Page 64 - Studio International - July August 1975

purely linguistic categorization. Thus the where the elements and relations are Following Hjelmslev (' ... the Danish
two main types of aphasia align co-terminal with their meaning). language is expression for a content that
themselves along the two major axes of Amongst the non-conformal languages is the Danish nation, the family and the
sign usage: in similarity disorders the is 'denotative language', where neither home; and in the same way, different
ability to select and substitute elements of the two planes is itself a language styles are expressions, or symbols, for
is affected, while the ability to combine is (as in natural language in its everyday contents consisting of certain elements that
relatively unimpaired; in contiguity use). When the plane of content itself is lie outside the styles' 31), it is Barthes who
disorders it is combination which becomes a language, we are in the presence of a has been most concerned to examine the
progressively chaotic, while selection and 'meta-language' (as in the technical relationship between connotation and
substitution remain comparatively language of linguistics which has natural ideology. Mythologies aims to show that
normal. language as its content). by describing the process of
In the course of this study Jakobsen When the plane of expression itself signification of mythical speech we may
assimilates the two dimensions of already constitutes a language, then this thereby 'undo' it. In describing Barthes'
`combination' and 'selection' to . the is a case of 'connotative language' work, Stephen Heath has asserted that
two polar figures of speech', metaphor and (as in the literary uses of natural ... semiology cannot but bring a
metonymy, and has shown that style may language). For example: 'When derangement of sense in its train'. In
be interpreted according to these Stendhal uses an Italian word, signifier, respect of myth's operation the schema of
polarities. In the metaphoric mode, the it is not only the term used, but the fact connotation provides . at once the
primary mode of poetry, elements are that, to express a certain idea, the author means of comprehending this
associated by virtue of their similarity. may have decided to turn to Italian, and operation and of representing this
In the metonymic mode, typical of this recourse has as its signified a certain comprehension', so that ... . in its
`realist' prose, elements are associated idea of passion and of liberty, connected, encounter with connotation semiology
through their contiguity. Jacobsen in the Stendhalian world, with Italy'. 30 is to be defined as a tool of ideological
himself has indicated the application of In the case of connotation, then, the analysis'. 32 Such claims are problematic,
this dichotomy in the analysis of signifier is not so much the word chosen but this is not the place to discuss the
signifying systems other than as the fact of its having been chosen. putative objectivity of semiology as a
language itself: 'The same oscillation Thus, while the expressions 'Close the means of describing ideology.
occurs in sign systems other than door, please', `Do be so kind as to close
language. A salient example from the the door', and Pu't'wood in t'ole, will IV
history of painting is the manifestly yer', are at the denotative level The rudimentary mechanics of the
metonymical orientation of Cubism, interchangeable, as connotators they are linguistic model described so far can be
where the object is transformed into a quite distinct. illustrated in its semiological extension
set of synecdoches ; the surrealist The different formations of denotation, by applying it to the case of clothing.
painters responded with a patently metalanguage and connotation are easiest There are identifiable, commonly used
metaphorical attitude. Ever since the to grasp in the diagram form Barthes has units of clothing (shoes, jackets, hats,
productions of D. W. Griffith, the art of suggested : etc.), which are combined according to
the cinema, with its highly developed commonly held conventions. There are
capacity for changing the angle, rules of syntagmatic association (the
perspective and focus of "shots", has shirt is worn under the jacket); and rules
broken with the tradition of the theatre of syntagmatic exclusion (a tie is not
and ranged an unprecedented variety of worn with a roll-neck jersey); and within
synecdochic "close-ups" and metonymic the completed syntagm of a fully
"set-ups" in general. In such motion dressed individual there is ample scope
pictures as those of Charlie Chaplin and for paradigmatic substitution (a bowler
Eisenstein, these devices in turn were for a beret). In the case of clothing, the
overlayed by a novel, metaphoric conventional elements and rules of
"montage" with its "lap dissolves" — the Expression (E) and content (C) are combination together constitute a
filmic similes'. 27 defined only in their mutual relation (R). langue. Parole would then be the
ERC is a (denotative) language. When a individual choices of elements and
Denotation and connotation language becomes the object language of `grammatical style', with certain
It was through a reflection upon the another (second-degree) language, that examples of parole being absorbed into
dual nature of the sign that Saussure is to say when a language (ERC) becomes langue (the Wellington boot, the
arrived at his conception of langue as the content (C) of another language, Windsor knot). At the level of
essentially a form : 'Linguistics then then the second degree language is a denotation the signifier 'bowler hat' will
works in the borderland where the metalanguage. When a language is taken take as its signified such a sense as
elements of sound and thought up as the expression plane (E) of another `article of clothing to be worn on the
combine; their combination produces language, then the language of the head for protection against the
a form, not a substance' .28 The second degree is a connotative language. elements'. At the level of connotation
`glossematic' theory of the Danish Barthes emphasizes that all three it may take such signifieds as,
linguist Louis Hjelmslev29 develops the formations may be found in a single text. neologistically,33 'city-ness'.
concern with form to the extent of Fashion writing is metalinguistic in The above is a simple, indeed
disassociating it from any phonological taking a 'language' (the vestimentary simplistic, example of the manner in
or semantic actuality. It is at this level of system) as its object. Simultaneously, the which a signifying phenomenon which
abstraction that linguistics draws metalinguistic text is absorbed as itself does not belong to natural language
closest to 'languages' other than expression plane within a connotative may nevertheless be analysed in terms of
natural language and promises to language. Thus we recognize a difference a linguistic model. However, to
become, as Saussure wished, a general in 'tone' between types of fashion develop the application in sufficient
science of all languages : semiology. writing : detail for the results to become
Hjelmslev29 defined a language as
consisting of two planes, the planes of
`expression' and 'content'. The first
corresponds to the plane of the
signifiers and the second to the plane of
the signifieds. Within each of these two
planes he applies the dichotomy form/
substance. Following Hjelmslev29 we may
speak of a 'conformal language' when the
two planes have exactly the same formal
organization, differing only in substance
(as in the case of mathematical systems,
44