Semiotica 183–1/4 (2011), 9–30 0037–1998/11/0183–0009
DOI 10.1515/semi.2011.002 © Walter de Gruyter
Abstract
The contribution describes the differences between modernism and post-
modernism as historical periods of the twentieth century and establishes com-
parable differences between structuralism and post-structuralism as semiotic
approaches. Like modernism, structuralism rejects traditional modes of
thought, attempts to reconstruct academic disciplines on the basis of a few
fundamental principles and strives to work with reconstructed terminologies
and axioms. Like post-modernism, post-structuralism is characterized by the
necessity of finding ways to continue research based on the fragmentary results
left by structuralist projects. In the beginning of the twentieth century, structur-
alism itself had responded to materialism, atomism, historicism, and natural-
ism by introducing its own methodology built around the dichotomies of signi-
fied and signifier, paradigm and syntagm, synchrony and diachrony, langue
and parole. Rather than rejecting this apparatus, post-structuralism explicated
the paradoxes behind these dichotomies and tried to overcome them by under-
mining the first concept of each pair. This change of perspective foregrounded
the material, processual, and intertextual character of signs as well as the
sense-producing function of interpretation. Rejecting rigidly fixed methods as
well as general theories, and waiving the distinction between object-signs and
meta-signs in favor of their joint reflection, post-structuralist semiotics became
an alternative to conventional practices of academic sign analysis and now
approaches the status of an art.
Keywords: contemporary semiotics; modernism; structuralism; post-
modernism; post-structuralism; semiotic methodology.
Post-modernism, post-structuralism,
post-semiotics? Sign theory at the
fin de siècle*
ROLAND POSNER
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10 R. Posner
Everyone has his disciples, but it is always Judas
who writes his biography.
— English proverb
The father of deconstruction considers the
statement “Deconstruction is dead” and finds it
lacking.
— New York Times (January 23, 1994)
It seems the time has come to bury yet another intellectual fashion, as
throughout the Western world cries ring forth from the cultural press that
“Post-structuralism is dead” (Stephens 1994: 22–23). Not that all post-
structuralists are dead — some are more alive than ever — nor can it be said
that their appeal has waned, for no other intellectual movement unleashed
more controversies in universities during the course of the 1980s than post-
structuralism. Nevertheless, in the last few years the claim that structuralism
has come to an end tended to be generalized so as to include the end of post-
structuralism. This raises the question about the fate of semiotics. If it requires
either a structuralist or a post-structuralist method, then does the demise of
post-structuralism not imply the end of semiotics as well?
This is a disturbing question for semioticians, and I will respond to it by
analyzing the way in which structuralism and post-structuralism are histori-
cally embedded in modernism and post-modernism. I will proceed from this by
formulating a number of theses on the mutual relations of structuralist and
post-structuralist semiotics, and conclude with some prospects for the future of
semiotic research.
1. Modernismandpost-modernism
The cultural history of the Western world presents itself as a sequence of ap-
proaches to the arts and sciences, where each approach called itself “modern”
at the time. Carolingian illustrated script, Gothic architecture, Renaissance
painting, classical French literature, German music of the Romantic period, as
well as such movement as Realism, Naturalism, and Impressionism — all con-
sidered themselves “modern” (cf. Zacharias 1984: 11–15).
However, today we seem to agree that only one period of history deserves to
be called “modern” (cf. Giddens 1990). The onset of the Modern Age in this
sense is usually posited toward the end of the nineteenth century (cf. Davies
1982), while its full expression is said to have been reached in Bauhaus archi-
tecture, twelve-tone music, and in the literature of Proust and Gide, Kafka and
Musil, Joyce and Eliot (cf. Lethen 1970; Calinescu 1987; Fokkema and Ibsch
1987; Kondylis 1991).1 As far as the sciences are concerned, the Modern Age
is characterized by the extension of their field of investigation into all areas of
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 11
life, the rationalization of methods, the specialization of researchers, the au-
tonomy sought by the various disciples, and project-oriented interdisciplinary
cooperation in large-scale research programs (cf. Knorr-Cetina 1981, 1991).
Concomitantly, the economy of the Modern Age developed an increasingly
radical division of labor and, whenever possible, mass production carried out
on conveyor belts (Loo and van Reijen 1992).
General characteristics of the Modern Age include:
– the rejection of traditional ideas;
– the belief that all areas of life can be completely reordered on the basis of
a few fundamental insights;
– the willingness to accept any temporary hardships involved in dismantling
the established order with the view of a better future once the program has
been completed.
When this last movement of renewal claimed the title of “modern” for itself
and announced a future of permanent progress, it staked all hopes of renewal
on a single card. It insisted that the chain of epochs, one following the other,
had come to an end, thus taking the risk that its failure could render the very
thought of continuous renewal absurd (cf. Niethammer 1989). Such a scenario,
unthinkable for the proponents of modernism, occurred in the second half of
the twentieth century (cf. Lyotard 1979). The ambitious ideas of the modern-
izers could not be upheld in the arts, nor in the sciences or in the business world
(cf. Forster 1985). We find ourselves surrounded by the ruins of unfinished,
grandiose experiments (cf. Kamper and van Reijen 1987) and consider it a
challenge merely to come to terms with the myriad of half-completed modern-
ist projects (cf. Gumbrecht and Weimann 1991; Guggenberger et al. 1992). In
this situation, we no longer take the pathos of radical renewal in any field seri-
ously (cf. Hassan 1987a). No present European society could be persuaded to
renounce its achievements upon the simple promise that something better
would take their place at some point in the future (cf. Koslowski 1987). In-
stead, we are satisfied with working on details, aiming at modest improve-
ments and avoiding catastrophes.
Post-modern theorists, from Calinescu via Hassan to Welsch, always stress that no clear
line can be drawn between the Modern and Post-modern ages. It can nevertheless be
said that post-modern literature is less tense and ambitious, less totalitarian and myth-
oriented, less utopian and manifesto-like, less ideological and decisive, less hermetic
and dark, less referential and representative, less stylistically pure and based in high
culture than the literature of the Modern Age. Instead we find playfulness, parodies
(which are often thought to criticize the canon), intertextual collages and quotations,
genre metamorphosis, mixtures of everyday and high culture, multiple coding on the
semantic and sociological levels (in the sense of Fiedler and Jencks), the autobiograph-
ical, the historical, the local and regional, the will to make discoveries, a tendency to be
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12 R. Posner
multicultural as well as open, insecure and unclassifiable when it comes to a world
view; finally we note a wide variety of styles and opinions (Lützeler 1991: 12–13, my
translation).
After the hubris and failure of modernism, it seems only logical to call this lat-
ter attitude “post-modern” (cf. Köhler 1977). Post-modernism takes up those
achievements of earlier epochs which were not fully destroyed by modernism
and attempts to combine them with the ruins of the Modern Age (cf. Jencks
1984; Klotz 1984; Hassan 1987b). With the failure of a permanently modern
age comes the discrediting of the idea that the chain of epochs has come to an
end. There will be further historical epochs even after post-modernism, but
they are unlikely to be considered more “modern” than their predecessors.
Other comparatives will be drawn upon to fit their claims.
2. Structuralism
In the humanities and in the sciences of Europe in the Modern Age, structural-
ism was without doubt the leading theoretical approach (cf. Albrecht 2000).
Whether in the form of Ehrenfels’s Gestalt psychology, Husserl’s phenomenol-
ogy, de Saussure’s system linguistics, Mathesius’s functionalism, the young
Jakobson’s formalism, Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic form, von Uexküll’s
Umwelt biology, Bühler’s sematology, Mannoury’s significs, Carnap’s logical
empirism or Hjelmslev’s glossematics,2 structuralist theories were character-
ized by:
– the rejection of traditional modes of thought in the various academic disci-
plines;
– the belief that academic disciplines could be fully reconstructed on the
basis of a few fundamental principles; and
– the willingness to do without established terminologies and axioms until
they have been thus reconstructed.
For the first time since the philologist manifestos of the nineteenth century (cf.
Stierle 1979), structuralism created a common research horizon in all humani-
ties and social sciences (cf. Frühwald et al. 1991: 47–49). In the period be-
tween the two World Wars, it gained ground simultaneously in linguistics, psy-
chology, sociology, anthropology, and history, as well as in the study and
practice of the fine arts, literature, and music. Structuralism culminated in the
idea that all these disciplines are components of an all-encompassing sign-
based science of culture, namely, semiotics (cf. Posner 1988, 1989). However,
after World War II, and parallel with the historical experience that global de-
signs and attempts at radical reconstruction are doomed to failure, skepticism
also grew within the humanities and social sciences as to the strength of struc-
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 13
turalist principles (cf. Todorov and Ducrot 1972: 435–453; Culler 1982: 17−30;
Sless 1986: 146–160). This skepticism also had consequences for the project
of a semiotic science of culture.
In light of the fact that opponents of modernism have grouped themselves
under the term post-modern, it seems logical to label the opponents of structur-
alism post-structuralists (Schiwy 1985: 16–34; Tepe 1992). If, in addition, we
accept that post-modernism links the ruins of modernism with the remaining
achievements of earlier epochs, the question arises whether post-structuralism
is able to mutually relate and integrate the incomplete results of structuralist
science with results from other approaches (cf. Lather 1990; Keupp 1993).
This question is also relevant to the perspectives of a semiotic science of cul-
ture. It can be answered by tracing the academic origins of the structuralist
movement and following its development in post-structuralism.
2.1. Starting points
To understand the basic concepts and principles of European structuralism, we
need to recall the scientific practices structuralists like Ehrenfels, de Saussure,
Mathesius, and Hjelmslev were attacking (cf. Coseriu 1981: ch. 2 and 3). Re-
search in the humanities and social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth
century was characterized by:
(a) materialism, i.e., an exclusive interest in perceptible and measurable enti-
ties, joined with the belief that inductive methods, if applied to such facts,
would impart relevant knowledge;
(b) atomism, i.e., the gathering and describing of facts without consideration
for the contexts in which they arise;
(c) historicism, i.e., the idea that one fact gives rise to another as a result of
chronological developments;
(d) naturalism, i.e., the treatment of all objects under investigation as natural
objects, independent of their cultural significance.
Concerning (a): Structuralists opposed materialism with the concepts of Ge-
stalt (Ehrenfels), function (Mathesius) or form (Saussure, Bühler, Hjelmslev):
“language is a form and not a substance” (Saussure 1950: 122). To the per-
ceptible and measurable signals they ascribed a signifier (Saussure) or an
expression-form (Hjelmslev), which they understood as an image (mental im-
pression) of a signal (Saussure 1950: 122–123) or as a set of signals (Prieto
1966: 38–40). To the message content actualized in the interpreter of the sig-
nals they assigned a signified (Saussure) or a content-form (Hjelmslev), which
they understood as an image of a message (Saussure 1950: 66–67) or as a set
of such messages (Prieto 1966: 37–39). They replaced the naive concept of the
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14 R. Posner
sign with the idea of an expression-content pair (Hjelmslev 1963: 47–60) or a
two-sided entity consisting of signifier and signified (Saussure 1950: 123).
Concerning (b): Structuralists opposed the atomist view of signs with the
concepts of syntagmatic and associative relations (Saussure 1950: 122–127) or
chains and paradigms (Hjelmslev 1963: 29, 39–41). In this way they distin-
guished between configurations of realized signs (syntagms) and configura-
tions of virtual signs (paradigms) as two separate forms of sign structures.3
Concerning (c): Saussure (1950: 89–91) opposed historicism with the paired
concepts of synchrony versus diachrony, which allowed an initially separate
investigation of the interdependence of signs within syntagms and paradigms,
followed by the comparative study of their occurrence at different points in
history.
Concerning (d): Saussure (1950: 101–139) opposed naturalism with the
paired concepts of langue (sign system, code) and parole (realization, text,
discourse). This made it possible to consider each occurrence of a sign (i.e.,
every signal) to embody an abstract, culturally specific structure (of a code).
The Saussurean dichotomies of signifier versus signified, syntagm versus
paradigm, synchrony versus diachrony, and langue versus parole formed the
core of structuralist sign theory as is pointed out in synthesizing presentations
such as Roland Barthes’s Elements of Semiology (1968).
2.2. Problems
Fruitful as they proved to be in the humanities and social sciences, Saussure’s
dichotomies gave rise to a growing number of problems:
1. What level of existence does a langue have if it is a system of virtual signs
or expression-content pairs (a code)? Does the code exist physiologically in the
brain of every member of the code-community, or does it have a social exis-
tence as, say, an objective spirit, a set of common beliefs, or a system of con-
ventions in that community?
2. What is the objectofresearch in semiotics? Is it the code, the sign, or just
perceptible signals? Saussure writes (1950: 9, 16–17) that the langue and not
the parole is the true object of linguistic research. However, if the phenomena
of the parole are observable, and the langue can only be inferred from these,
does that not lead to the paradox of semiotics having a theoretical construct as
its empirical object?
3. The coherence of the code lies in the fact that its signs determine each other
on the level of both signifier and signified. Each code is a system of opposi-
tions (differences). Thus the methodofinvestigation for the relevant charac-
teristics of a sign consists in the commutation of that sign with others from the
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 15
same code (cf. Saussure 1950: 42–44; Hjelmslev 1963: 73–75; 1973: 143–145;
Prieto 1966: 41–42, 62–63). This approach limits the statements that can be
made about a sign to the code in which it belongs. However, can the semio-
sphere of a culture (cf. Lotman 2001) really be divided into such neatly sepa-
rable sign systems? Is there no interaction and mutual influence of signs from
different codes and different cultures?
4. Structuralism’s methods of investigation involve abstracting from the varia-
tions found in the different occurrences of the signs concerned (cf. Hjelmslev
1963: 60–74). However, such abstraction dissolves the connection between
synchronic variation and diachronic change, and blocks the path towards an
explanation of codechange. As Albrecht puts it, “the parole is not an institu-
tion and therefore has no history, despite the fact that changes in the langue are
first manifested within the parole” (2000: 38, my translation). How, then, is a
structuralist view of history possible?
5. For Saussure, the production and reception of signs involves the utilization
of a given code. The code serves as a ready-made instrument, while the sender
and recipient only act as its users (Saussure 1950: 71–73). But are the interpret-
ers of signs really bound to their codes in this way? Are they incapable of
structuring the world without participating in a code? Does the subject not
enjoy a certain scope for perceiving the world and being creative outside the
code?
6. Abstracting from the material qualities of a signal by assigning it to a signi-
fier destroys the relationship between the signal and the semantic characteris-
tics of the signified. Saussure’s thesis of the arbitrariness of the sign (1950:
67–69) thus appears to be an artifact of his method. For does the variation of
thesignal’smaterialqualities not expressly serve as a way for the sender to
modulate his message?
7. According to Saussure, a sign’s signified depends exclusively upon its op-
position to other signs in the same code: “in language there are only differences
without positive terms” (1950: 120; cf. Hjelmslev 1963: 45–46). Outside of the
code concerned, the sign would be void of content. The range of content would
thus appear to be freely structurable by each code. Yet a comparison of appro-
priately chosen natural languages shows that, for example, the color words of
different languages may organize the spectrum of colors in various ways, but
that this variation is limited: in no language are the central parts of the spectral
areas of red, green, yellow, and blue subject to division through the signifieds
of elementary color words (Berlin and Kay 1969). Is such materialdetermi-
nationofthesignifieds not to be found elsewhere? Does the subject of our
communication, i.e., the referent, have no influence on the code used to formu-
late it?
8. For Saussure (1950: 122–125) and Hjelmslev (1963: 25–27), the syntag-
maticrelations between signifiers in sign complexes appear to be combinations
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16 R. Posner
of ready-made building blocks (Happ 1985; Harland 1993; Köster 1994). But
does the co-text really have no influence on a sign’s message? Is the co-text not
specifically used in art, music, and literature in order to create new messages?
9. For Saussure and Hjelmslev, the signifieds of a text remain fixed even when
the situational context in which it is reproduced changes (Prieto 1966: 46–47).
But have we not all experienced the fact that changing contexts can change the
sense of a text?
10. For Saussure, the interpretation of signs consists in the assignment of sig-
nifieds to signifiers according to a code. Interpretation is thereby reduced to
a process of decoding which does not go beyond looking for the signs in that
text. By means of his dyadic conception of the sign, Saussure projects the in-
terpretation relation into the sign and gives it the status of a sign property. Can
we not interpret anything outside of given signs (cf. Ogden and Richards 1923:
5, n. 2; Sless 1986: 137)? Do we not all witness signs being emptied of mean-
ing (Even-Zohar 1983) and filled with new messages?
These doubts, among others, impaired the application of structuralist ideas in
the twentieth century. The problems of (1) ontology and (2) epistemology, (3)
the restrictedness of the methods, (4) the general exclusion of history and (5)
of the subject, (6) the neglect of the sign’s material side and (7) of the referent,
the underestimation of the influence of both (8) the co-text and (9) the context
on sign interpretation, plus (10) the denial of any interpretative freedom
through the narrowness of Saussure’s concept of the sign — all these problems
gave structuralists reason to think again. Many anthropologists and linguists
(cf. Sperber and Wilson 1986: 7–9) as well as psychologists (cf. Hörmann
1976; Rommetveit 1974, 1984) began to reject structuralism and to promote
the creation of a pragmatic approach to sign interpretation in the sense pro-
posed by Peirce and Morris (cf. Posner 1991; Mey 1993). Others continued to
adhere to Saussure’s theoretical categories but tried to open them up to new
areas of application (cf. Eco 1967, 1976). They largely retained his terminol-
ogy and believed the problems encountered could be solved by reinterpreting
this terminology. Not least because of this maintained link to structuralism, it
seems justified to label the proponents of this approach post-structuralists
(Young 1981: 1).
3. Post-structuralism
The transition from structuralist to post-structuralist thinking was first achieved
by a small number of influential authors in Paris during the 1960s. Those
scholars of the humanities and social sciences who extended the domain of
structuralist research beyond linguistics can be considered the forerunners of
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 17
this development. To these belong Lévi-Strauss with his writings on anthropol-
ogy and ethnology (1958), Foucault with his investigations into Europe’s cul-
tural history (1961, 1966, 1969), Althusser with his publications on political
economy (1965a, 1965b), as well as Lacan with his seminars on psychoanaly-
sis (1966). The actual theoretical debate however took place among the con-
tributors to the literary theory magazine Tel Quel, which was founded by a
group of young authors in the circle around Philippe Sollers (cf. Barthes 1979)
at the height of the Algerian war in 1960. Their aim was to show the world “as
it is,” free of ideological distortion.4 Favorite topics were the exposure of ideo-
logical fictions and the analysis of their function in society. From the mid-
1960s, the contributors to Tel Quel became more widely known through inde-
pendent book publications. Among these were Derrida with L’écriture et la
différance (1967a), De la grammatologie (1967b), and La voix et le phénomène
(1967c); also Julia Kristeva with Semeiotiké: Recherches pour une sémanalyse
(1969a) and Le texte du roman (1970). To these can be added Deleuze and
Guattari (1972, 1976), who were closely linked to Foucault’s work, Pêcheux
(1975) and Baudrillard (1968, 1972, 1973, 1976), who continued Althusser’s
work, as well as Luce Irigaray (1974), who, like Kristeva, took Lacan’s theo-
ries as her starting point.
The reinterpretation of Saussure’s categories is most obvious in the work of
Roland Barthes, who published two well-received introductions to structural-
ism in the journal Communications in 1964 and 1966, but then produced such
books as S/Z (1970) and Le plaisir du texte (1973a), which contrasted with the
earlier introductions (cf. also 1973b). In 1971, Barthes gave an interview where
he himself commented on this change of ideas:
In the former text [of 1966] I appealed to a general structure from which would then be
derived analyses of contingent texts . . . I postulated the profit there would be in recon-
structing a sort of grammar of narrative, or a logic of narrative (and at that period, I
believed in the possibility of such a grammar — I do not wish to deny it) . . . In S/Z, I
reversed this perspective: there I refused the idea of a model transcendent to several
texts (and thus, all the more so, of a model transcendent to every text) in order to pos-
tulate . . . that each text is in some sort its own model, that each text, in other words,
must be treated in its difference, difference being understood precisely in a Nietzschean
or a Derridean sense. (Heath, MacCabe, Christopher Prendergast 1971: 44; cf. also
Young 1981: 7)
As a structuralist, Barthes had (ontologically) believed in the existence of un-
derlying structures (codes), and had considered them (epistemologically) nec-
essary for the explanation of sign processes: anyone not mastering the code
cannot formulate a message nor understand its signals; he lacks signifier and
signified as mediators in the sign process (cf. Prieto 1966). But then Barthes
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18 R. Posner
did away with such idealistic fictions: he rejected the ontological thesis of a
pre-existing sign system and regarded the sign complex of the text concerned
as the decisive instance. He also dispensed with the epistemological theory that
a given sign is understood through a virtual sign system; Barthes allowed, at
most, further discourses to count as aids to comprehension. Discourse itself
became the final source of meaning, and codes were only involved when they
too existed in the form of texts (as grammatical works, catechisms, fashion
advertising, ordinances, and rulebooks in general).
According to Barthes, we do not have to learn rules in order to use texts,
instead we practice the production of meaning directly by using existing signal
complexes. Reading and writing are thus no longer understood as the encoding
and decoding of meaning, but as interaction with a signal complex whose dif-
ferences from other sign complexes “make sense.” The idea of internalized
signifieds is thus replaced by that of externally given sense.5 To show that this
is possible, Barthes required Derrida’s concept of writing (cf. Derrida 1967a).
Writing is constantly accessible; unlike the voice, which fades away and can
only be remembered, writing is not a virtual sign but manifest, and it can there-
fore be taken as a basis for comparison in any discourse.
All the authors named above underwent a similar change of perspective
in the late 1960’s. This change, which had a number of significant con-
sequences, corresponded with a similar change of perspective that had taken
place in other countries by the mid-70’s. This is particularly true of Italy, where
Eco, in the years between Opera aperta (1967) and A Theory of Semiotics
(1976), attempted to strike a balance between Saussure’s categories and
Peirce’s semiotic approach (cf. La struttura assente from 1968). It is true too
of the former Soviet Union, where Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow School
extended their text semiotics (based on a combination of Saussurean semiol-
ogy and information theory) to include Bakhtin’s ideas for a dialogue-oriented
semiotics of culture (cf. Bakhtin 1929, 1965, 1981; Todorov 1981; Eismann
and Grzybek 1994). Instead of proving the unity of literary systems character-
istic of different epochs and cultures, and instead of trying to see texts as
homogeneous manifestations of a single language, there was an increasing
tendency to investigate the multilingualism of culture and to see each text as a
heterogeneous and poly structural instrument for creating meaning (cf. Lotman
1977, 1981, 1992; Pocheptsov 1993). In the U.S., the shift away from code
theory and towards the critical analysis of texts took place under the label of
“Critical Theory” (cf. Culler 1981, 1982). Leaders of the change in thinking
include literary theorists such as Michael Riffaterre (1978), Geoffrey Hartman
(1980) and Paul de Man (1979, 1993), as well as philosophers such as Paul
Ricoeur (1969, 1976) and Richard Rorty (1979). Collectively, the convergent
change of perspective had far-reaching consequences for several semiotic
key-notions.
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 19
3.1. The code
If, in order to explain sign processes (see above: dichotomy (d), problems 1
and 2), it is no longer possible to fall back on the code, then the sign processes
as such move into the foreground, and the practice of signifying in discourse
( pratique signifiante, Kristeva 1969a, 1974; cf. Todorov and Ducrot 1972:
443; Barthes 1973b) becomes the object of semiotic analysis.
At the same time, de-idealized code-like concepts were taking on a more
central role in the analysis of different areas of culture. Foucault (1966, 1969)
reconstructed the set of common beliefs in a society as an epistemé; Althusser
(1970) tried to locate the ideology within the “power structures” of a state;
Baudrillard (1968, 1972, 1976) considered schemata of political behavior as
complexes of simulacra; Lyotard (1979) conceived of the universal designs of
theorists as “grand narratives.” Even if the ontological and epistemological
preconditions of code theory were no longer taken seriously, it was felt that
code-like constellations were all around us, and the manipulation connected
with them was to be fought against politically. One example is Baudrillard’s
claims about late capitalist society (1973): More and more areas of life are
measured in terms of money. Profit-oriented codification not only structures
the world of work, but has also infiltrated leisure time and determines the life
of children and the retired as well as relations between the sexes. Not only the
exchange of material goods, but also that of knowledge is increasingly sche-
matized and automatized, i.e., encoded with respect to maximizing profits. The
most effective instruments of this process are the mass media. Individuals in
developed capitalist societies are controlled much more effectively by this se-
miotic spoon-feeding than by economic exploitation in the style of the nine-
teenth century.
What is important here is the revolution which Barthes’s change of perspec-
tive allows in the semiotic analysis of these developments. For whoever ana-
lyzed the spoon-feeding practices as such and presented them as codes in the
established manner was, like it or not, making such practices all the more ac-
cessible to the manipulators and becoming himself an accomplice to this ma-
nipulation (cf. Schiwy 1985: 19–20). To contrast this, the post-structuralists
want scholars to do everything to prevent the grasping of power by means of
codification processes. The new semiotics thus has the task of shattering the
code-fictions of the ruling elite. It can do this all the more effectively with the
belief that sign processes are possible without codes.
3.2. The signifier
All classical definitions of the sign relied on the balancing of its two sides
(see above: dichotomy (a), problem 3). Following the de-ideologizing of the
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20 R. Posner
signified, the scales now tip in favor of the signifier, which is seen as the onto-
logical and epistemological basis of everything else (Todorov and Ducrot
1972: 438).
3.3. The signified
The close relationship of signifier and signified postulated by Saussure and
Hjelmslev (see above: dichotomy (a), problems 3, 9 and 10) is dissolved. The
signified is no longer envisioned as an entity in its own right, located some-
where in the brain or mind. Instead it is assimilated to the signifier follow-
ing the theories of Peirce (cf. Lacan 1966; Todorov and Ducrot 1972:
439−442). Just as Peirce believed each sign process to be characterized by the
fact that its interpretant may emerge as the representamen of a new sign pro-
cess,6 so too does Lacan consider each signifier to be a potential trigger for the
production of a further signifier. Instead of a signified, Lacan and the other
post-structuralists assume an endless chain of signifiers.
3.4. The signal
If the code as a pre-existing virtual sign system is discredited, then likewise the
signifier of a sign cannot precede the discourse as a virtual unit. Rather, it is the
result of a comparison with other signifiers (see above: dichotomy (d), prob-
lems 4 and 6). The difference between the semiotically relevant characteristics
of a signal and its further material properties is not established in advance. This
widens the interpreter’s view to the unlimited number of properties the signal
may have, each one a potential trace of a signified. The material nature of a
sign again becomes the focus of interest (Gumbrecht 1988: 915; Schlieben-
Lange 1993). It becomes the starting point of the practice of signifying ( pra-
tique signifiante). As the latter is a creative process rather than a blind course
of events, there is no reason to confuse the concentration on the material nature
of a sign with the mechanistic materialism of the nineteenth century (Todorov
and Ducrot 1972: 451).
3.5. The discourse
With the help of commutation tests, Saussure and Hjelmslev extracted the code
from discourse in the form of a system of oppositions (differences) between
virtual signs (dichotomy (d), problem 3). If, suspecting false ideology, one
dispenses with the concept of codes altogether, then the understanding of dis-
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 21
course needs to be analyzed as the direct result of processes of differentiation.
This not only involved differences between the signifiers linked in a syntagm,
but also — unlike Saussure’s version — differences between signifier and sig-
nified, where the latter is conceived as a chain of further potential signifiers
(see point 3.3 above). A static system of differences between virtual signs in a
code is thus replaced by a dynamic interplay of differences within discourse.
Foucault (1969) goes so far as to consider discourse no longer a sign complex,
but a set of practices which pattern the object of that discourse.
3.6. The context
If the interplay of differences is to be sought directly within discourse, then we
need not limit ourselves to differences between syntagmatically linked signi-
fers nor between signifiers and signifieds, i.e., signifiers of other discourses
(see above: dichotomy (b), problems 7 and 8). The difference between that
discourse’s signifiers and further situational circumstances may also be drawn
upon. After all, this is what makes the signs in a discourse recognizable as such
and gives them meaning. If the sign is not ephemeral (as in acoustic communi-
cation), but enjoys permanent presence (like writing), then even the context
may become subject to change. This allows for the emergence of new differ-
ences and is a basis for the further generation of sense (cf. de Man 1979).
3.7. The reading process
Instead of assuming a discourse contains a fixed content even before its recep-
tion (in the form of a complex signified which merely requires decoding; see
above: dichotomies (b) and (d), problems 3 and 5), post-structuralist semiotics
focuses on the interplay of differences among signifiers as well as between the
discourse and its changing contexts. The reading process thus consists in tak-
ing up these differences and in making sense through the production of addi-
tional differences. Put simply, the purpose is no longer the search for a prefab-
ricated message, but the creation of sense. In an extreme case, the discourse
may consist in an utterance void of content, which the recipient reorganizes in
line with new contexts. Moreover, every discourse may be subject to numerous
readings; “its meaning” — if such a term is to be allowed at all — no longer
consists of what the sender intends (which is a result of only one out of many
readings) but in the results of all possible readings; this, however, can never be
specified since further readings will always be possible. On the social level
(see point 3.1 above), the reading process does not attempt decoding, but rather
the interpreter’s emancipation from code-fictions, that is, “de-codification.”
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22 R. Posner
3.8. The intertext
One particular type of context which may influence the reading of a discourse
consists of previous discourses. By comparing text fragments from other dis-
courses (see above: dichotomies (b) and (c), problems 4 and 8), we may per-
ceive specific differences which help to identify the historical position of the
present discourse: “We call intertextuality that interaction between texts which
occurs within a single text. For the expert, intertextuality is a notion which in-
dicates the way a text reads history and inserts itself in history” (Kristeva
1969b: 443, my translation). Even for the tracing of intertextual references it is
of secondary importance whether the sender had these other texts in mind
when producing the discourse. Furthermore, the reading of a discourse with a
view to its intertextual references turns the text as a tool of the sender into one
with which the recipient can create meaning. The intertextual references in
particular serve to divide the given discourse into components and to create a
network of links between them which are subject to hierarchies of attention
that change according to the part of the text being read at the time. In terms of
textual theory, this network of relations replaces the chain of signs mentioned
by Saussure and Hjelmslev (see above: problem 8); the latter appears at most
to be one specific reading with extremely limited differentiation. In this way,
every discourse — and therefore every parole in Saussure’s sense — reveals
itself to be a whole conglomerate of texts.
3.9. The subject
To Saussure and Hjelmslev, senders and recipients of a discourse (i.e., the sign-
interpreters or subjects of semiosis) were only of interest insofar as they uti-
lized codes and could turn them into discourse (cf. Jakobson 1960). This led to
the perception beyond codes and the creativity of the subject being neglected
and even denied (see above: dichotomy (d), problem 5). The subject appeared
to be reduced to its function as the point where codes intersect. While Foucault
and Baudrillard campaign against the submission of people to these codes by
repudiating the code as fiction, Lacan (1966) takes the reduction of the subject
even further. He tries to extinguish any remnants of a subject by claiming that
we speak of a subject only at those points where we would otherwise encounter
a gap in the chain of signifiers: the concept of the subject serves merely as a
gap-filler and should be bypassed via a more thorough analysis of the chain of
signifiers. Kristeva, too, intends to “pulverize” this kind of subject (Todorov
and Ducrot 1972: 448). To this end she attempts a change of ontological cate-
gories and speaks of the subject merely as a meaning process (Harland 1987:
168). According to Derrida (1972) and de Man (1979), the subject is embodied
in the multiplicity of his/her readings of a discourse, hence these authors’ deci-
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 23
sion to focus on this aspect. Barthes considers the subject to be tangible when-
ever the recipient surrenders him/herself to the images his/her own body gener-
ates while reading. This constitutes the “pleasure of the text” (Barthes 1973a).
3.10. Semiotics
By re-interpreting the basic structuralist categories, post-structuralism also
changes ideas on what the tasks of semiotics should be. To Saussure and
Hjelmslev, semiotics was the science of sign systems (see above: dichotomy
(a), problems 1–3), whereas for post-structuralism it becomes the art of reveal-
ing or creating meaning in discourse. Semiotics becomes “semanalysis”
(Kristeva 1969a) or the “deconstruction” of discourse (Derrida 1967a; de Man
1979, 1993; Culler 1982). An essential aid for the exercising of semiotics as an
art is the ability to differentiate. This is a situation-dependent activity which
can be practiced only when the material bases of semiosis are taken seriously.
Post-structuralist semiotics in this sense is rightly considered “materialist
gnoseology” (Todorov and Ducrot 1972: 452).
4. Thesesontherelationsbetweenstructuralismandpost-structuralism
Attempting to summarize the essential points in the development of structural-
ism into post-structuralism, one arrives at the following theses:
Thesis 1:
Post-structuralism did not in fact take over from structuralism, rather it is part
of its development and was put forward at the same time. The structuralists
Greimas (1966), Prieto (1966, 1975), and Mounin (1968, 1970) published their
most important works at the same time as Foucault, Althusser, Lacan, Derrida,
Kristeva, and Baudrillard.
Thesis 2:
Post-structuralism does not overcome the paradoxes of structuralism, rather it
displays them to their full extent and constantly plays one category off against
the other. “[Post-structuralism] builds on top of the superstructuralist position
more superstructurally than ever; it carries the same logic even further in the
same direction. With post-structuralism, the old paradoxes are not dismantled
but redoubled” (Harland 1987: 124).
Thesis 3:
Post-structuralism does not provide a new semiotic theory, rather it changes
the focus of attention within the structuralist categories and relativizes certain
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24 R. Posner
concepts involved in Saussure’s dichotomies. The main interest in semiotic
studies is no longer the sign (the relation of signifier to signified) but semiosis
(the process of creating meaning); it is no longer the paradigm (the relations
between virtual signs) but the syntagm (the differences between signs in dis-
course); it is no longer the synchrony of a system of virtual signs (nor their
diachrony), but intertextuality; it is no longer the code, but discourse.
Thesis 4:
This re-evaluation undermines the structuralist categories. Post-structuralists
believe it possible to speak of signifiers without specifying signifieds, and to
investigate signs without establishing a code. They reject basic theoretical dis-
tinctions and contaminate signals with signifiers, signifiers with signifieds, and
signifieds with messages and referents.
Thesis 5:
While analytic philosophy in the wake of Peirce and Morris established
pragmatic theories investigating principles and maxims which determine the
interpretation of the sign in addition to code rules (Posner 1991), the post-
structuralists tend to mix these two areas, using pragmatic principles and max-
ims to discredit code rules and vice versa.
Thesis 6:
Post-structuralism also rejects the distinction between the investigation and its
object, between the processes of discourse analysis and the discourse being
analyzed, between meta-text and text. In post-structuralist discourse analysis,
scientific reflection and everyday behavior are deliberately mixed with the aim
of freeing the latter of fictions and thus leading to change.
Thesis 7:
Post-structuralist discourse analysis is by its very nature not a science, but an
art.
Only the future will show whether post-structuralism can achieve its aims with
the tools at its disposal. It is worth mentioning, however, that the practice of
post-structuralist discourse analysis well suits post-modern thinking, for sev-
eral reasons. It subverts grand fictions and shatters their monopoly on reason-
ing. It integrates the remains of competing conceptions of humanity left after
the failure of modernism such as psychoanalysis and political economy. Rather
than making everyone wait for politicians and scientists to create a better fu-
ture, as was often the case in modernism, post-structuralism encourages every
individual to test the possibilities for improving his or her own state.
It must be noted that post-modern mediation between distinct discourses has
been applied in post-structuralism more to the various discourses of everyday
life than to those of the arts and sciences. For semiotics one can diagnose a
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Post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-semiotics? 25
convergence of post-structuralism with Peircean pragmaticism, both trying to
demonstrate how it is possible to get along without code-fictions. However,
other traditions, more closely geared towards the social sciences, have contin-
ued to develop more or less independently of post-structuralist thinking, such
as:
– biosemiotics, which now links genetic code theory to ethology and ecology
(cf. Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1992);
– computer semiotics, which connects the theory of sign processes in
machines with various approaches to Artificial Intelligence research (cf.
Andersen 1990; Jorna et al. 1993);
– semiotics of traffic systems, mass media, and communication networks (cf.
Sless 1978; Rogers and Kinhaid 1981; Bijker et al. 1987; Hawkins et al.
1988; Posner 1985, 1995).
Therefore, there clearly is a future for semiotics after post-structuralism. It
comes as no surprise that many post-structuralists reject this type of semiotics
as irrelevant. Roland Barthes, for example, wrote in the introduction to the
English version of Eléments de sémiologie:
It is far from certain that in the social life of today there are to be found any extensive
systems of signs outside human language. Semiology has so far concerned itself with
codes of no more than slight interest, such as the Highway Code; the moment we go on
to systems where the sociological significance is more than superficial, we are at once
confronted with language. (Barthes 1968: 9–10)
It seems an irony of fate that Barthes eventually died in a traffic accident.
David Sless comments on this tragic event by asking: “Was his death the result
of semiotic transgression? Was he cut down because of an infringement of a code
of slight interest with only superficial sociological significance?” (1986: 148).
Notes
* An earlier version of this article appeared in English in Norma A. Tasca (ed.), Ensaios em
homenagem a / Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Sebeok (= Cruzeiro Semiótico 22–25), Porto,
1995: 51–73; the German version was published in 1993 under the title “Semiotik diesseits
und jenseits des Strukturalismus: Zum Verhältnis von Moderne und Postmoderne, Struktural-
ismus und Poststrukturalismus” in Zeitschrift für Semiotik 15(3/4), 211–233.
1. Controversies regarding the beginnings of the Modern Age, some of which reach back to the
Enlightenment or Renaissance, cannot be investigated here (but cf. Welsch 1987, 1991;
Habermas 1990; Kondylis 1991).
2. For a list of these authors’ major works and their place in history, see Posner (1984).
3. For a definition of “structure,” see Wunderlich (1971), Posner (1986: 1045–1047), and
Albrecht (2000: 225–245).
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26 R. Posner
4. For the historical references to Nietzsche and Valéry bound up in the phrase tel quel (‘as it is’),
cf. Kauppi (1994: 27).
5. This calls to mind a poem by Charles Morris, published around the same time, called Scientia,
where such things are said not about texts, but about science: “Science deepens all our sur-
faces / Yet it is but one surface of our depths” (cf. Posner 1981: 84).
6. See the oft-cited assertion by Peirce (CP 2.300): “[A sign is] anything which determines
something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers (its object) in the
same way, this interpretant becoming in turn a sign, and so on ad infinitum.” See Eco’s com-
mentary on similar thoughts as expressed by Derrida (1967a) in Eco (1990: 34–43).
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Roland Posner (b. 1942) is Professor emeritus of linguistics and semiotics and Director of the
Research Center for Semiotics (RCS) at the Technische Universität Berlin. His research interests
include linguistic progmatics, semiotics of culture, and philosophy of science. His publications
include Theorie des Kommentierens (1972, 2nd edition 1980), Rational Discourse and Poetic
communication (1982), “Believing, causing, intending: The basis for a hierarchy of sign concepts
in the reconstruction of communication” in René Jorna et al. (eds.), Signs, Search and Communi-
cation: Semiotic Aspects of Artificial Intelligence (1993), and “The metropolis as a giant hall of
mirrors” in Daina Teters (ed.), Metamorphoses of the World (2010). From 1994 until 2004, Roland
Posner was President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), of which he is
now Honorary President; see www.semiotik.tu-berlin.de.
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