormulatedhalf a century

ater,

t

uses

more mature Freudian

concepts. lthusser

basically

accepted

Freud's

perspective

f the split subject:

Freud

has

discovered

for us that the real subject,

the

individual

in his

unique essence,

has

not

the

form of an ego,

centred

on the

negon,

on

nconsciousness'

or on

"existence"

whether

this is the existence of the for-itself, of the body-proper or of "behaviour'

-

that

the

human

subject s de-centred,constituted by a struct ure

which

has no

ncentren

either,

except

n

th e

imaginary misrecognition of

the

"egon,

.e. in the ideological formations

in which

it

recognizestself. (1971

[964]:

218)

P0cheux

1982

[1975])

urther

articulated

Althusser's

hilosophy

n

the domain

of

ianguage. or Pcheux,

he

very act of signification,

f

attributing

a

slice of reality

to a signifier,s an operationof the always-already

nterpellated ubject.Althusser's

statement n

the interpellation

of

the subject, s now

applied o the linguistic

acet

of the subject, he speaking

ubject,

assuming he following shape:

[...]

ndividualsare

interpellated"

asspeaking-subjects

as

subjectsof their discourse)

by

the

discursive

formations

which

represent

"in

language" the ideological

formations that

correspond to them. (112)

Beinga speaking ubjectnecessitatesntersubjectivity,he other.

Therefore,

what

is

conceivedy

the subjectas

"having

somemeaning" oincides

within

the discursive


12/34

32

RonKuzar

make-up of that

subject with

a more general

deological ormation, communally

maintained

by a societyof

subjects.

While

this

view

historicizes nd relativizeswhat

Voloshinov

called meaning,

subjecting

both meaning

and

accent

o a modality of

being historicallygenerated,

t doesnot keep Voloshinov's

istinctionbetween

one

part of ideologywhich becomeshistoricallyembodiedas he meaningof a word as

a

general "fictiort",,

ommonsensically

eld

as

valid

by all speaking-subjects

f a

linguistic

community within

a broad

historical

phase,

and another

part

of ideology

which

embodies

the accent of a word

at stake

in a

particular

social conflict,

in a

singular

historical conjuncture.

It

would

only be

fair to

Voloshinov

o

mention that although

he did not

maintain a refined view

of the

split subject, he did

observe

gaps

within

consciousness,hich produce

misconceptions. oloshinov

used he

term reification

to describe the

misconceptions

esulting from this gap.

He criticized

modern

linguistics

or reifying he

normatively ixed part

of a meaning

of

a word.

His use of

the term reification follows a clear path in Marxist theory. It has ts roots in Marx's

terms Verdinglichung

and Versachlichung

(Marx

1894: 366),

employed for the

objectification-mystification

of the commodiry,wherein

an economic

relation

had

ossified

as an entity.

Luk5cs broadened

he concept,so

as to apply to social

and

cultural relations

n

general:

[ . . . ]

a relation between

people takes

on the characterof a thing

and thus acquires

phantom

objectivity",

an autonomy

that seemsso strictly

rational and all-embracing

as to conceal

every trace

of its fundamental nature:

the relation between

people. (1990lI922l:83)

Voloshinovapplied the term reificatiorto the waystructuralism or what he called

abstract

bjectivism treated

he linguistic

ign n

general,

nd

the

word

in

particular.

The

word

asa

socialentity,a relation

betweenpeople,

hasa normativized

nvariable

part,

and a sociallycontingentpart.

The normativized art

is reified by Saussurean

structuralism

within langue,

and acquiresphantom

objectivity

n the

form of an

autonomous

ystem. his entity hen

becomes he

soleobjectof the

preferred

mode

of

linguistic nvestigation,

ynchronic

escription.

he aspectof change

s relegated

to the

less

valuedparole.

Though this view

of reification

s

explanatorily

nferior

to

the effects

of a split subject,

t does address

he

question

of

internal balance

betweenvariable

and invariable:

Abstract

objectivism

[...]

is incapable of tying together

the existence

of language in its

abstract, synchronic dimension with

the evolution

of language.

l,anguage exists

for the

consciousness

of the speaker as

a system of normatively

identical

forms, but only for the

historian as a process

of

generation.

This excludes any possibility

for the speaker's

consciousness to be

actively in

touch

with

the process

of historical

evaluation. The

dialectical coupling of

necessity

with

freedom and

with,

so

to speak, inguistic responsibility

is, of course,

utterly

impossible on these grounds.

A purely

mechanistic conception

of

linguistic necessityholds sway

here.

(81)

Despite

the lack of a split word

in P6cheux's

work,

it is thanks o

his

view

of the

split

speaking ubject hat a

more mature heory

of scientific

nowledge

regarding

the

gnoseological

supposition

(0 above

-

can emerge. We

may recall that

Voloshinov

considered ne of the

accentso be

"true to realitv" .

Althusser

could not

sustainsuch

a straishtforward

voiceof truth":


13/34

Split

word,

sptit subject, split society 33

[...]

both

he who is

writing

these lines and the reader

who

reads them are themselves

subjects,and

therefore ideological

subjects

a tautological

proposition)

[...].

That the author,

insofar as

he

writes the

lines

of a discourse which claims to be scientific,

is completely

absent as

a

"subject"

from

'his"

scientific

discourse (for all scientific dismurse is by

definition a

subject-less

discourse, there

is no

'subject

of

science'except in an ideology

of

science) s a different question which I shall leave on one side for the moment. (171)

This enigmatic

passage

has

attracted

much critical fire,

for the possibility

of a

subject-lessiscourse s an entity

within

materialist

theorizing does

not come into

clear elief

without

further

explication.

Althusser e-addresses

he

topic two

pages

later,

with no

higher credibility:

But to remgnize that

we

are subjects

[...]

-

this recognition only

gives

us the

nconsciousness"

of our incessant

(eternal)

practice of

ideological remgnition

-

its consciousness, .e. its

recognition

-

but in no sensedoes it

give

us the (scientific) knowledge

of

the

mechanism

of

this recognition. Now it is this knowledge that we have to reach, if you will, while speaking

in ideologl, and from

within

ideolog we have to outline a discourse which tries to break

with

ideologr,

in

order to dare to be the beginning of a scientific (i.e.

subject-less)

discourse

on

ideology.

(173)

Aware

of this nelegant

exposition,Pcheux ried to unravel t. He

drew

a distinction

between

the

process

f the

production

of knowledges"

hich

s subject-less,nd the

"scientific iscourse"which can never be

"pure", .e.

"unconnected

with

any deology"

(I42). Thus it

is not

the discourse

which

is transformed

from being

ideological

to

being scientific.

Discourse

is ever-ideological; et

from

discourse

a

body of

knowledge an be extractedwhich is ever-emergent. his distinction,despite its

potential,

nly

short-circuitsn Pdcheux's xplication, ecausehe deterministically

ties t to the intellectualproduct of the proletariat:

[...]

the

historically novel character

of

proletarian ideological practice

[...]

consists,

in my

opinion

at

any

rate,

of working explicitly

and consistently on the

subject-form. (158)

P0cheux

ttributes

he

veracity

of

proletarian

discourse o its self-reflection

n

the

subjectorm. For him it is a mechanism

aturally

built into proletarian

knowledge:

The paradoxical

result of this repercussion

of the

process without

a subject of knowledge

on the

individuals

who

are its agents

is therefore

that it realises

in the subject-form

a

challenging

of

the subject-form.

[...]

a

process n

which

ideological interpellation continues

to

operate as it were against itsef.

(195)

A refinementof P6cheux's rientation

s necessary

o support his

contribution to the

modelof meaning.

Pdcheux's

osition

hat

[...]

one

neverbreaks

with

ideology

n general,

ut always

with

some

particular deological

formation,

historico-materiallynscribed

n

the complex

et

of the

ideological ormations

of a

given

social

ormation.

(184)

reads as a promising

generalization

hat

proletarian

knowledge.

Using Engels's pair

labels for the product

of ideological and

could modify his

own

position

on

of. notion and concept as

convenient

scientific thought,

respectively, the


14/34

34 RonKuzar

accumulation

of knowledge n such

an alteredP6cheuxianmodel shallbe

viewed

as

an

incessantprocess

of

elaborationand distillationof focal

notions

nto concepts,

carried

out by subjects ognizant

of their being nterpellatedas speakingsubjects,

and as producers

of a notional-ideological

iscourse. n

essential orollary of

this

process s the understanding hat becauseof the nature of words - all words - as

ideologically motivated

signs,

.e.

as notions, the

simultaneous

distillation of all

notionsas concepts

within

one finite stretchof discourses impossible. oncepts

under

focus may be

viewed

as

partially

distilled

insofar as

the

subject has

successfully xpressed

he ideologicalboundaries

n

which

his or her discourse s

taking place.

The acquisitionof

knowledge s thus an unevenprocess

f discursively

shifting

between oci of

attention, n the

course

of which accentual naccuracies

re

constantly isregarded o as o elaborate nd

articulateother

accentualnaccuracies.

This

constantmovement can take

place

within one

text,

within

the works of

one

author,

or inter-textually

within

a discipline,

ut

since

at any

historicalmoment the

body of texts is finite, knowledge s alwayspartial, and doesnot cease o be an

attribute of the speaking

subject.This mode of knowledge ia

self-awaremodesty

seems o me the appropriatealternative o

the condescending

onvictionof

positivist

truth.

Subject-less iscourse s

the utopian horizon of this process,wherein

the

communityof

scholars

trives

o

infinitelymaximizedistilled

concepts nd

minimize

opaque

notions,as

part

of the collective nterprise

f obtainingknowledge. t is

this

sort of

process

hat may

be considered ubject-less,

n the

sense hat

it is incessant

and social. n

Kuzar

(1997)

refer to this

activifyasscholarship, s opposed o

the

static

and

mythical notion

of scientiftcity.Within

such

a

framework, then, the

acquisition of

knowledge does not

aim

at

scientific ruth but at scholarlykttowledge.

This conceptual

ramework doesnot offer a verification

est

with

regard to

the

voice

of truth in social

conflict. However, some

operational

parameters

of

veracity

can

be postulated.

n a particular

historicalconjuncture, text will express

the interest

of its social

sector

hrough

(a) a materialistconceptual ramework,

(b)

cognizant

of

the

duality of

word,

speaking-subject,

nd

society,

y

(c)

implementing

relatively

distilled concepts,(d)

accompaniedbv accents

consonant

with these

concepts,

(e)

while minimizing

the

employment

of crude notions. Such a

text

possesses

higher evel

of

veracity

han one which

acks

hese

characteristics.

his

set of parametersupholds the ontological uppositklr supposition a) above) as

primary,

i.e. as supported merely by

belief.

Thus,

it cannot be

subjected to

theoretical

challengeby an idealistworldview,which

denies

his

supposition.

An

idealist

worldview

s, herefore,

ot a challengehat

canbe

ntellectually orked

out,

but a proposal o adopt

an alternativebelief.

In

what parts

of

our

discipline

s the recognitionof

the threesplits elevant

to scholarly

practice?

Does this

approach orestall ormal

linguistics?My

answer

would

be

that wherever

he invariablesystemic spect

of language

s selected s he

object

of investigation,

he

three

splitsmay be consciously

marginalized;

wherever

change

and

variation

are involved,

he

three

splitshave a

central

theoretical

role.

Suchan approachdoesnot preclude inguisticormalismsmerelyon the groundof

their

being ormal and

marginalizinghe contingent.What s

mportant

o remember

is that even where

systemic nvestigation

s carried out, the

boundariesbetween

system

and

non-system

ave

to

be activelydelineated, nd

-

where

necessary

problematized.

This is so, because he boundaries

etween

system

and

non-system


15/34

Split

word,

split subject, sptit

society

35

are

orm,

not

substance;hey do

not

automatically

merge

rom the

physical

matter

of language,but are observed by the invest igating

subject, and

as

such are

controvertible.

The alternatives

o

this

scholarly

practice

are twofold. At

one end of the

spectrum ne finds most contemporary inguisticpractice,which assumes hat the

boundaries re clear-cut.This assumption ventuallybuilds

up and solidifies

as

a

certain

ind of

socialamnesia seeJacoby7975), .e. a communal

orgetting

of

the

act

of

delimitationby

which the

discipline

was nitially constituted.This

forgetting

becomes alientwhen the investigation

ncounters orderline cases,which at

that

point

of

amnesia

already ail

to

activate

a

recollection

of the unevenness

f the

materialand of the observingsubject.

This forgetting has an even more striking

effect,

when

the

"forgetful"

researcher

ttempts

o

explain

not

only that

which

is

systemic,ut also

hat

which s changing,

n

systemic

erms.This s, hen,

carried

out

via opaque

and

crude

notions,

such as

"subjective

omment" (Diverian school of

Columbia), creativity"(Palmer 1972: 184ff.), "intention of speaker" (illocution

theories),

displaced

peech"as expressedn "lying, rony,

esting,

poetry, narrative

fiction"

(Bloomfield

1933: 14I-2),,

"Humpty

Dumpty's language" (Fromkin

&

Rodman1993:123-4)

loaded"

words and

"abuse"

f

words

(Bolinger 1980)

all of

which

are not

subjected o conceptual istillation, nd have ittle explanatory

ower.

At

the other

end

of

the spectrum

we

find the

school

of integrationalism,

whichproblematizes

he

concept

of

system,

ut

insteadof dialecticallyncorporating

it into

its model

rejects it altogether, and cultivates

n

its

stead an idea of

sociologizedontingency, ometimesnamed

holistic.Such a Heraclitian

position

nowadays an only be

viewed

as

obsolete. A l,ockean

conception of social

formations

which

assumes n

integral

ndividual

whose

scientificallyminded

ego

exercisesree

will, does

not fare any better.

3.

Metaphorical

summary: The

word

as a

piston

The operationof

the word

as a split entity

constitutedby social factors can be

representedhrough the image of a

piston (see illustration). To liberate our

discussionrom

the

confusing

ffect of

using

meaning or both

general

and specific

senses,shallhenceforthuse he following erms:c-meaning

contingent

meaning)

for

Voloshinov's

heme,

n-meaning normative

meaning)

or his meaning.,eaving

accent ntouched. he

pistonchamber

s

divided

n

two. The

top

chambercontains

c-meaning. big

part

of

it

is

n-meaning.

When

used in

conformity with the

dominantdeology, he

boundary

between he n-meaningand

the

dominant accent

is

hard o

conceive.

Under

the disc are the

subversive ccents,

which

try to

apply

upward

pressure,

while

the dominant accent

(as

part of a cohesivedominant

ideologyinked to

it

by the rod) exertsdownward

pressure, rying to

minimize or

annul he subversive ccents.Clearly,

many

words

in

language

have

-

at

a

given

point

n

history

no

subversive ccents, o

that the

disc of the piston rests at the

bottom of the tube and the single chamber representsconsensus.The only

difference etween

his chamber

and the Saussurean ign s

its

inherent

potential

to become

dynamic

and socially controversial.

The

relative size of the

lower

chamber

nd the

upper

chamber

epresent he acuteness f

the

struggle

within

a

word; he

higher he

disc, he more conflictual he word.


16/34

Ron

Kuzar

Dominqnt ldeoloEy

This

metaphor

epresents

ome

mportant

characteristics

f

the

word

and

the

dynamic

relation

between

ts

parts,

such

as the

puzzling

existence

f ideologically

inactivewords,

he level

of social

conflict

nvolved,

he blurred

distinction

between

normative

meaning

and dominant

accent,

he ink

between

nternaldominant

accent

and

external

ideological

framework,

and most importantly, the fact that social

conflict

does

not concern

only

a local

struggle

between

wo (or

more) accents,

ut

affects he

whole

internal

constitution

of

the word,

as the

arena of

social

conflict.

I think this

metaphor

demonstrates

ll these

eatures,

but

like

any

metaphor,

the

designans

s not

isomorphic

with

its

designatum,

and

if stretched

too

fir, it

can

distort what

I have

meant

it to

symbolize.

4. kxicons

So far only singlewords have been discussed. ut ideology s not supportedby a

random

assortment

of

words,

but

by a web

of interconnected

words.

The

terms

vocabulary

or

lexicon

are used

to express

his

network.

A distinction

is

sometimes

made

between

he dictionary,

hat physical

bject hat

we

keep

on

our shelves,

nd

the lexicon,

which

is the

abstract

ist

of lexemes

accompanied-inter

alia

-

bytheir

(8

Domintrnt

$ubversive rrivc Acccnls


17/34

Split

word,

plit

subject,

plit

society 37

meanings. he

nature of the lexicon s a byproductof the tenets

of

one's

inguistic

theory;

hus he Saussureanexicon s

a

socialentity,

while

the

Bloomfieldian and

Chomskyan

exiconsare individual.Both have a

certain evel of

fixity which will be

absent

n the

exiconof

integrationalists, ho view

t as

an

expression f momentary,

ever-contingentnd ever-evolving orm.

But if

we

adopt a view of the

word

as the arena

of

social

conflict, and

of

multiaccentualitys deologically

perativeand effectiveboth in the conscious nd

the

unconscious

omainsof mind and discourse,

hen

also he scopeof the lexicon

ought o

be

viewed

dynamically.

We

may start

rom the largest

social

exicon,

which

for

languages uch as English,

French,

or Swahili

might be multi-national; this

category

s

empty

or

purely single-state

ational anguages uchas

Hebrew,

but

not

necessarily

or non-state ethnic communities such as Basque or Kurdi.

Cross-categorial

ombinations lsoexist,

where

vast mmigrationwaves ake

place.

The cross-state

ross-national anguage

-

in the broadest sense of the word

"language"contains he most diversifiedexicon, he onewith the highestpotential

for

multiaccentuality. nglishon the internet s

its

ultimate embodiment.

However,

sucha vast

multiplicity of accents

does

not necessarily

orrespond

o social splits

relevant o

the whole community

of speakers.The

particular

accentsof French

separatist

deology n Canada are

not normally

relevant to

the French-speaking

community

f Switzerland, nd only remotely o the community

of

France, unless

forcefully

imported into national discourse

by the French

president.

The

segmentation

nto

geographically

ecluded

ommunities oes not necessarilymply

social

onflict, n the

narrow

senseof the word.

At

the second

evel, after the multi-national

exicon,

we

find the national

lexicon,

hich s

usually

he

broadest exicon egistering elevantmultiaccentuality.

Under

t

we

may have

different

sub-lexicons hich represent

a historically ocalized

social

onflict,be it

about

economic,

national,ethnic, sexual,or any

other

issue.

Within

a

particular

sub-lexicon

multiaccentualitys reduced.Further differentiation

is

meaningful swell.

A

lexicon

does

not exist n

advance f

the

subjects

maintaining

it,

but rather

t

is an abstractionwhich we

as

scholars

xtract

rom

texts

produced

by

thosesubjects. ence, any

coherentsequence

f

texts,any inguisticcorpus,will

have once

defined its own lexicon. t

is,

herefore,

ustified

o talk about exicons

such

as hat

of a

particular

newspaper during a certain

historical

period),

or

that

of radioand television tations e.g. hose hat are state-controlled),he lexicon of

a single

uthor,or a single ext (story,

article,book,

poem,

user

manual, etc.).

Within each

sub-lexicon, ear-uniaccentuality ill

usually

prevail

for

words

actively

elevant o the holder

of

that lexicon.

Regularmultiaccentuality

ill

be the

lot

of all

other words

which

are either rrelevant o the current

deologicalagenda

or are

relevant n

ways

not

conceptualized.

art of the strategy

of

negotiating

he

meaning f

a

word

is to unmasksuchaccents,

hus often enforcing

heir

movement

from the

unconscious

o the conscious.

This

model resolves he Marr-Voloshinov (or

Marr-Stalin) controversy.

Whether

r

not language s

class-oriented

s

a

question

hat presupposes

clear-cut

dichotomy etweensocietyand class.Sucha dichotomy s crude,and is potentially

undermined

y the

very

dea of

multiaccentuality f

word

and exicon.Languagehas

both society

and

class

orientations hrough

the

social struggleand the interplay

between

ub-lexiconsn the socialsphere.


18/34

38

Ron

Kuzar

5.

Case

study:

Terms

of "death"

and "injury"

in Israeli

political

discourse

of the

1980s

The

case

study presented

here

nvolves ome

politically

salient

words

n

the lexicon

and sub-lexicons f IsraeliHebrew of the 1980s. he text that wasselected or the

investigation

was

Haggai

Segal's

book (Segal

1987) "?qxim yekaim":

Korot

"hamexteret

hayehudit"

"Dear

Brothers":

The

Story

of

"TheJewish

lnderyround"; the

quotation

marks

n both

cases

re

original

and

meaningful).

he

text

s characteristic

of

all the

genres

of

Segal's

writing

in

the 1980s:

participant-historiography,

journalism,

and fiction

(short

stories).

The

book was

written

in

jail

while

the author

served

a three-year

sentence

for his part

in the

attempted

assassination

f

Palestinian

mayors

of

the

West

Bank by sabotaging

heir cars.

The

mayorswere

not

killed,

but two

of them

lost

their

legs.Segal

was

a

member

of a

group

of settlers

known

as The

Jewish

Underground,

who

killed and

injured

Palestinian

eaders

and

civilians n the early 1980s.He wrote the book in order to explain to the Israeli

public

he

emergence

f that

underground.

I

present

here

only

a

partial

report

of

a larger

body

of evidence.

Seven

lexical

means

will be

instantiated

here, out

of a total

of some

50

terms

of

"death"

and "injury"

(totalling740

tokens).

n

what

follows will

use

meaning

as a

general

term,

andn-meaning

:lormative

meaning),

-meaning

:contingent

meaning),

and

accent

as explained

n

section

3.

above.Accent,

he ideologically

valuative

lement,

will

be rendered

as

a

proposition.

t should

be clear

that

while

n-meaning

and

accent

are generalized

oncepts.

-meaning

s always

ontingent,

t is the

particular

meaning

at

a specific

historical

moment.

Therefore

t can only

be generalized

on

statistical rounds.

Many

similar

occurrences

f the

same

c-meaning

ulminate

n

an

accent,

however

there

is

no need

to assume

hat

all

c-meanings

re

equal.

It

is

enough

to show

that

one of them

prevails

statistically.

word

on statistics

s

in

order

here.

What

Segal

does

n

his book

is to show

how

the

actions

of

the Jewish

underground

were

a

natural

and inevitable

consequence

of Arab

terrorism.

Therefore

the

killing

of Jews

by

Arabs s part

of the

narrative.

The passages

ealing

with

Arabs

killing Jews

and

with

Jews

killing

Arabs

are equal

n

size.

My statistical

assumption

s that

both

casesare

equally

epresented.

5.I.lYords

fro*

the root

r.cx

This

root appears

n

the noun

recax

murder',

in

the related

active

and passive

verbal

forms

(lircoax'to

murder',

eheracex'to

be

murdered',

n

the verbal

noun

recixa

murder(ing)',

and in the

adjective

acxani'murderous'.

N-meaning:

C-meaning:

Accent:

Statistics:

Premeditated

illing with

a

negative

ethical

evaluation.

Any event

of suchkilling

between

all

members

of

all national

groups, save the caseof Jewskilling Arabs. Predominantly

used

or

Arabs killing

Jews.

Arabs

murder

Jews.

Jews

do

not murder

Arabs.

145

occurrences,

f

which

101

elate to

Arabs

killing

Jews.

n

92

of these

occurrences

he speaker

s the

author

or a

quoted


19/34

Split

word,

split

subject, split society

39

fellow-settler.

It should e

noted that

the negative thical

evaluation,

which

s sometimes

eferred

to as he

"connotation"

f

this verb (as

opposed o

the neutral connotationof

'kill'),

is partof the n-meaningn our analysis ere,since his evaluation s sociallyagreed

on.

It is only in the actual

application of

words

of this

root

that we would

find

different

behavior,

.e. n the

linguistic

practice

epresenting

deology.

Examples:

In these,and

all following examples he

name of the speakerprecedes

he

quoted

sentence.

5.7.7.

rabskilling

Jews:

(1)

Segal: Over twenty

of the inhabitants

of Kiryat-Arba

[a

settlement]

assembled

n one of the local apartments

o discussheir

possible

actions

n

light

of

the

lack of governmental

esponse o the

murder recax. 74)

(2)

Segal:

The murder recaxof

Aharon Gross

n

the

central

square

of the city

[Hebron]

was

carriedout in the midstof the strike

t..].

147)

(3)

Segal:

A few hours

after

the

murder recex

ministerArens came o Hebron.

(148)

(4)

Segal:

Two

travelers,

a man and a

woman,

were

murdered nircexu

n Gaza.

(e3)

(5)

Settler

Moti Shvat:

t

was

exactlyhere

that

they murderedracxu

Yehoshua

Sluma

during

the Tu-Bishvatholiday. 13)

(6) Settler

Yitzkhak

Ganeiram:

feel

that it is impossible

o

remain

silent

after

the murder

recax. 73)

5.7.2.

sraeli autlnrities,

as

quoted

by

Segal,

on Arabs killing

Jews:

(7)

Labor

minister

[1968,

ld quotation]

Yigal

Alon:

We

must not accept he

fact

that becauseof a murderous racxani pogrom in 1929,we, out of our own

will,

should

make Hebron

judenrein.

(25)

(8)

Commander

f Judeaand

Samaria

The

West

Bank],Binyamin

Ben-Eliezer:

We want

you

to come with us to the

military

headquarters; here

we

will

discuss

ur response o

the murder recax. 68)

(9)

Israeli

Radio announcer:

Today is the shloshim

[thirtieth

day

of mourning]

of

the murder recax

of the

yeshiva

(Jewish

religious

academy) students

n

Hadassa

House

[in

Hebron].

(99)

5.L3. Nort-Arab gentile, Ukraine leaderPetlyura,killing Jews:

(10)

Segal:

hen I read

out loud an

editorial rom Haaretz

[daily

newspaper]

rom

some

fifty years ago

-

after the

acquittal in a

French court of

Shalom


20/34

40 RonKuzar

Schwarzbard,he executorof Petlvura. he

Ukraine

murderer oceaxof Jews.

(26r)

5.1.4.Five casesof Arabs killing Arabs:

(

11)

Segal:Two

persons,

who

had

been

considered ollaborators

ith

Israel,

were

murdered

nircexu

during the activity

of

the

[Palestinian]

National Guidance

Committee, as a direct result of its

incitement.

87)

(I2) Settler Elyakim

Haetzni:

There

were

years

n

which a number

of Arabs

were

murdered

nircexu

daily by the PLO.

(143)

The

killing of Arabs

by Arabs is often mentioned n

the writings

of the right

as

testimony or the different valuesof Arab

society,

where ife is

much cheaper.

The

implication is that when Jews kill Arabs they should be judged by internal Arab

standards, ot by

the

higher Jewishstandards.

5.1.5.

Nine casesof

Jews

killing Jews

These

concern he

killing of Israeli

peace

demonstratorEmil

Greenzweig

during

a

PeaceNow demonstration:

(13)

Segal:The murder recaxof Emil Greenzweig nd the bitter tensionbetween

left

and

right,

while

the

war

in

lrbanon

was

still

going

on,

filled him

[underground

member]

with worries

hat the ever-growingmanifestations f

national

polarization

will

lead

to

nationaldisasteror even civil war.

(145)

5.1.6.27 casesof Jewskilling Arabs

If these examples turned out to be bona

fide

labels of the

act, the

decisive

formulation of

the

accentaboveshould

have

been challenged.

owever, his

is not

the case. In all occurrences he naming of the act as

'murder'

is rhetorically

estranged.

In 11 cases

t

is Segal

quoting

directly

or

indirectly he

languageof the law,

i.e. Segal s citing the accentof rivals,but

often

explicitly nserts

his own reservation

into

the text.

(14) Segal:After

four months

lan Tor was

arrested or

"intentional"

murder

recax

[of

a demonstratingArab female pupil]. (90)

The

quotation marks

around

"intentional"

servehere as this

kind of reservation,

which estranges he accentof

'murder'.

(15) Segal:They

[settlers

being attacked]will probablyweigh

n their

minds

for

a few seconds

whether

it is

worthwhile

o defend hemselves,

or

they

may

be

arrested

or

perhaps

even charged

with

intentional

murder recax.

97)


21/34

Split

word,

split subject,

split sociery

4l

The

estrangement

f "murder" s expressed ere

rhetorically, hrough the creation

of

relative

symmetry

(where

convenient), epresenting

he oppressor-oppressed

relationas

a dispute

between

equals

over land. Thus

attacks of

Jews

on Arabs and

fuabs on Jewsare symmetrical

moves n this

"territorialdispute". n such

a

context,

theabsurdity f the situationof a human beingunderattackhaving o consider he

legal mplications

of self-defense erves

as

the

resenration owards the use of the

lexeme

murder".

(16)

Segal:Six

people

were chargedwith

murder recax

n

the

college affair.

(239)

The

event referre,d

o as

"the

college affair"

was

a

planned

assassination f Arab

studentsn

the Islamic

College

of

Hebron,

carried

out

with submachine uns.

The

rivals'accent

of "murder" is

quoted

in

light

of

the lightnessof

the event which

was

merelyan

"affair".

This lexicaldevice

will

be discussed

elow.

5.1.7.16

cases

of state and civil

sociery

unctionaies

about Arabs

killing

Jews:

Other

settlers,heir

attorneys, he

udges

n their cases, olitical

eadersof

the

right,

and

some

government

officials are quoted

by

Segal

as sharing he ideology of the

settlers.

o a

great

extent

this

is accurate:

(17)

Anonymous

settler:How come Jewsare arrested

on

the

eve of Sabbathas

if

they

were dangerous

murderers ocxim?

171)

The

words

as

f' estrange he accent.

(18) Settler

Yehuda Etryon: Committing killings

without

a comprehensivedesign

to

attain

national

eadership

might be ethically nterpretedas plain

murder

recax.

160)

The

phr

split word, split subject, split soceity

Documents