Deconstruction
DECONSTRUCTION. The word deconstruction was coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), with whom the movement of that same name is identified. Derrida rejects the classical anthropological model of language, according to which the speaking subject gives verbal expression to inner thoughts that are subsequently written down. In such a model, writing is a sign of speaking; speaking is a sign of thinking; and thinking is a sign of being. Instead, Derrida follows the structuralist thesis of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), which posits that language is to be understood scientifically as a purely formal system of signs (langue) internally related to one another (like a dictionary in which one word is defined by other words) and underlying the utterances of speaking subjects (parole), thus eliminating both the subjective-psychological and objective-metaphysical factors. In Saussure's model, signifiers are arbitrary (the word king has no natural likeness to a real king) and differential (they differ by the "space" between, say, king and ring). The signified is the effect produced by the rule-governed use of signifiers. Derrida's thought is post-structuralist; it criticizes Saussure for privileging speech over writing, in violation of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, and for treating linguistic strings as closed systems of fixed structures.
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