Affective
Fallacy: (See also 'intentional
fallacy' )Wimsatt and Beardsley, who are associated with the New Criticism,
introduced first this term in their essay "the verbal icon". In the 'affective
fallacy', Wimsatt and Beardsley wish to distinguish between 'what the poem
is and what it does [to the audience]'. To evaluate a work of art according to
what effects it has on the audience is therefore considered to be a critical
error. The work of art should assessed 'as is', not by how it moves [or not]
the audience.
Defamiliarization: First introduced by Victor
Shiklovsky, 'defamiliarization'
is 'making strange'. To defamiliarize is to look and\ or present the familiar
or the habitual in a new, fresh or even strange way.
In literature, this technique is
utilized for two main reasons. First, it is intended to shake us and wake us:
to look at the minutest detail with wondrous eyes. Second, when defamiliarizing
something, the attention is averted (slightly or completely) from the subject
of discussion to the actual form of 'discussion'. In defamiliarization,
whatever is presented is overshadowed by the representation.
The Russian
Formalists
considered defamiliarization to be one of the unique features of text that may
be considered 'literary'. This explains, partly, why for the most part the
formalists tend to focus on modern literature, from Sterne's Triastram
Shandy and into the Twentieth-century.
Diachronic: (See also Synchronic) In general, the
term diachronic refers to linear relations. Looking at one's life
progression is a diachronic examination.
A diachronic study of
language examines the historical development of words, and how languages have
changed through out time. How, for instance, it came to be that the word
"know" is spelled with a 'k' that is muted in speech; or how and why
Greek was formed as a language, while Phoenician has died.
The diachronic study of
language was the basic premise and methodology that directed linguistics up
until the beginning of the Twentieth-century. Ferdinand de Saussure,
presented in the first part of the century a theory of linguistics that almost
completely ignores diachronic considerations of language. Saussure
wished to brush history aside, as it were, and focus on language solely from a synchronic perspective. The focus here is not on how words are formed in time and
what different meanings they convey, but rather on how one word gives the two
words before and after it a value. How, for example, the word "this"
related to the word "is", and how what is the relation between these
two words and their placement within a sentence to the word "not".
Diegesis: (See also Mimesis):
Introduced by Plato, diegesis refers to the artistic act of
representation. Diegesis is the “how”, while mimesis is the “what”,
as it were.
Intentional
Fallacy: (See also 'affective
fallacy') Introduced by the theorists of New
Criticism, the 'intentional
fallacy' refers to the error of criticizing or interpreting a work of
literature according to what the author's intentions could be. This term is one
of the founding principles of New Criticism, who believed that anything beyond
the text itself (the context) is irrelevant. This view was expressed clearly in
W. K. Wimsatt's essay "the intentional fallacy", where he
writes: "A poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is
detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to
intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public."
Langue:
Ferdinand de Saussure distinguishes between langue and parole. Langue is
language in general, language as a system or structure. Parole is
individual instances of speaking in a certain language. Langue refers to
all languages, it is the common structure that sustain language as such. Parole
refers both to individual language, French, German, Arabic and so on, and to
the ways any individual expresses himself in these or other languages.
This distinction is one of the
starting points from which Saussure developed his theory of version of modern
linguistics. Indeed, one of
the reasons his theory is termed 'modern linguistics' is that contrary to most
theories of language before him, Saussure believed that the linguist should
focus on language in general, not in particular. Linguistics is not, or not
primarily, a study of how English, Greek or any other language developed
through out time and what are the grammatical rules of any language. The main
object of linguistics, according to Saussure, is inquiring into how all
language are structured on the same foundation, on the 'universal'
system that governs the very idea and functionality of human languages.
Linguistics is not so much about individual languages as it is (or should be)
about the language system.
Literariness: The Russian Formalists deemed that 'literariness' is the object
of literary studies. Or, as Roman Jakobson formulated: "the subject of literary
science is not literature, but literariness, i.e. that which makes a given work
a literary work". Put simply, according to the Formalists literariness is
what makes a text 'literary', that is what techniques and features distinguish
a text in general, from 'literature'. In the use of the Formalists, this term
indeed accentuated the issue of form; yet 'literariness' has acquired a much
broader meaning, depending--of course--on the initial conception of what
'literature is'.
Mimesis: (See also Diegesis) First introduced by Plato, mimesis refers to the artistic imitation of reality. Mimesis= to mime. Plato distinguishes between mimesis and diegesis, which is the act of representation. Plato gives mimesis precedence over diegesis, since mimesis is supposedly closer to the ”the real thing”. A river in a painting, not the painting itself, is closer to the idea of a river.
In the 20th Century, Gerard Genette would against this distinction, claiming that in modern art, Diegesis has taken precedence over mimesis. How James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake is written is of main concern, and not so much what he wrote about.
Sign: As defined by Ferdinand de Saussure, the linguistic sign composed of a mental
image or concept ("signified") and a sound or written mark ("signifier"). Saussure uses an illustration
similar to following in order to explain his definition of the sign:
The key characteristics of the
linguistic sign, as defined by Saussure, are that it is arbitrary and
has a negative value. The sign is arbitrary since the relation between
the signifier and the signified is a matter of contingency, a consequence of
time and place. In theory, any word could designate any object in the world.
The sign has a negative value, since it is only understandable within a system
of signs. Signs, or words, do not have meanings; words get their meanings by
being what other words are not. "I am not you".
Signified: (See also signifier) As defined by Saussure, the
signified is the mental image or concept to which a word refers. Upon
reading the word "turtle", for example, something close to following
would appear in your mind:
Even if this is not exactly what
you "had in mind", you most probably would not think of, say, a cat.
Two important characteristics of
the signified, according to Saussure, are that it is abstract and
absent. In order to talk about a "turtle", for instance, one
must first have an idea of what a turtle is. The word "turtle",
therefore, is above all a word commonly accepted to designate the idea of
turtle, rather than referring to one particular turtle. When using this word,
secondly, the actual turtle to which we are referring is in fact absent. Even
if there is a turtle in front of you, one that you see and can touch, there is
no other way to prove that this is a "turtle" but by using the word.
And in order for you to use the term, it must be agreed upon that this is the
word that denotes the animal that walks slowly with a shell on his back.
Since the signified is
abstract and absent, Saussure viewed it as secondary to the Signifier.
Perhaps there is no doubt that there is a world surrounding us; we seem to feel
it with every one of our senses. But the only way to prove the existence of the
world, or for that matter anything, is by using accepted codes, by agreeing
that this word refers to that signified and not any other. The
contingency on which language is constructed provides enough reason for many,
like the scholars of deconstruction
for example, to doubt the
'reality' of anything, or to dismiss our ability to reach or discuss the realm
of the signifieds.
Signifier: (See also signified) The signifier,
according to Saussure, is the sound or written mark that refers
to a certain 'something'. The signifier is that part of the word that
directs or points to a certain 'thing' or meaning.
For Saussure and for orientations
that his theory inspired, like structuralism or post-structuralism
the signifier part of a
word, and not the signified, is of more importance. The attgiven to the
realm of the signifiers has several reasons. First, the signifier
is present: a signifier is like a traffic sign, which whether it is
posting directions or indicating how to drive, is something that stands in for
the something else. Instead of placing a policeman and an information clerk at
every designated place, it is much more efficient to place signs. Unlike
traffic signs, however, in the language system (any language) the only 'real'
things we have contact with are those parts of the word that direct or
indicate. Moving in language is somewhat like driving on a road construction
that leads no where, but only has more and more signs. Since Saussure believed
that the signifiers, or the part of a word which represents, is the only
'real' things with which we have contact, there can be no definitive discussion
about "reality", about the signified. All we have and know are words that lead on to more words. This journey
without any destiny is what Jacques Derrida suggests when he
says that "there is nothing outside the text." For Derrida even more
than Saussure believed, there is no escape from the space of the signifier.
All there are, are:
Synchronic: (See also Diachronic) A relation between any
two things, or more, at a set point in time is synchronic.
Viewing anything in a synchronic manner is like freezing it in time, and
then dissecting (literally or figuratively) in order to understand how and
where every element stands in relation to another.
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
suggested that the study of language should be from a synchronic perspective,
rather than in a diachronic manner as was commonly practiced. The study
of language should focus on how language works as a system: how each
word determines the meaning and significance of every other word, and why any
word is meaningless unless it is placed within a matrix of words. Unlike a diachronic
study, where the attention is mainly on the horizontal axis, on the historical
circumstances of words or on the syntactical relation between words in a
sentence, a synchronic study of language will lay more stress on the
single word and its relation to the 'big picture', to the language system in
general.
Saussure's call for a synchronic
study of language is one of the key premises of modern linguistics, and the methodological foundation on which are based such orientations
as structuralism and deconstruction, to name but a few.